They had gone far enough, in any case. Aria looked around for something to sit on and found a small cluster of boulders a few yards away. She took Babette’s hand and led her to the rocks, waiting as patiently as she could for the other woman to sit and catch her breath.
“Mon Dieu,” Babette breathed, dabbing at her forehead with a handkerchief. “I trust what you are about to say is worth such exertion.”
“I think you will find it interesting,” Aria said. She sat beside Babette and watched a small beetle meander its way through the rocks and pine duff. “I just don’t know how to begin.”
Babette was paying full attention to her now. “This is to do with Monsieur Renier,” she said.
“Yes,” Aria said. “But there are other things…” She hunched her shoulders. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone what I’m about to say until I…until we decide what we should do.”
Solemnly Babette laid her hand over her heart. “I promise.”
“Cort and Yuri told you that I lost my memory?”
“Oui.”
Aria could feel Babette’s tension and hear the unease in her voice. This would not be easy.
“That was a lie,” Aria said. “At first, I was afraid to trust Cort. I didn’t want to tell him anything about myself after what those men had done to me. Later, when I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, I still couldn’t tell him. He thought I was…someone I wasn’t, and I was afraid…”
“Ah,” Babette sighed. “I begin to comprehend.”
Aria refused to let her courage falter. “I am not Lucienne Renier. I am not even Anna. My real name is Aria, and I grew up in the mountains in a place called Carantia, on the southern border of Austria. I—”
“Did you say Carantia?”
The question was so sudden and urgent that Aria was taken off guard. “Have you heard of it? When I first came to America, no one I spoke to had heard of it.”
Babette nodded. “I have heard of it. Please continue.”
“I never knew my parents. A man name Franz raised me. I didn’t realize other werewolves existed for most of my life.”
She told Babette how she had grown up in the mountain cottage, ignorant of her origins and family.
“Franz never seemed to want to answer my questions, and after a while I stopped asking. Then, a few months ago, he decided to bring me to America to meet other werewolves who had come from our country. He said he would explain everything when we got to San Francisco.” She swallowed. “He died in New York before he could explain much of anything. I came to San Francisco by myself, hoping I could find the people he wanted me to meet.”
Babette covered her mouth with her hands, muffling laughter. “Ah, chérie. The world is indeed a marvelous place.”
“You’re not angry that I lied?”
“Angry? Non, non. Doubtless I would have done the same.” She lowered her hands. “Did you always go by the name ‘Aria’?”
“That was what Franz always called me, though he never wanted me to tell anyone else.”
“Do Cort and Yuri know?”
“I told Cort after he rescued me, but I asked him not to tell anyone but Yuri. I went by Anna when we met the other people who lived in the village.” She smiled weakly. “I seem to have a lot of names.”
“More than perhaps even you can guess.” Babette released a long, quivering breath. “If you are not Lucienne,” she murmured, “you cannot be Alese.”
“Who is Alese?”
Babette seemed not to hear. “Have you heard the name di Reinardus?”
“No. Is it important?”
“Non,” Babette said, and hurried on. “If I understand correctly, you knew from the beginning that you could not be Lucienne Renier.”
“Not always. I didn’t know until you told me that she was a baby when she was kidnapped and had grown up in New Orleans.”
“And you were afraid to disappoint Cort?”
Aria nodded. “He wanted so badly for it to be true. And after he…after he didn’t want to be with me anymore, I thought having a family, even if it wasn’t really my family…”
“Cort no longer wished to be with you? What do you mean… Aria?”
She met Babette’s gaze. “On the way here, we did what you and Yuri do every night.” She lowered her eyes. “I know it’s rude to mention it.”
“I am not offended.” Babette took another deep breath and let it out again. “Is this why you asked me so many questions the other night?”
“Yes.”
“Is it possible that Cort got you with child?”
“I don’t think so.” Aria touched her stomach. “Wouldn’t I be able to tell?”
“If he entered you—”
Aria swallowed. “He didn’t. I wanted to, but…”
“Then it is very unlikely you are pregnant.”
Babette seemed relieved, but Aria was almost sad. “He told me that we couldn’t be together,” she said. “I was angry. I thought it would be easier to ignore him the way he ignored me if I really did become a lady.”
“Do you know why he ignored you, Aria?”
That was a question Aria didn’t want to answer. “He has been staying away from me and treating me as if we don’t know each other. Until today. Today, when were dancing, he told me that he was proud of me.”
“And that makes you unhappy?”
“I…”
“Aria…do you love him?”
Aria couldn’t make herself answer.
Sliding down from the rock, Babette began to pace. “This is not unexpected,” she said. “Your attraction to each other was clear to me from the first moment I saw you together, but I did not realize how far it had…” She kicked at a pile of sticks with one small booted foot. “I have been blind, but Cort is an even bigger fool.”
So am I, Aria thought. And I can’t seem to stop being one. “He can’t love me,” she said. “I know that now.”
Babette turned to face her again. “Do you remember when I said that gentlemen must hide their feelings, too? Cort may fear what he feels for you.”
“I don’t believe he feels anything for me, except maybe for wanting to lie with me again.”
“And what does that mean to you, Aria?”
“It means I’m never going to tell him that I am not Lucienne. I’m going to go to the Reniers just as we planned. But before I do, I want to make Cort see that he has made a mistake. I want to make him forget that other woman.”
“What other woman, child?”
“I don’t know her name. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to make him want me so much that he’ll never be able to forget me.”
Aria had expected Babette to disapprove of her plan, and it was clear that the other woman was distressed from the way her brows drew together and her full lips tightened.
“You’re speaking of revenge,” Babette said softly. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Aria?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think this will make you happy?”
“Yes.” Aria lifted her chin. “I want you to help me, Babette.”
“How can I possibly help?”
“Can you…can you teach me how to make him unable to resist me?”
“You wish to seduce him?”
Aria wasn’t quite sure what the word meant, but she could guess. “Yes,” she said. “Can you show me how?”
Babette turned away and was silent for several long, agonizing minutes. “There are things I must think about. We will speak of this further tomorrow.”
It wasn’t what Aria wanted to hear, but she knew she should be grateful that Babette might be willing to help her at all. And it was a relief that at least one person knew her secret.
“Let us return before the men begin to worry,” Babette said. “Behave just as you have been. Nothing must change until we are ready.”
For the first time in days, Aria felt in control of her life again. The word revenge didn’t sound very nice. But it seemed that getting it was the only way she could go on
with her life and forget Cort once and for all.
“SHE CANNOT BE ALESE.”
Yuri stared at Babette, certain that he couldn’t have heard her correctly. This was what she had made him swear never to reveal? He knew her to be a sensible woman who was usually free of the pleasant illusions that imprisoned most of mankind, but she could be as irrational as any female under the right circumstances. Their frequent arguments were a testament to her lack of judgment where Aria was concerned.
Or perhaps this was only a new tactic in her subtle war to convince him to defy di Reinardus.
“It is true,” Babette said, coming to sit in the chair near the bed. “She never lost her memory. Though it appears she was ignorant that other loups-garous existed before she came to America, nor did she know how to find her countrymen here. She does not recognize the names Alese or di Reinardus. She left her home only a few months ago, and thus could not have lived with the Reniers or been stolen by the duke.”
It was a ploy, surely. A ploy to throw him off guard and sow doubts in his mind. But he refused to be baited. He folded his arms across his chest and shook his head.
“Give up this game, Babette. It will do you no good.”
“It is no game.” She looked at him from under half-closed lids. “Of course I understand why you do not wish to believe me. It must be difficult to accept that Aria has deceived you all this time.”
Yuri snorted. “I had my doubts about her claims of amnesia from the beginning. That hardly means that she is not—”
“Think, mon ami! Think of what this could mean if we use this information wisely. It might be possible to trick di Reinardus, fool him into—”
“Trick him?” Yuri felt his skin flush, and he realized that Babette’s conviction was beginning to have its effect. “The trick is how this girl appears identical to the princess and happened to be born in the same country!” He got up from the bed and paced across the room. “Perhaps you have noticed the birthmark on her back?”
“Of course. What of it?”
“It is the mark of the Carantian royal line.”
“Why did you not tell me before?”
“It would have made no difference. The point is that it is very likely the girl is lying now.”
“But why?” Babette held out her hands. “Only think, Yuri. She would have had to perform an astonishing masquerade to appear the bumpkin if she was raised a lady as the real Alese was. The fact that she was apparently brought up in strict isolation explains so many things. If she escaped di Reinardus four years ago, why did she not attempt to return to the Reniers before? She knows nothing of your original plan to seek a reward for returning her, much less your intention to offer her to di Reinardus. Why should she go along with all these lessons and submit to so many rules and restrictions if she already knows everything I can teach her?”
“Why should she submit to them if she knows she cannot return to the Reniers as their lost cousin?”
“The man who raised her is dead. She wants a family, Yuri. That was reason enough to continue the masquerade.”
“Then why would she tell you the truth now?”
“The deceit had become too great a burden for her.”
Yuri returned to the bed and stared unseeingly at the mismatched patchwork of the quilted bed cover. “If you are so certain of her honesty,” he said, “how do you account for her identical appearance to Alese di Reinardus?”
“There is only one way to account for it,” she said. “There are two princesses.”
Yuri had already been prepared for just that answer, but it still jarred him like a billy club to the back of the skull. “Two princesses,” he muttered.
“It makes perfect sense,” Babette said. “A queen desperate to save her children from a ruthless enemy. One child sent to America. The other raised in obscurity in the mountains of Carantia, with no knowledge of the existence of her own kind or kin, forbidden to venture into the more populated areas where someone might recognize her….”
It did make sense, he had to admit. Clever to send one heir to the opposite side of the world, leaving the other hidden under the very nose of her potential enemies. Di Reinardus had certainly never suspected there might be more than one princess. There had never been even a single rumor to that effect.
“But why did her guardian bring her to American now?” Yuri asked. “Alese disappeared years ago. Did he know of her? Could there have been some new movement from the loyalists to regain the throne, perhaps among these Carantians she was to meet?”
“Aria certainly can’t tell us,” Babette said. “She has never indicated that she knows anything of Carantian royalty, past or present.”
“And these Carantians were obviously not in San Francisco. Cort is aware of every werewolf in the city, and he never mentioned foreigners.”
“Perhaps they had moved to another location.”
Perhaps. Di Reinardus had never mentioned anything about them, either. The Reniers had hidden the princess for years; di Reinardus had told Yuri of their connection to the Carantian di Reinardii before the abduction, which explained their willingness to conceal and protect the true heir to the throne.
But they could not have restored her to her rightful place without the aid of the Carantians themselves, and Yuri had never seen any sign of such men in New Orleans. They could hardly be a threat if they could not be found.
In any case, their existence was not at issue now. Gunther di Reinardus’s ambitions were all that mattered. How in hell did Babette think they could use Aria’s existence to trick di Reinardus? Yuri would still have to deliver a girl with a certain birthmark to the duke at the proper time.
Oh, di Reinardus would be surprised, perhaps even shocked, to learn the girl was not Alese, but he would quickly overcome such feelings and forge ahead with his plans. He might have lost one princess, but a twin sister would do just as well.
“Yuri?” Babette said. “Are you listening to me? If we could stall di Reinardus and find these Carantians, it might be possible to stop him. Together with the Reniers, we could—”
“Stall di Reinardus? He has men in Placerville even now, waiting for me to send the signal that we are ready to turn Alese over to them.”
“Hear me out, Yuri. If we were to tell Cort the truth about di Reinardus and make Aria understand who she is…”
“You are insane, woman!” Yuri swung toward her and took her by the shoulders, digging his fingers into her tender flesh. “If you value our lives, say nothing of this to Cort. Do you know what he would do if he even suspected the deal I’ve made with di Reinardus? He would kill me and take Aria straight to New Orleans.”
“Knowing that the duke would surely follow?”
“You expect rationality from a man driven by passions you know nothing about. When he first agreed to return Lucienne to the Reniers, he did not do it merely for the reward we would claim. He did it for a far more primitive reason. Revenge.”
“Qua?”
“You heard me. Eight years ago he had a lover from within the family, a woman he believed would marry him. She rebuffed him instead.”
Babette gave him an incredulous look. “That is all?”
“How can you, with all your vast experience, doubt how far jealousy and hatred will drive a man?”
“But why hatred? Why did this woman reject him? He is a gentleman, very handsome and loup-garou. He is, to be sure, not a wealthy man, but…” She rubbed her bare arms. “Did she have another suitor?”
“Doubtless she did, but that was hardly the issue. He was not one of them, Babette.”
Her expression cleared. “Of course. He belongs to one of the other Renier clans. And that was enough cause for this woman to reject him?”
“More than enough.”
“And yet in all this time, Cort has never indicated…” She shook her head. “I can scarcely believe a man of his obvious stature would let himself carry a grudge so violent that he would still be seeking revenge after so many years.�
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A man of his stature. Yuri chuckled. “Your ignorance of loups-garous blinds you. The New Orleans Reniers have little to do with any of the other clans, but there is one branch they despise above all others. Cort Renier was born in the bayous, one of the “mud Reniers,” as the city Reniers call them. They are said to be more wolf than human. Cort—Beau, as he called himself then—was an unlearned, unwashed boy when Madeleine Renier amused herself by dallying with him.”
“Cort was…not a gentleman?”
“No more than you were a lady. He looked above his station, and the New Orleans clan could not forgive him. They beat him and threw him out on his ear when he dared offer marriage. He is not one to forget such a humiliation.”
“But his behavior now…his manner, his speech…”
“I made him into what he is today. Though I admit he was an extraordinarily good student. He came to despise his low origins as much as those who rejected him. He even turned away from the werewolf in himself, just as the New Orleans clan have done. He was determined to become in every way their equal, and the ignorant world would doubtless say he has succeeded.”
It took Babette several long moments to absorb this shocking new information. “So Cort intends to flaunt the fact that he found the girl when none of the Reniers could do so, as well as demand money for her return,” she murmured.
“He intends to force them to acknowledge him as an equal,” Yuri said.
“And he believes that will make him happy?”
“What is happiness? He can never return to what he was. Revenge is all he has left.”
Babette turned in a slow circle, head bent in thought. “You speak of passions, Yuri, but there are others just as powerful as hatred, as I have cause to know. Have you never noticed the attraction that exists between Aria and Cort?”
Yuri stared at her. He had made a stab in the dark when he’d accused Cort of “dalliance” with Aria on the way to the lodge, but he hadn’t really believed that any such thing had happened. Cort knew what was at stake. Oh, he might lust after the girl and seek to avoid her for that reason, but he would never ruin their scheme because he couldn’t keep his cock inside his trousers.
Or would he?
Luck of the Wolf Page 20
