Undone Read Online Free Page A

“Nonsense. With your naval successes and the wealth you’ve earned for the Crown, it will only be a matter of time—”
    “It will not be a matter of time.”
    “It will! I believe in our king. He is an intelligent man. He is young—true. But he will come around, and he will take the reins from Fouquet and Mazarin, and be the king he was meant to be.”
    “Dear God, Robert, how can you say that? Louis had his coronation at fifteen. He’s now almost twenty-two, and still he doesn’t rule, letting others run his country for him—preferring to spend his time with his mistress and on his ridiculous ballets.”
    Robert sat back, looking incredulous. “What in the world has gotten into you? I’ve never heard you speak this way. Becoming ennobled and an officer in the King’s Navy has always been your dream. Why this change of heart? Why now ? You are so close to attaining all that you’ve worked for. What has happened?”
    Grim, his heart heavy, Simon shook his head. “Thomas Jaures is dead. He was captured by the Spanish. My men found his body dumped on the French border. All evidence shows that he wasn’t executed but rather tortured to death. Gilbert and Daniel have yet to be found.”
    Robert frowned. “I had no idea.”
    “Without Thomas, it will prove most difficult to continue as in the past. To infiltrate with another spy of Thomas’s caliber will take much time…” A friend like Thomas can never be replaced. His brutal, senseless death would never be forgotten. “Fouquet’s demands for more captured silver from the Spanish are unceasing and ever growing. Mazarin is unconcerned with what Fouquet does with the Crown’s money so long as there is enough to fund his war and expand the realm. And the king simply doesn’t care about anything but dancing and fucking. I’ve had enough.” He felt disgust down to the very marrow of his being. Everything he’d done for his country and king, everything he’d worked for was now tainted.
    In blood.
    “Listen to me.” Robert grasped Simon’s wrist and gave it a squeeze to punctuate his words. “I know Thomas was your friend and a good man, but you cannot allow his death to cloud your thinking. We are at war with Spain. Men die. This is simply battle fatigue you’re experiencing. Nothing more.”
    “This is not battle fatigue. Dieu . Don’t you see the corpses scattered around? I returned three weeks ago not only to learn of Thomas’s gruesome death, but also to find that our villages and country roads now resemble battlefields. Only there are no dead soldiers upon the ground. Just the lifeless bodies of innocent men, women, and children—dead of starvation. Driven by his infinite greed, Fouquet is literally taxing our people to death and using the funds from the Crown Treasury as his personal wealth!” Outrage yanked Simon to his feet. He began to pace, trying to settle his agitation, fighting back the urge to slam his fist into the wall.
    After months at sea, he’d returned to see his dream replaced by a nightmare.
    “You have no proof he steals,” Robert countered.
    That stopped him dead in his tracks. “ Proof? The proof is that obscene palace he’s building, right under Louis’s nose!” Jésus-Christ . The riches he’d put into Fouquet’s hands had helped create this monster!
    How it fucking goaded him.
    That he’d helped Fouquet succeed in his ambitions, enabling him to wreak such misery on the lower class, that he’d allowed himself and his men to be used as pawns—including Thomas, Gilbert, and Daniel—in Fouquet’s schemes had been eating away at his very vitals every waking moment for the last three weeks.
    “Though I’d heard Fouquet was building a new abode for himself some time ago,” Simon continued, “I’d never seen Vaux-le-Vicomte before. Upon my return, I was ordered to deliver the Crown’s share of our recent captured silver directly to his new château. Merde . I’ve never seen anything like it. Gilded