Larcenous Lady Read Online Free PDF

never one to diminish the importance of his duties.
    “Very true. It’ll be a small, cheap hostelry, but in a good neighborhood. You might send my valet off to loiter discreetly around Notre Dame and some of the major tourist spots. Have Nick follow them and see where they’re putting up.”
    “It will be done.” Réal bowed.
    “I wish you wouldn’t say that! You make me feel as though you’re praying to me.”
    Réal was desperate when three days passed and still he had failed in his duty. He liked not only to perform to perfection, but to do it with an astonishing speed. After a little cudgeling of his brains, he decided that the reckless haste of their dash to Paris had left la Mégère a few days behind. Where she would first be seen was at the entry gate to Paris. The next morning he drove there and spent a tedious day watching carriages arrive.
    At four o’clock, his hard little heart nearly burst for joy. From his post behind a tree, he saw the Suttons’ carriage bowl up and stop. He recognized la Mégère ’s raucous voice from ten yards away.
    When the formalities were through, he followed the coach. For a dreadful moment it seemed it was going to stop at the Hotel d’Orleans. How like fate to steal his glory. His fear ebbed when the carriage continued on past the hotel, around the corner. It pulled up in front of a small hotel called La Licorne, with a gilded unicorn on the hanging sign. His quarry descended and straggled in.
    Réal darted back to the Orleans and sought out his master in his room. As Monsieur Pilgrim was not present, he could speak quite frankly, but frankness was not his way. He liked to tease his master before giving glad tidings.
    “For three days I have hounded every hotel lobby, every set of furnished rooms in Paris,” he began wearily. “I personally go to Notre Dame and all the points of interest on the Ile de la Cité. For the valet—he is a vaurien. We do not count on him. La Mégère ’s , she was not in Paris.”
    Belami listened impatiently. “Still no luck, eh? I wonder if they bypassed Paris entirely. I’m convinced if you didn’t find her, she ain’t here.” As he spoke, Belami idly flipped his lucky guinea, which was not proving so effective as a charm.
    “I do not say I don’t find her,” Réal  pointed out.
    “Where is she?” Belami exclaimed.
    “I don’t say I do find her too either,” he added mischievously. He tapped his temple. “I think—we drive very fast to Paris. La Mégère ’s , she don’t like the so fast driving.”
    “That’s true.”
    “Very much true. I drive to the city gate. I see the dusty carriage lumber on the road—all filled with ladies’ heads.”
    “Where are they?” Belami demanded again.
    “This five minutes just past, they enter to La Licorne, a small hotel around the corner from here,” he announced, and waited for congratulations.
    Belami bounced to his feet and grabbed Réal’s shoulders with his two hands. “Réal—you’re a pearl beyond price. Choose your own reward.”
    This was life and breath for Réal. Astonishment, praise, appreciation of his unique perfection. He smiled. “I have no need for la douceur,” he said modestly, but his hand slid out and palmed the gold coin that was placed in it.
    Réal was delighted with himself, but his insatiable craving for praise demanded more. As soon as he left the room, he darted back to La Licorne. A few ingratiating words with the clerk elicited the information that the ladies had taken rooms for a week. He also learned that Miss Sutton had been interested to learn there was a dancing party in the ballroom that same night. The young ladies, the clerk said, had sent gowns down to be pressed.
    With a smile as wide as his face. Réal  pranced back to Belami’s room. His master had been joined by Pilgrim, so that some evasion was necessary. “I thought you might like to know there is to be the small dancing party ce soir at La Licorne,” he said, but his