Potent Pleasures (37 page)

“Alack!” Sophie said blithely, when she and Charlotte were sitting in the newly furbished Green Room after dinner. “Alack! I shall have no children! I fear me that Braddon has given up the chase.”

Charlotte glared at her. “Don’t be funning about this, Sophie! Alex is going to be furious when he returns.
If
he returns.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “The most besotted man in all of London—and you’re afraid he won’t return? What do you think he’s doing?”

“I don’t know,” Charlotte admitted. “He said he would be gone for two months, and he has been gone over twice that. And he has sent only one letter. Here I am, eight months pregnant”—she gestured faintly toward her growing stomach—”and he doesn’t even know we’re having a child yet. Oh, Sophie,” Charlotte said wrenchingly, “do you think he went into France and didn’t come back out?”

“No. Because in that case the Foreign Ministry would inform you. Have you tried writing to the rascal who sent him off on this excursion?” Sophie shared Charlotte’s sense that the whole idea of picking up a “package” in Paris was ridiculous.

“Yes. Lord Breksby sent a note about two weeks ago saying that I should not worry, and the project was taking longer than planned. His tone was not—entirely nice. The worst of it was that I had the distinct impression that he felt the mess here was so awful that Alex was
making
the project take longer than it need have.”

“I doubt that,” Sophie replied. “For one thing, how would Alex know about it?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. But I keep thinking that even though they didn’t tell me exactly where he is, probably those men in the Foreign Ministry know his location. And what would stop one of them from sending over a copy of that terrible
Tatler
article?”

There was a moment of silence. “That would be difficult,” Sophie agreed. “Do you know where Alex’s brother has gone?”

“No. He said he was going to Leicestershire,” Charlotte said. “But what good could he do even if he were here? I don’t want to
see
him again!
The Tatler
made it sound as if he may have stayed in our house all night—when he was there only an hour at the most! Oh, dear …” Tears fell down her face.

Charlotte had spent so much time keeping up a serene front that it was a great relief to see Sophie. For example, she was acutely aware that none of the neighbors had called, as would be normal. They must think that I am a scarlet woman, she thought miserably. She instinctively placed her hands on her growing tummy.

Sophie interposed. “You’re probably right; Patrick Foakes would just make things worse.” She decided to change the subject. “I must say, you don’t show the baby very much,” Sophie said. “Are you sure that you are eight months along?”

“I saw a doctor, and he seemed to think so. My mother said her condition didn’t show much until the very end.”

Thank God, Sophie thought,
Mama
has no idea that Charlotte is
enceinte
. That would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Sophie could just imagine the scandal that Charlotte’s rounded belly was going to provoke.

“Perhaps you should write a letter informing Alex of the pregnancy, and send it to him care of the Foreign Ministry,” Sophie suggested.

“I thought of that,” Charlotte answered. “But what if Alex isn’t planning to come back at all? He told me once that he was on the point of leaving his first wife for good when she proposed the annulment. He was going to join the army, or something of that nature. I’m afraid that someone told him how shocking I am, and he has simply decided to stay in Italy.”

She was sobbing hard now, her face buried in a sofa cushion. Sophie moved over and stroked Charlotte’s shaking shoulders. She wasn’t sure what to say.

“I’m afraid that he doesn’t love me enough, Sophie. He doesn’t trust me, and now he never will,” Charlotte said chokingly. “And I love him so much! I don’t think that I can live without him.”

“Hush,” Sophie said, “hush. You don’t have to live without him. I think you are exaggerating the importance of Alex’s absence. I expect he is sitting in an Italian
taverna
at this very moment, having the time of his life, and hasn’t heard a thing about the
Tatler
article.”

“But how can he have such a good time?” Charlotte sobbed. “I miss him so much; I dream about him every night. It
hurts
!”

“Men are different,” Sophie retorted. “You can see that easily enough, Charlotte. Women may love one man, but men simply love the person they see before them. That old chestnut, absence makes the heart grow fonder, doesn’t work for men. They are like children with toys: They move on to the next shiny object if you take the old one out of their hands.”

Charlotte pulled herself upright. “You’re so bitter, Sophie,” she said. “Why are you so bitter?”

“My father,” Sophie replied succinctly.

“Oh,” Charlotte said unhappily. Everything in her resisted the idea that Alex, her dear beloved Alex, was like Sophie’s father, the Marquis of Brandenburg. But if Alex wasn’t akin to the marquis, where was he? Four, almost five, months had passed, and while she counted each day off as if it were a year, Alex was apparently frolicking about Italy, perhaps not even thinking about the wife he had left at home.

When Charlotte tried to imagine how he was feeling about her, all she could think of was his black rage in Depford, when he thought she’d betrayed him. She pushed the terrifying image from her mind. He promised, he
promised
to trust her. She simply had to hope that he would keep that promise. But her mind circled endlessly, moving unhappily from the facts of Alex’s first marriage, which made him so apt not to trust her, to their blissfully happy time together. Surely that would count with him, more than any silly article published in his absence!

“He said he loved being married to me,” she told Sophie, her voice shaky. “And he said he wanted to have children. I’m sure he’ll be happy when …” Her voice trailed off.

In Sophie’s warm hug she read disbelief; in the recesses of her heart the same disbelief hovered. If Alex loved her, truly loved her, he would have found a way to come home by now. She drew a deep breath and hoisted herself from the couch.

“Prospective mothers need to sleep.” Sophie held out her hand, her blue eyes loving, coaxing, sympathetic.

Charlotte smiled, a little, peaked smile. “Do you think … could you stay with me for another month, Sophie?”

“Well,” Sophie said teasingly, tucking her arm through Charlotte’s elbow and drawing her toward the door, “it will be a great sacrifice, of course. Braddon undoubtedly plans to propose at least three or four times during the coming month, and woe is me if he turns his attentions to another. My mother, for one, would be furious—” she chattered on. But when they were climbing the stairs, Sophie said casually that it would be a sound test of Braddon’s affections if he didn’t see her for at least two months. And Charlotte’s heart lifted, warmth creeping into the empty space left by her tears.

Chapter 19

I
n fact, Alex knew nothing of the
Tatler
article. At the very moment when Charlotte was sobbing over his absence, he was involved in an animated argument over the relative merits of a certain year of
vin santo
, a strong Italian wine. Yet even as he agreed with the owner of a little bar that this particular
vin santo
was very strong but not too strong, and disagreed with him over the merits of adding a touch of pepper, he was thinking of Charlotte. When Signor Tonarelli finally stopped talking and bustled into the room behind his counter to fetch the famous “package,” Alex found himself thinking not about the extended chase which this package had led him over the last five months, but of his wife’s lovely, slim legs. He fancied they were particularly beautiful above the knees. When she lay on her side, he would run his hand slowly, slowly up the perfect slow curve, over the little bump of her hip, his thumb falling inside and teasing the delicate hollow that lay just over her hipbone.

Alex stared absently at the wooden shelves that lined the back of Bar Luce, the only restaurant, so to speak, for miles. He had found his way up to this little Italian village only after months of inquiry. Slowly he had traveled through the countryside and finally up the mountain, tracing the path of a weary old Frenchman. Where the man had been going before he died in this little village, Alex had no idea. Signor Tonarelli claimed to have never seen him before.

Mario Tonarelli came back out of his inner room, clutching a small, grungy bundle.

“Grazie! Grazie mille,”
Alex said enthusiastically.

“Prego,”
Signor Tonarelli responded. He was delighted to have been of service to this rich and powerful stranger. The man was from Rome, Signor Tonarelli had decided, given his accent. But he was much friendlier than the average Roman—a nasty, suspicious lot, as all mountain folk knew. What on earth the Roman was doing in his small
osteria
, picking up a bundle of old clothes, he didn’t know. Tonarelli knew they were just old clothes, because of course he and his wife had taken a careful look when the old Frenchman died, practically on their front door. He said—the Frenchman did—that someone would be along to pick up the package, and he was right. But neither Mario nor his wife, Luce, could figure out why on earth anyone would ever want to recover the old Frenchman’s clothes.

They buried him in the cemetery at the back of the little village, but Mario hung onto the package. Sure enough, along came a Roman only six months later, asking for it.

Mario’s eyes lit up. The Roman seemed to be counting out a little pile of gold lire. Who cares why he wanted those musty old rags?

“Grazie!”
Tonarelli said, with true gratitude in his voice. He stood for a second in the door of his
osteria
, watching the Roman return to his carriage. He was a good-looking man, the Roman. Tall, with an arrogant, powerful walk that Mario much admired. He himself had grown rotund from eating too much of Luce’s mushroom pasta; but even so, he had never walked as this man naturally did. Like a wolf, Mario thought. His hand closed firmly on the pile of coins.

“Luce,” he bellowed, as Alex’s carriage began its long, winding way down the mountain. Mario’s sudden shout frightened the chickens who were pecking about the piazza, the square in the center of the village that was ringed by three stone houses, his bar, and the church.

“Is he gone?” His wife appeared breathlessly around the side of a building. She had been doing their washing in the stone bath behind the fountain, and her dress was splashed with water.

In answer Mario simply held out his hand, showing the coins.

“Grazie a Dio!”
Luce said simply.

Mario smiled and walked over to her, a little of the stranger’s arrogant lope in his stride.

“I shall take some flowers to the grave today, to the old man,” Luce added.

Mario nodded. He deserved flowers, that Frenchman. He had made them rich by dying on their doorstep. Now they could not only buy a cow, but perhaps even spend some money to buy another mule. Their mule, Lia, was sixteen years old, and she staggered as she climbed up the mountain every couple of weeks, dragging a cart full of things to sell in the bar.

In the carriage Alex looked broodingly at the package he held. He hated the cursed thing by now. He had arrived in Paris only to find the house that he was looking for had been torched a few weeks before. Rather than show any undue interest, he had been forced to leave Paris immediately and hire a dingy French spy to go back and find out what had happened and where the inhabitants had gone. That took a blasted two months, over two months.

And all Alex himself could do was go through the motions of being an Italian merchant interested in exporting French wines. He was careful, however, not to enter France again until the day he casually crossed the border, drove his horse straight to a certain milliner’s house, and left three minutes later with a very frightened French girl, Lucien’s sister Brigitte. The recovery of Brigitte was as smooth as cream. They weren’t even stopped at the border into Italy, just waved through by a couple of bored soldiers.

Hearing the story of how the mob came to Lucien’s house, how his wife and son died, and how Brigitte escaped capture only by hiding in a pile of laundry made Alex itch to go home. Of course, Pippa and Charlotte were happy and healthy in England. Yet something about Lucien’s still white face and the way he clutched his little sister to his chest made Alex feel precariously mortal.

He found himself thinking about Charlotte all the time: not even imagining sex as much as Charlotte’s laughing face in the morning when Pippa clambered into the bed and spilled chocolate on the sheets. The way she would bite her lower lip as she concentrated on painting. The fierce manner with which she would counter his arguments when they disagreed over decisions made in Parliament. The consummate pride he felt as he gave a speech in the House of Lords that was not exactly as it would have been had he not discussed it with his wife the night before. Discussed it, ha! Battled over it was more accurate.

I love her, Alex realized one morning. Blast it, I’m
in
love with her. After that it was as if the icy wall that he had built around his heart during the marriage to Maria simply tumbled to the ground. Alex feverishly longed to hold Charlotte in his arms, to kiss her all over until she was crying out with desire and need, and then whisper “I love you” in her ear. She’ll cry, he thought, picturing her huge dark eyes filling with loving tears. She would see that he forgave her for everything before their marriage, that he really trusted her. He even forgave her for not being a virgin when they married. He was prepared to forget that she had slept with his brother before him. Alex was so impatient to board the boat back to England that he could hardly sit still.

He toured vineyards in Italy and established what would later prove to be a lucrative chain of vineyards prepared to import wine into England from Italy, rather than into France from Italy, as he pretended. The activity served his cover, so to speak. But even as he conducted the leisurely conversations that precede every Italian business transaction, Alex was aflame, burning to return to England.

Yet as he lay in his bedroom, arms crossed behind his head, Alex sometimes felt disgusted at his own eagerness. Hadn’t he already played the fool, thinking that a woman would be honest? He felt a deep, brutal shame, remembering the shambles of his marriage to Maria, her promises to be faithful to his bed. Shades of his old cynical self haunted the edges of his soul, cautioning that even Charlotte was no virgin when he married her. Maybe she was just another Maria, out for what sex and money she could take. The gaping, raw anger he felt when he walked in on Maria with the footman still echoed at the back of his mind.

But for the most part Alex nourished his dream of a grateful, loving Charlotte. Charlotte was no Maria. She loved him. Alex thought about how her body fitted to his like a glove during the night. If he drew away she would sigh and move restlessly until she snuggled back up against him. How had she slept without him? It had been almost five months; she must be used to sleeping alone, he thought rather sadly.

All those weeks of waiting had culminated in a bundle of old clothing. Alex stared, stupefied, at the bundle he had just opened. His carriage jolted uncertainly over the stony track down the mountain, taking him to the sea. One part of his mind rejoiced at being finally on his way. But another part felt a mounting rage.

How in the hell could that unmitigated fool Breksby send him all the way to Italy to serve as a secondhand-clothing merchant? He picked up the pieces of clothing distastefully. They were shabby, black, the clothes of a poor Parisian merchant. There was a pair of old trousers, ripped in the upper thigh, a coarse shirt that was probably white at some point in its distant past, a heavy, unwieldy jacket. Distastefully he felt through the pockets of the jacket and trousers, but there were no letters, no money, nothing. But then Alex’s eyes narrowed. The fat innkeeper said that the old Frenchman had told him someone would pick up the clothing. There
must
be something valuable here.

In a few minutes, he had it. Or them, rather. They had been folded many times, worked into tiny squares and placed inside the lower seam of the jacket. They were letters, and Alex had no idea how in the world they ended up sewn into a shabby black jacket. Because they were love letters, in French, and by the end of the second sheet Alex had a very good idea who had written them. They were letters from Napoleon to Josephine. And they were written
before
the couple were married. As a matter of fact, they were clearly written while Josephine was still married to General de Beauharnais.

Alex whistled a bit, reading the third letter. Then he grinned. He had heard that Josephine was beautiful … but beauty didn’t seem to be her only desirable attribute. By the time he had finished reading the letters, Alex’s face was somber. He could make a good guess about what the English government intended to do with these letters. The French still had many aristocrats locked up in their dungeons, and he held the ransom for at least a few of those unfortunate people in his hands. Alex folded the letters carefully, putting them in his breast pocket.

Suddenly the five months he had been stuck in Italy seemed inconsequential. He had a beloved, beautiful wife waiting for him in England. Lucien’s wife and his young son would never return. The letters had appeared too late to save them. But it might ransom a different family out of Bonaparte’s prisons. Alex shouted up at his driver with new purpose. These letters needed to be back in England, even more than he himself needed to be there.

Five months after he had left England, Alex stood on board ship, smiling into a cold, dank wind blowing off the English coastline. There is nothing as bone-shakingly chilly as a rainy coastal breeze, and yet there is nothing that smells so heartwarmingly English either, he thought. Slowly the rain-stained cluster of pubs that marked the London wharf came into view as their boat meandered up the Thames. Lighted windows winked and disappeared through the sheets of rain that were dashing to the shore. Lucien appeared at his side, tightly bundled against the storm.

Alex cast an affectionate arm around his shoulders. “We made it!” he shouted against the strained creaking of the small ship as it jarringly came into port. Instantly stevedores began trotting up and down, carrying boxes of wine out to the dock.

“Gently!” Alex shouted, his voice booming over the noise of slanting, falling rain. One of the seamen looked up, startled, but the stevedores paid no attention, nimbly finding their way over the piles of cargo, winches, ropes, and garbage that festooned the dock.

“They pay you no mind,” Lucien chuckled. “They know their work.”

“I’m not worried they will drop a box,” Alex said. “But if they shake the port, it will have to settle for two years—and I could use a drink at this moment.”

Lucien turned and gathered his sister Brigitte into his arms. “Didn’t I tell you to wait for me in the cabin?” he scolded. Alex could just see glowing, bright strands of hair peeking out from beneath Brigitte’s hood. He had become very fond of Lucien’s courageous little sister over the past few months. She was finally losing her white strained look and beginning to take on the normal air of a mischievous thirteen-year-old.

“I wanted to see England,” she said in her marked French accent. “It is my new home, no?”

Alex put his arm lightly around her shoulder and they stood together, the three of them, watching the last of the cargo being taken off the ship. Alex knew to the bottom of his soul that he would never be more proud of anything he did in his life than he was of his trip into France. The fact that this effervescent, lovely girl was alive was due in part to him; from what Brigitte had told them, the milliner was being asked more and more questions about his supposed “niece.” It was only a matter of time before Brigitte would have been brought before the gendarmes for questioning.