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de Rambuteau’s protection. But Hubert had sunk blissfully into an enormous wedge of beef and seemed quite oblivious to the conversation.
    Joseph caught the misdirected anecdote in midair and gracefully tossed it to the table at large. “Because toward the end of my stay she conceived an intense desire to learn to play the clavichord, having been quite profoundly moved by the work of a young virtuoso who’d performed for us one evening. In fact, she’d been so enamored of the gentleman’s, ah, fingering, that, quite unbeknownst to me, she’d entered into a passionate correspondence with him, and had finally convinced him to stay a few months with her, for an extended course of instruction.”
    It was true. Madame de Rambuteau liked variety. She would have tossed him out in a few weeks even if he’d had nowhere to go. Well, at least it made a story you could dine out on. A pity, he supposed, that he thought of eating with his family as “dining out.”
    The anecdote was a success, anyway. His father rewarded him with a high-pitched giggle, and even his pious, overbred mother allowed herself a bit of a guilty smile. As for his sister-in-law, she was virtually transported by his performance, laughing heartily enough to set her bosom heaving and—was it possible?—thrusting it even farther forward.
    “It will be delightful to share your wit and spirit with my guests tomorrow evening. And so we must all get plenty of rest tonight, to be fresh for the festivities…”
    He nodded absently. What was his father planning tonight, and how could he be stopped?
    But she hadn’t finished with what she was saying.
    “And so I ,at any rate, will be abed quite early, all safely tucked away between sheets perfumed with heliotrope. And I know my dear husband will be getting a much-needed rest as well.”
    Her instructions couldn’t have been clearer if she’d posted them on a cathedral door. Not tonight, Hubert. Tonight I’m hoping for a visit from somebody with a little wit and spirit. Poor woman, she seemed to think this was how such things were done.
    He might have blushed for her if he were given to blushing. His mother had rolled her eyes to heaven, and his father—impossible to tell what he was thinking, but his small blue eyes shone with keen malice. Hubert shrugged. Even the footman—rather a good-looking fellow, Joseph thought, and oddly familiar, as though he’d once seen him in a dream—seemed a trifle mortified.
    He supposed it was up to him to put an end to this. Feigning an ostentatious yawn behind a fluttering hand, he murmured, “I fear this morning’s coach ride was too much for me, Madame. A long sleep sounds exactly like the prescription I need. You’re a wise physician.”
    She bowed her head, her smile threatening at any moment to become a nasty scowl. Baptiste had told him that her servants called her the Gorgon.
    The silence at the table continued halfway through the strawberry tart, which was good enough, in any case, to claim everyone’s attention.
    And then there was a crash.
    A much louder crash than the one he’d averted this afternoon in the library, it seemed to carry with it a sense of inevitability, as though everybody had been waiting since then for some crash to happen. It sounded quite beautiful really, as expensive lead crystal does when it shatters. The Duc had chosen to drop an enormous faceted decanter full of old brandy. It wasn’t a decanter Joseph recognized—Amélie must have brought it with her.
    Bravo, Monsieur, got her there , Joseph thought. But he’d savor the moment—and the look on her face—later, at his leisure. Now it was time to act.
    For the Duc’s move, planned to get him away from the table early, had been slightly miscalculated. He’d dropped the decanter a bit closer to his leg than he’d intended, and Joseph could see that a few shards of glass had penetrated his calf, drawing a little blood through the stocking.
    “Monsieur!” He jumped to his feet.