The Sometime Bride (42 page)

The swings were two large boats shaped like half-moons. Each was suspended from heavy beams constructed in similar fashion to the tent supports. There was a bench wide enough for two on each side of the swings. Cat found herself seated beside Wrexham and across from Anthony and Amabel. Gordon and Adelaide Hawley shared the second swing with a young couple who had been waiting for two more to balance their ride.

As the stalwart operators began to push the swings, Adelaide Hawley let out a tiny shriek, then blushed crimson, glancing at Catherine in apology. Cat, however, clung unashamedly to Wrexham’s arm as the swing rose higher and higher. Her eyes shone as she looked out over the crowds thronging the nearby tents; her grip tightened on the earl’s arm. With a smile of satisfaction Wrexham steadied Cat with one hand while extending his other until he was holding her firmly about the shoulders. When he looked up, it was straight into a glare from Anthony Trowbridge’s outraged eyes. Ah, but
there
was a puzzle. The earl began to suspect his relationship with Catherine Perez might be as insubstantial as the ice beneath the swing.

“
That was wonderful!” Amabel declared when the swing finally slowed to a stop and they were all back on the snow-covered ice.

“
Exhilarating!” Catherine agreed.

Gordon grinned down at his companion. “I am not at all sure Miss Hawley agrees with you.”

“
Oh, no,” Adelaide demurred, “but I think perhaps I did not find it as exhilarating as Amabel and Mrs. Perez did.”

Wrexham was still smiling. If it were not for his exalted rank, one might have called his expression smug. Anthony Trowbridge remained grim about the mouth.

They indulged in gingerbread and brandy balls, washed down with ginger beer for the ladies and something stronger for the gentlemen. The skies were growing darker, their toes beginning to feel little warmer than the ice they walked on. Just as they were considering bringing their day to a close, Cat spotted a printing press and darted off to view the freshly made prints. Anthony followed her, while the others were still finishing their refreshments. “Look at this,” said Cat with great enthusiasm as he joined her. “A sketch of the fair with the city in the background. With such detail! And there is St. Paul’s towering over it all. Is it not wonderful that someone could do this practically overnight?” As she spoke, she reached into her reticule to take out some coins.

“
You can see it was done early on,” Anthony noted. “There are only a few tents here and there, not the whole city on ice we have now.”

He waved Cat’s coins aside. As he reached into his pocket, they heard, “I believe this is my privilege.” Lord Wrexham, shoulders set in a stiff line, moved up beside them to pay the vendor. Anthony, overcoming a strong urge to see Wrexham stretched full length upon the ice, bought two more prints to present to the other ladies. Cat, trapped between two strong-willed men, could feel the tension crackling through the icy air.

She stepped away from the bristling gentlemen and was returning her coins to her reticule when she felt a sudden tug as it was snatched from her fingers. A street urchin of some ten or twelve years streaked off down Freezeland Street, attempting to lose himself in the crowd. Without conscious thought Cat started to give chase. Her leather boots slipped on the ice and she sat down hard, her cry of alarm filled with more anger than fear. With all she had been through in the war, no one had ever before tried to rob her. Long years of reacting to emergencies had Anthony off and running twenty feet ahead of the Earl of Wrexham. Gordon, coming late to the scene, realized he could be most useful as escort to the ladies. After helping Cat to her feet, he turned to soothe the nerves of the other ladies who seemed more upset than the victim. “That’s the girl, Cat,” Gordon said softly. “Always was a Trojan.” Al–Anthony will get him. Boy doesn’t stand a chance.”

Lord Anthony was not as fortunate on the ice of London as he had been in the mountains of Spain. The urchin darted around the back of a particularly large tent. As Anthony dashed after him, the heel of his right boot caught on the edge of the wooden platform. With his left foot still on the slippery ice there was only one chance of breaking his fall. He grabbed for the canvas of the tent and missed. He came down hard, slid nearly fifteen feet, demolishing a game of skittles on his way. His slide halted abruptly when he hit the hard edge of another wooden platform. He was still lying on his side trying to catch his breath when Wrexham caught up with him.

“
Damned imp of Satan,” muttered Anthony, much chagrined, as Wrexham helped him sit up. “Got clean away.”

“
Are you hurt?”

“
Only my pride, I think.” But when Wrexham attempted to help him stand, Anthony collapsed back onto the ice with a groan just as Cat hurtled through the crowd to his side. “Ankle,” Anthony admitted through clenched teeth. “Don’t think it’s broken but it hurts like hell. So here’s a pretty pass, my Cat,” he said with rueful grin. “Survived five years of war to be struck down by a child in the center of the Thames.”

“
You must have the boot off,” said Wrexham, momentarily ignoring the revealing byplay, “or lose it to the knife as your ankle swells.” He started to kneel by Anthony’s injured foot only to find that Catherine was already there. Fascinated, the earl watched as she deftly removed the boot, leaving little doubt she had had a good deal of experience with men’s boots. Trowbridge’s? Wrexham wondered.

Anthony had gone pale during this painful process, but by the time Cat finished removing his stocking in order to take a look at his ankle, he managed a lopsided grin. “Well, Doctor Cat, is it becoming an ankle of many colors? Cat? What’s wrong? You’re the least squeamish girl I know.”

Wrexham gave Catherine a sharp glance but could see no sign of faintness. She had, however, gone quite still as she gazed down at Lord Anthony’s injury. The earl knelt beside her. “Catherine, Mrs. Perez, are you all right?”

“
Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she asserted, returning with a start to the world of the Frost Fair. “Forgive me, I was merely remembering an incident long ago.”

Lord Wrexham, deciding it was time to assume the responsibility expected from a man of his years and rank, took charge of the rescue operations. He sent for his coach and arranged for Lord Anthony to be transported to it. As they returned to their respective homes. the Earl of Wrexham was not the only person who found the day full of food for thought. Amabel Lovell was uncharacteristically quiet. Catarina Perez de Leon was the most quiet of all.

Chapter Twenty-two

Catherine Audley Perez de Leon sailed through the front door of Everingham House. Ignoring Rankin’s white-gloved hands stretched out to take her cloak, as well as his announcement that Clara and Blanca were entertaining callers, she ascended the stairs. Her damp cloak swirled about her ankles as her steps grew faster. Bypassing the murmur of voices, the chink of teacups in the drawing room, she entered her bedchamber, turned the key in the lock, dropped her fur-lined cloak onto the floor, tossed her bonnet onto the dresser. She sank down, knees shaking, on the edge of the bed.

Numb to her very soul, Cat sat without moving. Without seeing. Without hearing. The world, as she knew it, was gone. Had never existed. She had no idea how much time passed before her mind began to function, gradually coming to grips with the enormity of her problem.

She made an effort, fleeting and ineffectual, to apply logic. The pain should not be so bad, she told herself. Nor the surprise so great. Her head had long known what her heart would not accept. But now, for the first time, there was proof her worst nightmare imaginings were true.

Alejo had come home from the war. Blas had not.

Alejo had been at war for five years, he said so himself. For Blas, who left home in the spring of 1807, the war had lasted closer to seven. And Blas did not have five perfectly formed, undamaged pink toes. Not since he had come limping home from the hell of La Coruña. Had she herself not bathed his frostbitten feet that awful night so long ago?

When had she begun to suspect there were two of them? When Blas did not recognize the gown Alejo designed? Or before that, when Alejo pounded the top of his dresser, swearing at some unspecified villain,
Damn him, damn him, damn him!
Or, more certainly, when Blas came to her the night of her seventeenth birthday and did not seem to remember they had quarreled. Not seemed to recall that, only weeks earlier, he had rejected her.

Whatever . . . whenever . . . the truth was incontrovertible. For five years she had lived with two husbands. No matter that she had not slept with Alejo; it had not been for lack of trying.

A choked sob escaped her lips as she lowered her head into her hands.
Oh, dear God, please grant me a miracle. Make it not so. Blas is my life. He would never do this to me.

In the late afternoon gloom Alejo’s—Anthony’s—words rang as loudly as if he were at her side.
Cat, there is going to come a time when you will be very, very angry with me.

How very true.

But her anger toward Anthony was nothing to what she felt toward Blas.

Blas and Alejo/Anthony. Identical. Absolutely identical. Except for their feet. And their slippery souls.

Cat winced as she acknowledged the pun conjured by her errant mind. Thomas would have enjoyed it. As would Blas. Alejo’s reaction, she suspected, would be profane.

As for herself, she could find no amusement at all in this diabolical coil. Somehow, her own stupidity seemed worst of all. She should have known . . . she should have known.

Had she not wanted to know? Was it so much easier to see just one, a master chameleon with a Joseph’s coat of personalities? Or perhaps Judas was the better word?

Forgiveness was out of the question.

Forgiveness. Cat cringed as she recalled her behavior at the Frost Fair. She and Anthony had flaunted their friendship in front of two people who might be hurt by their thoughtlessness. Particularly Amabel who was a sheltered young miss with no way to fight her friend’s careless appropriation of her adored Anthony. Wrexham, made of sterner stuff, was not quite so serious a problem.

Amabel . . . Amabel Lovell adored Anthony Trowbridge, and must be hurting almost as much as herself. There was little to be done for her own acute loss, Cat decided, but perhaps it was not too late for Amabel and Anthony. Cat penned a short note to Amabel, telling her friend she would call at eleven the next morning. Amabel, who was no one’s fool, would understand the reason behind the brief message. Hopefully, her night would not be as sleepless as Cat’s was going to be.

To Lord Wrexham Cat wrote a vague, general apology, promising to explain more fully when next she saw him. Her note to Anthony was more direct:
You were right. I am very, very angry. When you are able, come to me. The front door will do. I shall not require you to climb the fence. It seems so odd—I always wished to meet Tonio.

All three notes were immediately dispatched to their respective destinations via a discreet footman. The reply from Lord Anthony was prompt.
Can’t even hobble, sister dear. Wednesday. Midnight.
Scrawled at the bottom was a very familiar “
T
.”

For a moment Cat was struck by the teeniest twinge of sympathy. No! She hoped his ankle was causing him excessive pain. Two days. It was just as well. If she saw him now, she’d be tempted to shoot him.

Lady Lovell, well aware of her daughter’s misery since the Frost Fair, took Blanca Dominguez aside the next morning on the pretext of asking her opinion on the chair seat she was embroidering. The two younger women were left alone at one end of the Lovell’s drawing room. Amabel’s customary cheerfulness was subdued, her smile brittle as she regarded Cat with something close to hostility.

“
Your father has been in government service a long time, has he not?” Cat began slowly. “As my father was. We both understand there are certain things we can never talk about.” The hurt in Amabel’s eyes sharpened into intense interest. “Anthony Trowbridge was one of those things,” Cat continued with determination. She had not expected breaking her many years of silence would be so difficult. “Anthony was one of the men who worked for my father. As liaison with
guerrilleros
in Spain. That is how I happen to know him so well.”

Amabel’s eyes reflected a rush of consternation, pride, and a myriad questions as clearly as if she had been able to put her jumbled thoughts into words.

“
I never knew his real name,” Cat admitted. “When you first told me about Anthony Trowbridge, I had no idea he was anyone I knew. I was shocked when you pointed him out at the Hawley’s ball. Quite frankly, we are both so accustomed to dissembling we reacted as if we were in the midst of a war instead of an English ballroom.”

Cat leaned forward, earnestly willing her friend to understand. “There was no deliberate intention to deceive you, Amabel. We simply did what we have been doing for years—we pretended everything was as people expected it to be. Later, we realized playacting was no longer necessary. Unfortunately, we never thought how our sudden familiarity might look to others. I am deeply sorry if we have hurt you. However unintentionally.”

Even the “we” hurt, placing Anthony and Catherine Perez on one side, Amabel Lovell on the other. Amabel’s clasped hands tightened until the knuckles turned white. She bit her lip. “Do you love him?” she asked.