The Sometime Bride (57 page)

The colonel had expected this moment to be awkward. Somehow it was not. In this man he recognized a fellow warrior. His tongue did not trip on the words honor demanded. “I was wounded at Vitoria, my lord, and awoke a week later in Pamplona to find my son gone. If you had not rescued him, he would be lost to me forever. I must tell you there is no way I can adequately thank you for saving the life of my child.”

“
That remains to be seen,” said Alex. Their eyes met. Held. Neither found the other wanting.

“
You have a right to know my intentions toward Catherine,” Beaufort acknowledged without prompting. “I owe her so much that when she asked for my escort to Paris, I could scarce refuse. I assure you she has been properly chaperoned at all times by Dona Blanca and by my mother who is a
bourgeoise
of the most proper. If Catherine would have me, I would marry her in an instant, but . . .” He shrugged. “I believe for a short while she even considered it, but now . . . now I would have to be blind not to see her heart is wholly yours.”

Alex stared morosely at the dregs of brandy in his glass. “The giving of her heart and the living of her life seem to be two quite different things.”

“
If you talk to her now,” Beaufort ventured, “you may find she is of a different mind. I will be blunt. She expected you to follow her
ventre à terre
, and when you did not appear, I saw the heart go out of her. When she learned of the storm which kept you in England, I saw life return. Her smiles, laughter, spirit—the very essence of her—flowed back. She was herself again.”

Alex’s cool façade faltered. He had feared . . . had been nearly certain Cat would marry the Frenchman and be lost to him forever. But he’d be damned before he’d let Beaufort see his relief. “Can you arrange a meeting?” Alex asked. “You may then consider yourself relieved of any obligation you might feel.”

Beaufort’s head snapped up. “I may be the son of what you call a ‘cit,’ but I assure you my honor is as strong as your own. If I aid you, it will be because I believe that is Catherine’s desire, not because of any gratitude I might feel.”

“
Touché
,” Alex acknowledged. “I have the devil of a temper and am rather annoyed with everyone at the moment. You guard her well. I cannot get to Cat without your cooperation. I might be able to spirit her away, but honor would demand that you follow . . .”

“
Is that what brought you here?” Auguste demanded harshly. “
Honor
?”

Alex leaned back in his chair and crossed his booted feet at the ankles, an almost sheepish smile playing across his face. “No, colonel,” he admitted, “only love could humble Blas the Bastard at the feet of a French
chasseur
.”

After only a moment’s pause, Beaufort leaned forward, replenishing his guest’s brandy. Smiles glimmered at the corners of both men’s mouths as they raised their glasses in a gesture of mutual respect.

“
I have one further request,” Alex said some time later. “Tell the boy I will come back to see him before the year is out. And that I hope someday to have a son as fine as he.”

Mellowed by these soft words, Colonel Beaufort ventured an impertinent question. “What will you do now, Harborough, join the idle rich?”

Alex glowered, but his voice remained even. “That seems to be a difficulty second only to recovering my wife,” he admitted. “I suppose it will have to be diplomacy. I am told I have some talent at it, though I suspect those who said it have yet to experience my temper. A year in the country to discover what normal life is like, and then . . . who knows?”

“
Catherine was born to be a diplomat’s wife,” Beaufort approved. “A far better use of her skills than being immured in the country with a gentleman farmer dreaming of past glories.”

“
So . . . you too find peace a strange bedfellow.”

“
It must be the country for me, I fear. Since I may no longer be a soldier, I would wish to bury myself as far from my old life as I can get.”

“
And if Bonaparte comes marching down the Champs Elysée?”

“
I would follow him. To the ends of the earth. Or to hell.”

Alex nodded. “May it never come to that.” Solemnly, the two men shook hands. When Alex had his hand on the door to the terrace, Beaufort called out. “We have talked,
monsieur le marquis
, and we are both still alive. I would say you show great promise as a diplomat.”

Alex waved a hand in casual salute. “If I succeed with my wife,
then
I may believe you. He turned and stepped outside, departing as swiftly and quietly as he had arrived.

“
It will not do, it will not do at all!” Cat protested, regarding herself in the elegant pier glass adorning the wall of her bedchamber. “I wished to look . . . elegant, sophisticated,
breathtaking
.” She flicked a disdainful finger at the huge puff of emerald silk billowing far out beyond her slim arms. “Instead I look like a great bird too fat to fly.” Once again she peered into the glass. “Or perhaps a green ship in full sail.” She stepped back to take in the full length of the wide bell of her skirt. “A very fat ship.”

“
Hush, my dear, it is not so bad as all that,” Blanca soothed.

“
It’s a fine color for you, Missus,” Bess Fielding assured her.

“
You could scarcely let these French laugh at you behind their dainty fingers because you are so gauche as to still wear the fashions of the Empire,” Blanca continued.

“
That is well enough for you to say,” Cat retorted. “All those yards of cloth do not look so . . . so
huge
in black.”

“
No matter what you wear, you will be the most beautiful woman in the room,” Blanca assured her. “And I doubt anyone in the royal family will have finer jewels,” she added as Bess Fielding fastened the last of the emerald and diamond parure around Cat’s wrist. “Our Blas is a man of taste. The set is truly magnificent. It’s high time you took it out of the case.”

“
The other women will wish to scratch out your eyes,” Bess asserted. “They’ll be as green as them jewels.”

Cat sneaked another look in the pier glass. “You are both mad,” she declared. “I look like a green cow tarted up for some pagan procession.”

“
Catarina!”

“
Cow
à la mode. C’est moi!
”

“
You are beautiful!” Bess insisted, standing on tiptoe to adjust her mistress’s tiara.

“
And so are you,” said Cat, giving her maid’s hand a grateful squeeze. “I have dragged you far from home, and all I get are smiles and superb care. You are a treasure, Bess Fielding. If I have been difficult lately, please forgive me. And the same to you, my darling Blanca. How you have put up with my fits and starts, I cannot imagine.”

“
What is it,
cara
?” Blanca asked, made suddenly fearful by Cat’s tone. “You are about to make your debut in the new French society, not ride a tumbril to the guillotine.”

“
There is something I did not tell you,” Cat admitted. “Yesterday afternoon I received a note from Lord Wellington kindly informing me Harborough and his brother visited the Embassy and were given our direction.”

“
Catarina, how could you not tell me?” Blanca cried.

“
Perhaps because I did not care to witness your joy,” Cat with considerable irony.

“
But why has he not come?

“
That is precisely the problem. Alex is plotting something. “Can you not picture him striding into tonight’s soirée, throwing me over his shoulder and carting me off as he did in London?
C’est affreux!
Even if I wished it—which of course I do not—I would be mortified.”

“
And the good colonel will attempt to stop him . . . Ah,
madre de deus!
” Blanca wailed.

“
There’s not a hostess in Paris would turn away the Marquess of Harborough,” Cat added glumly. Her stomach churned, she was terrified. Excited. She would not miss the coming encounter for a gift of the world itself.

A brisk rap on the sitting room door was followed by the appearance of Monsieur François. “
Mesdames
, Colonel Beaufort waits.”

“
Poor Auguste. I am a trial to him,” said Cat. “
En avant, m’amie
. It will be an evening of some interest, I believe.”

Auguste Beaufort found no fault with Cat’s gown, his eyes lighting with pleasure as she descended the stairs. Graciously, he complimented both ladies and helped them don the cloaks which would protect their bare shoulders and semi-exposed bosoms from the damp night air.

In spite of the colonel’s warnings, Cat was not prepared for the Beaufort coach to look like part of an army column about to venture into enemy territory. In addition to a guard sitting up with coachman, his shotgun gleaming in the light of the carriage lanterns, there were two outriders, each armed with sword and pistols, with a musket slung across each saddle. Altogether, they made a formidable cavalcade. Cat had not seen so much armament for a social engagement since the night Alex had taken her to Marshal Junot’s ball at the Queluz palace. She shivered, pulling her silk cloak more tightly around her. “Is it far?” she asked the colonel who was seated across from her.

“
Nearly an hour if we go around the woods,” said Beaufort casually, “so I have decided to drive through them. That way, a quarter of an hour only.” A quarter of an hour until she was lost to him forever. It was, perhaps, possible to be too noble. Who, after all, expected
noblesse oblige
from one of Napoleon’s middle-class upstarts?

As they left the dark street and turned into the Bois de Boulogne, even the moonlight was obscured by the newly leafed trees which formed a canopy overhead. In the jouncing glow of the four carriage lanterns, shadows flickered across the interior of the carriage, twisting, turning, slithering away, only to rear up as giant black shapes to begin their nightmare dance once again. Another bout of shivers raised the fine hairs on Cat’s arms. “Perhaps I should have hidden my jewels until we arrived,” she murmured.

“
Ne fâche pas
, Catherine,” returned Auguste with a smile. “I promise you all will be well.” After all, how could plans laid by a guerrilla warfare expert and a colonel of
chasseurs
go astray? Briefly, he clasped one of her hands in a reassuring grip. This was goodbye. For her sake he must be happy, but he would miss her. Oh, yes, he would miss her.

The last winking lights from the great houses along the Bois disappeared. The darkness closed in around them like a glove of black velvet. Even the dancing shadows seemed to grow quieter, as if waiting . . .

Nervously, Cat fingered the bracelet which was fastened over her elbow length white gloves, every instinct tuned to the tension hovering around her. The pounding of her heart drowned the crunch of the wheels, the steady rhythm of hoofbeats. She bit her lip. Alex was near. She knew it. If not now, then in an hour. But tonight. Surely tonight.

Beside Cat, Blanca had taken a rosary from her reticule and was telling the beads, murmuring softly in Latin. Outside, the sounds changed so rapidly there was no time at all to react. The shadows erupted into a grotesque jig. Shouts. Shots. A strangled cry followed by the thud of a body hitting the roadway.

After a fatal moment of uncharacteristic hesitation, Auguste Beaufort—incredulity suffusing his face—lunged for the pistol which was holstered on the inner wall of the carriage. He was a moment too late. The coach doors were wrenched open on either side, a pistol cocked within an inch of his ear. “Hand over the gun, colonel,” a voice growled from behind a face obscured by a ragged black scarf, “or my friend will make sure the lady never gets to her party at all.”

A glance from the corner of his eye revealed a second highwayman, similarly masked, pointing an unwavering pistol at Cat’s heart. Both men wore the ragged, faded remnants of uniforms of the French heavy cavalry. Something had gone very wrong indeed. After he agreed to cooperate in Harborough’s plan to kidnap his wife, Beaufort had given his men meticulous instructions. Only token resistance to attackers. Any shots fired must be sure to miss. His men had obeyed him to the letter. And because of it, they all might die. Beaufort had been sitting back in his seat, confident of the Englishman’s ability to carry out their little plan. Only when one of his men had taken a bullet and plunged off the box had the colonel realized these bandits were all too real.

Beaufort studied the darkness beyond each of the open carriage doors. The bandits seemed to number at least four, one at each door, two others holding pistols on the bewildered coachman and outriders, who still thought they were part of a carefully staged performance. Resistance was out of the question. Slowly, Auguste lowered his pistol, handed it to the man who seemed to be the leader.

Jacques Pelletier was a burly man, an ex-sergeant of heavy cavalry who, having survived the retreat from Moscow, vowed never to be cold or hungry again. He had gathered around him a group of similarly bitter ex-soldiers whose greed had been sharpened by orgies of looting on the battlefield. In fifteen years of fighting he had looted as many dead and dying French soldiers as English. To Jacques Pelletier, the wealthy and privileged Auguste Beaufort was as bad as the
aristos
who had gone before.
Vive Madame Guillotine.