from him somehow, along with the little pink note.”
Elijah blew his hair out of his eyes with a defeated sound. “We will, won’t we?”
Elijah took off his coat and cravat. He left his waistcoat on, though, and tousled his hair just so. They had to have Lord Pursleigh’s vowels and Lady Pursleigh’s billet-doux. They had to get them now, before René destroyed them.
He had known that sooner or later it would come to this. Sooner or later he would have to walk into René’s room and use what they had shared to move René one step closer to the gallows, simply because it was the worst thing that could happen and so it would. Now that it had, he couldn’t tell whether the knot in the pit of his stomach was nausea or excitement.
He walked down the hall and knocked on René’s door. René looked distinctly surprised to see him, but he opened the door wide.
The first thing Elijah saw when he stepped inside was the precious evidence, burning merrily on a silver salver.
“What’s that?” he asked, even though he already knew. Lady Pursleigh’s stationery burned with a sickly sweet rose scent. The room smelled like dying summer.
René smiled maliciously. “Love letters.”
Elijah’s entire reason for being there was already gone, but he realized too late that it must not have been his entire reason after all. Instead of leaving, he said, “Your mistress isn’t very subtle. People in France probably saw her pass you that note.”
“She does have more hair than wit,” René acknowledged. “But it is such delightful hair I am inclined to overlook the fault. One of those soft golden ringlets would make such a lovely keepsake, do you not think?”
Elijah said nothing.
René curled a lock of Elijah’s own yellow hair around his finger. Elijah flinched away, and René sighed. “You cannot have it both ways, chéri. Why will you not admit that you love me? That we are meant to be together?”
“I don’t love you!” Elijah strove to modulate his voice. “And we certainly aren’t meant to be together. After all, you’re a married man now, aren’t you?”
René was the reason Lady Serena had been going around looking like death. Because of René, Elijah’s brother might never be able to marry the woman he so obviously loved. Lady Serena was René’s best friend, and he had done this to her.
Elijah wished he could hate René for it, but he understood. Elijah had betrayed people he loved in the service of his country, too. He could have driven his brother to suicide. He still meant to drive René to his death.
René’s eyes darkened. For a long moment he was silent. “I am sorry that I am not the man you thought I was.” He sounded genuinely regretful, but then he would have had training for that. “I would have liked to be such a man. But you are not the man I thought you were either.”
It echoed Elijah’s thoughts so closely that for a moment, he panicked. Does he know?
But René simply smiled and murmured, “Elijah.” It was the first time he had used his real name. Elijah liked the way it sounded on his lips. “My little anglais. I would have sworn you were from the quartier Saint-Michel.”
“I am not your anything.”
“That is not what you told me when you first arrived. You told me you could not sleep without me, do you not remember?”
Elijah’s fingers curled into a fist. “You must have misunderstood my English.”
“So now it is my accent?” René said sharply. “I am sorry I am not such a linguist as you. Mon Dieu, I had forgotten how childish you could be.”
“I suppose I might seem so to a man who’ll never see forty again.”
“I do not remember you telling me I was old when you were begging me to make love to you for the fourth time in one night.”
Elijah’s mouth curved ruefully. “Actually, I did. That was what convinced you.” Their gazes caught, and suddenly Elijah could barely breathe. Very, very slowly, René reached out and pulled Elijah to him.
Serena crept up the servants’ stair, her cloak wrapped around her to hide her wig and dress, and the wings and mask bundled under her left arm. René mustn’t see her. She peered out into the hallway. The coast was clear. She moved softly to her door, unlocked it, and slipped inside. Dumping the mask, wings, and cloak on the bed, she knocked on Solomon’s door to find out what had gone wrong