The Sometime Bride

by Blair Bancroft

  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.

  Cat was desolate. She had accomplished exactly what she thought she wanted. She had given him a disgust of her.

  He was not coming. He did not want her.

  She would die of it.

  She would not. Though Thomas’s mocking laughter was strong inside her head, Cat stood her ground. She was Catherine Audley Perez de Leon. Far from a fragile flower. She had Auguste Beaufort. André. Blanca and Bess Fielding.

  Who needed Blas the Bastard?

  Alex.

  Somehow it was not so painful if she thought of him as Alex. A new character on the stage. Alexander Trowbridge, Lord Harborough, villain extraordinaire.

  Alex. A name to hate.

  Alex, Alex, Alex . . .

  Ten days after their arrival in Paris Cat and Blanca sat in the family barouche in front of the Hôtel Beaufort, patiently waiting while the colonel spoke with the coachman. Blanca leaned close to hiss into Cat’s ear. “Monsieur François has just told me there has been a great storm in the Channel. For nearly a week boats have not been able to leave port.” Conflicting emotions drifted across Cat’s face as Blanca added, “Monsieur François says the storm is dying out. He expects shipping to venture out with the next tide.”

  The eggs and country bacon Cat had consumed for breakfast rose in her throat. Was it possible Alexander the Great had not rejected her? That he might yet come? Could she once again expect to see him around the next corner, at the door, climbing in her window? Into her bed? She should be horrified. But what she felt was a surge of excitement, a thin, flickering flame of hope. A poor, sickly thing. But hope, nonetheless.

  Colonel Beaufort ended his cautions to the coachman and swung himself into the barouche. With a reassuring smile he seated himself on the rear-facing seat opposite the two ladies. He had hesitated to take his guests into the maelstrom that was Paris—even the dressmaker brought her swatches and her minions to the Beaufort mansion—but one look at his guests’ wan faces that morning had changed his mind. A healthy dose of Paris in the springtime was needed. He could only hope there had been time to remove whatever bodies had been abandoned in the streets after any early morning affaires d’honeur.

  Cat—lost in visions, terrible and romantic, of her lover’s arrival—became aware of her surroundings only after they had driven some distance down the Champs-Élysées. Embarrassed by her preoccupation, she straightened her shoulders and made a concerted effort to show her appreciation for this excursion into the Parisian spring. As she looked around, it immediately became apparent the new French fashions were even more startling at close range. “Regarde, Blanca,” said Cat with determined gaiety. “The sleeves on that gown are so enormous I think the lady must take to flight at any moment. And the bonnets! The brims are so wide ’tis a wonder the parisiennes can find their way about. They need an escort to keep them from being run over!”

  “I shall look like a balloon in my new gowns,” Blanca moaned, shaking her head. “The skirts must be four times the width to which we are
accustomed. And you, child, will be lost in all those yards of cloth. Ah, deus!” she exclaimed. “Do not, I pray you, choose one like that. You have not the height for it.” Blanca nodded toward a young woman whose gown was composed of successive layers of ruffles which fell from its slightly raised waistline all the way to the hemline.

  “You will notice all the ladies are well escorted,” Beaufort pointed out. “As I have warned you, Paris is not a safe place at the moment.”

  “I would not have missed it for the world,” Cat countered swiftly. “There may be tension, but there is excitement as well. When Lisbon was occupied, it was not at all the same. The city was quiet . . . sullen, if you will. Here there is a feeling almost anything could happen at any moment. They say Napoleon is on his way to Elba, but I should not be surprised to see him come riding down the street, gathering his troops behind him.”

  Colonel Beaufort turned his head away, staring sightlessly out over the beauty of the city. “He was a great man,” he said. “He carried us farther than most of us wished to go, but he was a man whose name will echo through the centuries. We were proud to follow wherever he led.”

  Catherine laid a comforting hand on the colonel’s arm. “You have a right to be proud, Auguste. No one can fault a man for being loyal to his country.”

  The colonel suddenly ordered the coachman to stop. The ladies gazed up at a vast three-story building which stretched along the bank of the Seine. “Come,” said Beaufort, leaping from the carriage and offering a hand to help the ladies down. “Let us do something which will bring smiles back to your faces. We can be among the few who will see the best of Europe’s art before we are forced to give it back,” he added with only a trace of bitterness.

  “This is the Louvre?” Cat inquired, wide-eyed.

  “Napoleon brought so many treasures to the museum his architects had to add a third story. The basements are full as well. At the moment this building houses the greatest collection of art ever assembled under one roof.”

  The colonel’s stiff-necked pride radiated from every pore. If there was one thing his hero Napoleon Bonaparte was not, Catherine knew, it was a barbarian. “Surely not all of it must be returned?” she murmured.

  “By no means,” Beaufort declared. “The kings of France acquired a great many treasures long before Napoleon decided to become the premier art collector of the world. The Louvre will still be a great museum.” The colonel tossed off a Gallic shrug, aware he had revealed too much of himself. “With the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, how can it not?” he added on a lighter note.

  All too quickly they discovered the impossibility of seeing, let alone appreciating, the Louvre’s vast array of treasures in one visit. By the time Cat paused before the warm and roiling colors of a Fragonard, she could have sworn her slippers were worn to nearly nothing between her stockings and the marble floor.

  “Catherine,” Beaufort said with a sudden frown, “Joseph Bonaparte was carrying some of Spain’s finest paintings at Vitoria. Do you know what happened to them? Were they looted along with everything else?”

  “Amazingly, I do know,” Cat replied. “I’m told King Joseph escaped his coach out one side while the British pulled open the door on the other. The paintings were in the coach and, fortunately, rolled canvas does not have the glitter of gold. They escaped the looting. I only know because six months later the entire story was the talk of London when the paintings were given to Wellington by a grateful Spanish government.”

  “So the great and proper Wellington ended up with the finest loot of all,” Beaufort mused. “I rather like the irony.”

  He cut off Cat’s sputtering with a quick smile and a suggestion they end their visit for the day and sample the ices at Tortoni’s.

  Famed for the tastiness and variety of its ices, Tortoni’s seemed an odd place to find a large group of young men unaccompanied by ladies or even by their chère amies. Some were lounging at tables with a view of the entrance; others, by windows overlooking the street and the Bois de Boulogne. This, combined with an intense atmosphere of expectation, left the colonel wondering if he should return the ladies to the barouche immediately.

  “Colonel!” a voice cried. “Colonel Beaufort.” An eager young man sprang up from one of the window tables and came forward, hand outstretched in greeting. In his mid-twenties, he had the confident, straight-shouldered bearing of a soldier. Dark eyes shone from a thin face topped by brown hair cut short in the style of his Emperor.

  “Lambert.” Auguste Beaufort wrung the young man’s hand. “I am glad to see you made it back.”

  “Moi aussi, colonel.” The young man grinned.

  “Madame Perez, Dona Blanca, allow me to present my aide-de-camp Captain Jean Paul Lambert. We were separated after I was wounded at Vitoria and I have not seen him since.” Beaufort completed the introductions and asked Lambert to join them.

  “Alas, colonel, I deeply regret I cannot join two such lovely ladies, for I have an obligation to my companions. We are in momentary expectation of some action, you understand?” He winked at the colonel and nodded toward a table of young Frenchmen, all obviously very fit. Eager specimens of Napoleon’s finest.

  “Don’t be a fool, Jean Paul,” Beaufort snapped. “You have too much to offer to risk your life when it is no longer necessary.”

  “It is different for you, colonel. You are a family man. But me, I do not care to see foreign troops walking the streets of my city. I have never known anything but war. How can I have a place in this world of peace?” He shrugged. “I must do what I must. For honor, for glory. Because I am bored. Do not mourn for me, colonel. What else is left for a soldier of France?” With a gracious bow to the ladies, Jean Paul Lambert returned to his fellow officers. Grimly, the colonel turned to a hovering waiter and placed their order.

  The ladies were thoroughly enjoying their strawberry ices when they became aware of a sudden cessation of conversation around them. Slowly, Cat put down her spoon and raised her eyes to Auguste. “What is happening?” she whispered.

  “Trouble, I think,” he hissed back. “Some Prussian soldiers have just entered. Death’s Head Regiment. Eat your ice and keep your eyes on your plate.” Hastily, Cat and Blanca did as they were bid, but their ears were attuned to the slightest sound. With something close to revulsion, Cat suddenly realized she was enjoying the resurgence of excitement, the call to danger. If she could feel like this, it was no wonder the young officers of both sides were turning the cafés of Paris into a war zone.

  As the Prussians passed their table, swords clinking in time to their synchronized steps, Cat sneaked a look from beneath lowered lashes. Her shock was intense. Never before had she encountered the Death’s Head Regiment. Except for the tall white feather and the skull and crossbones which decorated their shakos, all three officers were dressed in black from their heads to shiny booted toes. Cat felt the hair rise on her arms. The messengers of Death had come to Tortoni’s.

  The three Prussian officers, obviously as bent on a quarrel as their French counterparts, walked up to the table by the window where Jean Paul Lambert and his companions were sitting and demanded that it be vacated so they might sit there. The four Frenchmen slouched down in their chairs, smiling in satisfaction. At last, some action! A rapid series of insults, a scraping of chairs. A general murmur of satisfaction from the other customers, followed by a mass exodus of young men crossing the street into the Bois de Boulogne.

  Beaufort shot to his feet, grabbed Cat by the arm. “You will not be among those who watch this thing.” Having been forbidden to do far too few things in her life, Cat glared at him, refusing to move.

  “Come,” said Blanca, who had long since learned how to compromise with her young friend, “no one is by the windows now. We may watch from there.”

  Across the street nods of approval from the spectators met the choice of swords for the duel. Prussians had a proper understanding of honor. Swords were a much more elegant weapon, a contest of skill, almost a thing
of beauty, not the roar of a single ball, the smell of powder, and—poof!—all was over in an instant.

  The cluster of young men, clearly visible in a small grassy area surrounded by towering trees, suddenly scattered into a rough ring, leaving at the center two pairs of duelists. Two Prussians handed their shakos with the grinning Death’s Heads to their companions, clicked their heels and bowed to the two young men who were no longer allowed to wear the uniform of France. One of the Frenchman was Jean Paul Lambert.

  “Ah, no!” Cat breathed. “Prussians are reputed to be the best swordsmen in Europe.”

  “Nonsense,” said the colonel. “They are clumsy oxen compared to Frenchmen. You will see.”

  Someone had left the door to Tortoni’s open, and in the absolute silence inside the building the clash of swords rang clear and true. Cat had seen very little swordplay but had little doubt she was witnessing a remarkable demonstration of skill. Was that not what Captain Lambert had been trying to say? The duel was not simply a life and death struggle with the enemy but a matter of honor. Perhaps even more important than winning was the manner in which the battle was fought.

  And then, as if to prove her wrong, the contest turned ugly. One of the Prussians stumbled, on a tree root perhaps, as he stepped back from his opponent’s lunge. As he fell to his knees, his sword almost touching the ground, his opponent surged forward to ram his sword through the Prussian’s shoulder.

  A cry of disapproval rang out from men of both nationalities. In battle such conduct was necessary, but not on a field of honor. Then again, the war was only a month past. It was all too easy to forget it was over.

  Disregarding the presence of the ladies, Beaufort swore softly and fluently, feeling personally dishonored by the Frenchman’s conduct. The wounded Prussian was dragged clear of the field as the second duel suddenly intensified into deadly combat. The black-clad Prussian, engaged with Jean Paul Lambert, had truly become a relentless messenger of death.