The Sometime Bride (54 page)

“
If I might point out,” Wrexham interjected, “before the pair of you go haring off to France, I believe we should consider the simpler problem of Percy Markham.”

Alex raised his head, pain tightening into slow, deadly anger. “By all means, Markham first,” he agreed calmly. “Then Beaufort. I’ll kill them both.”

“
Can’t do that, brother,” said Tony. “I might become the heir, and it doesn’t suit me. Even a Marquess can’t go round murdering people. Besides, killing’s too good for Markham. If we put our heads together, I’m sure we can come up with something infinitely more satisfying.

As the Earl of Wrexham watched in fascination, he saw the veneer of civilization drop away from the Marquess of Harborough, the lion of society sharpening into a beast of prey. Never again would he wonder how an English nobleman had survived years of violent, underhanded warfare in the mountains of Spain.

“
I have an idea,” said Blas the Bastard.

P A R T I I I

Chapter Twenty-eight

Paris was a seething cauldron. The restored monarch Louis XVIII and his supporters scattered sparks of gaiety through a city still simmering with the exiled Napoleon’s egalitarian ideals. The smouldering fires of conflict haloed the beauty of Bonaparte’s architectural triumphs even as violence bubbled beneath the surface, bursting daily into explosions of desperation and death.

Returning French officers, rather than slinking home in defeat, strutted the sidewalks of Paris, quite literally cutting a swath through the colorful ranks of the British, Austrian, Russian, and Prussian officers who had the temerity to think they had won the war. While Byron’s Louis the Fat held court, the streets of Paris echoed with the riotous living of thousands of men who had fought through twenty years of war and now found themselves plunged into the boredom of sudden peace. To many, continuing the war on a personal level seemed completely logical. Challenges from the French were issued with gusto and panache. With frightening regularity, bodies began to pile up in the Bois de Boulogne and the streets near popular restaurants and cafes.

On the fourth day of May the new British ambassador to France rode into Paris astride a white horse. While those wearing the white cockade of Louis XVIII went wild with joy, belligerent French soldiers ground their teeth in anger and the citizens of Paris, ever fickle, turned out to view the spectacle. The triumphal ride down the Champs-Élysées had been a long time coming. Field Marshal, Lord Arthur Wellesley, newly made Duke of Wellington, had arrived at last in the heart of France.

The Hôtel Beaufort was an imposing mansion on the west side of the city, overlooking the near wilderness of the Bois de Boulogne. Cat, who was sorely in need of the peace and solace of natural beauty, pulled a chair to the open window of her spacious bedchamber and gazed out over the vast sea of trees freshly tipped with the soft new green of spring. It looked so peaceful. Yet each of the two days since her arrival there had been sounds of gunfire. Pistols. How many other duels had gone unnoticed? Auguste Beaufort had told her the French preferred swords, scorning the English officers who usually chose pistols for the daily round of impromptu duels.

Cat shivered. Rejecting thoughts of death, she concentrated on the reality of the life which was passing by outside her window. For the moment, it seemed everyone in Paris was out to enjoy the burgeoning beauty of spring. Elegant people in open carriages, mounted on horses, or sauntering along on foot. Some men wore stylish jackets and trousers; far more shone in an almost limitless variety of military colors. Ironically, among the bevies of gracious ladies only the English still wore the columnar fashion set by Josephine Bonaparte. The women of France were easily distinguished by the new fashion of bouffant sleeves, bell skirts and enormous sweeping hats which towered above their heads like a crazily canted windmills. Cat’s mouth quirked up at the corners as one of the great hats was swept away on the wind. A Hussar chased after it, his blue pelisse flying in the wind. A long-drawn sigh shook Cat’s small frame as the officer retrieved the hat and returned it, with a bow and a smile, to a grateful young lady. A few moments of conversation, the Hussar offered his arm, and off they went, the scent of romance drifting clearly on the breeze.

There must have been a time, Cat thought, when she was that young and gay, without a care beyond the loss of a hat or admiration on a handsome face. And now . . . now she had made a complete wreck of her life. Letting stubborn, foolish pride tear out her heart. And, perhaps worst of all, she had thoughtlessly endangered a friend.

They had left England so hastily there had been no time to analyze what she was doing. She knew only she must go. Call it escape. Running away. Cowardice. The opportunity presented itself and, right or wrong, she had taken it. Cat’s recollections of the past few days were a fragmented kaleidoscope of scenes: André crying, “
Papa!
” Tears misting the handsome colonel’s deep blue eyes. Blanca’s face when Cat told her they were leaving for France. The sheer excitement of the moonless journey back to France on a ship, now empty, which reeked of brandy. Standing at the rail and watching England fade into the blackness of the night. Feeling blackness creep into her soul.

Since her arrival in Paris, Cat had tried to assure herself that what she had done was logical. Sensible. She could no longer fight the forces ranged against her. To have the
ton
believe she had played the whore to both brothers was . . . was beyond her ability to stand and fight. She had lost the heart for battle.

So she ran away. Abandoning England and its inhabitants in the dark of night to flee to an enemy country with an enemy officer at her side. What would Thomas say if he could see her now?

She would marry Auguste Beaufort. Or so Cat had thought in the dark hours of the passage to France. It was the sensible thing to do. She would be André’s
maman
. She would live comfortably in Paris with a man who was still in love with the wife who had died of a fever in Spain less than a year before. They had not discussed it, but a
mariage de convenance
lurked there between them. In the way a woman understands such things, Cat knew the possibility of marriage was as strongly fixed in the colonel’s mind as in her own.

With magnificent
savoir faire
Auguste Beaufort had simply accepted that Catherine Perez wished to leave England and he would be responsible for her, not only on the voyage but for her stay in Paris, offering the hospitality of his parents’ home. Anything, anything at all, would be granted to the woman who had reunited André Beaufort with his father and grandparents.

So here she was, a guest of Emile and Marguerite Beaufort, in a household run by a
major domo
named François Gautier who reminded Cat all too poignantly of Luis Cardoso. She and Blanca had a spacious suite of rooms. Bess Fielding found herself taking precedence over all the household servants save the housekeeper and Madame Beaufort’s own maid. Rosalía Sanchez was overwhelmed by the luxury of her room off the nursery—and gratified to discover her Portuguese was far more readily understood in France than among the English who seemed to have no gift for languages at all. In fact, one of Cat’s few reservations about their situation in the Beaufort household was a strong suspicion André was likely to become the most overindulged child in Paris. And the certainty her relationship with Auguste Beaufort required clarification.

As the wondrous beauty of Paris provided nothing more than a thin veneer over the seething conflicts bloodying the streets, so their physical well-being in the Hôtel Beaufort was mere camouflage. Auguste Beaufort was not yet aware he owed a far greater debt. That the man who had rescued his son from the battlefield was not dead but very much alive. And very likely on his way to Paris to add another Frenchman to the list of those he had already dispatched into the hereafter.

Perhaps Blas would not come, Cat thought with an odd mixture of hope and sorrow. What she had done was truly unforgivable. He would wash his hands of her and allow Lydia to console the affront to his dignity. But if he loved enough to follow her? No. Love was not necessary. Arrogance and honor were enough to send him hot-footing after her. Was she not Harborough’s whore? Blas would keep what was his. Whether he wanted her or not, he would make sure no son of a French banker would take what had belonged to Alexander Trowbridge, Marquess of Harborough.

So he would come.

How did she tell her handsome host the man who had saved his son’s life was on his way to Paris to kill him?

“
Catarina?” Blanca came in from the sitting room which they shared. “Colonel Beaufort has returned. I asked Monsieur François to tell him you wished to speak with him. The colonel is waiting for you in the library.”

Cat stood up, shook out her skirts, patted her hair in place. After two days of observing the women of Paris, she was all too aware her clothes were outmoded. The fashion of the Empress Josephine was now reduced to English dowdiness.
Tant pis.
Cat shrugged. Her gown would have to do, whether the colonel thought her unfashionable or not. There were a great many things which must be said to Auguste Beaufort.

Over an hour later, when Cat finished her long and complex confession, Beaufort studied her anguished face for several moments in silence. He could not deny he had already pictured this ravishingly beautiful woman as his wife. They would live in quiet contentment, if not passion. Provide André with younger brothers and sisters. Discovering Catherine Perez had a living husband, however tenuous, exploded a number of pleasant daydreams. Surprisingly, his heart seemed to have suffered a wound as well.

“
Do you love him?” Auguste asked at last.

Cat closed her eyes, drew a deep breath. “Yes,” she admitted. “I fear I always shall.”

“
Then when he comes, you must go with him.” Beaufort was pleased at the steadiness of his tone.

Cat, unaware of the wound she had dealt, shook her head. “It is not that simple. How can we live together after all that has happened?”

“
How can you not?”

Cat allowed her annoyance to show. “How can you reduce all this to such simplicity?”

“
But it
is
simple,
ma chère
. Would you be better off with him or without him? From what you have told me, the answer is that you must follow your heart, whether you wish to or not.”

“
You are like all the others!” Cat burst out. “How can you take his side?”

The colonel shrugged. “I am a man, Catherine. Do you think your Blas the only man to have sinned in this war? Do you think I have not tortured myself about taking Marguerite and André into danger? If I had left them here in Paris, Marguerite would be alive, André would not have been abandoned on a battlefield. We are all guilty of something, Catherine. Granted, some have more sins than others, but, yes, I fear I see your Blas’s point of view. We French are pragmatists. We see life as a business to be lived with good sense and as much enjoyment as one can manage. You should rejoice your husband is still alive, Catherine, and take advantage of the life that is being offered.”

“
How can you be so sure he will want me?” she asked in a small voice. “To all intents and purposes, I have run off with another man.”

Beaufort laughed aloud. “Frankly,
ma chère
, I cannot imagine him
not
wanting you. If you were my wife, I should follow you to the ends of the earth. Believe me, your Blas—
le marquis
Harborough—will want you.”

“
But I have told you,” Cat pursued, annoyed by his
sangfroid
. “If he comes, he will wish to kill you!”

Colonel Beaufort considered the matter. “I certainly should not wish to fight him,” he admitted, straight faced, “though I may not have a choice. I do not choose to stand there and let him shoot me.” He cocked his head to one side. “Of course, as the challenged party, I may choose swords. Is he good with a sword, your Blas?”

“
Stop it! Cat cried. “You are teasing me. This is absurd.”

Gently, Beaufort lifted her chin, brushed an errant copper curl back from her forehead. “But of course it is absurd. Duels are absurd . . . as wars are absurd. As life is frequently absurd. I would very much like to talk with this husband of yours, but he is a fire-eater, no? I doubt that when he appears conversation will be uppermost in his mind.”

Cat burst into tears. “I never . . .
ever
meant to use you so! You have been so kind . . . you are André’s papa . . . my friend.
Ah, mon Dieu
, I must go away. I shall return to Lisbon . . .”

“
Believe me, Catherine, from what you have told me this Blas would pause only long enough to kill me before he boarded a packet for Lisbon. So you will stay in Paris and face the music. And if the fates are kind, who knows?—you may be able to keep us from killing each other.”

But Alexander Trowbridge, Marquess of Harborough, did not come. Blas, who had also been Don Alexis Perez de Leon, did not come. Neither nobleman nor spy was seen or heard from.