Amour: Historical Romance (Passion and Glory Book 1) by Samantha Kaye Read Free Book Online

dining room. A ship floundered on the rocks. It looked certain to be lost. The marquis thought the painting an apt description of the current times. Other storms brew on the horizon. The challenge to absolutism is real and the despots of Europe can’t ban or burn the books of liberty fast enough. The Americans already fight for their freedom. If the they succeed, their revolt might not be confined to the New World. Wealth will be the new aristocracy, and I intend to stake out a solid foundation for it now. A foundation upon which the great and lasting structure of our new power will be built. 
    It had been nearly twenty years since the first Madame de Blaise had died. The son she had given birth to had now grown into a man, and that young man was presently in need of a bride. Tonight, the marquis had given him one, deviating from the usual choice of a girl with an old and famous pedigree in favor of a petit name and a grand fortune.
    In times past, his forebears would never have even considered the progeny of upstarts like the Baron de Salvagnac as suitable marriage stock for their sons, but France was no longer the great nation it had been under the Sun King. The expenses of Louis XIV's wars were now falling on the heads of his descendants and the backs of the growing legions of French poor. The realm, though still outwardly splendid, was rotting from the inside. But for the bold, there was always opportunity within misfortune. The alliance the marquis had agreed to was a first step toward that end.
    The Baron de Salvagnac’s lackeys bowed and opened the doors to the dining room. It was a large circular space, some thirty yards in diameter. At the center of the room was a long rectangular table which looked capable of seating at least two dozen guests, but was now set for just eight.
    Seated at table was the marquis’ eldest son Francis, his future bride Julienne de Salvagnac, her younger sister Éléonore, and Madame de Salvagnac. His future daughter-in-law looked splendid in a pale green evening gown. It won’t hurt that she’s quite fine to look at, in addition to the large dowry she’ll bring. He’s luckier than I was with the choice my father made for me.
    Madame de Salvagnac rose to welcome her husband and his guest. “There you are, my dear. We’d begun to think we’d lost you.”
    “Lost us? What a notion, my dear. How could that be? I was just showing Monsieur le Marquis my library in the east wing. We had some important matters to discuss in private. Matters which will be of interest and advantage to others as well as the marquis and myself.”
    The baronne studied her husband’s demeanor with care. Agnès Caroline Marie de Saint-Giresse had hazel eyes murky with guile, set wide apart and full of the sultry indolence of the tropics. Born into a noble but impoverished Gascon family, her nose was straight and narrow, anchored above a small red cherry of a mouth which nestled over a rounded, cleft chin. Her face was attractive, if unremarkable, but as one followed a line from the point of her chin, down past the long elegant neck, the eye was swallow up in the lush creamy abundance of the feature for which she was most known and admired. Her bosom was simply exquisite. She knew this and displayed it to best advantage. The prevailing tastes in fashion favored a very open neckline in which almost all of the breast, save for the nipple, was exposed. Though most ladies of good breeding covered the bosom in lace once married, the baronne eagerly displayed her bountiful décolletage without such demure flaps of concealment. She had seldom known a man capable of overlooking “her two best companions” as she often referred to her breasts. She had also discovered, that the more she revealed of her grand balcony, the prettier and wittier most men seemed to find her. It was the fineness of her bosom which had initially attracted her husband to be. Having seen her among the noble pews in church, the young