Thief's Covenant (A Widdershins Adventure) Read Online Free Page B

to satiate a smaller appetite without a single bite.
    The house had been well prepared, in expectation of the night's revelry. Paintings and tapestries hung high on the walls, well beyond reach of drunken fingers or spilled foods. Most were pastoral or mythic scenes, but several depicted the golden pyramid of Geurron, patron deity of the d'Orreille line, and a scant few boasted the sun-and-crown of Vercoule, Davillon's High Patron.
    Fires blazed happily in numerous hearths, determined to enjoy the soiree. Various herbs and scents were sprinkled upon the logs, filling the room with a bizarre combination of odors that spun around the guests before rising to cluster at the ceiling's arches and buttresses. The carpets, lush and thick, had been brushed in expectation of the guests' arrival. Servants, immaculately groomed, stood at attention or bustled about the rooms, preparing this, refilling that, and basically playing the part of so many trained hounds, always running and fetching.
    And in the center of the maelstrom, buffeted on all sides by the constant eddies and swirls of humanity, stood an unlikely pair. Despite the press of partygoers and the constant blank smiles, polite waves, and spouted small talk, they exuded an aura of calm, a globe of peace that extended a scant few feet from them.
    “I must say, my dear baron,” the woman was commenting haughtily, “you've really outdone yourself. I can't recall when I've last attended festivities so elegant.” Her expression managed to add Other than those I've planned myself , without the slightest aid from her tongue.
    The gentleman bowed in gratitude, his face partially hidden behind a loosely clutched kerchief held dangling from long, spidery fingers. “The duchess,” he said, his voice thin and watery, “is too kind.”
    “She is, isn't she?” the woman replied.
    Beatrice Luchene, the Duchess Davillon, Voice of Vercoule, landholder and ruler over all territories claimed by the duchy, province, and city of Davillon, was just shy of six feet, and broad of shoulders, hips, and features. Her hair, black-going-gray, was piled high above her head in a mountain of curls that failed utterly to soften a face grown taut with age. She wore rich purples and reds and blues, as well as a golden sun-and-crown brooch, and her face was powdered to within a shade of newly fallen snow.
    Her host, by contrast, was a short, bony, shadow of a weasel of a man. Charles Doumerge, the Baron d'Orreille, looked perennially ill. His skin was near gray even without the benefits of powder, and his limp, straw-colored hair was thinning faster than a slug in a salt-shaker. Not even his finest outfit, of blues and browns, made him look any less the walking corpse.
    Doumerge leaned in, his rodent's nose cutting through the intervening air like a prow. The duchess managed (barely) to refrain from pulling away.
    “I'm grateful,” Doumerge told her, his voice as low as the surrounding cacophony would allow, “that I've guests here with the appropriate—shall we say, refinement?—to appreciate my efforts.” He furtively glanced around, as though ensuring he wouldn't be overheard, then, simpering, continued, “The truth is, I don't believe that everyone here is quite suited to this sort of thing. If I may be brutally honest with you, Your Grace, I'd not have chosen to invite, say”—he cast about quickly for a safe target—“the Marquis De Brielles. The fellow simply doesn't have what it takes to survive in our particular arena, you see? But, well, poor Francis has had such a difficult time of it of late, it would have been boorish not to offer him the opportunity to escape his problems. Still, I doubt that he's properly able to—”
    “Francis Carnot,” the duchess said stiffly, “has done quite well, considering the title of marquis was expected to fall to his late brother. I consider the gentleman a friend, and I look forward to the day when he has managed to get his House back on its