After all, Richard reasoned with himself, as long as he confined his calls to nonspying hours, his relationship with Amy could be kept separate from his work.

He just had to charm Amy into liking him. It shouldn’t be too hard. She might have kissed the Purple Gentian last night, but it was clearly Richard she was thinking about. Of course, it would be even better if it were Richard she was thinking about and kissing.

All he had to do was dispel her lingering anxieties about his character. Hmm. Richard paused next to a painting by David. That might be too difficult a feat without revealing his secret identity. Too much effort. No, he decided. Far better to seduce Amy out of her scruples.

Ah, now there was a plan worthy of the master strategist who had saved scads of French noblemen from the guillotine.

With that out of the way, Richard could once more concentrate on sallying forth and doing his bit to defend England against old Boney by drinking French brandy and winning at cards.

Richard dropped in on a record-breaking four salons and card parties between eight and eleven o’clock. At one, he eavesdropped on conversations under the cover of music; at another, he elicited information over cards; at yet another, he rifled through his host’s desk while a poet declaimed in a room across the hall. It would have been five parties had he not spotted Pauline Leclerc as he entered the fifth salon. Grabbing his hat and gloves back from the astonished maid, he had barely escaped with his trousers intact.

Robbins dropped Richard off beneath the portico of Mme Rochefort’s town house, Richard’s final destination, just after eleven. “Don’t bother coming back for me,” Richard told his coachman, as he swung out of the chaise. “I’ll find my own way back.”

“You’re quite sure, my lord?” Robbins believed the population of Paris to be comprised entirely of footpads and assassins, all just waiting to leap out at his young master from dark alleyways.

“Quite sure. Get some rest.”

“Aye, my lord.”

As his carriage pulled away, Richard settled his hat more firmly on his head, gave his gloves one last tug, pasted on a social smile, and ascended the steps to the front door. He was let in by a maid, who took his hat and cloak and pointed him upstairs. Richard made his way up the marble staircase, skirting around a young dandy clinging to the bannister, who was already clearly the worse for drink. Richard feared for the next guest to pass below the staircase.

Reaching the landing, Richard considered his options. To his right, food had already been laid out in the supper-room, and a cadre of devoted gallants were making up plates for their beloveds of the moment.

Richard spotted his hostess in the crush, and nodded to her. Mme Rochefort waved her fan at him with more enthusiasm than decorum, a description that suited the majority of the guests rather well. Mme Rochefort’s parties teemed with young adventurers, aging flirts, and hardened roués, all barely clinging to the fringes of society. Mme Rochefort herself fell into the second category; a former crony of Josephine’s, she had been banished from the Tuilleries when Bonaparte had decided to become respectable.

Down the hall, the crowd in the card room was thinner than usual. Therese Tallien, another former friend of the First Consul’s wife, was playing a rubber of whist with a brightly dressed dandy, a heavy-lidded young officer, and Desiree Hamelin, who was chiefly famed for having walked topless all the way from the Place Royale to the Luxembourg Palace in the harum-scarum days of the Directorate.

Richard wandered through the room, murmuring polite inconsequentialities to acquaintances, and declining the offer of a rubber of whist from Mme Tallien. Under fashionably languid lids, Richard’s green eyes darted ahead of him across the room. Paul Barras, a former head of state (and, it was rumored, former lover of Josephine), sat over solitaire at a table near the door. He would be no use. Richard likewise dismissed a gaggle of giggling women in hideous striped turbans. Ah, but there, by the fireplace . . .

“Marston, old chap,” Richard drawled. “Not having much luck at cards tonight, I see! Murat.” Richard nodded to the Consul’s brother-in-law, who was listing in his chair at an angle that declared that the snifter of brandy before him was by no means his first.

Marston kicked a chair at Richard. “Care to try your luck, Selwick?”

“Jolly good of you.” Richard dropped lazily into the little gilded chair.

Marston rose and stretched, swaying only a bit in the process. “Think nothing of it. I’m off as soon as I win some of my blunt back from Murat here. Got an assignation with a hot piece of baggage.”

Richard yanked his chair up to the table. “How much does she cost?”

Marston guffawed, baring large white teeth. “This one’s free. Makes a nice change, eh?”

Richard politely bared his teeth in response, but since his interest in Marston’s romantic affairs was about on a par with his desire to learn about the finer points of taxonomy, he quickly turned the topic of conversation to a more promising avenue.

“Any chance you’re thinking of selling that curricle of yours?”

“What! Sell the Chariot of Love? It would send the ladies of Paris into mourning.”

“And their cuckolded husbands would throw a fête.”

Marston smiled smugly. “Tonight’s lucky lady doesn’t have a husband. Just a—”

“I ask,” Richard interrupted, before Marston could embark again on his tedious tale of seduction and satiation, “because I have a friend who’s looking for a carriage, and I know he admires yours.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Marston stretched out his legs. Richard wondered how they managed to support the weight of such a massive ego on a daily basis.

Concealing his distaste, Richard continued smoothly, “I’ve advised Geoff that a closed carriage would be far more useful. What do you think?”

Marston snorted. “If you’re an old lady! Women go mad for a nice little curricle. I can tell you about the time—”

“Curricles are very well for a spin about the park, but what about longer trips, or conveying packages? There’s simply not enough privacy or room. Are you dealing, Murat?”

“I’ll deal.” Marston grabbed the deck of cards before his friend could respond, and began shuffling with the ease of a practiced gamester. “What’s your game, Selwick? Commerce? Euchre? Vingt-et-un?”

“Whatever you were playing. So you’d recommend the curricle, would you? What about midnight assignations and that sort of thing?”

Marston flipped three cards Richard’s way. “It’s easy enough to hire a coach.”

“Do you have any recommendations?”

“There’s a little man in the rue St. Jacques,” Marston said easily, kicking back and looking at his cards. “Has a plain carriage and doesn’t ask too many questions, if you know what I mean.”

“I’ll remember that,” replied Richard, with an amused smile. A little man on the rue St. Jacques . . . He would send Geoff down tomorrow to make inquiries. Richard mentally ticked off item one on his list. “How far does he let you take it?”

“I’ve been as far as Calais and back.” Marston frowned and dealt himself another card.

“Did you have family visiting from England?” Richard inquired pleasantly.

“No, I—” Marston’s mouth snapped abruptly shut.

Richard laughed the knowing laugh of the urbane man about town. “Say no more! Say no more!” he protested, holding out a hand. “The lady’s reputation must be protected. I understand. Pass the decanter, would you?”

Visibly relaxing, Marston shoved the crystal decanter across the green baize tabletop. Richard raised it in a comradely gesture before pulling out the stopper and pouring some of the amber contents into a glass. Damn. Marston wasn’t quite inebriated enough; if Richard probed further on that score, he would grow suspicious.

“To nameless ladies!” Richard pronounced, hoisting his brandy balloon aloft.

“I’ll drink to that!” Marston downed the contents of his glass and reached across Richard for the decanter.

“Namelesh ladiesh,” slurred Murat from his corner.

Now there was a man who was drunk enough to be of use.

“You’ve been at peace too long, Murat,” Richard said cheerfully. “It’s weakened your head for drink! Better work on that or they’ll take away your commission.”

“Him?” Marston jabbed a finger at his friend, who was listing like a frigate after a bad storm. “There’s some perks to being the First Consul’s brother-in-law, eh, Murat? Even if you do have to put up with Caroline!”

“Thash ri’,” agreed Murat. “Have to put up wi’ Caroline. More brandy?”

Richard helpfully leaned across the table and refilled Murat’s glass. “Caroline giving you a hard time?”

“Thash a’ri’.” Murat gestured expansively, sending half the contents of his glass sloshing down Mme Rochefort’s rose silk moire walls. “Goin’ away shoon.”

Two glasses of brandy and several slurred sibilants later, Richard had managed to determine that Murat, if he was to be believed, had been promised a high position in the army for the invasion of England. Caroline, Murat said, had bullied her brother into it, which Richard could well believe. Caroline possessed the face of an angel and the ruthless ambition of, well, her brother Napoleon. Her brother Napoleon crossed with Lucrezia Borgia on a bad day. Richard felt mildly sorry for poor Murat.

His sympathy, however, dwindled as Murat continued to babble around the topic. It took nearly half an hour to ascertain that Murat didn’t actually know when the expedition for England was to leave, just that it was to be soon. Soon being anywhere from two months to a year. Some help that. Napoleon was waiting for something. Caroline had yelled at Napoleon and he had protested that he couldn’t do anything until the arrival of—