Hearts Beguiled (27 page)

T
he grand ballroom in the palace of the duc d'Orleans sparkled with colored silks and satins and shimmered with gilt and brocaded velvets. Chandeliers, dripping with candles, dangled from the domed, frescoed ceiling. An orchestra played a minuet, but no one was dancing.

Across the crowded room a woman caught the attention of a pair of sooty gray eyes and tilted her chin toward a curtained alcove. Then she turned back to her companion, who just happened to be the comte d'Artois and brother to the king. She laughed at something he said and rapped him lightly on the cheek with her fan—but not too hard for it was, after all, a royal cheek. From time to time her eyes would stray back across the room.

The object of her attention leaned against a wall to wait, content for the moment just to watch her. In her silver gown garlanded with lame" roses and white feathers curling from her silver-blond hair, she shone like a diamond among paste jewels. Shone brighter, in fact, than the very real circlet of diamonds that graced her slender neck.

The comte d'Artois bowed and turned from the woman, and she started to make her way across the room, angling slowly toward the alcove. She had stopped looking at him by now, but the bright spots of color on her cheeks were not entirely due to her rouge. When he saw her pull the curtains aside and disappear, he followed.

He had expected only a bay of windows on the other side of the curtains, but instead he found a door. It opened easily beneath his hand.

A heavy floral perfume enveloped him, and then soft arms wrapped around his neck. Lips, cool and moist, fastened onto his.

"You swore you weren't coming," she said a moment later.

He pushed the sleeve of her gown down her arm to trail his fingers lightly across her collarbone, and only when he heard her moan did he move lower to caress her bared breast. "I changed my mind."

"My husband is here." The sentence ended with a gasp as he pulled on her tautened nipple.

"So?"

"He took me tonight, on the way here. In the carriage." She undid his breeches and stroked him with both hands, and he set his jaw to steady his breathing. "Are you jealous?" she asked, unable to hide the catch in her voice as he pressed his knee between her legs and began to rub her there, hard and fast.

"No," he said. "Perhaps next time he takes you I can watch."

"You are cruel."

"You like it cruel. What you need, Madame la Marquise, is a master."

Her laugh held both fear and excitement. "And do you, Monsieur le Vicomte, fancy yourself my master?"

For an answer he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her onto her knees before him. "Oh, Max," he heard her sigh as she took him in her mouth.

He shut his eyes, giving himself over to the pleasure that would, as always, be all too brief and leave him feeling empty.

❧

When the Vicomte Maximilien de Saint-Just emerged from the alcove later, the ballroom was less crowded, and the powder on the faces of those who were left was melting with the heat of the hall. The orchestra, which was now playing Mozart, was being drowned out by a cacophony of loud moans mixed with cheers and laughter drifting from a pair of double doors that opened onto a smaller room. The faro bank had been reopened.

"Back the pharoah and the king of hearts!" he heard someone shout. He had started toward the card game when he felt a hand on his arm and looked down into the boyish face of Percival Bonville. For once it wasn't smiling.

"I didn't expect to see you here tonight," Percy said.

Max sighed. "Why do people insist on believing everything I say?" He felt a dull pain begin to throb behind his eyes. It meant he was getting sober again, and he plucked a glass of champagne off the tray of a passing servant to avert such a catastrophe. "Excuse me, Percy, but I believe I hear a king of hearts calling my name."

The young American continued to hold his arm, and though Max gave him a baleful look he didn't release his grip. "Why aren't you on your way to the Chateau de Morvan?" Percy said. "I thought your father had taken ill and was asking for you."

"What have you been doing, mon ami? Steaming open my correspondence?''

Percy didn't smile. "That's more your line of work. If your father's dying—"

"To hell with the son of a bitch," Max said with a crudity that matched his mood. His eyes went to the double doors from which came another burst of groans and laughter. "I'd rather play at faro than the prodigal son."

"Really? I should think you'd want to make sure of your inheritance. How much have you lost already tonight?"

"It so happens I've won thirty thousand livres. You know I never lose at anything." Max gave a sharp, bitter laugh. "Except, of course, for that one memorable and soon to be forgotten occasion." His eyes went to a woman whose silver gown matched her hair. She was speaking to a plump matron in puce silk, but she watched Max from behind her fan. He smiled at her and lifted his empty champagne glass in a mocking toast. "I'm working hard at forgetting it."

"Forgetting her, you mean," Percy said, and he wasn't looking at the woman in silver.

Still smiling, Max returned his attention to the American, although he failed to hide the pain that flared for a brief moment in his eyes. "Yes, her. Gabrielle. My wife."

But you don't forget a woman like Gabrielle, my poor friend. You go on loving her until it kills you, Percy thought, wishing he dared to say it aloud.

Percy turned to look at Max's new mistress, and his chocolate-brown eyes darkened with scorn. "Thirty thousand should just about pay for the likes of that high-class grande coquette."

Max laughed again. "She's married to the marquis de Tesse. He pays for her."

"And he'll kill you when he finds out you're bedding his wife."

"If he can. If he knows. And if he cares."

"He knows and he cares and he's in the billiard room," Percy said, then cursed himself when he realized too late his mistake.

Max headed unerringly for the billiard room and trouble, with Percy following, leaning on his cane and wondering if he could knock his friend down or get him passing-out drunk before any one of the million and one disasters that could happen happened.

But later, as he watched Max send one of the ivory balls at a comer pocket and miss, Percy began to think he had been wrong to worry. If Max lost this game, he would have to pay his opponent, the husband of his blond-haired mistress, an incredible fifty thousand livres. The wager had been all Max's idea and Percy hoped he would lose. Then perhaps the marquis de Tesse' would feel that his honor had been satisfied without resorting to pistols or swords.

"Alas, you fail again, monsieur," the marquis de Tesse' was saying, his black eyes flashing with taunting laughter as he picked up his cue stick to take his turn. "I hope you don't make love with the same lack of skill you exhibit at billiards."

Max said nothing, but his mouth stretched into a cold, lazy smile and his heavy lids drooped over his eyes until they were half shut. Percy, who knew just what that look portended, swallowed a sigh. Perhaps honor wouldn't be satisfied so easily after all.

Of course the real cause of all this, Percy knew, was not that silver-haired marquise in the ballroom. The real cause was a woman named Gabrielle, who had been more beautiful than the marquise ever hoped to be, and who had been loving and laughing and giving. Who had, damn her to hell, done more than break his friend's heart. She had broken his soul.

Percy had thought Gabrielle would be Max's salvation, and he couldn't understand what could have happened to drive her away. One night, shortly after she had first left him, Max had gotten drunk enough to try to explain. "I tried to warn her about me, but she wouldn't listen," Max had said, the words so slurred Percy could barely hear them. "I guess when she discovered the truth, she couldn't stomach it."

None of it had made any sense to Percy.

Nor did any of Max's actions in the subsequent months. For over a year, Max, who had been one of the worst rakes in Paris, avoided women the way the devil would cringe and cower at the sight of a crucifix. Then just when Percy had adjusted to this strange, morose celibacy on the part of his friend, Max resumed his old carousing ways by entering into a blatant and torrid affair with the wife of the marquis de Tesse, a man known for his hot temper and his love of dueling . . .

Maximilien de Saint-Just, Percy thought with a sigh, no longer played at dangerous games; he embraced them.

As the billiard game dragged on, the animosity between the two men became a tangible thing in the air, like mist. Word of the contest began to spread, and a crowd gathered in the room. Everyone knew that the Vicomte Maximilien de Saint-Just, bastard son of the famous marichal and now his acknowledged heir, was bedding the marquis de Tessa's wife. Now the two men had brought their rivalry to a game of billiards. It was just the sort of scandal and reckless wager the raffish, dissipated aristocrats of the Palais Royal set loved. A set where it was bon ton to take lovers and gamble away a fortune. And where duels, although outlawed, were fought with the smallest provocation.

To the delight of the crowd, the two opponents began to exchange thinly veiled insults faster than they could trade shots.

When the marquis de Tesse made a particularly difficult carom, the crowd sighed in admiration, and Tesse smiled triumphantly at Max. "I do hope you can afford this little exercise in humility, mon petit salaud. "

Percy winced at the insult, but Max didn't even blink. He was probably used to being called a bastard, Percy thought. Then he heard Max say, "How odd that your wife isn't here to watch your triumph . . . but then perhaps she doesn't care," and Percy bit back a groan.

The marquis, whose hands were braced on the green woolen cloth of the table as he bent to study his next shot, slowly straightened. Two white ridges of anger bracketed his mouth. "At least my wife is with me tonight," he said. "Where is yours?"

All the blood drained from Max's face, and the knuckles of the hand that gripped his cue stick whitened. "I'm not married."

"Aren't you? I heard you were. To some little shopgirl, wasn't it, who shared your bed less than a week and then fled from you in horror—"

Max lashed the cue stick—a thin, flexible shaft with an ivory tip—through the air and struck Tessa's cheek. Tesse" screamed and reeled backward, his hand flying to his face. Blood spurted between his fingers.

Percy grabbed Max's arm and wrenched the stick from his hand, but there was really no need. The damage had already been done.

"Name your weapons," the marquis said in a pain-clipped voice as blood leaked from the hand that cupped his face to drop onto the floor in bright red splashes.

"Pistols."

"Max, for God's sake—" Percy began.

"Tomorrow at dawn," Max said. "In the Bois de Boulogne."

"Agreed."

The marquis de Tesse allowed someone to lead him from the room. There was no sign of the marquis's silver-haired wife. Soon the crowd dispersed until only Max and Percy were left standing side by side next to the billiard table.

Percy stared at the hard face of his friend, feeling anger and a terrible sadness. "If he kills you, it will serve you right. You marked him for life."

Max said nothing. He went instead to a sideboard, where brandy and glasses were set out, and poured himself a drink. Max had started to raise the glass to his lips when Percy knocked it from his hand with his cane. Seizing his arms in a grip that would leave bruises, Percy turned Max to face a huge, gilt-framed mirror that hung on the wall.

"Look at yourself!" He gave Max a rough shake. They both stared at the reflection of the dark, patrician face that was still handsome in spite of the puffy flesh around the bloodshot eyes and the slack, drunken mouth. "What are you trying to do? Prove to the world that Gabrielle was right to leave you?"

Max jerked out of Percy's hands so violently that Percy stumbled backward. His cane clattered to the floor, and he had to grasp a chair to keep from falling. Although Percy was half a head shorter, he stood up to Max, toe to toe.

"What are you going to do now, Saint-Just? Cut my face, too? Pity I don't have a wife you can bed."

Max was breathing heavily and the muscles in his neck and jaw were drawn taut. "I want you to keep your nose out of my life."

"Well, I won't." He flung his arm toward the ballroom. "That particular tart isn't worth killing for, and she certainly isn't worth dying for. She might have a title and dress in satin and jewels, but she's still a whore."

"And I took her like a whore."

"So what does that make you?"

Max's lips curled into a tight smile. "A man who sleeps with whores."

Percy sucked in a sharp breath. "You are a bastard."

"I know. Will you be my second?"

"No. Yes. Damn you."

The old to-hell-with-it-all smile flashed across Max's face. "Quit worrying. If I was going to kill myself, I'd have done it by now. Tessa's a master with a sword, but he can't crease the back end of a cow with a pistol. Whereas I, as you know, can shoot the pip out of a card at fifty paces. And I wouldn't have hit the fool so hard if he hadn't made me lose my temper."

Percy smiled back shakily. "Christ . . . what in hell are you talking about?"

Max laughed. "I hit him first so he would challenge me, which made the choice of weapon mine. I won't kill him. I'll only wing him so that everyone's honor will be satisfied. I'll even give him his wife back. Now are you happy?"

"No," Percy said.