She staggered back, her hand flying to her cheek, tears springing to her eyes. That he could so contemptuously dismiss her without even considering what she had to say hurt more than the blow. “ ’Tis the truth! He paid them to kill me.…”
“What bloody poppycock!” her father snorted, and shook his head at Bernard. “I don’t know where she comes by it. There’s no bad blood on either side of the family that I know of it. Her mother wasn’t much, but she was good ton.”
“I don’t hold you to blame, Charles, you may be sure.” Bernard, with a single glinting look at Isabella, reassured the duke almost affably. Helplessly Isabella cradled her abused cheek and looked from her husband to her father. Neither had as much care for her as they might have for a stray dog.
“You’ll put aside the notion of divorce? Beat her a dozen times a day if you have to to keep her true, but spare the rest of us the scandal. I beseech you.”
“Papa, you must listen! I—”
“One more word out of you, and I’ll take a stick to you. ’Tis what you deserve, with your fornicating and your lies.”
Bernard lifted the back of his hand as if to strike her while her father looked on, if not with approval, at least without objecting. Isabella took an instinctive step backwards. Further pleas obviously would be useless. There was no persuading her father to her cause. He had never cared for her overmuch, and now he was completely on Bernard’s side. But at least, with her accusation of attempted murder made public, Bernard would not be likely to try again … would he?
As her legal husband, he could treat her however he wished. He could beat her, lock her in, starve her, rape her—and the law would be on his side. Only if he actually murdered her—and it could be proven—would a kind of justice be done. But then, of course, it would be too late to do her any good.
It was a hard lesson, but Isabella learned it in those few moments. If she wanted to save her skin, she had best meekly accept whatever plans these two hatched for her future until she could discover an alternative. Or until Alec could arrive to save her.…
“You must take her to Paris,” her father was saying. “All the world’s there, now that Louis has got his throne back. Who’s to know that she hasn’t been there all the time, when you bring her back to England at last? Nobody ever saw her in town anyway. There was some rumor about the gel being missing—fellow actually had the gall to ask me to my face at White’s if my daughter’d shown up yet-but with Boney exiled and all the excitement, it’ll be forgot in a trice. What a blessing that you held off on sending that death notice to the paper, eh, Bernard? I told you not to write the gel off so fast.”
“To Paris?” Bernard frowned, then nodded. “That might serve. Though it will be costly, and my funds are tied up at present. I foresaw an opportunity to make a good investment, now that the Bourbons are back on the throne, and I daren’t withdraw the funds yet. They’re just starting to increase.”
“I’ll stand the nonsense,” the duke interrupted gruffly. “And make the settlement I spoke about besides. Paris is the answer. Sarah and I will join you, to give the gel a bit more countenance. We’ll take her about a bit so that she’s seen and everyone knows she was in Paris with her family. Then in a couple of months you can send her back to Blakely Park, and all this will be forgotten.”
The duke held out his hand to Bernard, while Isabella, feeling sicker by the second, watched.
“By God, you’re a game’un, sir!” the duke exclaimed, and shook his son-in-law by the hand.
LVI
Not more than twelve hours after Alec had driven cheerfully away from the Carousel, he was bursting back through the front door in a rage fueled by sheer terror.
“Get out o’ my way!” he snarled at the obsequious Sharp, who tried to hold the door open for him. Eyes widening, the butler stumbled back just in time to keep from being hit by the door, which crashed into the elegantly papered wall behind it.
“Where’s Mr. McNally?” Alec barked, the glittering menace in his eyes frightening the old butler so much that he blanched.
“Uh, uh, with Miss Pearl, in her rooms, sir,” Sharp answered.
Without giving him a chance to say another word, Alec turned on his heel and strode furiously down the hall.
“Sir … sir, wouldn’t you rather I fetched him for you?” Sharp quavered with a desperate air, almost running as he tried to keep up with Alec and at the same time gesture frantically to the half dozen footmen on duty. This early in the evening, the gaming rooms were thin of company, but the few patrons who had decided to try their luck looked around at the commotion. Alec no more saw their speculative stares than he saw the glowing candles or the fine gilt mirrors or the high-polished floor. A horrifying sense of urgency drove him, making him blind to anything that was not connected with his objective.
“Go on about your business, you blathering idiot!” Alec ordered over his shoulder, and dismissed with a murderous glare the footmen who had started to close in on him. Hired partly to provide protection for the establishment and its mistress, they recognized the Tiger and fell back. Sharp, apparently realizing that he had as much hope of detaining Alec as he did of stopping the sun from rising in the morning, shrugged fatalistically and returned to his post by the door. Alec reached the door to Pearl’s suite, turned the knob, found it unlocked, and burst through it without ceremony. It bounced back on its hinges, crashing into the wall with a resounding bang.
From the bedroom beyond the sitting room came a man’s curse and a woman’s scream.
Alec saw nothing more of the sitting room than a blur of white, and then he was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, looking into the mouth of a pistol pointed at his head by his best friend.
“Alec!” Paddy sounded both dumbfounded and relieved. Alec saw without any interest at all that his friend was stark naked, and that Pearl, sitting up in the wide bed in which Alec had passed many a pleasant hour, was naked too. Paddy lowered the pistol, and shook his head. “ ’Ave you lost your bloody senses, man? I could’ve done for you!”
“I need your ’elp. It’s Isabella. She’s gone.” His voice had an odd rasp to it, probably because he could hardly talk around the lump in his throat.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“Gone, disappeared, vanished! Someone’s taken ’er! A groom saw ’er walking along the lane in front of the ’ouse, and then when ’e looked again, all ’e saw was a carriage turning back the way it ’ad come! ’E’d already set men after ’er when I got there, but they never found a trace. Not a trace! Oh, God!” Alec broke off, fighting not to give way to total panic as he tried for the hundredth time in an hour to imagine who could hate him so much—and know him so well—that they would attack him through Isabella.
How many who knew him, or of him, were even aware of her existence?
“Rothersham, do you think?” Paddy asked tersely, laying the pistol on the bedside table and reaching for his breeches, which were crumpled on the floor beside the bed.
“If I thought so, I’d kill the bloody bastard by inches—but the man’s too much a coward, and too thoroughly frightened, to ’ave done such a thing.”
“Then who?”
“God, I’ve racked my brain and I can’t come up with any answer to that!”
“There’s no need to be in such a taking, Alec. I’m sure the countess ’as come to no ’arm.” Pearl rose from the bed, sublimely unconcerned with her nakedness until she caught Paddy’s darkening eye upon her. Then, with a conciliatory little moue in his direction, she picked up her white silk wrapper from the chair by the bed and shrugged into it, tying the ribbons and shaking her hair loose from the collar as she came toward Alec.
“Darlin’, what makes you think anything’s ’appened to ’er? ’Ow do you know the little—Isabella—’asn’t just decided that she’s ’ad enough of an adventure and gone back ’ome? Or maybe she’s found another lover. Some of us do that, you know.”
There was the barest undertone of malice to
that, telling Alec that Pearl had not forgotten their recent quarrel.
“Isabella would no more do such a thing than she would fly,” he said positively, dismissing the suggestions as not even worth considering until something—something—in Pearl’s expression struck him as odd. He’d known her long, and he’d known her well, and he’d seen that cat-with-the-canary-in-its-mouth smile before.
“Damn you to bloody ’ell and back, Pearl,” he swore savagely, reaching for her and dragging her forward to stand in front of him, both hands closed tightly around her soft upper arms. “What ’ave you done?”
“ ’Ave you lost your mind, Alec? Take your ’ands off ’er!” Paddy was beside him, towering over him, glowering threateningly, but Alec paid him no mind. Pearl was looking frightened now, the malicious amusement that had shone from her eyes moments earlier replaced by an apprehension that was obvious to those who knew her as well as Alec—and Paddy—did.
“Good God, woman!” Paddy muttered, one look at her face convicting her for him as well as Alec.
“What ’ave you done?” Alec growled again, and when Pearl still didn’t answer, he shook her furiously. “What ’ave you done? You’ll tell me, or I’ll …”
“Ow, Alec, you’re ’urting me, you are! Paddy, are you goin’ to let ’im treat me this way? You said you loved me! Ow!”
Alec was beside himself, ready to wrap his fingers around her neck and squeeze the answer out of her if need be. Paddy, seeing the fury in his friend’s face, placed a restraining hand on his arm.
“Leave off now, Alec. Leave ’er to me.”
“And welcome,” Alec said bitterly, thrusting Pearl toward him. Like Alec, Paddy held Pearl’s upper arms in his huge hands, but his grip was gentler. She looked up at him, her white-blonde hair spilling down her back, her midnight blue eyes wide and frightened. She looked very young suddenly—and very guilty.
“Pearl?” Paddy questioned softly, his eyes fastening on and holding hers.
Pearl looked up at him for a long moment without speaking. Then her face crumpled and she burst into noisy tears.
LVII
In a week Isabella found herself in Paris. The city was in an uproar, as Royalist troops searched out the last of the Bonapartists who, unable to escape with their master, had gone into hiding. Soldiers in their tall shakos and fine pelisses marched the streets at all hours. Homes were summarily searched, and scores of people were arrested for no greater charge than having been loyal to Napoleon. The Tuileries, returned to the Bourbon King, glittered every night with festivities as all those in Paris—the French citizenry and the English who flocked into the city to be present at this triumphal moment—celebrated the Bourbon restoration. If some of those present would have just as joyously welcomed the return of Napoleon, no one could have told it from the dedication with which they celebrated the new regime.
The Duke of Wellington had been named Ambassador of Paris, and all the talk was of the assassination attempt against him that had gone awry. Isabella, receiving afternoon callers with her stepmother in the sitting room of the house Bernard had leased in the fashionable rue de la Printemps, listened as Colonel Tynling told the tale yet again:
“The assassin placed himself in the Rue Royale, just outside the gateway of the courtyard of Nosey’s hotel. Just as Nosey’s carriage turned into the gateway, the fellow commenced firing his pistol at the duke; then when the weapon emptied he ran up the street and made his escape before he could be seized by the sentries who were on duty at the hotel’s entrance. The Minister of Police—a Frenchy, of course—made a great noise about discovering the criminal, but the man got clean away, to Belgium it is said. Of course, he had help from those who employed him.”
“Do you think he was hired? Who would do such a thing?” One of the other guests, a petite little redhead named Miss Brantley, breathed in wide-eyed fascination. That her fascination was more for Colonel Tynling than his tale was well-known, and obvious even to one as new to their company as Isabella. But the Colonel, feeling himself properly appreciated, visibly swelled.
“There are those who would have Bonaparte back, who would stop at nothing to send fat Louis packing.”
“Oh, my!” Miss Brantley gasped, apparently awe-stricken. It was all Isabella could do not to roll her eyes in disgust. This, her first taste of Society, was likely to give her a disgust for it that no amount of time could eradicate.
The six days since their arrival in the newly liberated city—the party consisted of Bernard, herself, the duke and his wife—had been spent largely in an orgy of shopping. Isabella, escorted by Sarah and a “footman” named Lambert whom Isabella suspected had really been employed to keep an eye on her, had visited mantua-makers by the dozen. Without Alec to dazzle, she contented herself with restoring her accustomed appearance. Thus it was that, for all her wardrobe’s expense, it consisted of quiet blues and grays and mauves. Once again she faded into the background, attracting no notice. Her hair she styled as she had for years, scraped back into a tidy knot at her nape. The fringe that Mr. Alderson had so cunningly fashioned still framed her face, hinting at the quiet beauty that she didn’t care enough to let shine, but in the general drabness of her appearance no one noticed. She was sensible Isabella again, and determined to remain so.
“She’s such a … a nothing,” Sarah complained to the duke that evening, after Isabella had spent the entire afternoon seated on the small settee with hardly a word to say for herself. “She’s an embarrassment, Charles, really. Why must I do this?”
Isabella, who had come into the hall behind Sarah, was neither hurt nor surprised by this overhead outburst. Indeed, she felt nothing at all as she listened to her hitherto despised stepmother’s words. If Sarah was ashamed of her, then good. She herself had no love for Sarah. But to her surprise, Isabella found that she no longer either hated or feared her, as she had as a girl. She felt only indifference. Sarah had lost her power to wound at last.
“To protect our name, of course. Do you want it bruited about that our daughter spent months in the company of a man not her husband? Think of that, my dear, and be thankful that Isabella is not one to attract much attention. No one will remember just when she was and was not in Paris, as they would if she were a raving beauty.”
“I had not thought of that,” Sarah said, frowning. Then their carriage arrived and they left.
Isabella and Bernard were to join them at the Elysée that evening, to pay their respects as new arrivals to the King, but they would not leave until half past ten, and at the moment it was only five. Bernard was not in the house—indeed, she had seen him only in company since that first shattering confrontation in the Pelican—and would likely arrive at the house just in time to change into evening clothes before going out. He treated her with courtesy in public, and ignored her in private, which put their relationship back on a footing similar to that which had always existed between them. Appeased by the healthy bribe her father had bestowed on him, and made a little wary by her open accusation of attempted murder, Bernard seemed to have abandoned any notion of ridding himself of his wife.
For the time being at least.
Glancing out through the glass sidelight by the imposing front door, Isabella saw that Lambert was stationed by the front steps. She wondered what he would do if she simply walked out the door, down the steps and away … away to England, Amberwood and Alec.
Stop her, of course. Without ever putting it to the test, she knew.
Suddenly Isabella was afflicted with the most dreadful headache. Or was it heartache that sent her to her room to rest?
LVIII
It was late afternoon two days later. At Sarah’s insistence, Isabella had joined a party of her friends watching a balloon ascension from a carriage in the Place de I’Etoile. Nearby stood the half-completed Arc de Triomphe, which Napoleon had intended to stand as a symbol of his victories and which had been hastily abandoned. As the balloonists were having some trouble getting their craft in the air, Isabella st
epped down from the carriage to join Miss Brantley and Sarah in viewing the symbol of the deposed Emperor’s waning fortunes. Colonel Tynling and Viscount de Lile, who formed the rest of the party, stayed behind to watch the adventurers’ efforts, so the ladies ventured forth alone.
The carriage was only a few yards from the monument, but many people had crowded into the square to watch the promised spectacle, and it took some time to pick their way through the crowd. Isabella found herself jostled mercilessly, and when a hand caught her arm, she was hardly surprised.
“Please release my …” she began, turning to treat her assailant to a frosty stare. But then the words died in her throat. The square with its noisy crowd faded into nothingness.
“Alec,” she said. Then again, helplessly, “Alec.”
He looked down at her, those golden eyes intent, then without a word, turned and pulled her by the hand through the crowd.
Isabella followed him, blindly obedient, her heart pounding so fiercely that she could scarcely breathe, let alone think. She fastened her eyes on the back of that tawny head, and drank in the sight of him.
Alec had come at last.
He pulled her into a little walled garden in the nearby Champs Elysées. Then at last, when they were totally secure in their privacy, he stopped walking and turned to look at her. Those golden eyes moved over her face as if he were starved for the sight of her. His hands caught hers and he pulled her close, their bodies almost touching.
“My God, Isabella, I’ve been going out of my mind,” he said quietly. And then she was locked in his embrace, her arms sliding around his neck to clutch him as if she would never let him go. They kissed tenderly, fiercely, as if they would die if they didn’t.
When at last he lifted his head, he still held her pressed against him, his arms around her, his mouth in her hair.
Tiger's Eye Page 33
