Susan Johnson (37 page)

Dear Guy, always helping, always comforting without censure; what would Empress do without him? Leaning her head back against the plush upholstery, she shut her eyes, fought back her tears, and prayed for fortitude to face the days ahead.

In addition to the emotional strain of Trey’s loss and the children’s unhappiness overwhelming her in the succeeding days, Empress was physically fatigued and plagued by frequent spells of nausea. She hadn’t had an appetite since Valerie’s visit, and the rocking rhythm of the train, she decided, aggravated her unsettled stomach. But once installed in a spacious stateroom aboard a steamship out of New York, she experienced no relief from her nausea. Food lost all appeal, her fair skin took on a greenish hue, and she assumed
the cause this time was seasickness. Eight days later, however, lying in her hotel bed in Le Havre, solid ground beneath her, a tray of food untouched on the bedside table, her stomach gyrating uncomfortably, she realized with a sinking feeling of dismay that train sway or sea swells weren’t the cause of her indisposition, nor was physical exhaustion or the emotional tumult subsequent to their leaving.

Rather, she was about to make Trey a father for the second time that year. Or were there more beside Valerie and herself; how many enceinte lovers did that make now for Montana’s most-in-demand bachelor? she wondered, both mortified and chagrined. He was certainly, if gossip was to be believed, in the way of setting some records, and her anger flared at his casual appropriating of all the willing females.

But as the day wore on, her resentment of Trey’s heedless charm was mitigated by her own personal recollections of exactly how joyous and enchanting he had made her life. It wasn’t all taking with Trey Braddock-Black, for he gave full measure of delight and laughter in return, and a warm affection she still held in her heart, in spite of all Valerie had said. So after the initial, staggering shock of her pregnancy subsided and she had run the fitful gamut of variable emotions from resentment to alarm to capricious cowardice, a small gladness took hold deep inside and, with warming reflection as the hours passed, intensified and heightened into whimsical triumph. She was carrying Trey’s child, she thought, whispering the words to herself with wonder and a happiness she didn’t try to understand. Growing inside her was his baby, who would remind her always of him. “Hello, little one,” she breathed softly, welcome and tenderness in her greeting. He was with her after all … a part of her.

In addition to her own quiet happiness that she and Trey shared a child—a perfectly mindless and heedless reaction, she knew—a flood of disconcerting problems, less naïvely blissful, required immediate attention. Being single, of course, in her current condition, was most scandalously prominent, followed closely by the stark immediacy of her reentry into society. Hardly a propitious beginning for her new life in the fashionable circles her family had fled five years ago, she reflected with a flash of amusement. The Comtesse de Jordan had returned—young, single and pregnant.

Her present tangle was considerably less threatening than starving, which she and the children had faced the previous winter, she reminded herself pragmatically, and now with Trey’s money and the application of a little energetic storytelling, the deficiencies in her persona could be rectified. After a short period of expedient rationalization and creative thought, Empress invented the necessary husband, his convenient death, and her sad bereavement, made less sad by the modest legacy he’d left her.

With a certain trepidation she informed the children of her pregnancy and, with a combination of candor and omission, acquainted them with the reasons for a fictitious husband and past. Then, breath held nervously she waited for their reaction to the glaring unorthodoxy of her situation.

“Wow!” Guy joyfully exclaimed, beaming from ear to ear. “I’m going to have an Absarokee nephew.
I’m
going to be related to Trey!”

“It could be a girl, you know,” Genevieve disputed instantly. “Pressy, I want a
niece.
”

And Empress, breaking into a smile, felt her nervousness disappear. “I’ll do my best, sweetheart, but I can’t guarantee a boy
or
a girl.”

“See,
see
, Guy!” Genevieve jibed.
“There.”

“You can be a widow for now, but Trey’s coming to marry you this summer, anyway,” Emilie declared confidently, “so then everything will be perfectly fine.” At fourteen Emilie perceived the intricacies of decorum. “And I want a girl, too, because Eduard always has sticky hands, and Guy does nothing but talk about guns and horses. A baby girl would be ever so much nicer.”

“Trey’s coming, Trey’s coming, Trey, Trey, Trey …” Eduard said happily, attentive to the portion of the conversation having to do with Trey, unconcerned with talk of babies. “Me see Trey and get pony too,” he went on cheerfully, certain that his fortune had changed.

Listening to Eduard’s buoyant, humming tune, Empress wished that she had his optimism. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, indeed, if Trey
did
come, if he left his wife, all the pursuing women, his family, his work, abandoned all to come halfway across the world after a woman he’d brought in a brothel one night on a whim? More aware of the profligacies in Trey’s
past, she didn’t share Eduard’s faith in Trey’s arrival; the long line of women he’d loved and left was permanently etched in her brain—a thousand-foot-high barricade against optimism.

Without knowing what had become of her favorite cousin Adelaide, Empress sent her a telegram and then waited in Le Havre for a response. She understood much could have happened in five years; Adelaide may no longer even live in France if she had married one of their Hungarian cousins she was enamored of at fifteen, or could still be in Nice after Easter week, or possibly found it awkward to renew a friendship with a family that had left, some perhaps felt, under a shadow of disgrace. But early the following morning Adelaide’s prompt answer arrived; she was still in Paris, was now Her Royal Highness as wife to Prince Valentin de Chantel, and was waiting with breathless anticipation to see them all again.

Amid hugs and kisses and dozens of excited questions, Adelaide, trailing an extravagant white fox stole, greeted them at the railway station, accompanied by a full retinue of servants, the stationmaster, and a host of obsequious officials. A smile here, a languid gesture there, and H.R.H. directed staff and officials whose briskly snapped orders saw them all quickly arranged into carriages and whisked away to what Adelaide described as their unpretentious bijou. Tucked intimately near Notre Dame on the Ile de la Cité, the precious little bijou, enriched with flamboyant tracery and ornament, was the perfect medieval setting for Adelaide and her husband’s dilettante tastes as patrons of the arts. And all of the fifty-four perfectly decorated rooms were graciously offered as haven to Empress and her family.

Very late that night, when Empress and her cousin were alone for the first time, Adelaide, her voice breathy with anticipation, her dark curls dressed artistically rather than fashionably à la Grècque, quivering with her fluttering movements insistently said, “Now
tell me everything.
Valentin will see that all is restored to you, so don’t worry for one moment about all the tiresome details,” she added airily, waving her ringed fingers in dismissal. “Papa looked for you everywhere”—her gamine brows settled into a frown, her expression taking on a grave air as she digressed with her customary
impetuosity—“but it was as if you’d disappeared off the face of the earth. But enough of the tragedy,” she went on in her inimitable erratic delivery, as though the duel had never occurred and the terrible years of exile had never existed.

Seated across the fire from her cousin, Empress wondered briefly what she would have been doing now if the duel had never occurred, how insulated her life would have been, surrounded with advantage and privilege like Adelaide’s. Where would she have been living now at twenty and with whom?—all indeterminate “what-ifs.” And then she thought of the reverse side to the life of ease she would have enjoyed in France; what if she had never met Trey? No comparison was possible, she immediately decided; measured against Adelaide’s frivolous life, Trey Braddock-Black was vital energy and turbulent passion and a pleasure she never would have known in the pampered cocoon of Adelaide’s bijou.

“Tell me about your husband,” Adelaide whispered, animated and vivacious. “Was he handsome like my Valentin?” Her face sobered momentarily. “Oh, dear, it’s too painful,” she said consolingly, then, leaning forward conspiratorily like she had so often during their childhood when they’d share secrets late at night after their nannies were sleeping, she said impishly, “But you
must
tell me, anyway.”

Sitting in Adelaide’s cozy boudoir sipping hot chocolate, her legs tucked under her, listening to her cousin’s staccato inquiries in the same soft lisp that brought back flooding memory, it seemed for a moment as though Empress had never left. As though she’d never worried about food or cried over her parents’ graves, never stood in Lily’s parlor or been held in Trey’s arms. She was fifteen again, and Adelaide was saying irrepressibly, “Tell me everything.”

Empress’s heart lightened at the rush of remembrance and the unconditional affection Adelaide offered. For the first time since she’d met Trey, she could confide in someone, talk of her ardent feelings and the indelible delight he’d brought her. “After Mama and Papa died, I met a man quite by accident. And yes,” Empress added softly in response to Adelaide’s riveting attention, “he was very handsome … more handsome than Roland.”

“No!” Adelaide breathed, her dark eyes intent.

“Oh, yes, although his hair was jet-black.”

* * *

Within the week, the Prince de Chantel, at his adored wife’s request, saw to it that Simoult, a lawyer of consequence, was retained to see to the restoration of Guy’s estates, and one month later the Jordan suit was approved, not particularly because Simoult was so brilliant but because the influential and royal Prince de Chantel desired it. Of equal importance was the fact that Duc de Rochefort had died that past summer, taking his bitter hatred over the death of his son with him to the grave. Five years ago, with grim malevolence, he had pushed the Comte de Jordan to trial, although duels, even fatal duels, were commonplace in France, and with unparalleled ferocity had seen that a conviction resulted. In retrospect, every aspect of the case had been tainted with corruption, and all Simoult had to do was see that the Duc’s bribery and unscrupulous dealings were brought to light.

A month of legal processing—of petitions approved and documents signed, affidavits assembled and judgments rescinded—was required, but justice was served at last, and the heirs of the Comte de Jordan were restored to their rightful position, fortune, and estates.

As the family was welcomed back, Empress, recently widowed and expecting her first child, was treated with great sympathy by all their former friends. And while she found a degree of solace in the kindnesses, the renewing of friendships satisfied only a small fraction of the void left by Trey. No matter how considerate or well-meaning her friends, she still wished many times a day that she were back with Trey.

But wishing and reality were continents apart, separated not only by physical distance but also by deception and betrayal and by a young woman’s pride. Although Empress had promised to send her address once she was settled, her pregnancy checked that impulse. She had spent endless hours of internal debate over writing to Trey, but logic prevailed over impetuous feeling. Much as she wanted to write, “Come … come to me … this instant. I love you and nothing else matters,” other things did matter, of course. Trey’s feelings mattered considerably. And Trey Braddock-Black’s feelings toward the women in his life were torrid but transient. For all she knew,
he’d asked a dozen women to marry him in the heat of passion.

So a marriage proposal by a man known for his flagrant excesses was simply another of his intemperate impulses, like his extravagant offers of clothing and jewels. A liking, taste, or proclivity for Trey became as quickly an unguarded, impelling passion, but the delirium soon passed, as did all the women and all the compelling needs.

How could she possibly petition him as yet
another
enceinte lover? The rash, mercurial Trey Braddock-Black’s response to women accusing him of fathering their children was common knowledge—he avoided them. And she would never forget his angry reaction to Valerie’s pregnancy and subsequent blackmail. He’d felt trapped, irritated by the responsibility, stubbornly opposed to fatherhood, and while she may have once believed his denials of paternity apropos Valerie’s child, after Valerie’s visit, that belief was badly shaken and, on her worst day, mortally wounded.

How pointless it would be by all accounts, and how humiliating for her to write to him, informing him of her pregnancy. In any case, whether she wanted him to marry her or not was moot, since he was already married, with an iron-clad marriage contract. In retrospect, she didn’t sometime wonder if Valerie was simply being foresighted with a husband of Trey’s reputation; maybe marriage to Trey
required
an ironclad marriage contract. Even newly married, he
had
been dividing his time between town and the ranch, involved with Empress at the same time he was enjoying his wife’s bed.

However, with a wistful longing that disregarded wives, countless infidelities, and a penchant for walking away from enceinte lovers, Empress artlessly mused like some fairy-tale princess dwelling on an unassailable mountaintop.
If he truly loves me, he will come for me … against all odds, despite all complications, ignoring dragons and villains and contentious pride.
A highly romantic, unlikely occurrence, she logically concluded in the next moment, considering the man, his wife, and her own extremely brief sojourn in his busy life.

Although, she mused cynically, as brief as her interval was in his highly active love life, it was long enough to conceive his child. And what smarted most when she was angry was her injured pride—her inability to recognize his practiced,
facile charm. She had been naíve enough to fall in love with the rogue. It annoyed her to succumb so easily; it annoyed her more to be one of a crowd.