Free So in Love by Karen Ranney Page B

daughter. One person led him to another, all of them émigrés and all of them too eager to exchange stories about Paris, or to ask him what he knew of missing relatives and friends.
    He masked his irritation and answered as well as he could. In payment for his days of patience and hard-won tolerance, he finally located Jeanne’s address.
    Now he stood in front of the large and prosperous-looking structure and wondered if she’d sold the ruby after all. Or could she have married in the short time she’d been gone from France?
    Providence, previously so miserly, evidently decided to reward him for his efforts. As he crossed the street, she exited the house by the side door, holding a small child’s hand. She passed by him, and for a moment he wondered if she would look his way. But she seemed intent upon answering the boy’s questions and didn’t glance in his direction.
    He followed her, curious. Not a wife, but a servant, he realized as she shifted the basket on her arm. A flush of anger raced through his body at the thought of a du Marchand in servitude. His family had commanded kings. But here she was, his errant and recalcitrant only child, attempting to shame him once again.
    Nor was her appearance worthy of a du Marchand. Jeanne’s hair was pulled back in a severe bun and her face was arranged in a perfectly amiable expression, a look that revealed nothing of her emotions. Her mother, Hélène, had done that often enough around him, especially during the latter years.
    He almost hailed her, and then realized that she might well repudiate him on a public street. The last time he’d seen his daughter she had been in a carriage screaming at him, tears and rage twisting her features until she was a discordant creature, something only barely human.
    As he watched, she took the child’s hand and entered a small discreet shop. CHARLES TALBOT, GOLDSMITH , was inscribed upon the window. He waited until she was finished with her business, emerging from the shop a few minutes later. Only then did he follow her. A man spoke to her, the meeting so obviously unplanned that he hung back, watching with interest. When she walked away, he decided not to follow her. It was obvious she was attending to a servant’s duties and he would not demean himself by trailing after her. There would be time enough to confront her, now that he knew for certain where she lived. No, there was another errand that interested him more than greeting his daughter.
    He returned to King Street, and watched to ensure that no other customers were inside. Only then did the Comte du Marchand enter, closing and locking the door behind him.
    “Are you Charles Talbot?”
    The man who faced him was in his middle years and showing a paunch. His face was narrow and lined, his lips thin, and his eyebrows were curiously bushy, giving him an unkempt appearance.
    “I am. May I help you, sir?” the shopkeeper asked, managing to sound obsequious while staring at him offensively.
    “You had a customer a few minutes ago. A young woman with a child. What was the nature of her business?”
    The man who faced him smiled thinly. “I am afraid, sir, that I’m known for the confidential nature of my dealings. I do not share the business of one customer with another.” He tilted his head to the side, his rude glance not faltering. “Unless you are not going to be a customer, sir?”
    Nicholas tapped his cane on the floor, irritated with thisnew democracy of thought and action. But restraint, for now, was a wiser course. He managed a smile, one that he knew seemed friendly enough. The trick was to hide one’s thoughts, and to simply act upon them when the time was right.
    “I believe that she is a relative of mine,” he said holding out his calling card. It was only one of ten that he had left, but the man opposite him did not need to know the degree of his penury. By the terms of the new constitution approved by the king, Nicholas had found himself stripped of his