Fairchild's Lady (Culper Ring Series)
Read Fairchild's Lady (Culper Ring Series) Online
Authors: Roseanna M. White
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Cover photos © Kiselev Andrey Valerevich, Alan Gordine / Shutterstock
This 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 persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
FAIRCHILD’S LADY
Copyright © 2013 by Roseanna M. White
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
ISBN 978-0-7369-5891-2 (eBook)
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
T
HE
C
ULPER
R
ING
S
ERIES
Ring of Secrets
To Watch Book Trailer
Fairchild’s Lady
Whispers from the Shadows
A Hero’s Promise
Circle of Spies
Contents
Versailles, France
April 1789
A
mask provided no anonymity. Not for her. Remi would know her by her eyes if she let him look into them, know her and hold her close to his side all evening. The way he did at every other dinner, every other ball.
But not tonight. The desperation she felt inside had been growing so long, and now it nearly choked her. She would escape,
must
escape, if only for an hour. Keep her eyes down and
live
behind layers of powder, feathers, and silks. Live, for once, behind the mask.
She glanced up only long enough to assure herself that Remi was on the other side of the room, engaged in a conversation with Grandpère. Then she spun the opposite way—directly into a solid chest. “
Pardonnez-moi
.”
Hands gripped her shoulders to steady her, warm and large, and a chuckle brought her gaze up. “
Bien sûr
, mademoiselle.”
The baritone voice sent a strange trill along her nerves. Pleasant…mostly. Her brow furrowed as her mind flitted through all the men she knew at Versailles, all the nobles she had met over the years. She tried in vain to light upon who stood so tall. Had shoulders so broad, a chin
so strong. A smile so charming, with eyes such a lively brown behind his mask.
Coming up blank, all she could do was smile in response. “I am sorry. I was not watching where I was going.”
“I shall forgive it.” He released her shoulders and bowed as the orchestra struck up a new song. “For the price of a dance?”
Caution made her want to glance over her shoulder again, but she refused. She would take this one dance, this one ineffectual grasp at freedom. “
Oui
.”
The music she had heard a thousand times before. The dance she had performed too often to count. But these past years, only with Remi. Remi, with his possessive gaze. Remi, with his dangerous smile. Remi, with his crushing whispers. Demanding what she could not,
would
not give. Not until the shackles were firmly around her wrists.
“You say ‘
oui
,’ mademoiselle, yet your mind does not seem to be following your feet to the dance floor.”
That equaled a victory for Remi, too, did it not? That her every move, every
thought
must revolve around him. She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and gave the stranger her most charming smile. “I am here, monsieur.”
Again his chuckle thrummed over her. He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
Never before had her knees gone weak at such a move as they did now. Her fingers felt so warm in his, so…safe.
As if safety were ever anything but an illusion. Like freedom.
The stranger’s eyes sparkled. “I hope you are. The evening suddenly looked so much brighter with the light of your gaze upon it.”
Flattery and charm—no strangers to anyone at Versailles. Yet the way he said it…she drew in a deep breath and let herself think, if only for a heartbeat, that he meant it.
He led her through the minuet, his every motion fluid grace. Every female gaze, it seemed, was upon him. But despite the beguiling grin that remained on his lips, his eyes were frank. Without deceit. Confident, seeking, inviting.
Was it possible?
For the first time in three years, she dared to want. A conversation, nothing more. A conversation with a man who didn’t try to devour
her with every sweep of his gaze. And so, when the set ended and the tall stranger led her off the dance floor and cocked his head toward a door, she made no objection.
She left. Without a glance over her shoulder, without acknowledging that frisson of fear that clawed its way up her spine. She left. Left Mére, left Grandpère.
Left Remi.
The feeling of safety next to the stranger was surely deception, the desire to tuck herself to his side pure madness. But with the moonlight shimmering its silver magic down upon the gardens, she couldn’t help but think that a sip of insanity might be exactly what she needed most.
Perhaps it would be enough to see her through the bleak forever before her.
7 July 1789
R
evolution
. Oh, how Isaac Fairchild hated that word. He reigned in his mount and drew in a long breath, his gaze taking in the palace before him that he had hoped never to see again. Versailles stretched long and dazzling in the sunshine, its gardens as resplendent as ever, its edifices as grand.
Its grandiosity but an ill-fitting mask over a country on the brink of uprising. Because it was too stark a contrast to the peasants starving mere miles away.
Blood would be shed in France—soon, if that sizzle of warning through his veins were any indication. And for the life of him, he couldn’t remember why he’d agreed to put himself in its path. He’d had enough of revolution, enough of intrigue to last him a lifetime. He had been hard pressed to accept the task of gathering information for England three months ago. Why in the world had he volunteered to come back after making his escape?
A horse cantered up the road in his direction. Fully prepared to give way and paste the expected lack of emotion onto his face, he instead smiled when he recognized the haughty posture of the rider and the ridiculous plume on the hat. “Jean-Paul!”
His old friend grinned as he circled his horse around to face Versailles. “
Bonjour
, monsieur. And how is our charming comte d’Ushant today?”
Fairchild’s smile went uneven. After knowing all his life he would never inherit his father’s earldom, being called by the French equivalent never ceased to feel strange. But Jean-Paul could hardly greet him by name, and the real comte d’Ushant was in no position to mind that Fairchild was borrowing his identity once more. “
Bon. Et vous?
”
Jean-Paul shrugged and flipped the feather back over his hat from where it had fluttered before his face. “I did not expect you back so soon,
mon ami
. When I received your message…”
“
Oui
, I know. I did not expect it either, but this business is of a personal nature.” Unbidden, the face of the Earl of Poole flashed through Fairchild’s mind. Those sorrowful eyes, pleading with him to save his wife and daughter, so long lost to France. To bring them back to England before revolution swallowed them.
Fairchild had tried arguing that an absence of twenty-five years surely had deeper roots than he could hope to overcome in one short visit, but the earl had begged him, had called on Fairchild’s connections to his two sons—the elder, with whom he had attended school, and the younger, who had sent him here those months ago.