The Blood Promise: A Hugo Marston Novel (5 page)

After a while, Lake grunted. “Pretty countryside isn’t it?”

“Absolutely.”

“I do like these old stone buildings, amazing how long they’ve stood. Hundreds of years, I’d bet, through use, war, and the weather.” He sounded almost wistful and Hugo was surprised to hear him express such appreciation. It didn’t last long, as if Lake had surprised himself. “Be prettier if the weather wasn’t so bad. Rains pretty much all year, I’m told.”

“A slight exaggeration,” Hugo said. He felt Lake watching him now.

“Look. I know what people say about me, the whole isolationist thing. And I play that up to some degree because a lot of people in my district like it, they believe in that. And I do, too, but for slightly different reasons. I’m not a xenophobe, Hugo. I don’t hate the French or the Germans.”

“The English?”

“Nor them. The royalty thing disgusts me, but that’s another subject. The point I’m trying to make is this: I’m an American. I even have native blood, or so my grandmother told me, but it’s not just about that. I love America and I’m sick of policing the rest of the world, saving Europe from the Nazis, Iraq from a lunatic. What is it now, Iran? North Korea? I’m just saying, enough is enough. We do all that and what thanks do we get?”

“Not my bailiwick, so I wouldn’t know.”

“None, Hugo. Instead we get scorn. And we get fleeced because it’s our troops who get sent in first. So all I’m saying, let’s just make the most of being American and let the rest of the damn world fend for itself for once. Let them have inbred Royal families and eat snails. Go for it. Just keep it to themselves.”

“And your constituents, you have this discussion with them?”

“Like I said, most are more anti-Europe than I am. And not just anti-Europe, but anti-privilege, and I’m one hundred percent on board there.” Out of the corner of his eye, Hugo could see the man was annoyed. “And this discussion is between you and me. The people who support me, with votes and money, are perfectly happy to malign Europe, and since our interests are one and the same, the nuances of my position are irrelevant. And potentially damaging. Do I make myself clear?”

“Just between us,” Hugo said mildly. “But when you say, ‘people who support me,’ do you mean the big donors or the small ones?”

Lake smiled. “Here’s how it works. The big ones follow the lead of the small ones. I piss off my blue-collar base, the heavy wallets leave, too. Double whammy, you might say. Ugly game, isn’t it?”

“Sounds like it,” Hugo said. “Glad I’m not playing.”

“Right.” Lake took a breath, as if to calm himself. “So you’re former FBI, right? Into all that profiling business?”

“I did some of that, yes.”

“Interesting. You have some pretty high-tech surveillance equipment, too, for that antiterrorist work.”

“We do.”

“Got my hands on some, it’s amazing.”

Hugo glanced over. “Why would a senator need surveillance equipment, if I may ask?”

Lake chortled. “Are you kidding? Some is because I like playing with it, some to make sure no one stabs me in the back.”

“I don’t follow.”

“People come into my office and we talk. Then they leave my office and misquote me, misrepresent my position.” He shrugged. “I got sick of that happening.”

“You bug your own office?”

“Heavens no. I just record the conversations I have with people, to protect myself.”

“Phones, too?”

“Of course. I’m not stupid, I know there are people out there trying to trip me up. The closer you get to the top, the more that happens, believe me.” He looked out of the window. “This way I’m covered. Safe.”

They drove in silence for a moment, then Lake turned to Hugo. “So, did you profile the people meeting us for dinner? Any psychos?”

Hugo raised an eyebrow. “A few politicians, if that answers your question.”

“Funny guy, Hugo, but yeah, it does. Seriously, I don’t know much about the people there, do you?”

“Not really.” Hugo tried to recall the brief that his secretary Emma had given him. It was tucked in his overnight bag, but Emma had included insight as well as facts, which meant it was for Hugo’s eyes only. He recited the bits he could remember, the facts anyway. “The chateau is owned by Henri Tourville, been in his family for years. Centuries probably. He’s high up in the MAEE, roughly translated as the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.”

“That guy I know. Spoke to him on the phone when I took Jonty Railton’s place, asked whether I preferred brandy or port. Felt it was like some kind of test.”

“It probably was.”

“You think?” Lake grimaced. “Anyway, he said his drinking buddy would be there, Felix or Victor someone.”

“Felix Vibert. I don’t have my ministers and undersecretaries straight, but I gather he’s the brains behind the political power Tourville wields. They met while teaching at the Sorbonne—Tourville is a history buff and Vibert was a bigwig in international relations.” Hugo glanced across. “No offense, but shouldn’t you know who you’re dealing with?”

“On the one hand, you’d think so. On the other hand, it’s a dinner party with, what, twenty people? Maybe thirty? And we’re talking about a pile of rocks in the Caribbean that you, as a member of the voting public, don’t seem to care about. I’m pretty good with people, Hugo, despite what you may have heard about me, and as far as personalities go, I’m confident I can wing it a little.” He paused and his tone changed. “Although I have heard a little about Tourville’s sister.”

“Ah yes.” said Hugo. “Although I imagine she’s been misrepresented.” Emma had briefed him on the sister, too, in a way that tip-toed the line between informing and gossiping. She knew that Hugo disdained the latter, believing that salacious tattle, particularly among the upper echelons of society, was usually exaggerated if not completely wrong. And if factually correct, it was no one’s business anyway.

“Turned her life around, do you think?” Lake said—a little sarcastically, Hugo thought.

“You can ask her when we get there.”

“Oh, come on, Hugo. In a room full of stuffed shirts, myself included, she could be the most interesting person there. She off limits to your intelligence briefing? Since you’re there to protect me, I doubt it.”

Babysit
, thought Hugo. “My brief relates to security, I think, not so much sexual trysts.”

“More’s the pity.”

And not entirely true. Hugo had wanted to know the background of everyone there and Emma hadn’t been able to resist some of the more scandalous details, delivered with a knowing smile and entirely designed to provoke Hugo into self-righteousness.

The sister, Alexandra Catherine de Beaumont Tourville, or Alexie to her friends, had long been the black sheep of the Tourville family. Booted from several boarding schools for her antics, she managed to make her way to university where she found her niche, using her high intelligence to breeze through several degree programs and develop her liberal instincts.

When she’d finally racked up enough diplomas, she used them and her father’s money to try numerous careers, skating between the entertainment world and the political. Hugo suspected, from what he’d read and heard, that she may have some minor mental or emotional issues, becoming focused on a project or person to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. Greenpeace, saving the whales, the death penalty in America, and legalizing LSD and marijuana were the ones Hugo could remember. If Emma was right, she’d used up pretty much all of her inheritance chasing world peace and harmony, and a few magical dragons to boot. An internationally successful blog, mostly kept up by one or two people close to her, kept her name in the news whenever she upset a political apple cart or blew into an awards ceremony.

Two years ago, the gallivanting around the globe had come to an end in a blaze of humiliating publicity. She’d returned to France to live full time, reformed her blog to discuss the more serious issues of the day, and eschewed the party circuit. She then launched a serious and expensive campaign to win a seat in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of Parliament, using her family’s name and reputation at every turn and relying heavily on the electorate’s short memory, libertine instincts, and forgiving nature.

Her reliance had been misplaced. A sex scandal too rich even for the French had undone her credibility and sent her financial backers scattering for cover. Lake was obviously recalling the details and pondering her fate, too.

“You know, I’m surprised she’ll be there. I’d heard she was off at a convent or something.”

“Like I said,” Hugo said mildly, “you can ask her over dinner.”

Dinner was at eight but everyone gathered for drinks soon after six, when two waitresses carried around trays of champagne, hors d’oeuvres, and then more champagne. The drawing room was as elegant as it was large, and Hugo suspected that most of the furniture had been there longer than he’d been alive; it was the kind of house where antiques and art settled into place, where their beauty and value was appreciated as a whole such that occasional additions or removals by chateau’s owners went all but unnoticed by family members and staff, unless a table had been swapped for a vase when someone wanted to put down his cognac. The living room was bright, though, the antiques polished, and its two sets of French doors and several large windows let in the low evening light, while the wall sconces added their sparkle and glow.

There were about two dozen guests, all approved by Ruby and Rousek, but only half of them were of interest to Hugo because only half of them would spend the following day talking international politics. The others, well-dressed and no doubt well-heeled, were Tourville’s fillers brought in to make sure the main players had people to talk to, drink with, and didn’t rattle around the old chateau unamused.

Hugo tucked himself in the corner, wedged between a bookcase and a curtained window, watching the evening unfold with interest because it had been a while since he’d attended a function like this, wary political opponents playing nice as they slowly got drunk. The Guadeloupe Islands were on the agenda for tomorrow, this was just the ice-breaker, but Hugo suspected that the important people in this room had been too long in the game to not play some of their cards tonight, so he watched their interactions closely.

Henri Tourville was the easiest to spot and didn’t look unlike his American guest. Taller and heavier, though, with the kind of figure you’d expect from a wealthy man who enjoyed throwing dinner parties and whose only exercise came from wandering his estate with a shotgun in the crook of his arm. His size seemed to be magnified by a large and very bald head. He smiled a lot and was an expert host, moving around the room like a ship broken from its moorings, bumping elbows with this couple for a minute or two before drifting past a chintz-covered sofa to find himself nestled into a different couple for a few minutes more.

Also there, as expected, was Felix Vibert, who was a little shorter than his friend Tourville and considerably paler, but with the same soft figure. Hugo had the impression that the unlit pipe in his hand, the moustache, and the eyeglasses were welcome barriers to strangers, and it was clear that Vibert became more comfortable the closer he found himself to his friend and host. His interactions with others, as best Hugo could tell, consisted of listening rather than talking, his face set in an unreadable mask. Occasionally, he’d eye the crowd, keeping track of his and his friend’s personal secretaries, elegant middle-aged women who could take shorthand or serve drinks as required.

Lake’s interest, unsurprisingly, was in Alexandra. In many ways, she was the exact opposite of her brother. She had his height, not too far from six feet tall, but was slender and wore a slightly closed look on her face, though that could have resulted from Lake’s attentions. She had thick brown hair pulled into a broad ponytail held with a glittering clip. Elegant in a burgundy-colored dress, she seemed to attract a lot of glances from the men in the room, though Hugo had the sense she wasn’t trying to.

Hugo turned as a figure appeared at his elbow: a woman in her late twenties, a sharp nose and even sharper brown eyes. He’d seen her at Alexandra’s side earlier, the less glamorous assistant—but up close she had a certain confidence of her own, which always appealed to Hugo. Her dress was black, neither sexy nor dowdy, and her short brown hair was loose and sported a streak of pink that should have been too young for her, but wasn’t.

“
Bonsoir
, monsieur. I’m Natalia Khlapina.”

“
Bonsoir
.” Hugo extended a hand and they shook. “Hugo Marston.”

She switched to English, her accent light. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Maybe in a little bit, for now I’m fine just—”

“People watching?”

“Yes.”

“Paris has always been good for that.” She eyed the people in the room, too, then looked up at him. “If you change your mind, let me know.”

She started to move off and Hugo suddenly thought he’d been rude. Or maybe he just wanted to talk. “You’re Russian?”

“From Saint Petersburg. Ever been there?”

“Once. I’d like to go back.”

She laughed gently. “As I tell people, it’s a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”