The Misguided Matchmaker by Nadine Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

the other and concentrate on what she was saying.
    “The
rear entrances of the apartments of Lyon’s wealthiest citizens open onto these traboules .
When I find the door to the one that once belonged to my grandfather, I shall
know we are in the alleyway that eventually leads to La Croix Rousse.”
    Tristan
raised his lantern and stared at the series of identical doors lining the walls
of the alleyway. “How can you tell one from another?” he asked. “They all look
alike to me.”
    “The
door I seek carries a double coat of arms, that of the Medicis, who first built
the apartment when they came to Lyon in the fifteenth century, and”—her voice
carried unmistakable pride—”that of the noble family of Navareil, the owners
for the past three hundred years.” She paused. “Now, of course, it is inhabited
by the Prefect of Lyon, a Bonapartist who was a pig farmer before the
Revolution.”
    Tristan
heard the note of disdain in her voice and for the first time began to
understand Caleb Harcourt’s obsession with marrying his daughter to a member of
the English nobility. Like her mother, Madelaine Harcourt would be satisfied
with nothing less. From the connotation she gave the term “pig farmer,” it was
obvious she felt nothing but contempt for the lower classes.
    He
smiled to himself. How it must gall this descendant of the French nobility to
have to impersonate a member of the peasant class…and wouldn’t her blue blood
freeze in her veins if she knew the man who would be her constant companion for
the next fortnight was the son of a Rookeries prostitute.
    Poor
Garth! Spending the rest of his life leg-shackled to this French social climber
was a high price to pay for the blunt to save his title and estates. For the
first time, it occurred to Tristan there were certain advantages to being the
old earl’s by-blow.
    It
also occurred to him that he derived an inordinate degree of satisfaction from
finding fault with his future sister-in-law.
    It
did not, at the moment, occur to him to wonder why.

Chapter Three
    N o more than five minutes down the
chosen passageway, Madelaine began to have serious doubts that it was the one
leading past her grandfather’s former apartment. For one thing the doors looked
too small and too close together to be the apartments of the rich. For another,
the further they progressed, the shabbier and more disreputable the area
looked. Finally they reached a spot where foul-smelling debris littered the
walkway and charcoal scribbles, many of them embarrassingly obscene, littered
the walls.
    She
raised her hand to signal a halt. “I am afraid I have taken a wrong turn,” she
admitted apologetically. “We shall have to retrace our steps.” Absolute silence
greeted her admission. She waited, expecting a show of frustration, even anger
from her two companions. Instead, Tristan Thibault stood motionless, his head
raised like a hound taking scent, while Forli studied him with anxious eyes.
    “There
are people ahead of us,” Thibault said. “I cannot tell how many. They are still
a long way off, but they are moving swiftly and in our direction.”
    Madelaine
held her breath, listening. “Are you certain? I hear nothing.”
    “Believe
him,” Forli said. “I can tell you from experience milord has the hearing and
the instincts of…a fox.”
    “We
cannot afford a confrontation.” Thibault’s expression was grim. “We need a
place to hide and so far we haven’t passed so much as an indentation in the
wall.” He handed his lantern to Forli and reached for the one Madelaine held
aloft. “Our only hope is to make it back to the central courtyard in time to
slip into one of the other passageways.” So saying, he transferred the lantern
to his left hand and grasping Madelaine’s hand in his right, took off on a run.
    Madelaine’s
legs were long, the Englishman’s longer, and he had a death grip on her
nerveless fingers. Desperately, she plowed down the narrow traboule after him in