The Sometime Bride (47 page)

Cat was sitting on the edge of Blanca’s bed, where she had gone early that morning to tell her friend of Blas’s return. Horrified at what she had just said, Cat clutched Blanca’s hand in hers and fell to her knees beside the bed, her forehead burrowed into the soft comfort of the quilt. “Forgive me, Blanca,” she begged. “Never, never did I mean to hurt you. I am so miserable, I do not know what I am saying. I want only to run away, to hide from what lies ahead. I think I shall die of this.”

Only a slight quaver tinged Blanca’s voice as she assured Catarina there was nothing to forgive. “No one understands anguish better than I,” said Thomas Audley’s mistress. “There is nothing to forgive. As I have told you, with things as they are, I do not believe Tomás would require you to go through with this Season. We may pack and leave immediately. You have only to say so.”

“
No,” Cat declared, “I will not run away. Not yet. There must be someone with whom I can live my life. In Lisbon I already know there is no one.”

“
So be it.” Absently, Blanca patted Catarina’s hand. If only there were a church in this benighted country where she could light a candle to the blessed virgin.

Then again, like Blas, she did not really believe Catarina meant it.

She was wrong.

“
Are you quite sure Catherine understands you truly wish her to be your wife?” the Duchess of Marchmont interjected before her son had finished all of his long and complicated tale. With grave intensity, Melisande Trowbridge regarded her eldest son from warm amber eyes which were the exact match to those of her twins. A petite Frenchwoman, she was the high-born daughter of the
ancien regime
who had been safely in England well before the Terror destroyed the remainder of her family. Her fierce hatred of the Revolution had shaped the lives of the sons whose birth had been so difficult there could be no other young Trowbridges to follow.

Owing to the skill of the duchess’s maid, not a single gray hair showed itself among the waves of dark hair which framed her deceptively fragile face. Not all of the twin’s single-minded determination could be laid at the feet of their father.

“
But she
is
my wife,
Maman
,” Alex insisted, pronouncing her name in the French manner, as he had from childhood. “How could she think anything else?”

“
You must remember that I too came to this country as a foreigner . . .”

“
Catherine is as English as I!” Alex interjected. “I beg your pardon,
Maman
. Pray continue.”

“
In truth, it is a great mésalliance,” said the duchess. “If I were a young woman in Catherine’s circumstances and a gentleman gave me a house and an income, I should assume one of two things. That the gift was a most elaborate thank you for services rendered or that you wished to establish me there as your mistress.”

“
It was a manor house, not a cottage in St. John’s Woods!” Alex exploded. “Forgive me,
Maman
,” he apologized once again. “Castle Harborough is entailed on the heir,” he explained. “If anything happened to me, I wanted to make sure Cat had a home and the means to live in comfort. At the time I bought it, the French outnumbered our troops in the Peninsula ten to one. Lisbon could have fallen at any moment. Cat was my wife, I had to provide a safe haven for her.” His eyes pleaded with his mother. “Surely Cat understood my reason?”

Or did she, he wondered, forcing himself away from his own arrogant assumptions. What had Cat said?
Whether you wish me to be your mistress or your wife . .
.

Hell and the devil! Did Cat think Branwyck Park was . . . No, she couldn’t possibly believe . . . Alexander Trowbridge, Marquess of Harborough, ran agitated fingers through his hair. “
Maman
, do you think she believes I want her only as a mistress?” he stammered, light reviving in the depths of his amber eyes.

“
It would make things much simpler,” she returned thoughtfully, “for such a misunderstanding is easily corrected. But are you completely certain you wish to?” she inquired carefully.

Alex swallowed hot words. His shoulders stiffened into the proud carriage which was so much a part of him, whether he was Alex or Blas the Bastard. “I know what Marchmont will say, but I thought I could count on your understanding,
Maman
.” His gentle reproach was soft, dignified, his hurt all too apparent. “And,
Maman
, I am certain. But you have not yet heard the worst of it,” he added on a sigh.

Once again, Alex ran his fingers through his overly long waves of black hair. He stood, took a turn about his mother’s sitting room, before sinking back into the chair he had vacated and telling his mother how Catarina Audley Perez de Leon acquired two husbands. And became a widow. All before the age of twenty-one.

“
Ma foi, tu es fou! Et Antoine aussi!
” cried the duchess. “It is no wonder the poor child has sent you away. That I should have raised two sons with no more sense than a flea. Bah!” she spat at him. “I am ashamed of you both. That I should live to see the day my sons—both of them—would compromise a poor innocent child. A close connection of Lord Ailesbury’s! You are mad, the pair of you. Quite, quite mad!”

“
Yes,
Maman
,” Alex agreed meekly.

“
You will tell this tale to your father,” the duchess decreed, as if her son were eight instead of eight and twenty. “And I hope it may not kill him,” she added ominously.

“
Maman?
” Alex pleaded, nearly as appalled as if he were still the wild young boy who suffered almost daily chastisement from the austere duke.

She hardened her heart to his look of entreaty. “Now,” she commanded. “You will find him in the library.”

Even as her eyes followed her son, her idiot son, from the room, Melisande Trowbridge was making plans. They were much alike, the Trowbridge men. So sure they knew what was right for the world, they simply failed to see problems from another person’s point of view. Thus had the duke lost his influential position in the government. But now the old king was too far into madness to be aware of the Duke of Marchmont.

First, however, there was the no small matter of persuading Sebastian Trowbridge he wished to aid his son in the battle to regain his wife. For a young woman who had enough character to reject the lofty position of Marchioness of Harborough was to be cherished. Possibly, at long last, there would be a daughter worthy of the Trowbridge name.

Sebastian Trowbridge was not at his desk. He sat before the fire toying with a snifter of brandy, as he had been since his eldest son followed his brief greeting with an urgent request to speak with his mother in private, neatly bypassing his father who was waiting to greet the son he had not seen in three years. Only a few strands of charcoal black remained among the long gray hair the duke wore caught back and banded by a black velvet ribbon in the style of an earlier age. Though his next birthday would be his sixtieth, the duke’s thin face was still handsome, as blatantly patrician as his son’s was not.

The Duke of Marchmont never doubted the amount of mischief his son had got up to in the past seven years. There had scarcely been a peaceful moment since the day Alex preceded his brother into the world. The only thing which had changed in seven years was the duke himself. He had mellowed with age. He already knew most of what Alexander was telling his mother, for Anthony had thrown discretion to the winds and done his best to smooth his brother’s homecoming. Nor had the duke failed to read his younger son’s role between the lines of praise for Alex. His sons were heroes. There was almost nothing they could have done at that point to make him angry.

The matter with Ailesbury’s young cousin was unfortunate but, knowing Alexander, the boy might well have come home with some Spanish whore. Best to swallow his tongue and leave well enough alone. Marchmont was aware he had no talent for reconciliation. His own or his son’s. But family pride demanded that he try. It was time for the Trowbridges—all of them—to return to London. No doubt Melisande would be pleased. It had been a long exile. And it seemed someone must keep an eye on their dashing, headstrong sons.

A knock on the library door was followed by the entrance of his heir, for once looking suitably contrite instead of defiant. The duke waved a negligent hand toward the wing chair opposite his own. “Sit, Harborough,” he commanded. “Pour yourself a brandy, I presume you will need it. Even the highlights of your past seven years will undoubtedly be demanding. Should I, perhaps, order the killing of a fatted calf?”

The war ended almost quietly, without the Trowbridge twins or Arthur Wellesley, Marquess of Wellington, who had shown them all the way. On the last day of March the combined troops of Austria, Prussia and Russia marched into Paris. Ten days later, on Easter Sunday, a captive Napoleon attempted suicide. The Duke of Wellington, unaware twenty years of war had come to an end, took Toulouse in the last, and bloodiest, battle of the Peninsular War. Within two weeks Napoleon sailed into exile on the Island of Elba. As word spread, all Europe breathed a sigh of relief.

Too soon.

As the Season of 1814 opened in London, word had not yet come of the eight thousand casualties at Toulouse. There was only mass rejoicing and eager anticipation of the most glittering Season in the memory of even the most elderly aristocrats.

Catherine’s first action upon her return to London was to send for Monsieur Claude.

“
For the love of God, he will kill you!” Blanca exclaimed as the golden-red tresses fell, one by one, like splashes of blood onto the white sheet spread over the floor. “In Portugal it would be considered he had just cause,” she added ominously.

“
C’est merveilleux
,” an insouciant and unrepentant Cat assured the stricken Monsieur Claude. “Continue, please. I know I shall enjoy the freedom immensely.”

“
Freedom to be a fool,” Blanca muttered and quit the room, leaving the frightened haircutter to do his worst.

“
O–oh, Catherine!” Amabel sighed on a long drawn-out breath. “I do not know if I love it or if I shall cry.” She had arrived, brimming over with news an hour after Monsieur Claude’s departure. Amabel stood, gaping, just inside the drawing room door as she took in the immensity of Cat’s short cap of curls bound with a bandeau in the Grecian manner, a few artfully arranged longer curls tumbling over her ears and onto the nape of her neck.

Slowly, Cat pirouetted, displaying the full extent of the dramatic shearing, her red-gold fall of hair now shorter by at least twelve inches. “You will have to like it, I fear,” she said lightly, “for there is no putting it back.”

Amabel, recalling the reason for her visit, drew Cat away from Clara, Blanca and her own mother. “I have the most astonishing news,” she confided as the two young women found chairs in a corner far from the others. “Anthony’s brother Alexander is back in London. It was all a hum. He is not mad or disfigured but has been with Wellington all this time. As a spy! And, Cat . . .” Amabel was forced to pause for breath. “They are as alike as two sides of a clam—say nothing!—but Papa says Anthony was a spy too. They are both heroes. Is that not the most exciting thing?” Amabel’s blue eyes shone with adoration.

Unable to summon kind words about either Trowbridge twin, Cat merely smiled and nodded, agreeing with Amabel’s every word. So Blas, the miserable bastard, was in London, staying at Marchmont House with Anthony. His first act, to call upon the Lovells.

Cat’s smile faded to a grim line; her eyes glittered. Just because she had sent him away did not mean he was entitled to call upon the Lovells before he called upon the Everinghams. Of course, if he did call, his wife would not be at home. Former wife.

Catherine Audley Perez would not be at home.

“
Catherine? Catherine!” Amabel, satisfied she once again had her friend’s attention, looked over her shoulder at her mother and the other ladies huddled near the fire. She pulled her chair closer to Cat. “You simply must tell me about Lord Byron,” she said in an urgent whisper. “Simply
everyone
is talking, but when I come near they fall silent and will not say a word beyond the usual bland
on dits
. I know about Caroline Lamb, of course. Who does not? She threw herself at him so shockingly Mama says everyone felt quite sorry for him.” Amabel fixed her friend with beseeching eyes. “He is so beautiful, Cat, and his poetry is so-so . . .”

“
Naughty,” Cat supplied drily.

Amabel grinned. “That too,” she agreed, but I was searching for something more grand. It’s wonderful. Exciting. And makes me feel so–so . . .”

“
You and half the women in Britain,” Cat said, cutting off Amabel’s effusions. “I recommend taking his tales with more than a few grains of salt, my dear.”

“
He is so tragic.” Amabel heaved a sigh. “You can see how he glowers when people are dancing and he cannot. I know he must suffer far worse pain than that of his poor foot.”

“
You have a good heart,” Cat murmured, her cynicism slipping just a bit. She still thought of the now famous poet as the earnest young man who had come to Portugal to find inspiration for his first epic poem
Childe Harold
. The young man they—she and Blas . . . no, she and
Alejo—
had found vaguely pathetic and amusing. Although she had not fallen under Byron’s spell, Cat had to sympathize with his circumstances. Lame since birth, poverty-stricken, George, Lord Byron, had to struggle to survive on flamboyant genius in a world which worshiped conventionality. Living a life of exception rather than the rule was something Cat could understand all too well. She should grant the young poet a bit more tolerance.