Rendezvous in paris, p.1
Rendezvous in Paris, page 1
Rendezvous in Paris
Merry Farmer
RENDEZVOUS IN PARIS
Copyright ©2020 by Merry Farmer
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your digital retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill (the miracle-worker)
ASIN: B081M6L2GD
Paperback ISBN: 9781654652012
Click here for a complete list of other works by Merry Farmer.
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Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Paris – Spring, 1890
The main ballroom of the Château de Saint-Sottises was abuzz with excitement and preparations for the grand masquerade ball that was set to take place that evening. But, of course, it wasn’t buzzing because grand and lofty personages from every corner of Europe were there, decked out in regal splendor. It was a riot of activity because the McGovern cousins had taken it upon themselves to help the staff and servants of the palace along the banks of the Seine to decorate themselves.
“Feathers!” Lady Evangeline McGovern shouted from the center of the ballroom, where a table was piled with silk swatches, garlands of silk flowers, strings of beads, and every other sort of decoration a Parisian palace could provide. “We need more feathers.”
“Feathers are all well and good,” her cousin, the widowed Lady Roselyn Briarwood, said with a shrug from the other side of the table. “But I think we need more of these strands of diamonds.” She picked up handfuls of glittering, faux jewels with a mischievous grin.
“You are both wrong. Absolutely wrong,” Miss Wendine Sewett, the shrewish chaperone who the head of the McGovern clan, Lord Asher McGovern, had hired to oversee his bold and over-exuberant sisters and cousins, said, marching up to the table. “These decorations are gauche in the extreme. There is nothing redeemable about them.” She turned up her already stubby nose at everything on the table, then glared peevishly at the ladies. “Honestly, neither of you are qualified to do this sort of work. You cannot get it right, so you should not be doing it at all. I shall complain at once to those in charge and have you removed.”
“Yes, Wendine Sewett,” Lady Evangeline said with mocking acquiescence, sending Lady Briarwood an impish wink.
“Whatever you say, Wendine Sewett,” Lady Briarwood added with the same sort of teasing humor. “We, of course, should bow to your superior opinion and knowledge of all things.”
“And do stop referring to me by my full name,” Miss Sewett went on, exasperated. “You are refined ladies. You should know the proper use of titles and forms of address.”
“Perhaps we need you to teach us,” Lady Evangeline suggested, following Miss Sewett as she marched away from the table.
“Yes, please do shine your superior intellect down on all of us who are fortunate enough to have gained your notice as we try to create something beautiful and entertaining.”
Sebastian Stone watched the entire exchange from the side of the room, a hand covering his mouth so that no one would notice him laughing. “Why do you suppose Asher hasn’t sacked the harridan and sent her back to England?” he asked his brother, Marshall, who was busy discussing arrangements for the evening with the palace’s butler.
Marshall gave the butler one final instruction, then turned to Sebastian. He glanced past to watch as Miss Sewett, Lady Evangeline, and Lady Briarwood reached the far end of the room, where another cluster of cousins was busy hanging garlands. “Asher has told her she can leave whenever she wants. He hinted to me that he wishes she would just pack up, decamp to England, and leave them all alone. But she keeps hanging on for some reason. Probably the salary he pays her.”
“Or the sheer joy of being able to criticize anyone she wants whenever she wants with impunity,” Sebastian added thoughtfully. He shook his head, clearing away the amusing frustration of Wendine Sewett for the moment, and faced his brother. “Are you ready for tonight?”
Marshall huffed a laugh, a fond smile spreading across his face. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Although it seems a little pointless for Dorothy and I to announce our engagement formally when every last one of the McGovern cousins already knows and has likely written back to every friend they have in London.”
Sebastian grinned and slapped his brother on the shoulder. “That’s what you get for marrying into one of the largest and most colorful families in England.” He glanced across the busy ballroom, taking in the dozens of McGovern clan members. Truth be told, he was searching for one in particular.
“No,” Marshall corrected him, his face growing more somber. “That’s what I get for being a shameless rake and failing to treat Dorothy with all the respect she deserves in the first place.”
Sebastian hummed in sympathy. Marshall had a point. His affair with Miss Dorothy McGovern had begun under the most unusual circumstances and due to a shocking misunderstanding. While technically the two had met when their boats had crossed paths on the Seine a few weeks before, Marshall had erroneously assumed Dorothy was a bit of a tart and had importuned her in one of the palace’s parlors. That would have been a personal matter between the two of them if someone, they still didn’t know who, hadn’t taken a photograph of them in the act and published it, with faces blacked out, in a salacious gossip magazine with a request for fifty thousand francs or they would publish the photograph with faces. Marshall and Asher both had bent over backwards to try to discover the identity of the blackmailer and to stop the whole thing before it got out of hand. Miraculously, and strangely, someone paid the blackmail money and the whole thing had gone away, but no one knew where the funds had come from.
Sebastian wasn’t convinced the whole thing had gone away either. He knew too much about blackmail to believe things would just blow over. Blackmail was what had chased him out of England nearly five years before, when compromising photographs of him and another man had been given to the press by a blackguard named Fordyce who made his living ruining others’ lives. And after passage of the Labouchere Amendment in England, just being who he was, even in the privacy of his own home, had been made a crime. He’d had the choice to leave England or serve time in jail, all because he’d done what practically every man of the aristocracy did for fun, only with another man instead of somebody else’s wife. Thinking of it still made him sick.
“However we got to this point,” Marshall went on, dragging Sebastian out of his thoughts, “I am more than happy to be announcing my engagement tonight. Dorothy is wonderful beyond anything I could have imagined.”
Sebastian grinned at the pink flush that came to his brother’s cheeks. “You really love her, don’t you?” he asked.
“Passionately,” Marshall answered. “Who would have thought that my heart could know what it wanted so quickly? I’m certain more than a few people will make comments about how quickly we fell into things after meeting, but when your heart finds what it has been craving for your whole life, time doesn’t matter.”
“Indeed,” Sebastian said.
His attention was instantly snagged as the lady in question and her brother entered the ballroom, laughing over some sibling joke. Sebastian’s gut clenched and his heart caught in his throat. Not over Dorothy McGovern, of course, but because of Damien.
He glanced up and met Sebastian’s eyes just as a hopeful smile touched Sebastian’s lips. Few men of Sebastian’s acquaintance had ever struck his fancy the way Damien McGovern had. He was as handsome as the devil, with thick, brown hair and tempting eyes. His body was well-formed in every way, from his powerful legs to his broad shoulders. And his lips haunted Sebastian’s dreams at night. Best of all, when Damien noticed him staring, he winked. Sebastian was in serious danger of embarrassing himself with an obvious erection at a wink like that.
“So what precisely is the story behind you and my fiancée’s brother?” Marshall asked in a teasing tone.
It was probably for the best that Sebastian was forced to pull his gaze away from Damien to focus on his brother. “Whatever do you mean?” he asked with false innocence.
“Oh, come off it, Sebastian,” Marshall said, grinning. “I’m not some ignorant country miss who doesn’t understand that love extends far beyond what is average and every day. You forget, I’ve known you since you first discovered you liked following the footmen in Father’s house around and not the maids.”
Sebastian met his brother’s comment with a wry grin. “Father hired some of the most fetching footmen I’ve ever see
“And fired them when he caught you and one of them fiddling around.”
Sebastian’s expression flattened. “That was only once. And it was mutual. And Father was cruel to let the man go like that.”
“That’s not the point,” Marshall said, shaking his head. He glanced across to where Dorothy and Damien were suddenly being harangued by Miss Sewett about God only knew what. “The point is that you and Damien McGovern have a past, and I’d like to know what it is, since he’s about to be family.”
Sebastian turned back to Marshall and shrugged. “It was only ever a flirtation. A serious flirtation, mind you, but a flirtation all the same.”
“Where did you meet each other?”
Sebastian stared at his brother as though he were dense. “Our kind have a tight network, Marshall, not to mention several clubs and safe social spots where we can meet.” When Marshall started to frown at him, he went on with, “And I’m not talking about brothels and Molly houses either. It may shock you to know that we aren’t all ravening, sexually-depraved beasts all the time. We do occasionally like to mingle with others like us to talk politics or finance or anything else under the sun in a completely platonic way. It isn’t all buggery and biscuits.”
“Biscuits?” Marshall raised his eyebrow.
Sebastian shrugged, his moment of serious indignation fading. “I needed something else that started with ‘B’.” As Marshall laughed, he continued with, “The point is, Damien and I know each other through those completely innocent social channels. Yes, there has always been an attraction there, but please do pull your mind up out of the gutter when you imagine what kind of connection we might have. Besides, there are things about me he doesn’t know. Things that would get in the way.”
“All right, all right.” Marshall held up his hands in surrender. “My point is just that the two of you seem to be getting along splendidly here in Paris. It makes me wonder if perhaps I might have another weapon in my arsenal when it comes to convincing you to move back to England when Dorothy and I return.”
Sebastian blew out a weary breath and rubbed a hand over his face. “England again,” he sighed.
“Yes.” Marshall raised his voice a bit. “I want you home, with me. England is where you belong.”
“England and its laws,” Sebastian crossed his arms.
“Which only apply if you do something to bring notice to yourself. And only then if you have someone pernicious enough to drag you into the daylight. I can assure you, the majority of people have no interest in knowing your personal business.” He paused, studying Sebastian’s face, which was purposely expressionless.
“Yes, well, my personal business is not what it should be these days,” Sebastian said, not quite able to meet his brother’s eyes. There were things about his life in Paris that he’d kept from Marshall, things he was certain would upset his brother and cause him to swoop in like a savior. And that was the last thing Sebastian wanted. The only thing he could hold his head high about after being chased out of England was that his life was his own.
Marshall sighed, then said, “Please come home, Sebastian. Now that Father is gone, I need you.”
If anything was going to melt his heart and make him change his mind about living abroad, that was it. Sebastian let out a breath and dropped his arms to his sides. “To tell you the truth, brother, I have been seriously considering it. I’ve been making inquiries into safe places for men like me, men who have already been exposed to the cruel scrutiny of the press.”
“Oh?” Marshall’s face lit up in hope.
“Yes.” Sebastian suddenly felt as though he were making himself too vulnerable, as though the fear and the anxiety he’d lived with for most of his life, double after his exposure in the London newspapers, had broken out of the cage he’d been able to keep it in as long as he’d been living in Paris. “There is an organization that I’m a part of, The Brotherhood. They have vast resources at their disposal for the aid of our kind. One of those resources is a certain block of terraced flats in Earl’s Court. They own them and lease them to those of us who want to live private lives, without the scrutiny of prying neighbors and such. I was thinking of contacting the solicitors in charge of those flats, Dandie and Wirth, and inquiring as to whether anything is available.”
“Nonsense,” Marshall said, slapping him on the arm. “You’ll come live with me and Dorothy at Stone Hall in Mayfair.”
“Where everyone who used to know me and who didn’t lift a finger to come to my defense when I was exposed and arrested knows who I am?” Sebastian asked, one eyebrow raised. The least he could say about his new life was that no one around him had a clue who he really was.
Marshall had the good sense to look sheepish. “Well, maybe they’ve forgotten.”
“Forgotten what?”
Sebastian whipped around to find Damien and Dorothy approaching. His heart flipped in his chest for more reasons than just surprise, and he smiled before he could stop himself.
There was no point in hiding the truth from Damien, or Dorothy, he suspected, so he shrugged and said, “Marshall is trying to convince me to move back to England. He’s telling me that people will have forgotten my disgrace by now and no one will bat an eyelash if I show up in the London social scene again.”
The look in Damien’s eyes was instantly one of doubt that that would happen and sympathy for the position Sebastian found himself in. He understood. But, of course, he would. They all knew how thin the ice they lived on was.
Dorothy, on the other hand, gasped and said, “That would be a lovely idea.” Her eyes shone brightly, and she peeked at her brother, as if to encourage him. “I’m sure Marshall and I would love to have you live in our home,” she went on, slipping away from Damien and up to Marshall’s side, sliding her arm into his. “I’ve been trying to convince Damien to come live with us as well.” She sent her brother a significant look.
Sebastian couldn’t help but grin. The brother and sister were sweet together. It was astounding that Dorothy knew her brother’s tendencies and accepted him all the same, but she couldn’t possibly know the sort of things men like him and Damien faced every day.
“Monsieur Blanc wanted a word with us about the timing of our announcement tonight,” Marshall said, distracting Dorothy with a fond smile. “He’s just over there. We should go talk to him.”
“Yes, we should,” Dorothy agreed, sending Damien a smile as if she knew full well the point was to leave him and Sebastian alone. “We’ll be just over there if you need us.”
Sebastian watched them walk off, shifting to stand shoulder to shoulder with Damien as he did. Damien watched them as well, shaking his head. “I love my sister,” he said with a wistful sigh. “But she thinks life is easier than it is.”
“That’s what makes women so wonderful,” Sebastian agreed with a sigh. “They have such tender hearts. It almost makes me wish I had a—” Damien jerked to stare pointedly at him. “Sister,” Sebastian finished with a laugh. “What did you think I was going to say?”
“You do have a sister,” Damien reminded him.
“Ella is married, and she has decided she isn’t comfortable with me,” Sebastian said, his heart pinching sorrowfully. “I wish I had a sister like yours.”
“Lucky for you, you’re about to,” Damien said, equal parts empathy and cheer. “As soon as she marries your brother.”
“You know they’re trying to push the two of us together,” Sebastian said.
Damien laughed. “That’s something new for me. Usually brothers and sisters, and other family members, bend over backward to keep me away from their own, once they know.”
Sebastian made a slightly bitter sound. “Isn’t that the truth.”
He let out a breath that held all of his disappointment in a world that refused to just let him be who he was. Damien fixed him with an understanding look, then slapped him on the back. “We’ve all been there,” he said. “We all live there.”
