Cherished

by Elizabeth Thornton

  Leon’s dark eyes lowered to veil his expression. “I have not waited five years to hear this. I have been more than patient, Rolfe, and you know it. With or without your consent, I mean to claim my wife.”

  Some perverse impulse goaded Rolfe to say, “If I wanted to, I could stop you.”

  “You could try.”

  “And if I did?”

  Silence as gray and flashing black eyes fought for mastery.

  Rolfe let out a shaky laugh, half amused, half affronted by the impudence of his young adversary. “I almost relish the thought of the fight you are going to have on your hands. Emily is not about to submit gracefully, let me tell you.”

  Leon grinned. “Well I know it. What have you told Zoë?”

  “I’ve told her that you are bound to come for Emily. I’m not looking forward to telling her that you have spirited the girl away.”

  “I’m not abducting her,” said Leon in an amused tone. “I merely want some time alone with my wife. You may tell my sister that I intend to bring her back before we set sail for America. There will be plenty of time for farewells.”

  “That will vastly relieve her mind,” said Rolfe dryly.

  Ignoring this comment, Leon went on. “Tell me about William Addison.”

  A twinkle crept into Rolfe’s eyes. “What do you wish to know?”

  There was a pause before Leon said, “If Emily were not married to me, would you encourage Addison’s suit?”

  “Most certainly. His background is impeccable. His grandfather was a duke. William has some money that came to him on the death of his wife. We are colleagues at the War Office, but you already know that. He is a steady, dependable fellow. What more can I say? If she were not married to you, Emily could not do better. Is that what you wished to know?”

  Leon shrugged carelessly. “He sounds very English, very boring.”

  This startled a laugh out of Rolfe. “Didn’t you know? Guardians, by and large, prefer their wards to marry boring, dependable types. Now, don’t get your hackles up. I didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

  Leon’s mood changed abruptly. “How are things at the War Office? What am I to make of the reports that have been carried in all the newspapers these last few days?”

  “Ah.” Rolfe carefully eased himself back in his chair. “I wondered how soon it would be before we got to that.”

  “Is it true? Was there an assassination attempt on the life of Bonaparte?”

  “There was.”

  “And La Compagnie is claiming responsibility for it?”

  “Let us say, shall we, that there is a group of hotheads in France who have resurrected the old name, a name, as you well know, that is like to strike terror into the hearts of men who are highly placed on both sides of the English Channel.”

  “So.” Leon gave his companion a searching look. La Compagnie is on the rise again?”

  “I didn’t say that. But even if it were true, you have nothing to fear. It’s all of fifteen years since you were involved with the sect. Who is there to connect you to it? When La Compagnie was smashed, very few escaped our net.”

  Leon felt as though someone had just walked over his grave. He took a long swallow from the glass in his hand, then another. “Who are its leaders? What are its aims?”

  “It’s too soon to say. Assassination—that goes without saying. If I knew, I would tell you. As it is, I only know what I have read in the papers.”

  “But the War Office is taking these reports seriously?”

  “Very seriously, and you know why. We are not forgetting that La Compagnie’s tendrils once stretched as far as England.”

  What both men were thinking was that Rolfe’s elder brother had been one of La Compagnie’s first victims.

  “And Emily?” said Leon. “I presume she has read all the reports? What does she have to say about it? What does she have to say about Le Cache-Cache?”

  “Just what one would expect her to say,” Rolfe expelled a long sigh. “Leon, most people in England have lived a sheltered existence. Emily is no exception. What do they know about the Terror in France and the straits that ordinary people were put to just to survive? You were only a boy at the time. You did what you had to do. It’s the brutes who took advantage of your youthful idealism that deserved everything they got. You have made a new life for yourself. Forget the past. Think of the future. That’s my advice.”

  “You are…quite something, Rolfe, do you know that?” said Leon and grinned, but there was no amusement in his eyes.

  Long after he had taken his leave of Leon, that conversation continued to revolve in Rolfe’s mind. His thoughts slipped back in time to the year he had gone to France to find his wife and her young brother. In those days, Leon was a member of La Compagnie, and one of its most ruthless assassins. Le Cache-Cache, Hide-and-Seek, was the name the popular press had given him. To the populace at large, he was a glamorous figure, a folk hero not unlike Robin Hood. The reality was far different. The boy had wanted out of the society. With La Compagnie, however, the only former members were dead ones.

  Rolfe was thinking that it was no bad thing that Leon would soon be on his way back to America. Though he believed every word he had told his young brother-in-law, he saw no point in taking chances. Until he was sure that there was no threat to Leon, it was better to play a safe hand.

  That thought led to another. He was thinking of the threat of exposure. There were files at the War Office with Leon’s name on them. Though there was nothing there to connect him to Le Cache-Cache, there was a highly confidential report crediting the boy, Leon Devereux, with helping to bring about the society’s demise. A clever person could put two and two together. It was a report which Rolfe intended to misplace at the earliest opportunity.

  He fought himself free of the nightmare, forcing himself to awaken. When he dragged himself to a sitting position, he was panting as though his lungs would burst. He groaned, hoping that the scream which had been torn from his throat was part of the dream and not reality.

  But the dream was reality. He was a boy again, and he had just been told that his gentle mother had died of a fever in the dread prison of La Conciergerie and that his father had been executed. His rage knew no bounds. Every man on the Tribunal which had condemned his parents must be hounded down and pay the penalty with their very lives. He would find a way to exact retribution.

  Though he was only a boy, he became Le Cache-Cache, a ruthless assassin. Pleas could not move him. He showed no remorse, not until the day he executed the wrong man, an innocent man whose only crime was that he had the same name as one of the judges.

  After a while, he sank back against the pillows, conscious that he was soaked with perspiration. As his breathing gradually returned to normal, he made an effort to recall Rolfe’s words. You were only a boy at the time. You did what you had to do. You have made a new life for yourself. Forget the past. Think of the future.

  With his whole heart he wanted to believe Rolfe’s words. All of that had happened half a lifetime ago. He was not the hotheaded youth he was then. He had helped Rolfe smash La Compagnie, and he had never looked back.

  La Compagnie. It was on the rise again. None knew better than he that the society always paid off old scores.

  Chapter Four

  Fonthill House was a Palladian showplace, a redbrick Georgian mansion in a jewel of a setting. The park and gardens, Zoë noted with interest, followed the English tradition, with everything appearing as though Nature herself had designed the landscape. This was a far cry from the formally laid-out gardens of her native France. At Versailles, there were terraces with symmetrical box hedges and a plethora of magnificent marble fountains, each one a work of art. At Fonthill, towering avenues of old oaks and cedars, judiciously set out by former generations of Coombes, drew the eye to the house itself and beyond, to the River Thames.

  The grounds were brilliant with lights. It was evident that Sir Geoffrey was eager for his guests to take in the park as muc
h as the house. There were interesting-looking walks which disappeared into clumps of flowering bushes, or around corners of buildings.

  “You won’t get lost,” their host told them. “Each path has a destination. You’ll find refreshment waiting for you when you get there. Later, on the front lawn, there will be a fireworks display. After that, the dancing will start.”

  “Not unlike Vauxhall Gardens,” murmured Sara to her sister, referring to the public gardens across the river from Chelsea, where the walks and entertainments were justly famous.

  Her guardian caught the remark. “No,” he contradicted. “Not like Vauxhall. At this do, the guests are here by invitation. There will be no frolics of the sort that would raise a single eyebrow.”

  The two girls exchanged a meaningful look. It was Sara who mouthed the words, “How boring!” Emily smiled and nodded.

  But she wasn’t really bored. From the moment the carriage had swept through the stone gates of Fonthill House, Emily had been captivated. It was like stepping into a fairy tale, a world of enchantment. Lights winked at her from the branches of trees, casting unearthly shadows. When she inhaled, the sultry night-scents of honeysuckle, tuberose, and heliotrope seemed to be absorbed into her bloodstream. Her senses had sharpened. She was acutely conscious of a pervasive stillness in the midst of laughter and revelry. The night seemed to be holding its breath. Something momentous, something wonderful, was about to happen. Her heart and soul were thrilling, and she could not understand it.

  The Thames had never looked more lovely or more mysterious. A flotilla of small boats, their lights bobbing, were at the water’s edge, disembarking their passengers. Everyone was in masks and dominoes.

  “How romantic,” said Aunt Zoë. “Now, why didn’t we think to come by boat?”

  Romantic. The word leaped out at Emily. It was a night for romance. On just such a night as this…

  Lifting her head, her expression rapt, she gazed into the canopy of trees overhead, and beyond, where the moon reigned in solitary majesty. After an interval, she sighed and turned away.

  Sara gave her a strange look. “Whatever has got into you?”

  “Nothing…Everything.” Emily shrugged helplessly. She could not explain herself.

  One corner of the walk skirted the man-made lake. There was a small clearing, and they stopped to admire the view. Weeping willows and cedars interspersed with stands of plane trees framed the still expanse of water. Lanterns hanging from branches were reflected in ghostly profusion around the perimeter of the lake.

  Uncle Rolfe made some comment about the army of gardeners required to keep up the place. Emily wasn’t listening. On the far side of the lake, she could just make out the figure of a man in a scarlet domino.

  “Emily!”

  Sara’s voice brought her head round and she hastened her steps to catch up with the others.

  At the Orangery, she had her first taste of champagne. The bubbles went to her head. She decided she rather liked it.

  “You have an admirer.”

  “Mmm?” Emily’s eyes focused on Sara.

  “The man in the scarlet domino.” Sara sucked in her breath. “I think it’s William. I thought you said he would not be here tonight?”

  “So I understood,” said Emily. Her eyes found the figure of the man in the scarlet domino. Could it be William? Black mask and scarlet domino lent him an air of glamour and mystery and danger. At that moment, his eyes captured hers and held them. He raised his glass in a silent tribute before bringing it to his lips. The gesture was just the sort of thing William would do to put a dent in her composure. Emily bit down on a grin.

  The next lap of their walk took them to a Doric temple, a small stone edifice, complete with Grecian columns, with a view of the river.

  Though Fonthill and its grounds were impressive, Uncle Rolfe infinitely preferred his own domain at Rivard. The Abbey was stolidly English and unpretentious. This neoclassical nonsense, so he confided to his ladies, came too close to affectation for comfort.

  Aunt Zoë did not agree with him. “It’s delightful,” she exclaimed. “It must be a summer dining room. What do you think, Emily?”

  Emily looked about her with interest. The walls were decorated with stucco medallions of female Greek deities. “I think it’s a shrine to Venus,” she said unthinkingly, startling her companions. To cover her confusion, she accepted another glass of champagne from one of the gold-liveried footmen who hovered in the background.

  People were coming and going as they pleased. Uncle Rolfe struck up a conversation with someone he had recognized in spite of the dominoes and masks. Aunt Zoë and Sara were closely examining the medallions on the walls. Sipping her champagne, Emily wandered out in to the night.

  There was a crush of people on the lawns. The man in the scarlet domino was there, at the edge of the crowd, in conversation with another masked gentleman. His eyes, so dark and fathomless, held Emily’s in a curiously familiar stare. The fine hairs on the back of her neck began to rise, not in fear, but in anticipation.

  It must be William. He was the only man who had ever had this effect on her. She stood there like one of the marble statues in the temple as his eyes wandered over her at will, devouring her. Across the distance that separated them, she could almost taste his hunger. Her own senses leapt in response. She was shaken.

  There was something new here, something that was completely outside the realms of her experience. It was as though she had conjured the man out of her imagination. He was part of the fairy tale, part of the enchanted world she had woven around herself all evening. But it was wishful thinking on her part. The man in the scarlet domino represented something that did not exist outside her imagination.

  As the hours slipped away, she diligently rebuked herself for her flights of fancy. She was moon-bewitched. She was a love-starved spinster whose lonely heart cried out for love. If the man in the scarlet domino was William, and it seemed he must be, he would laugh himself silly if he could read her mind. William was no dream lover.

  He was keeping his distance to pique her interest. And he was succeeding. Oh, God, how he was succeeding! She was noticing things about William she had never noticed before. She liked the way he moved, with unselfconscious masculine grace. She liked his smile. His mouth was beautifully shaped, with a faintly ironic slant. His thick dark hair had a curl to it, and fell past his collar in back. How was it, she asked herself, that she had never noticed these things before? She knew why. Tonight, William wanted her to be aware of him. He was telling her that he was a potently virile male with just a hint of the predator about him, and she was his quarry. In the interests of self-preservation, she had better keep her eye on him.

  It was all a game. She could play it and no harm would come to her. William was a man of honor. Hadn’t he promised that he would dare no more than steal the odd kiss? The conviction that she could play his game with impunity lent a recklessness that was foreign to her. Her smiles held a hint of promise, her eyes returned stare for stare. She wasn’t acting. It was William’s doing. He was deliberately exercising a power over her that she would not have believed he possessed. It was almost a tangible thing.

  In his own good time he would come for her. He would spirit her away and in some quiet corner, he would kiss her. She wouldn’t try to stop him. This kiss would be different from all the other kisses he had ever given her. This kiss would burn away all her uncertainties. She could feel it in her bones.

  “Emily!”

  It was Aunt Zoë’s voice this time that brought her out of her reveries. Flashing her admirer one last lingering look, she turned on her heel and went to answer the summons.

  Leon Devereux absorbed his wife’s smile with a considering look in his eye. It was clear to him that his wife did not have the faintest suspicion that the man who stalked her was her very own husband. Why should she? She believed him to be conveniently located thousands of miles away in New York. She had no way of knowing that he was in England, or th
at her letter demanding an annulment of their marriage was, at that very moment, burning a hole in his pocket. She had no way of knowing that, with her uncle’s connivance, the scene had been set to allow him his chance with her.

  The ironic slant to his mouth softened and became a grin. Everything was working out just as he had hoped it would. The current, that indefinable something that leapt to life between them, was as strong as it had ever been. Not that Emily would ever admit to it. She clung to her childish aversion to him, using it as a means of keeping him at arm’s length. Tonight, however, things were different. Tonight, she did not recognize him, and not recognizing him, she did not scent her danger. For once, she had not armed herself against him. He would never be given a better chance to storm the citadel.

  His fingers tightened around the stem of the glass he was holding. Becoming aware of the betraying movement, he set it down. He was annoyed because he was forced to use subterfuge to approach his own wife. He was annoyed because circumstances made it imperative for him to act without delay. This wasn’t what he wanted. But William Addison was a threat he would be a fool to overlook.

  God, she was playing with fire! Those sidelong looks she slanted him! Those smiles! In his absence, his little wife had turned into a flirt. On one level, he experienced a surge of pure masculine elation. She was responding to him. On another level, he was furious with her. She was a married woman. She thought he was a stranger. Those smiles and glances belonged to her husband. It set his mind to wondering about William Addison, and how far her flirtation with Addison had progressed.

  He had to consciously uncurl the fists he had made of his hands. Jealousy, he was coming to see, was a powerful emotion. He knew Emily better than that. Emily had integrity. She would never betray her marriage vows, no, not even if she hated the man to whom she was bound. If he had not believed that, he could never have allowed her free rein while he established himself in another part of the world. But there was a change in her. A blind man would have been aware of it, and where Emily was concerned, he had a sixth sense.