It was not that he did not comprehend the dangers inherent in Spain’s current instability, or France’s proposed intervention. The mere fact that Alexander Pavlovich was offering to send one hundred and fifty thousand troops to Piedmont to dampen the uprising of Jacobins meant that there was a very real potential for war. But on this winter afternoon, the squabbling between Metternich and Wellington and Chateaubriand seemed thankfully distant. Instead, he gazed down at the terraced garden shown to full advantage by the row of floor-to-ceiling windows, his mood as dark as the threatening clouds. At last sensing Dimitri’s tension, Huntley rose from the heavy walnut desk and crossed the white marble floor of the library. “How does your hunt go?” “Slowly.” Dimitri grimaced, reluctantly recalling the paltry entertainments he’d been forced to endure over the past days. Drunken boxing matches, seedy gambling halls, a dog fight and brothels that catered to any number of perversions.
