Free Pam Rosenthal by The Bookseller's Daughter Page A

conversations inevitably took place with servants at one’s elbow, like pieces of furniture. Most of his fellow aristocrats were unconscious of the implicit cruelty but the cleverer of them liked to exploit it. The Baron Roque, for example, was famous for enlivening his dinner parties with tales of gross debauchery and then—during the cheese course—announcing that the woman whose lovemaking he’d described in such detail was the daughter or wife of one of the footmen in attendance.
    Hubert was growing impatient.
    Joseph sighed. “She was…delicious.”
    “ And? ”
    “And”—he glanced at a tip of velvety rabbit ear poking out of the bag one of the servants carried—“very…innocent.” He thought of the present King’s grandfather, Louis XV who’d kept a private brothel, stocked with young women he’d hunt like game animals through field and forest. The Deer Park, it had been called. Those were the days, his father liked to say.
    Hubert chortled. “She probably begged you to break her in. How many times did you have her?”
    How to put an end to this vileness? He breathed deeply, as though beginning a juicy confidence. Hubert grinned in anticipation.
    “Baptiste is bringing her to my room tonight.”
    Hubert was nearly panting.
    “And so , Monsieur le Comte”—Joseph bowed suddenly and gracefully from the waist—“I’m sure you’ll excuse me if I don’t squander my powers in chatter, which sometimes, you know, diverts a gentleman’s energy from the act itself.”
    The servant carrying the rabbits broke into a coughing fit to cover his sputtering laughter, while the one with the muskets maintained a look of fierce reserve. It took Joseph a minute to place the second attendant—ah yes, Arsène from last night’s dinner, dark-haired today without his powdered footman’s wig.
    Well done, Arsène. It must take some force of will not to snicker at us.
    But where had he seen him before? Montpellier, perhaps? No, that was ridiculous: booksellers didn’t employ footmen.
    He turned back to his brother.
    “Or don’t you find that talk can be the enemy of virility, Monsieur le Comte?” he added softly.
    Hubert shrugged as though he hadn’t understood the innuendo, but his red-rimmed eyes were icy.
    “Of course, Joseph. Save your powers, your famous charm. We haven’t formally inquired yet, but rumor has it all the young ladies we’ve invited to dinner tonight have pretty good dowries attached.”
    “And if I’m not inclined to search for a wife just now?”
    “Oh, but you are. You’re pining, you’re dying, you’re desperate for a wife.”
    “Not at all. I came to visit our father, and I’ll be off again as soon as…it’s all over.”
    “ Merde. ” Hubert missed a shot. He handed his musket to Arsène to reload. And when he spoke, after a pause, it was in a soft but authoritative voice.
    “I’m not as stupid as I look,” he said. “And Amélie, whatever else she might be, is damned intelligent, almost as intelligent as her bourgeois father’s lawyers. She’s as heartless, too, and as intent on getting what she wants. You made a mistake, Joseph, getting on her bad side.”
    Joseph shrugged. She’d seemed easy enough to get around this morning.
    Hubert reached into a capacious pocket and drew out a pair of documents.
    “You can have them. I’ve had copies made for you. But I’ll keep the originals, with the official seals on them.”
    The first document enumerated the money he’d spent paying off Joseph’s creditors and bribing those angry husbands.
    “The specifics don’t matter—I’m sure you don’t remember, never even attended to the petty costs of your adventures. But what does matter is the total amount of money you owe me. This is a bill, Joseph, due six months after our father’s death, whenever that may be.”
    Joseph scanned the second document while Hubert brought down two more rabbits. They were little ones, babies really, he noted, some part of him