The Sometime Bride

by Blair Bancroft

  Anthony drew a deep breath, looked her straight in the eye. “He’s the other half of myself, Cat. Older by only twenty minutes.”

  And that gave you the right to live as my husband?”

  “No! I never . . . we never . . . Bloody hell!” Anthony grabbed a handful of jet black hair, tugging hard. “Do you have any idea how it was?” he grated through clenched teeth. “I was as ignorant as you. It was a lark, just another schoolboy prank. I scarcely took it seriously, never imagined it would last so long.”

  There was no doubt his anguish was genuine. Cat recalled the mysterious times she had seen him suffer and failed to understand the cause. “He has used you almost as badly as he has used me,” she acknowledged.

  “The difference,” said Anthony, facing her squarely, “is that I knew I was being used.”

  Cat took a deep breath, dropping her eyes to the long black fringe she was winding round her fingers. “Did Thomas know?” she asked at last.

  “No. He sensed something, though. I think that’s why he was so determined to send you to England. He could feel there was some secret hanging over us all.”

  A log burned through and fell onto the hearth, scattering a shower of sparks. Streaks of dancing light lit Anthony’s face to which the deep tan of the Spanish sun still clung. “Could you not have told me?” Cat whispered, close to tears. “Was I—who knew the strengths and weaknesses of armies and cities and generals and guerrilleros —was I not to be trusted with this? Can you imagine the humiliation of knowing I have lived with two men? At the same time?”

  “Cat, you’ve got to understand! You were a child. Thomas had been badly injured. Alex couldn’t manage alone. No matter what happened, he and I always backed each other. He needed help. He sent for me and I went. Without hesitation. I was twenty-two, you were fifteen. A child involved in a false marriage to my brother who was always getting himself into one scrape or another. That you and Alex would actually marry never occurred to me.”

  “It was a game,” said Cat flatly. “And I the most negligible piece. You were the sons of an English duke playing make-believe with a portuguesa of dubious background.”

  “It wasn’t like that!”

  “Yes. It was.”

  Anthony tightened his grip on the wolf’s head, wishing there were something he could lash out at, someone to blame besides himself. Wishing he were not once again carrying his brother’s burdens. Trying to make amends for his brother’s wrongs.

  Unfair. They were his wrongs as well.

  “My British gentleman’s illusions didn’t last long,” Anthony said quietly, “but the damage was done. Alex—we both—decided not to burden you with the deception.”

  “I cannot decide,” said Cat thoughtfully, “if Papa would have killed you both or laughed until his sides ached.”

  “Thomas was a bit of a rogue. The complete pragmatist. I think he would have forgiven us.”

  “But I shall not,” said Cat softly. “You . . . perhaps. Blas . . . no.” She held up a hand. “No, do not argue about this. It is not something I can discuss. It hurts too much.”

  Changing the subject was a small grace in face of the massive apologies she was owed. “Tell me,” Anthony asked, “what was it about my feet that gave me away?”

  After explaining about Blas’s damaged feet, Cat added a question of her own. “How did you manage to keep things straight between you? In all those years there were so very few mistakes.”

  “We had a pied-à-terre in the Alfama. A place where we kept duplicate clothing. For example, we had the jacket you gave to Alex copied. Left it out in the sun and rain for a month before I ever wore it. Things like that. We’d leave each other notes there, reports of what had been happening, incidents in the gaming rooms. Those last few years we were home so seldom it scarcely mattered. Alex stayed out of the gaming rooms entirely as he knew he had no way of keeping up with old faces. I was the only one left playing Alejo. On his personal visits to you he was always Blas.”

  Cat nodded. They were very clever, the two of them. Arrogantly, ruthlessly clever.

  “There is another thing I don’t understand,” Cat added. “Amabel must have been thirteen when you left for Lisbon. And yet she speaks of seeing you more than once in the past five years.”

  “I was home twice,” Anthony admitted. “Working with the guerrilleros in the south was never as demanding an assignment as Alex’s in the north. It was easier for me to get back and keep the parents happy. And the Lovells. Though I didn’t encourage the chit,” he added hastily. Then, daringly, “After all, I had a wife in Lisbon.”

  He fought off the deliberately slow slap aimed at his bad leg. Cat glared. “To be precise, Amabel told me she had seen you three times in the last five years.”

  “Uh, well, yes,” Anthony hedged.

  “You will explain.”

  “Well . . . you probably know Alex came back the winter of 1811. That’s when he made peace with the parents. And bought Branwyck Park.” Anthony fidgeted with the wolf’s head, shifted his bad ankle which was suddenly sending stabbing pains up his leg. Undoubtedly, an attack of bad conscience. “I’m not sure why he did it” Anthony murmured obscurely. “It’s possible he was making sure my future was thoroughly attached to Lovell acres. But, to be truthful . . . I think he was doing his best to ensure my destiny was turned away from–um–from Lisbon. Whatever the reason, he visited the Lovells three years ago. As me.”

  “The devil,” Cat hissed.

  “Oh, surely,” Anthony agreed amiably. “I didn’t know about it until Lady Lovell told me just last week that I was particularly charming on that occasion. Even endeared myself to old auntie and her elderly cousin once removed. Gave me quite a turn, I can tell you. According to Lady Lovell, that was the visit that turned Amabel’s head completely.”

  “Ah, deus,” Cat breathed. “Hanging is too good for the two of you.”

  “Tell me what you know about the Duke of Marchmont and his wife,” said Catherine to Clara Everingham the next morning. She had steered Clara and Blanca into the morning room directly after breakfast, not even waiting for Lady Everingham’s daily meeting with her housekeeper.

  “You are well acquainted with young Anthony, are you not?” Clara asked with her customary shrewdness. “You must be careful there, Catherine, my dear. It’s quite well known he’s intended for Amabel Lovell, and I cannot believe you wish to hurt the poor child.”

  “I shan’t, I promise you,” said Cat absently. “Now, please, my lady, tell me about Marchmont.”

  “The duke,” said Clara firmly, “is a cold, arrogant, difficult man. As high in the instep as they come. But I have to grant him the courage of his convictions.

  “The title dates back to Norman times,” Clara explained. “Old enough to make the Hanovers seem johnny-come-latelies. But the family has been in semi-exile for years. Some blame Marchmont for the king’s last fit of madness. I fear he favored Catholic Emancipation. There was a great deal of controversy at the time. Mutterings about marriage to foreigners. The poor king took Marchmont’s defection very badly. ’Tis said he didn’t stop talking to himself for days; he was ill for months afterwards. Marchmont was forced to resign from government, and he and Melisande retired to the country and have not come to town since.”

  “Melisande. She is French?”

  “Yes. And Marchmont’s mother was Spanish. The twins took after her, as you have only to look at Anthony to see. Alexander, the heir, is said to be mad. Or disfigured in a hunting accident. A very great tragedy which even a martinet like Marchmont surely did not deserve.”

  “So Lady Lovell told me,” said Cat. “Clara,” she added carefully, while Blanca watched in fascination. “There is something I must tell you.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Letters to the Marquess of Wellington in his winter quarters at St. Jean de Luz in France—particularly those forwarded from military headquarters at the Horse Guards—reached the continent in remarkably short order. As did
the letter to the Marquess of Harborough enclosed inside one of the packets addressed to Britain’s commander-in-chief.

  When the two similarly titled Englishmen returned in a flurry of hounds and weary riders from a satisfying day of hunting, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, himself the son of a duke, passed along the letter written by Anthony Trowbridge to his brother Alexander. Wellington barely had time to change his clothes when he was asked to grant an interview to the Duke of Marchmont’s eldest son and heir.

  “Request permission to return to England, my lord,” said Blas with uncharacteristic formality, his eyes grim, his normally full lips thinned into a determined line.

  “You’d desert me, Harborough?” Wellington snapped. “Just as we’re about to start our run to Paris?”

  “Family problems, Sir. You’ve a dozen men who can scout France as well as I. And captured French maps which leave me with nothing more to do.”

  “True,” the general agreed, “but friends are always needed.” Wellington, who surrounded himself with young men of high intelligence and impeccable lineage, was loathe to see this one go. Alexander Trowbridge had never hesitated to speak his mind, even when ranking officers quailed before their commander’s stinging tongue. “Sit, boy,” the general ordered, “and tell me about it. Nothing wrong with Marchmont, I trust.”

  “No, Sir.” Blas sank onto a chair close to Wellington’s desk. “Wife trouble, actually.”

  The general heaved a profound sigh. “I had hoped to be of some help to you, Harborough, but I am the last man to give advice on wives.”

  Silence stretched awkwardly as each pictured poor ineffectual Kitty, Lady Wellington, so woefully mismatched with the abrupt dynamic genius already hailed as one of the greatest generals in the history of the world. There were worse things, Blas realized, than fearing half the men in London, including your brother, were in love with your wife. Or she with one of them. He might have found himself married to someone chosen by others. Some fragile, spineless daughter of the beau monde without two thoughts to rub together.

  But he had not. He had married the right woman. The only woman. And—with Thomas Audley’s help—made a terrible hash of it all. As his brother had made quite clear: By the time you read this letter, I fear Cat will know all. I can see it in her eyes. She has not yet realized what we did to her, but when she does, I’m damned if I’ll handle this one alone. Come home and settle your own bloody problems. Before I take your place. Permanently.

  “Sir?” Embarrassed, Blas looked blankly at his commander-in-chief.

  “Catherine. Audley’s girl,” Wellington repeated. “Is she not in Lisbon?”

  “London, Sir. Since September.”

  The general was never one to hesitate over asking what he wished to know. The scandals in his own family made it easier for him to speak of the unconventionality of others. “You’ll recognize her then?”

  “Oh, yes,” Blas vowed with a rueful smile. “Though it may be more a case of, will she recognize me?”

  For a fleeting moment Arthur Wellesley pictured the monumental confrontation destined to occur between the Duke of Marchmont and his eldest son. The equally dramatic reunion between the daring spy and his wife. What could be serious enough to send the boy flying ventre à terre back to a wife he had successfully lived without for years?

  Wellington shrugged off the eternal war of the sexes. It could not compare to the game at hand. They were about to march into history. They would shatter the vast empire of Napoleon Bonaparte, forge the final links of his cage. And yet . . . Wellington was one of very few who knew what this boy, now a man, had done in the nearly seven years since he left Oxford and sailed to France under a smuggler’s moon. The heir to the Duke of Marchmont had casually informed a friend at Horse Guards that he planned to spend his long vacation traveling to Spain by way of France. Would there, perhaps, be some interest in knowing what he saw along the way?

  The logic was inescapable. If Blas the Bastard thought he must go home, he had more than earned the right.

  Wellington scribbled a short note, handed it to Blas. “This will get you on board the next ship out of Passajes.” He rose, clasped Blas’s hand as the younger man bounded to his feet. “Come back to me if you can. I shall miss you.”

  Blas had never worn a British uniform—though he had spent brief periods of time wearing a remarkable array of other country’s colors. But he stood at attention and sketched a creditable salute before turning on his heel and striding smartly out the door.

  After a slow shake of his head, the Marquess of Wellington returned to his plans for the march on Toulouse.

  Blas had a long journey ahead. Back over the mountains into northern Spain, across the Bidoassa to the port of Passajes. Then two weeks at sea. Ample time to contemplate his sins. To remember he was an Englishman. With a wife who just might have a strong grievance. A wife who might be very angry.

  Furious.

  A wife who might prefer his brother’s kindly nature and even temperament.

  Blas had a long time to curse Thomas Audley. And the fates keeping him from the final, triumphant march through France.

  In spite of a continuing barrage of snow and ice, Cat fled to Branwyck Park. She fled from Anthony. From Amabel. From Wrexham. From the shock and speculation on Clara Everingham’s face when she learned the truth. From Clara’s excited surety her protégé was destined to be a duchess.

  It was, in fact, the thought of being a marchioness, of one day becoming a duchess, that forced Cat to realize the futility of it all. Her marriage could not be salvaged. Even if Blas had not wronged her beyond her power to forgive, the enormity of the mésalliance hung like a wall of iron between them. Thomas had been right after all, Cat acknowledged. Her future lay elsewhere.

  Wrexham? Honor demanded she tell him. The earl had been graciousness itself when Cat blamed the French occupation for the oddity of her marriage at fourteen. Even when she admitted her husband still lived, however tenuous their relationship might be, she had caught a mix of emotions in the earl’s cool gray eyes. Keen interest in hearing the whole at last, an annoying hint of amusement. Bitterly, Cat supposed her tale was providing the elegant nobleman with the most entertainment of the Season. Did she also catch a flash of relief? If the Earl of Wrexham had succeeded in making the wife of the Marquess of Harborough his mistress, it would have been pistols at dawn.

  Or would Blas not care? Cat wondered. Would he feel nothing but relief she had been passed along to a suitable successor? Isn’t that what gentlemen did with discarded mistresses?

  The day of reckoning had come. The moment she had deliberately ignored all these years. Cat pulled the oversized woolen shawl closer about her shoulders. She was sitting next to the fire in her sitting room at Branwyck Park, toasting her toes, attempting in vain to warm her soul.

  When Britain’s fighting men came home, a goodly number of them would look at Anthony Trowbridge and see Don Alexis Perez de Leon. And when Alexander Trowbridge came home, they would see the same. And recall a very young woman with red-gold hair who was married to them both.

  They would remember. Speculate. Whisper. The whisper would become a roar.

  Cat closed her hands over her ears, rocking back and forth. She would not be frightened off by the first hint of disaster. She was Thomas Audley’s daughter, and she would return to the Everinghams for the official start of the Season at Easter. She had promised, and she would be there.

  She would hold her head high. And smile. And smile. At the ton. At Anthony and Amabel. At the Earl of Wrexham.

  And hold her breath, waiting for the sword to drop.

  She had just one lifeline. A silent four-year-old who dispensed love as easily as he absorbed it. A small sturdy rock in the precarious sea of her existence. Somehow, Cat vowed, they would survive. A small French boy and a child of Portugal. Both lost. And far from home.

  Alexander Blasius de Rochefort Trowbridge, Marquess of Harborough, sailed into Portsmouth on a naval frigate, promptly hire
d a coach and set out for London. As he left the coast and moved northeast, the roads showed more and more evidence of Britain’s long hard winter. If it were not for the decidedly Anglo-Saxon curses which drifted down from the coachman’s box, he might have thought himself back in the Pyrenees.

  Blas propped his booted feet on the opposite seat, leaned back against the well-worn squabs and tried to rest. But now that he was close to the end of his journey every thought and fear of the last three weeks crowded in to overwhelm him. The heirs to titles such as his rarely had the occasion to experience jealousy. Particularly when the title belonged to a man of strikingly powerful appearance and equally dynamic personality. Blas had known jealousy only twice before. When he discovered his wife’s wedding gown had been designed by his brother. And when that same brother had made her so damnably, ecstatically happy by having a copy made for her newer, marvelously fuller feminine figure. Something he should have thought of himself.

  And now this. Come home before I take your place. Permanently.

  But Tony wouldn’t.

  Cat wouldn’t.

  Hell and damnation! He’d given her a house, a damn fine house. Servants. Plenty of money. She had the sponsorship of a noble family, the companionship of Dona Blanca. He had even given her a child. What more could a woman want? It wasn’t as if they weren’t at war. Half the women in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland hadn’t seen their men in years. Scarcely a family remained untouched by twenty years of war. What did she expect him to do? Stay home like some toothless tom?

  He was being absurd and he knew it. Defensive. Guilty. Guilty of the deception of an innocent child. Of taking that innocence from her. Of falling in love when he was little more than a child himself.

  What a glorious sight she had been that day, leaning over the balcony, red hair gleaming where it peeked out from under the oversized mob cap to fall in wild abandon over the pristine white of her bibbed apron. He had nearly lost the words of his song when he saw her. Green eyes wide and sparkling in the sunlight, an incredulous smile curving her lips as she stared at him. He had risen on his precarious perch atop a pile of kegs and sketched a bow. And something passed between them. A bond which held firm through seven years. A bond which he knew in his heart had not been broken. Could not be broken.