The Orchid Affair Read Online Free Page A

glass or herself. None of these skills seemed entirely applicable to her current situation.
    Laura wasn’t under any illusions as to her qualifications. The Pink Carnation would have been happier inserting a maid into Jaouen’s household, or a groom—someone with more experience in the field, someone less conspicuous, someone with a proven record—but Jaouen hadn’t needed a maid or a groom. He had needed a governess, and governess she was.
    If there was one role she could play convincingly, it was the one she had lived for the past sixteen years. She just had to remember that.
    Laura looked levelly at the gatekeeper, trying not to wince at the rain that blew below her bonnet rim, plastering wet strands of hair against her face.
    “Hello,” she said, as if she hadn’t been forced to walk half a mile in the rain when there had been a perfectly good gate right there. “I am the governess. Your master is expecting me.”
    The gatekeeper jerked his head brusquely to the side. “This way.”
    There had been a formal entrance on the other side, equipped with a grand porte cochere designed to keep the rain off more privileged heads than hers. No such luxuries for a potential governess. Shivering, Laura picked her way along behind the gatekeeper across the uncovered courtyard, trying to avoid the slicks of mud where the stone had cracked and crumbled, ruinous with neglect. Whatever equality the Revolution had preached, it didn’t extend to domestic staff.
    Laura squelched her way down an uncarpeted corridor after the gatekeeper, her sodden shoes leaving damp prints on the floor. If possible, it felt even colder inside than out. Despite the frost on the windows, there were no fires in any of the grates. The Hôtel de Bac was as cold as the grave.
    Pushing open a door, the gatekeeper managed to force two full syllables through his lips. “Wait here.”
    With that edifying communication, he stalked off the way he had come.
    Shaking out her damp skirts, Laura turned in a slow circle. Here was a once grand salon, entirely bare of furniture. Smoke had dulled the once-elegant silk hangings on the walls and filmed the ornate plasterwork of the ceiling. Darker patches on the wall revealed places where paintings had once hung, but did no longer. The gold leaf that had once picked out the frame of a painting set into the ceiling had flaked off in large chips, giving the whole a derelict air. The painting was still in its rightful place, but dirt and wear had given the king of the gods a decidedly down-at-the-mouth look.
    Most of the decay was due to neglect, but not all. The coat of arms above the fireplace had been hacked into oblivion. Deep gashes scored the shield, obliterating both the symbols of rank and the ceremonial border around them. Beneath a now lopsided border of plumes, the gashes gaped like open wounds, oozing pure malice and mindless hate.
    Laura felt a chill run down her spine that had nothing to do with the January cold. So much for the old family de Bac. She wondered what this new regime did to spies. That particular information had not been part of her training course, and probably for good reason.
    Laura caught herself digging her nails into her palms and made herself stop. The gloves were her only pair; she couldn’t afford to claw out the palms.
    Stupid, Laura told herself. Stupid, stupid, not to have expected this. Stupid to have believed that the Paris to which she returned would be the Paris of her childhood. It had been seventeen years since she had last been in Paris. There had been a little event called a Revolution in between. That was why she was here, after all.
    During her training in Sussex, Laura had memorized the new Revolutionary calendar, with its odd ten-day weeks and renamed months. She had learned which place names had been changed and which had changed back again. But what was a name, more or less? Nothing had prepared her for the scars the city bore; the bloodstains that never quite came