Table Of ContentTable of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Historical Note
Acknowledgements
About the Author
ALSO BY LAUREN WILLIG
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
The Masque of the Black Tulip
The Deception of the Emerald Ring
The Seduction of the Crimson Rose
The Temptation of the Night Jasmine
The Betrayal of the Blood Lily
The Mischief of the Mistletoe
DUTTON
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Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First printing, January 2011
Copyright © 2011 by Lauren Willig All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Willig, Lauren.
The orchid affair / Lauren Willig.
p. cm.—(Pink carnation series 8) eISBN : 978-1-10149545-2
1. Women spies—Fiction. 2. Governesses—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3623.I575O73 2011
813’.6—dc22 2010040588
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To my brother,
Spencer,
who wanted to be a privateer
but instead became a lawyer
Prologue
Paris, 2004
“That was a short flight,” I said, peering out the window as the wheels of our
plane touched tarmac at Charles de Gaulle. It was amazing how short a flight
could be when one was in no particular hurry to arrive at one’s destination.
“We can go back and do it again,” Colin suggested. “Just to drag it out a bit.”
I tilted my head so that my cheek briefly touched his shoulder. At least, that’s
what I’d intended to do. Instead I head-butted the side of his seat.
It’s the thought that counts. “I knew we should have taken the Chunnel.”
“Next time,” he said, although both of us knew that there wasn’t going to be a
next time. At least, not for this particular trip. It was purely a one-off, and one on
which neither of us had particularly wanted to go.
It sounds insane, doesn’t it? Anyone would think I should have been delighted
at the prospect of a long weekend in Paris with my still new-enough-to-be-
exciting boyfriend. We could stroll the Champs-Élysées, drink coffee in little
cafés, smooch on the platform of the Eiffel Tower. Paris is for lovers. Everyone
knows that.
Everyone had clearly never been summoned to Paris for a boyfriend’s
mother’s birthday.
Some people had birthday parties. Colin’s mother was having a birthday
weekend. We’re not talking your short, arrive-on-Saturday-morning, home-by-
Sunday-evening type weekend either. The festivities kicked off Friday evening
and carried on straight through Sunday night. Three whole days with Colin’s
charmingly dysfunctional family was not my idea of a romantic weekend. It was,
however, my idea of an Agatha Christie novel. I kept checking over my shoulder
for Hercule Poirot. I could just see him twirling his mustache, saying, “Ah,
’Astings, such a tragedy about zee leetle American girl. A pity she ’ad to be the
first to die.”
Meeting the parents is nerve-wracking even under normal circumstances.
Colin’s family could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be called normal.
I couldn’t really complain, given that I would never have met Colin if his
ancestors had been, well, sane. As a fifth-year graduate student in pursuit of
