The Disdainful Marquis by Edith Layton Page A

look on La Starr’s face. Brazen little hussy, going to her competitor for her dressing when she was in funds, and coming back to her dear Madame Bertrand when she was sailing the River Tick. Madame Bertrand knew her clientele well—they were the cream of the demimonde. And she had discovered that La Starr was going to a society modiste when she was in clover. But now, when her protector, the marquis, was growing bored with her, she had entreated her old friend to let her pose in a few gowns to see if he would bite and purchase them for her. But he had paid for only the blue one, after all. And after seeing that black-haired new beauty, he might not buy her any others either. Well, Madame Bertrand thought, there were plenty more where La Starr came from, both for herself and for the marquis.
    *
    “Sinjun,” the blond woman cooed at her companion as they walked down the street, “did you not like that amber gown? I swear I thought it would suit you down to the ground. “
    “It would hardly suit me, my dear. Amber is not my color,” he said in a low amused voice, “and it did not suit you so well either. But that is not strictly true. Truly, I grow weary of clothes shopping with you. I think in future you should go yourself. I will draft you a check, my dear, to better enable you to do so. Oh, don’t look crushed. It will be a very substantial amount—just recompense for the delightful time we have spent together. But I think the exclusive nature of our acquaintance is over. After all, I plan to be traveling again soon, and it would not be fair to tie you to one companion now.”
    “Travel to Paris, for example,” she said spitefully, “where the duchess might have a companion to compensate your idle hours?”
    “Hardly,” he said, with real amusement. “Her companions are not so exclusive, you know. And it was the exclusivity of our relationship that I valued. As well as your own delightful self. One may admire a thing without wanting it,” he said slowly, “much as one may admire a public prospect, such as this pleasant well-worn thoroughfare, without wanting to spend all one’s time on it. It is too public a place, after all. Private places bring more pleasure.”
    Mollified, she sauntered along with him.
    “Sinjun,” she asked sweetly, “shall we have a farewell party exclusively and privately together tonight? At my expense?”
    He smiled down at her.
    “You do me honor,” he replied.
    “You will have to do me a great deal better,” she said roguishly.
    And, laughing, they went on, in total understanding and accord.
    *
    The gentleman was not laughing a few short hours later. In fact, St. John Basil St. Charles, Marquis of Bessacarr, paced the floor of his study in a singularly humorless state.
    “Damn it, Cyril,” he swore, with unaccustomed vehemence, “I thought it was to be Vienna. That is where all the business is going on. Why in heaven’s name did he decide upon Paris? It is over and done with there. What earthly good can I do for you there?”
    His friend sat and watched the marquis in his travels around the carpet.
    “Sinjun, the old chap is never wrong, you know. I thought it was to be Vienna too. But he said that he had enough of his fellows there. What he needs, he says, is a good ear in an unexpected place. Paris, he said, and it is Paris he meant. You will be seeing him soon yourself, and doubtless he can explain it better than I can. But he fears treachery on all sides, and his man in Paris is a looby, he says. ‘Sinjun’s the chap for it,’ he says. Everyone will accept you as just another merrymaker, and you can find out whose loyalties belong to whom. It’s a hotbed over there now, he said, with some supporting the old Bourbon and some still working for Bonaparte. He won’t be easy in his mind about Bonaparte till he’s two years dead, you know.”
    “And that I can’t blame him for,” the marquis said, sinking at last into a chair. “But I had felt that I could do