Читать книгу Regency Innocents: The Earl's Untouched Bride / Captain Fawley's Innocent Bride - Энни Берроуз, ANNIE BURROWS - Страница 9

Heloise gazed wide-eyed around the mirror-lined interior of the most expensive and therefore the most exclusive restaurant in Paris.

‘Most people come to Very Frères to sample the truffles,’ Charles had informed her when they had taken their places at a granite-topped table in one of the brilliantly lit salons.

That seemed inordinately foolish, considering the menu contained such a staggering variety of dishes. ‘I will have the poulet à la Marengo.’ She leaned forward and confided, ‘Although it is much cheaper in the Trois Frères Provencaux.’

‘You do not need to consider the expense,’ he pointed out. ‘I am a very wealthy man.’

Heloise shifted uncomfortably as his gaze seemed to settle critically upon her rather worn lilac muslin. ‘I am not marrying you for that.’

‘I know,’ he acknowledged. ‘But you must admit having a wealthy husband will make your lot more tolerable.’

‘Will it?’ she replied in a forlorn little voice. She really could not see that it mattered how wealthy her husband was when he was in love with someone else. Someone he could not have. And when she would only ever be a poor second best.

‘Of course,’ he replied briskly. He had decided to make amends for his overbearing attitude the previous evening by spoiling her a little. And demonstrating that he was prepared to consider her feelings. ‘I appreciate that you may find certain aspects of marrying me more uncomfortable than I had at first assumed.’ If he didn’t want her bolting to Dieppe, he would have to persuade her that marriage to him would be nothing like the picture she had painted of being chained down by Du Mauriac.

‘I shall not forbid you from pursuing your own pleasures.’ He did not want her worrying he would be forever breathing down her neck. ‘Nor shall I expect you to hang on my arm.’ He would not force her to any event that she would rather not attend. He knew that her rather retiring nature might make it hard for her to hold her own with some of the people with whom he routinely crossed swords during the course of his public life. However, he did not want her to feel he saw her shyness as a failing. ‘It is not done for a man to be seen about too much with his wife,’ he explained. And though we must live in the same house, there is no reason we may not live virtually separate lives.’

Her heart fluttered in panic. It sounded as if he meant to deposit her in some house in a foreign country, where she knew nobody, and leave her to fend for herself.

‘D … don’t you want people to think we have a true marriage?’

He felt touched that she could still think of his image, when she must have so many reservations about the new life she was about to embark upon.

‘We must be seen about together occasionally, yes,’ he acknowledged. ‘Just once every se’en night or so should be sufficient.’

She bit her lip. She could hardly complain if he could not face wasting more than one evening a week on her. Hadn’t she rashly declared she would go and live in a cottage and keep hens if he did not wish to be burdened with her company?

‘Do you have a house in the country, my lord?’ she asked. The hens were seeming increasingly attractive.

‘That is far too formal a way to address me now we are to be married,’ he countered, puzzled by her abrupt change of subject. He had done what he could to put her at ease. Now it was time to take things to a more intimate level. ‘You had best call me Walton. Or Charles.’

‘Ch … Charles,’ she stammered, the familiarity of his name catching on her tongue.

‘And may I call you Heloise?’

She nodded, rendered speechless at the warmth of the smile he turned on her for acceding to this small request.

‘I hope you will like Wycke.’

‘Wycke?’

‘Although I have a house in London, where I reside whilst Parliament is in session, Wycke is my principal seat, and it is where …’ Where the heirs are traditionally born, he refrained from finishing. Regarding her upturned, wary little face, he wondered with a pang if there would ever come a time when he would be able to tackle such a delicate subject with her.

Though, legally, he already had an heir.

‘There is one rather serious matter I must broach with you,’ he said firmly. It was no good trying to shield her from everything. There were some things she would just have to accept. ‘I have someone … residing with me in Walton House—that is, my London home.’

Heloise attacked the tender breast of chicken the waiter had set before her with unnecessary savagery. She had wondered just how long it would be before he raised the topic of his mistress. Of course she would not voice any objections to him visiting such a woman. But if he expected her to let his mistress carry on living with him, then he was very much mistaken!

‘Indeed?’ she said frostily.

‘He is not going to be easy to get along with, and on reflection I recommend you had better not try.’

He? Oh, thank goodness—not a mistress.

Then why should she not try to get along with this guest? Heat flared in her cheeks. Of course—she was not good ton, and this person was clearly someone whose opinion he valued.

‘Whatever you say,’ she replied dully, taking a sip of the meursault that had somehow appeared in her glass when she had not been attending.

‘And, while we are on the topic, I must inform you there are several other persons that I do not wish you to associate with.’

‘Really?’ she said bleakly. She was not good enough to mix with his friends. How much more humiliation did he intend to heap on her? ‘Perhaps you had better provide me with a list?’

‘That might be a good idea,’ he replied in an abstracted manner. In marrying him, Heloise would become a target through which his enemies might try to strike at him. It would be unfair to leave her exposed when, with a little forethought, he could protect her. Some people would take great pleasure in making her as uncomfortable as possible simply because she was French. Others would be livid that she had thwarted their matrimonial ambitions towards him. ‘Those you need to be wariest of are certain members of my family.’

She knew it! He was downright ashamed of her! What further proof did she need than to hear him warn her that his own family would be her bitterest enemies?

‘You see, I have severed all connection with certain of them—’

Catching the appalled expression on her face, he pulled up short.

‘Beware, Heloise,’ he mocked. ‘Your husband is a man notorious for being so lacking in familial feeling that even my closest relatives are not safe from my cold, vengeful nature.’

She was so relieved to hear that his forbidding her to mix with these people was not because he was ashamed of her that she could easily dismiss the challenge aimed at her with those bitter words. Whatever had happened in the past was nothing to do with her! It was her future conduct that mattered to him.

‘Of course I would not have anything to do with people who would say such things about you,’ she declared, with a vehemence that shook him.

‘Your loyalty is … touching,’ he said cynically.

‘I will be your wife,’ she pointed out with an expressive shrug, as though matrimonial loyalty went without saying. Her declaration effectively stunned him into silence.

‘Shall we stroll awhile?’ he eventually recovered enough to say, when they had finished their meal.

Heloise nodded. At this hour of the evening, the brightly lit central quadrangle of the Palais Royale would be crowded with Parisians and tourists looking for entertainment of all sorts. From the restaurants in the basements and the shops beneath the colonnade, to the casinos and brothels on the upper floors, there was something in the arcades to cater for all tastes. Strolling amongst the pleasure-seeking crowds would be one way of demonstrating that he was not in the least broken-hearted.

They had barely stepped outside when she heard an angry and all too familiar voice crying, ‘Hey, Heloise—stop!’

Looking across the square, in the direction from which the voice hailed, she saw Du Mauriac bearing down on them like an avenging whirlwind.

To her consternation, rather than retreating into the relative safety of the restaurant, Charles continued to stroll nonchalantly towards the most dangerous man in Paris.

‘Didn’t you hear me calling you?’ he snarled, coming to a halt directly in front of them. His black moustache bristled in a face that was mottled red from wine and anger. Heloise tried to detach her hand from Charles’ arm. The waiters would not deign to help, but many of the diners in Very Frères were Englishmen, who would be bound to come to their aid if she could only get to them.

But Charles would not relax his grip.

Eyeing the lean figure of her former suitor with cool disdain, he drawled, ‘My fiancée does not answer to strangers shouting in the street.’

‘Fiancée!’ Ignoring Lord Walton, Du Mauriac turned the full force of his fury on the slender form cringing at his side.

‘Y … yes,’ she stuttered.

‘Do not let this fellow unsettle you, my sweet. I will deal with him.’

‘Your sweet?’ The Earl’s endearment drew Du Mauriac’s fire down upon himself. ‘She is not your sweet. Everyone knows you are in love with her sister! Not her! What could a man like you want with a little mouse like her?’

‘Since you speak of her in such a derogatory manner,’ he replied stiffly, ‘it is clear you care little for her either. So what exactly is your problem?’

‘You have no notion of what I feel for Heloise. Before you came to France, with your money and your title, she was going to be my wife! Mine! And if she had an ounce of loyalty she would be mine still. But it is the same with so many of her sort. They can wear the violet on their gowns, but their heart is filled only with greed and ambition.’

The confrontation between a slender officer in his shabby uniform and an obviously wealthy Englishman, in the doorway of such an exclusive restaurant, was beginning to attract the attention of passers-by.

‘I collect from your agitation,’ Charles said, finally relinquishing his vice-like grip on her hand, so that he could interpose his own body between her and Du Mauriac, ‘that you were once an aspirant to Mademoiselle Bergeron’s hand?’

Heloise was too shocked by these words to think of running for help. Charles knew exactly how things had stood between them. So why was he pretending differently? Oh, she thought, her hands flying to her cheeks. To conceal her part in the plot! He was shielding her from Du Mauriac’s wrath. Her heart thudded in her chest. It was wonderful to know Charles was intent on protecting her, but did he not know Du Mauriac would calmly put a bullet through a man on far flimsier quarrel than that of stealing his woman?

‘I fully understand,’ Charles said in an almost bored tone, ‘if the harsh words you level at this lady stem from thwarted affection. Being aware that you French are apt to be somewhat excitable, I also forgive you your appalling lapse of manners. Though naturally were you an Englishman it would be quite another matter.’

Du Mauriac laughed mockingly. ‘I insult your woman and you stand there and let me do it, like the coward you are. What must I do to make you take the honourable course? Slap your face?’

The Earl looked thoughtful. ‘You could do so, of course, if it would help to relieve your feelings. But then I would be obliged to have you arrested on a charge of assault.’

‘In short, you are such a coward that nothing would induce you to meet me!’

Heloise gasped. No gentleman could allow another to call him a coward to his face. Especially not in such a public place.

But Charles merely looked puzzled. ‘Surely you are not suggesting I would wish to fight a duel with you?’ He shook his head, a pitying smile on his face. ‘Quite apart from the fact I do not accept there is any reason for us to quarrel, I understand your father was a fisherman of some sort? I hate to have to be the one to break it to you, but duelling is a gentleman’s solution to a quarrel.’

‘I am an officer of the French army!’ Du Mauriac shouted.

‘Well, that’s as may be,’ Charles replied. ‘Plenty of upstarts are masquerading as gentlemen in France these days. I,’ he said, drawing himself up a little, ‘do not share such republican ideals. A man is a gentleman by birth and manners—and frankly, sir, you have neither.’

Du Mauriac, now completely beside himself, took a step forward, his hand raised to strike the blow that would have made a duel inevitable. And met the full force of the Earl’s left fist. Before he knew what had hit him, the Earl followed through with a swift right, leaving the notorious duellist lying stretched, insensible, on the gravel path.

‘I am so sorry you had to witness that, Heloise,’ the Earl said, flexing his knuckles with a satisfied smile. ‘But it is well past time somebody knocked him down.’

Heloise was torn by a mixture of emotions. It had been quite wonderful to see Du Mauriac floored with such precision. And yet she knew he was not a man to take such a public insult lying down. At least, she thought somewhat hysterically, only while he was unconscious. As soon as he came to he would be hell-bent on revenge. If he could not take it legitimately, by murdering the Earl under the guise of duelling with him, then he would do it by stealthy means. It would be a knife in the ribs as he mounted the steps to the theatre, or a shot fired from a balcony as they rode along the boulevard in the borrowed carrick. She could see the Earl’s blood soaking into the dust of some Parisian street as she held his dying body in her arms.

She burst into tears.

Putting one arm around her, Lord Walton pushed a way through the excited crowd that was milling round Du Mauriac’s prone form.

It had been a tactical error, he acknowledged as he bundled her into a cab, to deal with Du Mauriac while she was watching. Gentlemen did not brawl in front of ladies. Displays of masculine aggression were abhorrent to them. But it had seemed too good an opportunity to pass up! Wellington had forbidden officers of the occupying forces to engage in fisticuffs in public places. He had stipulated that the sword was the weapon of gentlemen, and Du Mauriac had taken advantage of that order to murder one young Englishman after another. Only a man like Walton, who was exempt from Wellington’s orders, was free to mete out the humiliating form of punishment that such a scoundrel deserved.

But witnessing what an aggressive brute she was about to marry had clearly devastated Heloise. By the time they reached the Quai Voltaire she had worked herself into such a pitch he had no option but to carry her into the house and hand her over to the care of her mother, while he went in search of some brandy.

‘He will kill him, Maman,’ Heloise sobbed into her mother’s bosom. ‘And then he will take his revenge on me. Whatever shall I do?’

‘We will bring the wedding forward to tomorrow,’ her mother said, comforting Heloise immensely by not decrying her fears as groundless. ‘And you will leave Paris immediately after the ceremony.’

‘What if he should pursue us?’ Heloise hiccupped, sitting up and blowing her nose.

‘You leave that to me,’ her mother said with a decisive nod. ‘He has plenty of enemies who want only a little push to move against him, and we can keep him tied up long enough for you to escape France.’

‘But I thought you wanted me to marry him!’

And so I did, my dear.’ Her mother absently stroked a lock of hair from her daughter’s heated forehead. ‘When I thought you could get no other suitor, and when I thought Bonaparte’s ambition would keep him away from Paris, fighting for ten months of the year. But I would never have permitted you to go on campaign with him. Besides,’ she concluded pragmatically, ‘Bonaparte is finished now. Of what use is a man like Du Mauriac when he has no emperor to fight for?’

The moment Charles heard Madame Bergeron suggest that, due to Heloise’s state of nerves, it might be better to bring the wedding forward, he completely forgot his determination that nothing would induce him to leave Paris before the lease on his apartment had run its course. Nothing mattered except making sure of Heloise.

‘I will go and order the removal of my own household,’ he said, rising from his chair and pulling his gloves on over his bruised knuckles. It would take some time to pack up the house and arrange transport for his staff. But he could leave all that in Giddings’ capable hands. He could most certainly leave immediately after the wedding ceremony. It only required his valet to pack an overnight case.

At first he assumed that once she had spoken her vows, and signed all the necessary documents, he would feel easier in his mind. But it was not so. Every time he glanced at the tense set of her pale face he wondered if she still considered the dairy farm at Dieppe a preferable option to being leg-shackled to a man of whom she was growing increasingly afraid. He was not being fanciful. She had admitted almost as soon as they had set out that she had left her one decent dress behind because it brought back bad memories.

It was the one she had been wearing the night he had forced that kiss on her.

Before long, he realised he was not going to be able to relax until he had her on board ship and out into the Channel. While they were in France there were innumerable ways for her to wriggle out of his grasp.

It was a great relief when, about ten miles out of Paris, her head began to droop. She couldn’t have slept a wink the night before to be sleeping so soundly in the jolting carriage. She must have been scared stiff of leaving her family and her country behind, and going to live amongst strangers. She made no demur when he tucked her wilting form against his shoulder, and once he was certain she was fully asleep he took the liberty of putting his arm round her, and settling her into a more comfortable position. She was so tiny, tucked against his heart. So frail a creature.

Surely there must be some way he could get her to see he was not a monster? Just a man who wanted to be her friend and protector. But how? When so far all he had done was bully and frighten her?

She did not wake until well into the afternoon.

‘Where are we?’ she yawned, pushing herself upright.

‘Abbeville. Since you were sleeping so soundly, I took the opportunity to press on. We have been able to cover far more ground than if we had needed to keep stopping to see to your comfort.’

His matter-of-fact tone brought her sharply to her senses. For a blissful moment, as she had come awake within the cradle of his powerful arms, she had mistaken the fact that he had allowed her to use his broad chest for her pillow as a mark of tenderness.

‘You will have your own suite of rooms tonight,’ he said, plunging her deeper into gloom. Of course he would not want any real intimacy with her. Their marriage was only for public show.

She was not very much surprised when a meal was brought to her own little parlour, or when she ate it alone. He had barely spoken a handful of words to her all day. On seeing the meagre amount of luggage she had packed, instead of appreciating her ability to travel light he had made a sarcastic comment about having to arrange credit at various smart outfitters once they arrived in London. After that Charles had turned from her and gazed fixedly out of the window.

The hotel was naturally first class, and the maid provided to help her prepare for bed was both efficient and friendly. But Heloise knew she would not sleep a wink, no matter how soft the feather mattress was. She had dozed in her husband’s arms nearly all day, and now she was wide awake—and as troubled as she had been the night before.

She had nobody but herself to blame for her predicament. She had approached Charles and offered to be the means by which he could salve his wounded pride. She should not feel offended that he cared so little for her that he would not even fight a duel when she was insulted in a public square. Besides, she had not wanted him to fight a duel. She could not bear to think of him being injured or, worse, killed on her account.

She would not be able to rest properly until he was safely in England, where Du Mauriac would not dare follow, she reflected, chewing at a fingernail.

Anyway, she had worked out, during the long sleepless hours of the previous night, that the quarrel in the Palais Royale had not been about her at all, no matter what words the men had used. Charles had clearly known far more about Du Mauriac than she had told him, else how would he have been able to sneer at his parentage? And another thing—it had only been when she had told him Du Mauriac was the suitor she wished to escape that he had shown any inclination to take her proposition seriously.

She shivered at the cold, calculating way Charles had behaved. He must have studied Du Mauriac closely to have taken the very course which would hurt him most. He had stolen his woman, refused to acknowledge him as a social equal, then knocked him down in a public place, rendering him an object of ridicule.

She drew the coverlet up to her chin, the cold seeping into her very soul. Felice had said he had no heart. He had warned her himself that his nature was so cold and vengeful he could sever the ties to his own family without a qualm.

No. She shook her head. Felice had been wrong. And when Charles himself had informed her of his nature there had been something in his eyes—almost as though he was taunting her with the description she had heard applied to him so often.

His treatment of Du Mauriac had been cold and vengeful, that was true. But Du Mauriac was a vile man who fully deserved all that Charles had done to him. And as for that business about cutting ties with the family who had raised him … well, yes, that did sound bad. But, knowing what she did of Charles, she would not be a bit surprised to learn that it was they who had done something dreadful, and that rather than expose them he’d let the gossip-mongers make what they would of it all.

She was startled out of her reverie when someone pushed her bedroom door open. This might be a first-class inn, but clearly some people lodging here had no manners. She was just opening her mouth to scream her objection at having her room invaded when she realised it was only Charles, entering not from the corridor but from a connecting door to another bedroom.

‘I am not a monster, Heloise,’ he sighed, stalking towards her. ‘You do not need to clutch the sheet up to your chin as though you fear I mean to ravish you. I can assure you, nothing is further from my mind.’

Relief that it was not some stranger about to assault her had her sagging into the pillows. Though his words rankled. Did he think she was a complete fool? She knew all too well that when he wanted a woman he would go to one of his mistresses.

‘I only came to inform you of the fact that I will not be making demands of that nature upon you. I said from the start that you are far too young to be married at all, leave alone face motherhood.’ He bent over her and placed a perfunctory kiss on her forehead. ‘Goodnight, Lady Walton,’ he said.

‘Goodnight, Charles,’ she replied, betraying by only the very slightest quiver in her lower lip her feeling of humiliated rejection.

She would not cry until he had left the room. He detested any display of emotion. She could only imagine how disgusted her complete breakdown the night before must have made him. But it probably accounted for his distant behaviour with her today. She must not make the mistake of showing such lack of breeding again. Even if he never came to care all that much for her, she would do her utmost to be the kind of wife he wanted—compliant and undemonstrative.

To prove that she could do this, she tried a shaky smile. To tell the truth, she did feel a measure of relief. She was totally unprepared for a wedding night with a husband who regarded her as a necessary evil. Or to endure the ordeal of being deflowered by a man who would regard it as a duty to be performed in the cold-blooded way he seemed to live the rest of his life.

Lord Walton ripped off his cravat the moment he entered his room, and flung it aside to land he knew not where. He felt as though he could not breathe. God, how scared of him she had looked! And how relieved when he had told her he had no intentions of claiming his husbandly rights! He strode to the side table and poured a measure of brandy into a tumbler. Then slumped into a chair, staring into its amber depths. He would find no solace there, he reflected, swirling the liquid round and round, warming it to release its fragrant fumes. The one time he had attempted to use alcohol as an anaesthetic it had failed him miserably. All it had done was make him feel sorry for himself. He had spouted the most maudlin nonsense to a virtual stranger, and woken with a thick head in the morning. He would need a clear head the next morning. If they could make an early enough start they would reach Calais and be sailing for home on the evening tide.

Providing Heloise did not fly from him during the night. Starting to his feet, he crossed to the chamber door. And paused with his hand on the latch.

Perhaps the gentlemanly thing to do would be to let her go.

Heloise deserved a man who could love and nurture her, not scare and bully her.

Dammit, why was it so impossible to behave rationally around her? He ran a hand over his brow.

Seeing her sitting in that bed, chewing her nails like a frightened, lonely child, had made him want to take her in his arms and comfort her. But he knew it would not have worked. He was the last person she would want to seek comfort from. He was the worst of her problems. Besides, the feel of her slight body, snuggled trustingly against his in the coach, had filled him with most unchivalrous longings. Right this moment he wanted her with a ferocity that made him disgusted with himself.

God, what had he done? What was he to do?

Determined to prove she was capable of behaving correctly, Heloise sat bolt upright in the carriage all the way to Calais. In spite of the fact she had spent most of the night crying into her pillow, she was not going to repeat the mistake of yielding to exhaustion and falling asleep on a husband who seemed to regard any form of touching as an intrusion on his personal dignity.

She had served her purpose—giving him the opportunity to take revenge on Du Mauriac and concealing the chink in his armour that was his love for Felice. And now he did not know quite what to do with her.

He was avoiding her as much as he could. When they got to Calais, he left her in the carriage while he arranged their passage, then installed her in a private parlour to await the sailing while he went off for a walk. On the few occasions when he had deigned to speak to her, he had done so with such icy civility she just knew he regretted giving in to the rash impulse to marry her.

And who could blame him? No one was more unsuitable to be the wife of such a man than she!

By the time he came to inform her it was time to embark, she was trembling so badly she had to cling to his arm for support.

Just as they reached the companionway, a messenger dashed up to them. ‘Countess of Walton? Formerly Mademoiselle Bergeron?’ he panted.

When she nodded, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter. ‘Thank heaven I reached you in time.’ He grinned. ‘Urgent, the sender said it was, that I got this to you before you left France.’ His mission complete, the man melted back into the crowd that thronged the quayside.

‘You had better open it at once,’ she heard Charles say, and he pulled her slightly to one side, so that they did not impede other passengers from boarding.

‘It is from my mother,’ she said, after swiftly scanning the few lines of hastily scrawled script. ‘Du Mauriac is dead.’

Translating for Charles, she read, “‘… the Royalist officials sent to arrest him employed such zeal that many Bonapartists rushed to his aid. In the ensuing brawl, somebody stabbed him. Nobody knows yet who it was …’”

She clutched the letter to her bosom, her eyes closing in relief. Charles was safe.

‘What violent times we live in,’ Charles remarked, wondering why it felt as though the dock had lurched beneath his feet.

Heloise had only married him to escape Du Mauriac’s clutches. What a pointless gesture she had made. If only she had waited a few days, and not panicked, she would not have had to make that ultimate sacrifice.

‘Dear me,’ he observed. ‘You need not have married me after all.’