Maddy and he dined at the familiar round oak table in the ground floor parlor, and once she had laid out the food, Minette joined them. To be more precise, she joined him—at the hip. Despite his monumental efforts to control her she literally crawled all over him while he struggled to consume his food.
“Behave yourself, Minette,” he said finally, giving her a quick swat on the derriere. To no avail; her hands continued their suggestive exploration of his anatomy. He looked up to find Maddy’s gaze riveted to her plate, her cheeks the color of the brightest apple in Minette’s fruit basket.
Maddy’s cheeks were still flaming when they repaired to their second floor chambers, probably because Minette’s whispered, “My door will be unlocked as usual, cheri,” echoed throughout the narrow hallway like a trumpet blown in a cave.
“Leave your candle lighted, as I shall mine, and the door opened between us,” Tristan admonished Maddy as he stood in the doorway separating their two rooms. He removed his pistol from his belt and handed it to her. “I am usually a light sleeper, but I feel the very devil tonight, so you’d best keep this beside you—and for God’s sake remember to cock it if you feel the need to shoot.”
Maddy studied the weapon in her hand with distaste. “Why would I need this? The only intruder we’re apt to have is your former landlady, should you fail to take advantage of her unlocked door. Surely you don’t want me to shoot such an ‘old friend’!”
She turned away, lest he see how tempting she found the idea. She had never before been visited by the green-eyed monster, but the thought of Tristan’s firm lips pressed to those of the Parisian Jezebel made her spitting mad.
“Minette will not come to my room. It is not her way. And since I have no intention of stirring from my bed once I’m in it, you should pass a restful night—but it is always wise to take precautions in times such as these.”
He bent over, pulled his knife from the sheath strapped to his right boot, and placed it on his pillow. “Good night, Maddy. Remember, we rise with dawn.” So saying, he removed his boots, crawled into bed fully clad, and promptly fell asleep.
Maddy retired to her own room, stripped off her dusty trousers and shirt, and pulled her boots from her aching feet. Attired only in her chemise, she splashed water from the bedside basin on her face and arms and crawled into bed. But exhausted as she was, sleep did not come easily. The mattress was uncomfortably lumpy and her mind was too full of the events of the day, indeed of the past fortnight, to allow for restful slumber.
For one thing, she had been profoundly shocked by Tristan’s “old friend.” She had never before met a mistress. It had been common knowledge that most of the former noblemen who frequented her grandfather’s house kept such women, but they did so very discreetly.
She bit her lip in frustration. When Tristan got around to courting her, she intended to make it very plain that she would not countenance such liaisons once they were married. But then, he may have already mended his way; he’d shown no interest in making a nocturnal visit to Minette, despite her provocative invitation.
Maddy could not begin to imagine how any man could find such vulgarity attractive. But she had to admit, it did give one pause for thought. There must be a happy medium somewhere between Minette’s blatant sexuality and the chilly disinterest she’d seen most of the noblewomen in Lyon display toward their husbands.
A good hour later, she was still pondering the weighty question of how to remain a lady and still manage to keep one’s husband out of the clutches of the demimonde when she heard the door to Tristan’s chamber open and stealthy footsteps cross the tiny room toward his bed.
She gritted her teeth. Apparently he was wrong. Minette was not above visiting his room when he failed to show up at hers. As she listened, breath suspended, the footsteps ceased. There was a moment of silence, then a hoarse cry she recognized as Tristan’s and a muttered obscenity in a voice that was most definitely not that of the landlady, nor indeed of any woman.
Maddy shot upright, reached for the pistol, cocked it, and sprinted to the connecting doorway. The dim candlelight revealed the intruder to be a massive black-haired man, dressed in a black jersey and tight black trousers that molded his powerful legs like a second skin.
He was grappling with Tristan atop the bed and as she watched, the two of them rolled over and over until they were jammed against the headboard with the intruder on top. He raised his arms, and Maddy’s heart missed a beat when she saw a lethal-looking dagger clutched in his beefy hand.
“Arretez-vous!” she cried, raising the pistol with both hands. “Drop the knife or I will shoot!”
The assassin slowly lowered his arm and glanced over his shoulder with a pair of small, deep-set black eyes that sent chills skittering down Maddy’s spine. She clutched the pistol frantically, her hands trembling like leaves in a windstorm. His evil gaze locked on the wildly weaving pistol, he cursed and raised his knife hand again.
“For God’s sake, Maddy, shoot the bastard.” Tristan’s muffled shout came from where he lay crushed beneath his opponent’s heavy body.
Maddy closed her eyes and pulled the trigger. Instantly the acrid smell of smoke filled her nostrils. She heard a thwack, a thud, then a muffled grunt as if someone had sustained a blow. She opened her eyes to see Tristan shove the inert body of the would-be assassin off him and struggle to his feet. She looked again. His hair and face were covered with some white, powdery substance that gave him a strange, almost ghostly appearance.
“Good shooting! You saved my life,” he said, calmly dusting the same substance off the front of his cassock before he pried the pistol from her rigid fingers.
Maddy pressed her hand to her lips as bile rose in her throat. “Oh dear God! Is he…? Did I…?”
“He isn’t and you didn’t—but it was still a good night’s work. As you will see, if you raise your eyes, your bullet struck one of the ceiling tiles, which fell on the blackguard’s head just as he was about to plunge his knife in me.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, sending flakes of powdery plaster swirling about his face, and his grin spread from ear to ear. “It would appear that head blows are your specialty, if the trail of cracked skulls you leave behind you as you quit France is any indication.”
The figure on the bed groaned and Tristan promptly whacked him across the back of the head with the handle of the pistol. “I recognize this scoundrel,” he said, slipping the pistol into the pocket of his cassock. “He is one of Fouché’s hired assassin’s, and there’s no one who deserves a headache more. In fact, I would be doing all France a favor if I disposed of the vermin here and now.”
Maddy gasped.
“But out of deference to your tender feelings, I shall control my natural instincts and merely leave him sufficiently incapacitated to give us time to get safely out of Paris.” Slashing the bed sheet into strips with his knife, he tied the fellow’s ankles together and his hands behind his back.
“I am going to have a few words with Minette before we leave for Calais,” he said grimly. “She has to have had a hand in this sorry manner; I made certain we weren’t followed when we crossed Paris.”
“But why would someone you considered friend do such a thing?”
“Exactly what I mean to find out.” He returned his knife to its sheath and moved toward the door. “Keep this locked while I’m gone. The tenants in this house usually mind their own business, but they had to have heard the gunshot. One of them might be tempted to do a little investigating if they see me leave the room.”
He paused in the doorway. “In the meantime, I suggest you get back into your shirt and trousers. “You would have a hard time convincing anyone you were a boy attired as you are now.”
Maddy followed the direction of his gaze and, to her horror, realized she was standing before him clad only in her thin chemise. Blushing hotly, she did an about-face and marched into her own room, slamming the connecting door behind her.
A cracked mirror hung o
n one wall of the tiny chamber and facing herself in it, she felt her spirits plummet to a new low. One thing was certain; if Tristan had ever had any doubts about the paucity of her womanly endowments, those doubts were now laid to rest, especially with the voluptuous Minette as a contrast. She frowned. Men were such strange creatures, and Englishmen the strangest of all. How could any woman know just how important such attributes were to a man when he chose the woman he wanted to grace his home and bear his children?
Chapter Eight
“Why, Minette?” Why did you do it? You have never had any love for Citizen Fouché. Tristan fixed a chilly stare on the woman occupying the bed he’d so often shared in the past six years.
“Fouché? What does he have to do with the matter?” Minette didn’t bother to pretend she had not sent the assassin after him, but she seemed genuinely surprised that he should think the wily Minister of Police was involved. He half believed her; she had never been one to equivocate. Her lack of pretense had always been the trait he most admired in her.
“You betrayed me,” she declared, eyes blazing. “In my own house. After all we have been to each other.”
“How, may I ask, did I betray you?”
Tears welled in Minette’s dark eyes. “Another woman I might understand. We are neither of us the kind to limit ourselves to one lover. But a skinny young boy with the eyes of a fawn! For that I shall never forgive you!”
“Maddy? You sent an assassin after me because you were jealous of Maddy?”
“I did not send an assassin,” she declared indignantly. “What do you take me for? I merely asked my present cher ami, who occupies the chamber that was once yours, to teach you a lesson in manners.”
“For your information Madame, this—cher ami of yours is one of Fouché’s most trusted minions, probably installed in this house to spy on you since it is well known your sympathies lie with the Royalists.”
Minette stared at him with eyes blank with shock. “I swear I did not know. And to think I have let the black-haired devil warm my bed for more than a month.” She lowered her head and peeped at Tristan from beneath her dark lashes. “Never think I would relish your death, Treeston. I could never be that angry at you.”
She swiped at the tears spilling from her eyes. “But what kind of man have you become in that den of iniquity called Vienna? Did you think me some wide-eyed innocent raised in a convent that I would not know what you were up to when you demanded adjoining rooms with a connecting door?”
“Never that, Minette. I have always been aware you came from the gutters of Paris; I was just not aware your mind still dwelt there,” Tristan said coldly. His fingers itched to throttle this jealous little French tart he had once found so amusing.
“So now, little gutter rat, you have not only put my life in danger; you have also endangered the life of the granddaughter of one of France’s leading Royalists, whom I have been hired to transport safely to her father in England.”
“The boy is really a girl?” Minette looked frankly skeptical. “But how could that be? Her figure is most certainly that of a slender boy.”
“Not all women are as generously endowed as you, Minette. But I assure you, Maddy is a woman.” More woman than any other I have known. “And just so you know how badly you have erred, she is not, nor ever will be, my lover.”
Minette covered her face with her hands, the picture of contrition. “Mother of God, what have I done?” She raised her head and stared at Tristan beseechingly. “Tell me, Cheri, what can I do to make amends?”
Tristan felt a twinge of satisfaction. This might work to his advantage after all. He leveled a look on his former mistress that had her cowering against the headboard. “Thanks to you, we dare not wait until dawn to leave for Calais,” he said in his sternest voice. “But unfortunately, our horses are too spent to make the trip without sufficient rest.”
Minette’s countenance brightened perceptibly. “Say no more. My brother, Philippe, who is this very minute asleep in the next room, is the cleverest horse thief in all of Paris. I have but to ask and he will procure you two excellent steeds within the hour, even if he has to steal them from the stable of the royal palace.”
With a sigh, she lounged back against the pillows, exposing a generous amount of her remarkable cleavage. Her full, red lips formed the pout he has once found so provocative.
“So, cheri,” she purred, “is there, by chance, something else I can do for you before we wake Phillipe?”
The storm that had chased Maddy and Tristan all the way from Paris abated as they neared Calais. They found the harbor crowded with ships and the docks swarming with anxious Royalists seeking transport to England before Napoleon Bonaparte once again claimed the throne of France.
“Your father’s brig is riding at anchor out beyond the crush of vessels,” Tristan said, shielding his eyes to scan the harbor from his vantage point at the far end of the southernmost pier. “We’ll find an inn where we can wash off the dust of the road. Then I’ll sell the nags. I need a pair of trousers and a shirt, and we must purchase you’re a proper dress and bonnet before we search out the longboard to tow us aboard. You’ll not want to arrive in England in the garb of a French peasant boy.”
“Merci,” Maddy said, grateful for his unexpected thoughtfulness. He really could be a love when he wanted to be, and thank heavens he’d finally shaken both his cold and the black mood he’d been in on their mad dash from Paris. He had been so glum and silent, she had come to the conclusion she must have somehow displeased him again.
She smiled. “What I mean to say is thank you. I must remember to speak English from now on.”
“As must I.” Tristan returned her smile, but it was a bleak smile that somehow stopped short of his eyes. He removed his riding glove and flicked it against his thigh, sending dust motes dancing around him. “So, Maddy, our epic journey is at an end at last. You must be greatly relieved.”
Maddy nodded. “I shall not be sorry to leave France. It is a troubled land, and I feel no more allegiance to one faction than the other. All that I loved in this country died with my grandfather. But as to our journey, I could wish that it would go on forever. It was a grand adventure and I shall have fond memories of it all the rest of my life.”
“Indeed? Then you are truly unique, for I feel certain any other woman would gladly trade the hardships you have endured for the life of luxury awaiting you.” He paused as if pondering how to proceed with what he had to say. “Your father is one of the wealthiest men in all of England and you are the sole heiress to his fortune, as well as the granddaughter of a French aristocrat. I predict the ton will welcome you with open arms.”
Maddy laughed. “I sincerely doubt that. I was given to understand your British society makes a point of snubbing anyone with the slightest odor of commerce clinging to them.”
“Times have changed, as have fortunes. Some of England’s noblest families have suffered severe financial reverses in recent years, and it is not unusual to find them marrying their titled sons to the daughters of wealthy merchants. Not a bad arrangement, all told. The young lord saves his family estates from ruin and the lady in question gains the social acceptability that would otherwise be denied her.”
“I have seen such arrangements in France also,” Maddy said, “but I find them very sad. I should not like to be married simply for the money I can bring a husband.” She leaned forward in the saddle to scratch behind the ear of her restless mare. “Wouldn’t you find it distressing to know a woman married you only to get her hands on your father’s money?”
“Obviously that is a problem with which I shall never have to deal,” Tristan said dryly, “but if I did, I should endeavor to look at it realistically.”
“I see, and what, in your opinion, is my reality?” she teased. “Should I seriously consider finding myself a titled husband so everyone of consequence in London society will overlook the fact that my father is in trade?”
“It is certainly something to consider
,” Tristan said, his expression so grave, Maddy felt as if a chill wind had suddenly whistled down her backbone.
She swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat. “But—speaking hypothetically, of course—what if I should decide I want a man who has not title…nor indeed even a surname that is considered respectable in proper social circles?”
“Then, Maddy, I would urge you to bestow your affections on some more worthy man, for if this hypothetical one of whom you speak was a man of honor, he would realize he had nothing to offer you—most certainly not marriage.”
Maddy felt as if her heart had suspended its beating. “You cannot be serious. Of course he would offer for me if he loved me…and if he knew I loved him. For nothing else really matters!”
“On the contrary, there are many other things that matter a great deal.”
Maddy heard a quiet resignation in his voice that seemed totally alien to the vital man she had come to know and love over the past fortnight. What was he trying to convey with his frightening hypothesis?
She pressed her hand to her breast to still her thudding heart. “Tell me, if you please, what could possibly matter as much as the love two people feel for each other?”
“Loyalty, gratitude, responsibility…and most of all, honor.” Tristan leaned forward in the saddle, his eyes fixed on the ship he had identified as her father’s. “No one who calls himself a man can forswear such things as these—not even for love.”
“But why would he have to forswear them?” she asked, gripped by a sudden premonition that without her knowledge, mysterious forces had been set into motion that would determine the course of her future life—forces over which she had not the slightest control.
“Because it is the way of things, Maddy,” Tristan said, shrugging his powerful shoulders. “Because the ending of the drama in which your hypothetical man is a player was written long before the beginning—and there is nothing he can do to change it.”
The Misguided Matchmaker Page 12
