Pam Rosenthal by The Bookseller's Daughter Read Free Book Online

“Monsieur, you’re hurt!”
    The old man threw him a furious look. “Not a bit of it,” he snarled. “I’m fine. Just need to wash off this brandy I’ve spilled on myself. If you all will excuse me.”
    Joseph was at his side, pulling out the glass, perhaps a little more roughly than was quite necessary. “Can you walk, Monsieur? Or should I carry you? That’s right, lean on me, good, good, we’ll get you to your room, perhaps call the doctor…”
    What was the handsome footman’s name? Ah yes, Arsène. “Arsène, can you help me get the Duc to his room? Thank you, thank you…”
    The anxiety in his voice sounded convincing even to himself. Well, this gambit had better work.
    “I’m perfectly fine , Joseph,” the old man sputtered.
    “Of course you are, Monsieur, and very brave as well.” He and Arsène strong-armed the struggling, protesting Duc from the room and up the corridor to his bedchamber, where Jacques was just laying out a handsome dressing gown. Vain old coot; it was what he’d planned to wear when he made his visit to Marie-Laure.
    “A bit of a mishap, Jacques. A bit of a different evening than perhaps he’d planned. He needs to be put to bed, after you give him a good long bath and soak that leg.
    “And you will stay with them, Arsène, that’s a good fellow, in case he needs any help? While I, um, while I, go, uh…”
    Arsène was looking at him strangely. Well, he supposed his act was wearing a bit thin. His powers of invention certainly were. And as he couldn’t think of anything else to say, he simply quit the room without finishing the sentence. Where the devil was Baptiste?
    Luckily, he was in Joseph’s own room, seeing to his linen.
    Joseph tossed off his coat. August was so unbearably hot in Provence. And he didn’t have much time before his father got back on his feet. But at least he knew what he was going to do—in its general outlines, anyway, if not in every particular. He grinned.
    “Quick, Baptiste. Take me to where she sleeps. And not a word out of you.”

Chapter Five
    It was as hot and airless in her little garret bedchamber as it had been in the kitchen. Go to bed , Marie-Laure told herself, go to bed and get some sleep. At least she’d have the mattress to herself tonight, and for once she’d be free of Louise’s snoring.
    But instead she paced the tiny room as though pursued by fleeting images and fragments of memory. She needed only to blink to set his image shimmering at the margin of her vision. In some ways he’d changed enormously since Montpellier: the legs that had flopped around in ragged trousers were graceful and well turned in fine faille breeches; the lanky frame that had slumped in Papa’s armchair stood poised and balanced, legs angled in a dancer’s perfect fourth position.
    And yet in the essential, infinitesimal particulars—a torque of muscle at the small of the back, a whimsical tilt of the head, a few loose strands of silky black hair escaping from the velvet ribbon at his nape—in every way that mattered, he hadn’t changed at all.
    Why had he undertaken to act the role of a smuggler? Had it been a sort of holiday from the poise that an aristocrat puts on along with garments of velvet and lace?
    She could only suppose he’d done it for the adventure. Yes, she decided, he’d smuggled the books across the border as a reckless, dangerous diversion. And—she set her mouth in a hard line—she probably hadn’t been the only woman to help him.
    She thought of the banquet she and her colleagues in the kitchen had been preparing. All the noble families of the region would be here tomorrow, bringing daughters decked out in pearls and plumes, towering hairdos and skirts so wide they’d have to skitter sideways through the doors like crabs. She hoped he’d choose one quickly and take her far away.
    Of course, last December she’d merely shrugged when she’d come back from the market and found him gone, leaving only a receipt initialed