Crown Jewel Read online

  "Well, this disreputable citizen of the royal city approves of our flame-haired demon princess, for however little that is worth," Celeste said, then smirked and added, "I will miss his Highness' patronage."

  Lazzaro laughed. "I would imagine so; his Highness believes in generosity."

  Celeste tilted his head inquisitively. "You are not troubled that his Highness has paid for my services?"

  "Why would I be?" Lazzaro asked, genuinely surprised.

  In reply, Celeste shook his head. "Men are always troubled, but you are not here for my charms, your grace. I have little else to offer, though."

  Lazzaro sincerely doubted that. "Information."

  Celeste's face shuttered, all of the playfulness snuffed like a candle. If Lazzaro had not been watching so closely, he would have missed the flicker of disappointment. Why would Celeste be disappointed? He tucked the puzzle away to sort out later as Celeste spoke. "There is precious little I am not willing to sell, your grace, but information is precious indeed and I do not sell it. Many a person has offered me kingdoms in exchange for the secrets they think I possess. You will notice I do not reside in a castle."

  "Offering you a castle is as foolish as offering to buy out your contract. I may as well offer a city to a farmer. A castle would not suit your purposes."

  Celeste smiled faintly. "Just so. I do not sell information, your grace, not to anyone. My greatest asset is my discretion. All my looks and talents are not worth half as much as my ability to keep my mouth shut when necessary. I do not bend that rule; truly am I sorry."

  He was, Lazzaro realized. He would not be swayed and he was sorry for it. His respect for Celeste grew significantly. He knew so-called honorable men who did not have a smidgen of the integrity that Celeste had just displayed. "I confess my disappointment, jewel, but I respect your stance. For what little it is worth, I am seeking a murderer. I know he is too clever and too smart. Probably good looking, but not of extraordinary looks. He is wealthy, likely privileged, yet no one can recall his face or any real details about him. No one can recall much of anything; even the facts I possess are deduction and supposition. He must have been seen by many, yet not a single person recalls him."

  Celeste frowned. "A murderer? Certainly I have serviced many an unpleasant element; I will not deny men come to me with blood on their hands but little upon their consciences. I can say honestly none of those men match what little you have provided."

  Lazzaro fought despair. Would he never catch the bastard?

  "If I may ask, who has he killed?"

  At first, Lazzaro hesitated—but he would not have come here if he had not been willing to divulge his information, and he firmly believed Celeste kept his silences. Finally he said, "Four people over the last year. Lady Accardi, Lord Croce, Lord Lecce, and Lady Salvai."

  "Lady Salvai," Celeste repeated. "Your mother was said to have dead of apoplexy. I am sorry; she was in all ways a beautiful woman, from what I heard."

  "Yes," Lazzaro replied. "Thank you. She was poisoned, as were the other three. Political motives, mostly, we believe. My mother was probably killed because she had so strong an influence on my father and it was known she was vehemently against certain bills." Namely those to do with the taxes that would hurt the Entertainment Quarter where she had grown up; his mother had never shied away from admitting the flaws of the Entertainment Quarter, and many there had called her disloyal because of it. "They were killed weeks and months apart, and each from a different 'health problem'. I have been hunting the killer for the past year. His Highness said if anyone could tell me something new it would be a jewel, and that there was no better resource than the Crown Jewel."

  "He would have the money, too, but it's peculiar for men like that to want to part with it. Men who can spend large sums of money on someone like me, but are not nobility, tend to be noticed," Celeste mused. "Being noticed is not something he can afford. Have you considered that your killer is a jewel or a cut flower?"

  "Impossible," Lazzaro said. 'Cut flower' was what his mother had been—a member of the 'half world' of people who flitted on the edge of being proper nobility. They were wealthy, popular, but never truly a part of the elite. They were cut flowers, prettily arranged, rather than properly part of the noble garden. "The men and women killed were murdered in private sections of the palace, where such persons are not permitted to go."

  "The 'Secret Palace', yes," Celeste said. "Only the royal family and a short list of nobles, guests, and servants are permitted. Certainly no half-world or pleasure-world persons are admitted." He tilted his head back, hair spilling over his shoulders and falling over part of his face. The smirk that curved his lips made Lazzaro want to bite them, drag his tongue across them, kiss them until he left them bruised and throbbing. "Only last week, a man paid triple my usual price so that I would visit him in a particular place. I arrived at the appointed time, was escorted as I was told I would be, and spent three hours in a lovely room. The walls were covered in lavender and cream paper; the furniture was all rich brown and a darker lavender, with accents matching the walls, golden woods, a beautiful brass candelabra, and crystal lights dripping from the ceiling. The brown fur rug before the fireplace is very soft against bare skin." He propped one arm on the sofa armrest, resting his head in hand and letting his robes gape slightly open—

  And Lazzaro could all too easily imagine why someone would pay triple the price to fuck Celeste on the floor of the Lavender Room, in the heart of the Secret Palace. He did not bother to contemplate which of the six people who had access to that room had broken such an important rule; he could narrow it to three in a moment and would put the fear of the gods into all of them later. "You have made your point," he said dryly.

  "Look for a jewel or a cut flower; that is the best advice I can offer, your grace," Celeste said.

  "Thank you for the information," Lazzaro replied. "Especially as you revealed something you probably should not have."

  Celeste smiled. "I have not revealed nearly as much as you think, your grace."

  Lazzaro shook his head. "Does an honest, open, uncalculated word ever fall from that pretty mouth of yours?"

  "I would not be very good at my job if I let that happen," Celeste replied. "But tell me true, your grace—how many truly honest men do you know?"

  "None," Lazzaro conceded with a nod. "I thank you again for your assistance, Celeste."

  Celeste laughed and rose, tossing his hair over his shoulder with a smooth, practiced movement. "Conversation is easy enough, your grace." He stopped just short of touching Lazzaro as he pushed away from the table and rose to his full height. "I can say honestly that it has been a very long time since the only thing anyone wanted from my mouth was words."

  Lazzaro smiled faintly. He lifted his right hand, and lightly traced Celeste's mouth with the knuckle of his forefinger. "I can admit honestly that I understand the temptation for more. Beautiful evening to you, jewel, and a warm rest." He left coins on the table and slipped from the room, retracing his steps out of the House of Peace and back into the night.

  Only when he was well away from the Jewel District was he able to breathe properly again. The scent and taste of cinnamon chased him until morning.

  *~*~*

  Celeste stared at the money on the table, truly surprised. Three sovereigns; that was roughly a third of what he would charge for one night, a veritable fortune in the eyes of most. Even the most shameless courtesan would not charge more than one sovereign for conversation. He was the most infamous courtesan in the quarter and he would not dare charge that simply for talking.

  Everyone knew—or at least knew of—Lord Lazzaro Salvai, the first Duke of Nascimbeni. He was not loose with his money; in a city of decadence and free-flowing gold, it was a noteworthy trait. He would not have given three sovereigns if he had not thought Celeste deserved them. Of course, there was always the far more likely possibility that the good Duke was simply trying to soften him up with gold so he would be more amenable
to giving information the next time he came around—and he would return. They always did. The cynical part of Celeste's mind would not overrule the rest of him as usual, however; he believed the money had been given sincerely.

  Celeste knew he was beautiful, knew how to tempt even the most prudish of men. More importantly, he knew how to resist temptation himself. The Duke of Nascimbeni was hardly the first to seek him out explicitly for information. Celeste did not doubt that had he surrendered it, the Duke would have been extremely generous. He was the first man to walk away without taking something else while he was there; Celeste had never been refused before and he was not certain what to make of it. He smiled ruefully and pocketed two of the sovereigns. It would not do for Pio to know what the Duke had really paid him.

  Reaching up, Celeste touched his lips with the knuckle of his forefinger, remembering the way the Duke had caressed them. All of the hard fucks he had taken over the years did not feel half as intimate as that caress. It really only made the whole encounter stranger. He had seen the way the Duke had looked at him—yet he had walked away.

  No matter how he tried, Celeste could not dismiss that he had been resisted. Men succumbed to him; that was his job, and bedding the Duke would not have even been a chore. He had no cause to complain about his current set of customers, and liked that he had managed to arrange one whole night to himself, he would not have minded adding the Duke to his client list.

  Chuckling softly, rather taken by the unexpected challenge, Celeste picked up the remaining sovereign. He played with it idly, in no hurry to return downstairs, moving it back and forth between his fingers, making it dance across his knuckles before twisting his wrist sharply and catching it neatly in his palm.

  Like most residents of the Entertainment Quarter, Celeste's earliest memories were of life on the street. His mother had been a 'paste jewel'—a cheap prostitute who never managed to climb the ranks to be a true courtesan. She had died from disease when Celeste was—well, best estimate was eight, give or take a year. He had been of an age to remember her well, but simply did not; she had never factored greatly into his life.

  Celeste had begun as a thief, it seeming the most exciting option as a child uninterested in sharing his mother's dreary fate. In only a couple of years he had made of himself a more than fair pickpocket, and after four years he was head of his own little gang. He had met Viola shortly thereafter, a woman for whom the word 'beautiful' simply did not suffice. She was breathtaking, elegant, refined, wealthy, adored—and a jewel. It was the first time he had really had something other than his mother and other women like her to put to that word, the first time he ever heard the term 'crown jewel'. After that, life on the streets as a pickpocket, a life of crime, just did not compare. He wanted the luxury, the comfort, for people to come to him instead of always running away from him.

  As he had gotten older, Celeste had also appreciated the safety of being a jewel. Although no one in the Entertainment Quarter had an easy life, the jewels had a relatively safe one compared to many—once they reached a certain level, at least. At roughly thirty years of age, Celeste lived the best life a courtesan could ever hope and expect to attain; he had worked hard for it and for the most part he enjoyed it. He never regretted giving up the life of a thief, but he never forgot it either. Still his fingers remembered how to slip coin from the pocket of an unsuspecting passerby. He could smoothly cut purse strings or stroke a man off so well he gleefully handed over that same purse. Whatever the profession, it was all in the hands.

  Celeste flipped the coin neatly in the air and caught it with his other hand, then laid it back on the table. Turning away, he strode back to the settee to steal a few more pages of his book—only to hear a sudden commotion in the hallway: shouting, swearing, the unmistakable sound of flesh violently striking flesh. Sighing, for it could only be one of two things, he turned, walked to the door, and pulled it open, loosening his robe as he went because there was little as distracting as bare flesh.

  In the hallway, several of the men and women of the house were gathered around two figures, all of them in various states of dress. The two figures in the middle of the mess were Pio, the Master of the House, and Tula—young for her level of expertise, but for very good reasons. Currently, she had a livid red handprint on one cheek and was poised to strike out herself as Pio tensed to lunge for her again.

  Celeste pushed through the ring of people and caught Pio's wrist as he lifted his arm to strike. "Pio, why do you persist in wasting your time on the girls? Girls are too delicate for you." Never mind that Tula's specialty was anything but delicate.

  Pio whipped around and anger flooded Celeste—his eyes were dilated, hazy-looking; clearly he had indulged—overindulged—in dream smoke. Damn it, he had told those bastards to stop selling to Pio. He had made special arrangements for them to ensure it.

  Burying his anger, Celeste released Pio's wrist and instead smoothed his hand along Pio's shoulders, letting his robe fall a bit from his own. He slowly slid his hand up behind Pio's neck, drawing them closer together and distracting Pio entirely from the slowly emptying hallway. No man, no matter how jaded, drugged, or angry, could resist being the focus of amorous intent—especially when that focus came from the Crown Jewel. "Come now, Pio. Do not hit the girls. You may as well expect children to satisfy you." He slid his other hand down Pio's chest, nails raking lightly, before slowly undoing the lacings of Pio's hose and pulling out his half-hard cock.

  Sliding to his knees, Celeste made short work of guaranteeing Pio would be too sated and tired to try messing with anyone else the rest of the night. Pio came in his mouth with a whiny groan, and Celeste pulled away once he had finished, catching Pio so he did not fall on his face as drugs and release overwhelmed him. Only a moment later, Pio passed out completely, his clothes rumpled and skewed, stinking of booze and dream smoke, his limp cock hanging out, still wet from Celeste's mouth. Tula handed him a handkerchief.

  "Thank you, Celeste. He came out of nowhere, caught me by surprise. I was only trying to get him into my room, that was all. I would have made certain the bastard passed out, then, one way or another." She blew out an irritated breath. "I know it's disrespectful and all, but honestly Celeste—the man is a menace. One day he's really going to hurt one of us, and then what will happen? What happens when a customer sees, or worse, he goes after a customer?"

  Celeste acknowledged her words with a nod, wiping his mouth and face with the kerchief. He directed the two house guards who had finally appeared to cart Pio away. "Lock him in his room and make certain the door is unlocked around dawn. Tula, make certain everyone is where they should be and that no customers were disturbed." He did not bother to say they had better hope all was well, because the amount of money Pio had spent on dream smoke, alcohol, and gambling had probably taken most of the night's profits.

  Stifling a sigh, Celeste returned to his room and discarded his silk robe. Opening his wardrobe, he pulled on breeches, stockings, a linen shirt, and a plain black waistcoat and jacket. Then he pulled on and laced up sturdy boots, sliding a thin dagger into each of them. He slipped a few more daggers into other bits of clothing, totaling seven in all. After the daggers, he slid a small thin case into a hidden pocket inside his jacket. Poison was an old trick in the entertainment business; perhaps he should have mentioned that to the good Duke.

  Lastly, he tucked away a small purse, then braided his hair and twisted it up and out of his way, securing it with a plain comb. Ready at last, Celeste slipped out of his room again and headed down the hall to the back stairs. At the bottom, he turned down another hallway and ended at a door that led to the back alley. Only he and Pio had keys to the door. Once outside, it took him only moments to find the pair he sought. "Beautiful evening," he murmured, smile razor sharp.

  The men blanched, but were smart enough not to bolt. "B-Beautiful evening, Celeste."

  Celeste drew closer. "I told you to stop selling to him. I ensure it is worth your time not to sell to him.
Do you want me to put an end to the arrangement?"

  "Weren't us," the taller of the two men sputtered. "We don't sell to him, we wouldn't. Tula—anyway, he left us; don't know where he went. We can't stop the entire group selling, Celeste, you have to know that."

  Ignoring the whining, Celeste asked, "Who can stop it?"

  "Boss, maybe," the shorter man mumbled. "But ain't everyone going to refuse that kind of money even if the boss says to. And that's money lost, so the boss ain't likely—"

  "Where is he?" Celeste interrupted.

  "Why do you care so much what Pio does?' the taller man whined.

  Celeste shook his head. "I don't give a damn about Pio, only what he does to the other jewels. We lose money when Pio does this, and we'll lose a lot more if the jewels decide to work elsewhere. No one likes to be roughed up, not even jewels." He smirked and added, "Unless, of course, we're being handsomely paid to be roughed up."

  The men chuckled at that, already distracted by the lovely thoughts of what they would be doing to Tula later. Celeste left them to their lustful daydreaming for the moment, his own mind preoccupied with Pio and keeping him away from dream weed for the next seven months. That was all he needed, and then he would have enough coin and leverage to buy the House of Peace from Pio. Then he would have all he wanted.

  The Duke's face flickered through his mind then, startling him. Dismissing it, he turned his full attention back to the job at hand. "I will not ask again—where do I find Marco at this hour?"

  Scratching his chin, the taller man replied, "This time of night, he's always in the Theatre District, usually the Primrose Teahouse."

  Celeste slapped his cheek playfully, putting only a little bit of sting into it. "Good boy. You should perhaps be more diligent about seeing he does not get the dream weed. The way he slapped Tula tonight, next time she may not be able to service you. Ta, gentlemen." Slipping away, he cut quickly through the Pleasure District and soon slipped past the twin mermaid statues that marked the beginning of the Theatre District.