The Sometime Bride

by Blair Bancroft

  Lambert was gradually driven back toward the trees. His feet stepped nimbly over roots and branches, but he was not able to recapture the forward momentum of the aggressor. A final step back, and he was trapped against a broad tree trunk with no room to maneuver. He made a desperate sweep of his sword from left to right in an attempt to parry the Prussian’s flying blade, but his opponent’s final thrust moved inexorably on, piercing the Frenchman’s chest. The sword slipped from Lambert’s lifeless fingers as he slid down the rough bark to sit with his back against the tree trunk, his blood draining onto the gnarled roots beneath him.

  The silence of Tortoni’s was split by a sob. Cat realized it was her own. Blanca turned her head away, her face covered by a lace handkerchief. With her other hand she made the Sign of the Cross. Colonel Beaufort, his face grim, shepherded the ladies into the waiting barouche and headed for home. His first duty was to his guests. He would return to make sure the body of Jean Paul Lambert was not among those left to be picked up by the ghoulish squads now making regular marches of death to the cemetery at Père Lachaise.

  Upon their return to the Hôtel Beaufort, Cat and Blanca assured Auguste’s mother they had had a most delightful excursion. Cat spent an hour in the nursery, clinging to the warmth and love of the boy who would, she hoped, grow to maturity in a world where he would never have to go to war. At supper she contrived an entertaining, if not animated, tale of their visit to the Louvre and the fine flavor of the ices at Tortoni’s. But later that night, when the house was quiet, she fastened a robe over her nightgown and crept down the stairs. She was quite sure she had not heard Auguste’s swift and confident stride along the upper hallway. She found him in the library reading, a book in one hand, a glass of brandy in the other. Startled, the colonel jumped to his feet, the brandy sloshing dangerously close to the edge of his glass.

  “May I have some?” Cat asked with a wan smile, sinking into the chair opposite his.

  Beaufort was not surprised by her request. Even before he met her, he was aware Catherine Perez was unique. No matter how delicate her appearance, the fragile flowers of this world did not write letters to Napoleon Bonaparte. “With my compliments, ma chère,” said the colonel as he handed her the brandy and once again took his seat. “The tale you told for my parents’ benefit was truly remarkable.”

  Cat acknowledged his thanks with a small nod. “I suppose . . . he was dead, was he not?”

  “Yes.” In the dim light Beaufort’s blue eyes seemed almost black. “I am very sorry,” he apologized with a grave formality designed to cover his strongly suppressed emotions. “I am deeply disturbed you should see my beautiful country at such a terrible time.”

  Cat pleated a fold in her robe, then smoothed it flat. “It’s strange. I am nearly twenty-one. For all my life France has been the enemy. And yet, today, I wanted, so very much, for Captain Lambert to win. I knew him for five minutes, and yet I grieve. It is almost as difficult to understand as my feelings for Blas. Alex.”

  Cat took a deep swallow from her glass, welcoming the fierce sting as it coursed down her throat. “Today, just as we were leaving for our drive, Monsieur François told Blanca ships are just beginning to sail again after a week of bad weather.” Cat nodded toward the double doors leading to the terrace outside. “Which means that Alexander Trowbridge could walk through those doors at any moment. Or be lying in wait at Tortoni’s, the Louvre, or the Palais-Royal. Anywhere. Anytime. Any place.”

  She raised her eyes and held Auguste’s steady gaze. “I will not have either of you die for me. Do you understand, Auguste? You will remember that Blas—le marquis de Harborough—saved your son’s life. When you meet, you will assure him I am a guest in your parents’ home. That you have at all times treated me with honor.”

  The colonel stiffened, his eyes sparking with offended pride. “A Beaufort does not need to attest to his honor.”

  “I don’t care whether you need to or not,” Cat hissed. “There has been enough killing. If you love your son, if you are grateful for his care, you will say whatever you have to. No one is going to die because of me. Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly,” Beaufort agreed with deceptive meekness. “But somehow I do not think a man who fought with the guerrilleros in Spain is going to agree with you.”

  “Auguste!”

  “Ne fâche pas, Catherine,” he said gently. “The debt I owe him is too great. I have survived a lifetime of war, I shall survive this as well. Now go to bed before I forget you are married and a guest in my house. Almost I find it insulting you come to me begging favors in the wee hours of the night wearing only your bedgarments. Do you think I am not a man?”

  Cat shot to her feet, blushing fiery red, murmuring her apologies. As she said goodnight and moved rapidly across the room, the colonel’s parting words stopped her just short of the door. “If your Blas should not want you,” Auguste declared, “believe me, Catherine, you will always have a place at my side.”

  Unable to summon any coherent thoughts, Cat could only acknowledge his words with a slight nod before she left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  “Your Grace? General? . . . uh, Field Marshal Wellington, Sir?” Captain Jeremy Frayne attempted to pry the Duke of Wellington from his frowning perusal of one of the documents on his desk. The newly appointed ambassador to France was not in the best of moods. Before he could formally assume his new position, he had just learned he must make a quick trip to Spain where Ferdinand the Desired was already wrecking havoc with the reforms promised by the British. Then he would have to make an obligatory trip to England for what might be rather more adulation than he thought he could stomach. Particularly when he should be in Paris which was all too obviously in a state of turmoil.

  Wellington was, however, grateful for the recommendation which had made him aware that one of his intelligence officers might be as useful in peace as he had been in war. That scamp Harborough had a sharp eye for talent—Frayne was proving himself damned helpful.

  “My lord duke?” Captain Frayne was as persistent as he was competent, making yet another effort to attract the ambassador’s attention.

  “If it’s another British traveler wishing to shake my hand,” Wellington snarled, “I’ll have you court-martialed, Frayne.”

  Now that he finally had his general’s attention, Jeremy Frayne ruthlessly repressed a smile. No need to give the game away too soon. “I believe you may wish to see these particular travelers, Sir.”

  “Out with it, captain!”

  “The Marquess of Harborough and his brother Lord Anthony Trowbridge. Sir.”

  The duke put down the page he was scanning and gave Frayne his full attention. “Twins, aren’t they?” Wellington asked sharply.

  “As alike as can be, Sir. I must admit I can’t tell one from the other. Which one was our Blas? Or was it both?”

  Wellington stared at his aide, his blue eyes beginning to take on the old glint of challenge. “Let’s have them in and find out, shall we, Frayne?”

  Since the Duke of Wellington had no more idea than the Foreign Office, the Horse Guards, or the Prince Regent himself that they had employed two Trowbridges for most of the years of the Peninsular War, the next few minutes were occupied by a good many exclamations and explanations, punctuated by wry humor and general camaraderie.

  The general finally sat back in his chair, a small smile playing across his stern features. “Your contribution is greatly appreciated, gentlemen,” he told the twins. “I dare say if your mother had managed quadruplets, we’d have been in Paris years ago.” When the laughter subsided, the duke added, “So what brings you to Paris, my lords?”

  Neither of the twins believed for one moment that Wellington did not already know the answer to his question. “I have come in search of someone, Your Grace,” Alex replied readily enough. “Captain Frayne assures me he will have an address for me shortly.” When the duke lifted an eyebrow, his mouth thinning into
an impatient line, Alex reluctantly added, “I am looking for Thomas Audley’s daughter, Catherine. I believe you may recall her, Sir.”

  Wellington maintained the blank façade of the gambler, but inwardly he was intrigued. It seemed his intrepid young spy was encountering more difficulty in peace than he had in war. “There’s not a soul in Paris who is not aware Catherine Perez is at the Hôtel Beaufort,” the duke admitted. “She is the heroine of the hour. The talk of all Paris. The rescue of the colonel’s son, Beaufort’s dash to England to retrieve the boy, his bringing the beautiful savior of infants back with him. Catherine Perez is famous. She has not yet gone into society, but I am looking forward to hearing the entire tale from her own lips.” The duke’s piercing blue eyes fastened on the man who had once called himself Blas. “So you still have an interest in the girl?”

  There were few men in the world who would dare question the Marquess of Harborough so closely. Thomas Audley would have enjoyed the telltale clenching of Alex’s jaw, the faint grinding of his teeth before he replied, “Yes, Sir, nothing has changed since our last conversation.”

  “Something must have changed for Audley’s daughter.” The duke’s tone was uncompromising. He rose slowly from his chair, Alex and Anthony instantly rising with him. “You may not have heard, Harborough, but the streets of Paris are already littered with the corpses of men who thought themselves heroes. I will not have yours—or Beaufort’s—joining them.”

  “We intend no violence, your grace, Tony interjected swiftly. We only wish to speak with Catherine. A mere matter of a lover’s quarrel, I’m sure you understand.”

  “I understand,” said the duke sternly, “that Catherine Audley has come to Paris under the escort of Colonel Auguste Beaufort. In effect, Harborough’s wife has run off with a Frenchman.”

  Wellington strode out from behind his desk, to stand nose to nose with his former spy. “The day will come, Harborough,” he said, “when you will outrank me, as the Marchmont title is considerably older than mine, but at this moment I am giving you an order I expect you to obey. Thomas Audley’s daughter has my protection and that of Colonel Beaufort as well. No matter what the provocation, there will be no blood shed over this. Neither English nor French. Is that clearly understood?”

  For a moment Tony feared his brother was going to floor Britain’s ambassador to France right there in his ornately gilded office. Sparks flew, amber eyes to blue. The moment passed.

  “Sir!” said Alex Trowbridge. He turned on his heel and stalked out. As he strode down the corridor outside the ambassador’s office, Jeremy Frayne ran after him, thrusting into his hand the piece of paper just given him by the embassy’s French liaison officer.

  The direction of the Hôtel Beaufort.

  Auguste Beaufort, seated at the desk in the library of the Hôtel Beaufort, paused to pour brandy into his glass before forcing himself back to the Annual Report of the Banque de France, which his father had asked him to read. Dull stuff indeed . . . but the life’s blood of the famille Beaufort, whose fortune had been established by being banker to Napoleon and whose wealth and prominence would survive the Emperor’s fall from grace.

  Auguste, idly fingering the edge of one of the closely written sheets of parchment, was tempted to consign it to the fireplace. He must soon come to a decision about his future. What did soldiers do when their armies were disbanded and there were no wars to fight? Dona Blanca had given him an idea. Perhaps a small winery . . . the freshness of the country. André would like that. The life of a gentleman farmer would be preferable to being shut away inside a building in the heart of a city which was rapidly losing its appeal for him. A beautiful city. A great city. Bonaparte had seen to that. But no longer his city . . .

  The tiniest sound, a whiff of night air, a prickling of hair on his neck, sent the colonel reaching for the pistol in the upper drawer of the desk. He welcomed the surge of excitement, the familiar challenge of battle. Swiftly, Beaufort turned to face the double doors behind him. A man was standing there, his arms casually extended away from his body. He was impeccably dressed in tail-coated jacket, waistcoat, pantaloons and shining spotless boots. All black. Even his tousled hair was jet. A menacing figure, he bore an all too obvious resemblance to the Prussians. Only the Death’s Head insignia was missing.

  “Monsieur le marquis,” Beaufort murmured in greeting.

  “I have been told by a goodly number of people, including Wellington and my mother, that I may not kill you,” said Alex with ill-concealed truculence, his empty hands still extended to each side. “So, as you can see, I am unarmed. I am carrying a knife inside my boot, but that is only for protection on your somewhat doubtful Parisian streets.”

  For a long moment Auguste studied the strong planes of his visitor’s casually arrogant features before placing his pistol down on the desk and waving his visitor to a chair. He poured his guest a glass of brandy and waited with some interest while Harborough sampled it. He accepted the English nobleman’s grudging nod of approval in silence.

  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.”