Hearts Beguiled (28 page)

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Authors: Penelope Williamson

Tags: #v5.0 scan; HR; Avon Romance; France; French Revolution;

BOOK: Hearts Beguiled
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Mist, as thick as milk, dripped off the skeletal branches overhead. Gauzy like a shroud, the gray dawn light filtered through the trees. There was an empty feeling to the air. Even the squirrels and blackbirds seemed to have fled from the Bois de Boulogne that cold November morning.

His back to his opponent, Max marched off the fifteen paces, only half listening to the echoing voice of the man doing the counting. The pistol dangling from his fingers felt heavy; his boots sank deep into the wet earth, mulchy with fallen leaves. The dull throb behind his eyes was now a full-fledged headache. He had tried to sober up just enough so he wouldn't get himself killed. Now all he wanted was a glass of brandy and some sleep.

Suddenly he felt adrift, unable to remember why he was here, why he was dueling with this man over a woman he didn't love and wouldn't even want to see again after this day. This is pointless, he thought in the split second before he heard the call to fire.

He had always been able to move fast, and with an easy, athletic grace—even when not completely sober. He did so now, spinning around, raising the pistol, and pulling the trigger in one fluid motion.

The marquis de Tesse didn't have time to turn all the way around let alone raise his weapon and get off a shot. As a result Max miscalculated his aim, and instead of hitting the man in the shoulder, the ball pierced him high on the chest, knocking him off his feet. His white shirt turned instantly crimson.

Someone shouted and a pair of men brushed against Max, running toward the man lying still and bloody on the ground. Max stood where he was, unable to move.

The marquis's hand twitched once and was still. At last, Max started forward, but Percy got up from where he knelt beside the body and came limping back to stop him.

Anger mottled the American's face. "I hope you're satisfied, you damned fool. You'll go to prison for this."

A cold wind fluttered Max's shirt against his chest, and he shivered. "Is he dead, then?"

"Not yet. But the doctor says the ball's come perilously close to a lung, so he will be soon. Unless you're luckier than you deserve to be."

Lucky? Max fought off an urge to laugh. On its heels came a fierce, desperate need to be held and comforted. Simply that—to have someone put her arms around him and hold him tight. He hadn't felt that need since he'd been a small boy and listened with his ear pressed against the door to the creaking of the bed and the sound of his mother's moans. When had she stopped holding him? He thought it must have been the year he learned that her moans were not those of pain.

"You'd better leave Paris immediately," Percy said. "Go make peace with your father. Then when—if— Tesse dies, your father can intercede with the king on your behalf."

"Yes. All right," Max answered, not really listening.

Gabrielle, I need you, he thought with a yearning so physical he almost groaned out loud. Why, Gabrielle? Why did you leave me when you know I need you so much?

Chapter 16

M
ax drove the cabriolet at a fast, reckless speed. Too fast for the twisting, rutted road and the black night. A heavy snow was falling. It pelted against his face, so cold it burned. He was wrapped in a thick woolen greatcoat, but his hands and feet, in spite of his gloves and boots, had long ago grown numb. The coldness of the night matched what he felt. He was numb inside as well.

If he hadn't already been so close to his father's chateau, he would have stopped at some roadside inn. Only a madman would be out on such a night, he thought, and then laughed out loud. Hadn't she accused him of being mad often enough? Perhaps that was why she had left him. Perhaps she had feared he would go berserk and strangle her some night while she slept. Perhaps—

"What in fiend's name!" he exclaimed aloud.

As the cabriolet whipped around a sharp turn, a wraith rose out of the ground at the horse's head. The horse whinnied in fright, rearing up in its traces and sending the cabriolet skidding across the slick, muddy road. The carriage tilted precariously, and Max felt the right wheel skim along the edge of the deep ditch that lined the road. He hauled back on the reins, trying with brute force to turn the horse's head.

The wheel dug through the slush, biting into the firmer ground underneath, and the carriage righted. Max cursed and wrestled the horse to a standstill, then leaped to the ground and ran back to where he had seen, or thought he had seen, in a brief second and from the corner of his eye, a body lying in the ditch.

It was a body. It was curled into a tight ball and covered with a black cloak. Beside it, guarding it, was the wraith that had spooked his horse. The wraith seemed to be waiting for him, its form floating above the road, its face a blank white oval. It raised a beseeching hand, and Max, who was not normally a superstitious man, felt the hairs spring up on the back of his neck.

"Please, M'sieur," said the wraith, who was not a ghost after all but a small child wrapped in a ragged, pale coat two sizes too big for him. "You must do something. M-my ma-man won't wake up."

Max scrambled down into the ditch and knelt beside the body. He couldn't see much of her, but he could tell she was a woman. She had evidently been trying to claw her way out of the ditch, for one hand was stretched above her head, and her fingers had dug deep into the wet earth. She had been lying there for a long time, however, for at least two inches of snow covered the top of her thin, sodden cloak.

Max picked up the wrist of her outstretched hand. It felt as frail as a sparrow's wing, as cold and stiff as a block of ice.

Max looked up at the child. He was a very young boy, Max thought, although it was too dark and snowing too hard to see the child's face. "She w-wouldn't wake up," the boy said.

"I'm going to pick her up and carry her back to my carriage," Max explained, not wanting to alarm the child. He gathered the woman in his arms and climbed with her out of the ditch. She was as light as an ell of silk.

"She'll be all right," the boy said with false brightness as he trotted beside Max's legs. "After she wakes up. She's only a little sick."

She's dead, Max thought. The poor lad.

The cabriolet, a light, fast vehicle, was not designed to accommodate extra passengers. Max positioned the boy between his knees and propped the woman beside them on the seat.

He whipped the horse into a trot, going as fast as he dared with the heavier load. The woman was beyond help, but the boy wasn't. His frail body was racked with shivers, and Max saw he wore only rags on his feet. And it was snowing harder now; he couldn't see much of the road beyond the horse's ears.

Max had spent part of his adolescence at the Chateau de Morvan, his father's country estate, and he knew the way well. Although it was dark and the ground blanketed with snow, he found the turnoff easily. He pulled up before the great gilded iron gates.

"You there!" he shouted, and his breath billowed out around his face in white puffs. "Open up!"

He was about to climb out of the carriage to ring the bell when a man emerged from the front door of the gatekeper's lodge. He lifted a hooded lantern aloft, shining it on Max's face.

"Monsieur le Vicomte! We weren't expecting . . . You sent no word, otherwise I would have—"

"Quit dithering, you fool, and open the gates. I've a de—" He stumbled over the word as he felt the boy stiffen. "A sick woman here. And a freezing child."

The gate creaked open and Max drove through. As the cabriolet spun briskly down the winding drive, he heard the tocsin sounding his arrival.

The huge carved wooden doors of the chateau swung open as he pulled up, and a pair of servants formally dressed in silver and blue livery ran down the marble steps. Max handed the boy into their arms, but he himself carried the woman into the chateau's great hall.

It was so bright in the flambeaux-lit hall after the darkness of the snow-shrouded night that for a moment Max saw nothing but swirls of light and black spots dancing before his eyes. "One of you ride to Chaumard and fetch the doctor," he called over his shoulder as he started for the sweeping marble stairs.

"What are you going to do to my maman? Where are you taking her?" cried a small voice, and now Max felt something tug at the edge of his greatcoat.

Impatient, he paused to look down into a dirty, thin face streaked with dried tears. A lock of hair had fallen across the boy's forehead but, though it was grimy and limp, its golden color was unmistakable. As unmistakable as his vivid blue eyes.

Max felt his heart stop.

"Dominique?" he said. He didn't believe it, didn't want to believe it.

The boy stared back at him, and his blue eyes widened until they filled his face. "Papa!" His lips trembled into a smile. "You came! I told Maman you would come. She kept saying you were busy in Paris, but I knew you were really in heaven and that you would come when I prayed to you."

Max's arms tightened around the burden in his arms. And, slowly, for the first time, he looked down into the dead woman's face.

Gabrielle.

It was she—the same dark, flaring brows; the same wide, generous mouth; the same translucent, blue-veined skin. And her hair . . . it was still the bright color of flame, in spite of being wet and matted with dirt.

An emotion beyond defining ripped through him with such force he shut his eyes and leaned into the gilded banister. "Gabrielle ..."

He had been living for this. It had been his sole reason for living at all. This moment, when he would once again look into those lying purple eyes and have within his hands the power to make her pay for what she had done to him. The only woman he had ever loved. Gabrielle, his wife. Gabrielle, his betrayer. She had used him, lied to him, deceived him, and left him, and now she was here, in his arms, and she was beyond hurting, beyond revenge, beyond hate. And beyond love.

"Monseigneur ..."

Max looked up into the face of Guitton, his father's valet de chambre.

"The rose room is being prepared, monseigneur. Shall I take her there?"

"No ... no, I'll take her." He looked down at Dominique, who still clung to his coattail. A line had formed between the boy's light brows, and a dark shadow flickered in his eyes. He's guessed she's dead, Max thought, but he doesn't dare ask the question out loud. "See to the boy," he told the valet. "Take him to the kitchens and get something hot inside him. I've already sent for the doctor. But don't tell him-"

"I understand, monseigneur," the well-trained Guitton put in smoothly, and within seconds the hall was cleared and the vicomte de Saint-Just was left alone to carry his wife up the stairs.

There must not be an ounce of flesh left on her bones, Max thought. Her clothes were rags, barely enough to cover her, let alone keep her warm during the worst winter in centuries. Christ, how had she come to such a state? Why had she left him in the first place? Why, why, why?

He laid her gentry on the rose silk counterpane. The light from the candle on the bedstand highlighted her face. Illness and deprivation emphasized her boldly sculptured features. She was more beautiful than ever, still the most lovely thing he had ever seen.

He knelt beside the bed and brought her hand to his lips. Unexpectedly, hot tears stung his eyes, and he squeezed them shut, fighting them down. Life had taught him to smother his feelings, and he wasn't about to let himself cry over her. Even in death he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing how badly her leaving had hurt him. Time had not tempered the pain, or the hate. But looking into her dead face, he could at least admit that mixed with the hate were all the love and longing and need that had drawn him to her in the first place. Losing her again, this second time, seemed almost unbearable.

Leaning over, he started to press his mouth to her lips for a brief and final kiss when something broke inside him. He smothered his face in her neck, and his shoulders hunched over as a silent sob shuddered through him, and then another. And then they were no longer silent—but the harsh, tearing sobs of a man who never wept.

"Why, Gabrielle?" he cried. "Oh, my God, Gabrielle, Gabrielle ... I loved you!"

Loved her and believed in her. Believed in himself for the first time in his life. She had given him the world and then walked away, leaving the world shattered at his feet. And he would go through it all again, all the pain, the suffering, even go through this, for those few glorious hours they had shared together.

He brushed her cold, still lips with his. "I love you, Gabrielle," he said softly. Then he laid his head on her breast . . . and heard her heart beat.

He sprang up so fast he knocked over the bedstand, almost causing a fire. He stamped out the flames with his boot, then slowly backed up until he was standing flat against the far wall. He stared at her in stunned disbelief, his chest heaving, his breath sounding harsh in his ears.

Then he lunged for the bell rope.

The doctor pulled the thick woolen blanket over Gabrielle's chest, tucking it under her chin. "The humors have retired to the center of her body."

Max wiped the sweat that dripped down his face with his sleeve. A huge fire blazed in the hearth, and the room was stifling hot. "Humors? What the hell does that mean?"

The doctor glanced up at him. There was a supercilious smile on his face, and Max, who was feeling helpless and hating it, clenched his fists to keep from punching that smile out the back of the man's head.

"It means, monsieur, that she has a fever. She must be given an infusion of centaury and purged with a Seidlitz powder. Naturally, she must be bled."

"Bled! Christ, she hasn't blood to spare!"

"Monsieur le Vicomte, I trained for three years at Paris University. Are you presuming to tell me I don't know what I'm doing?"

Max's lids slid shut and a cold smile thinned his lips. "If she dies, I will bury you with her."

Disconcerted, the doctor stared at Max. Then, shrugging, he said, "You are distraught," and beckoned to the surgeon who stood waiting discreetly just inside the door. It would be the surgeon who would perform the vulgar labor of handling the lancet for bleeding.

The surgeon removed Gabrielle's arm from beneath the covers. It looked so thin and white, Max couldn't imagine how it was going to produce any blood. The surgeon placed a shallow brass bowl beneath the bend in her elbow and, taking a small, pointed knife, slit through skin and flesh and into the vein. Within seconds, blood welled out of the cut and began to drip into the bowl.

And Max—who had thought he had seen enough of life's horrors to inure him to anything—had to flee the room.

The valet Guitton found him pacing the hall a few minutes later. "Monseigneur, I've taken the liberty of having a light repast prepared. It awaits you in your antechamber."

Max pushed a trembling hand through his hair. "Thank you, Guitton, but I'd choke if I tried to eat anything. Where's my father? I would have thought all this commotion would have wakened him long ago."

"But, monseigneur, I thought you knew. The marechal has gone to Rambouillet for the month. To hunt with the king."

Max gave a sharp laugh. "The old bastard! I thought he was dying. What revived him? I bet it was a wench."

Guitton didn't even blink. But then it was impossible, Max had learned after fruitless years of trying, to shock or disconcert his father's valet.

"Monsieur le Comte was hearty enough when he left here last week, monseigneur," Guitton said. He hesitated, clearing his throat. "Monseigneur . . . ?"

Max stopped pacing and turned to stare at the valet's thin, sharp-featured, and politely blank face. Never before in his memory had Max seen the inimitable Guitton at a loss for words. "Yes?"

The valet took a deep breath. "The child ... he is asking after you. He seems to be under the sad misapprehension that you are his father."

For a long time Max said nothing. Then his lips twisted into one of his bitter, mocking smiles. "I'm the boy's stepfather. The woman lying in there bleeding into a cup is his mother. My wife."

He headed for the kitchens, leaving Guitton standing at the top of the stairs. If he had looked back, Max would have had the satisfaction of seeing a look of pure astonishment on the va-let's face.

"Sacre bleu!" Guitton exclaimed beneath his breath. "A wife! The comte will burst his spleen when he hears of this." Then he smiled as he thought of what the others belowstairs would say when he told them of the irrepressible Monsieur Max's latest escapade.

Max found Dominique sitting on a tall stool before the kitchen table. A chocolate mustache coated his upper lip and he clutched the half-empty cup tight between his hands. A plate wiped clean even of crumbs sat before him. A serving girl, looking sleepy-eyed and disheveled and annoyed at having been roused from her bed, hovered by the fire. Max dismissed her and pulled up a chair beside the boy.

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