The Disdainful Marquis (21 page)

Catherine sat trapped while the small man beside her smiled smoothly at her. She felt a danger emanating from him unlike any she had yet faced.

“But that is only for the moment. Great things are in the wind, my dear. And great things are called for. So”—he straightened and stared at her—“this is what I have come to say. Give up your ties with the duchess. She has served her purpose—you will get no more from her. In fact, she may soon have no more to give. Come with me; I shall steer a clear course for you to the rewards you have been seeking. I shall find you a comfortable arrangement before the week is out.”

“You are wrong,” Catherine whispered. “I shall not leave the duchess.”

“Oh,” M. Beaumont said deprecatingly, “you think I wish to share in your reward. Put that from your mind, please. I seek nothing from you. Rather, my reward shall come from seeing you well placed.”

“No,” Catherine said, staring at him, “such a thing is unthinkable. You misunderstand.”

“It is quite thinkable. If you think the duchess will object, please speak with her. I have already, and she is quite willing to end her association with you, so you need not worry about any problems from her. And none in the future, I assure you. I have taken over your fate. You are in good hands, never fear. Just have your bags packed by tomorrow morning, and all will end more pleasantly than you ever hoped.”

“Tomorrow morning?” Catherine gasped.

“Perhaps that is too sudden,” he said with a smile that did not reach his eyes. “Tomorrow evening then. I know how you ladies have to make farewells and pack every little thing. Although, I assure you, you could come to him with nothing but what is on your back and he would be pleased. He will smother you in riches, I assure you.”

“To whom?” Catherine asked, staring.

“To my dear friend Hervé, of course.”

“Never,” Catherine said, rising again.

“A very pretty show of reluctance. I quite see what has won everyone over. And I cannot blame you for thinking me misled. For until now poor Hervé has had nothing to offer. But things will be greatly changed, and quickly, I promise you. He will soon be able to afford you—more than that, to treat you as a queen. “

“No,” Catherine protested, “it makes no difference, I tell you.”

“I have no time for playacting; the decision has been made without your consent. It is over, Miss Catherine,” he said, rising with her and gripping her wrist till it ached.

“This is my country. It is my domain. It is my wish. You will please to make ready for your journey. My man there will see you to your hotel. And my man will take you to M. Richard tomorrow evening. We will meet again, and by then you will see how foolish your fears have been. But do not try to evade my orders, Miss Catherine,” he said, pressing her wrist till she had to bite her lip. “For my name is known, and no good will come of it.”

Catherine looked around her frantically and saw no one willing to come to her aid, even though she was in evident distress. Rather they turned and ignored her. Hopelessly, she craned her neck, looking for a glimpse of familiar gray eyes, familiar broad shoulders, but the marquis was nowhere in sight.

“You see?” M. Beaumont said. “I am known everywhere. Now go, Miss Catherine, and make ready for your new and more pleasant life. I do you a great favor, Miss Catherine, and someday you shall thank me.”

He released her, and she drew back. An impassive man in footman's livery stood at her back.

“Take Miss Catherine to her rooms, Claude,” M. Beaumont said, and he watched as the footman steered the dazed girl toward the door.

Done, he then thought with a sigh. That was a good piece of work. Hervé would babble with gratitude when he told him. Pierre would be beside himself with rage, but much good that would do him.

Henri Beaumont had weathered many political storms by catering to the right persons at the right moment.

He had never heard the old English folk song about his legendary English counterpart, the infamous Vicar of Bray, but he would have understood the chorus, in which the vicar supposedly boasted that “Whatsoever king may reign, still I'll be the Vicar of Bray, sir.” For whoever took power, Henri Beaumont would serve him well. The trick was in knowing the precise moment to shift allegiances, the exact moment to bestow favors. It was all in the timing. And if foolish Hervé Richard wanted this little English miss, he would have her as a gift from his friend Henri Beaumont just before the tide rose, just before Hervé knew that soon he could have anything in France that he wished. Even his own brother's head, if he wished. Though—and here Henri Beaumont gave himself the luxury of a rare, real smile—Hervé getting the woman his brother wanted and flaunting her before him would be better than getting his brother's head on a plate.

He had separated the little English cyprian from that fool of an old woman. He would serve her up to Hervé, who would be undyingly grateful. For he did not know what M. Beaumont knew. He did not possess the small piece of paper with the few coded words scrawled on it that M. Beaumont had received this very night. The few words that let him know that Hervé's great good friend and former ruler would soon be his, and everyone's, Emperor again.

Chapter XI

“Her Grace ain't back yet,” Gracie sneered. “As you should well know. Why, the clock ain't even struck twelve.”

“Please,” Catherine begged. “Please, Gracie, let me know when she arrives. At any hour, at any time. I shall be waiting, but it cannot wait till morning. I must speak with her this night, whenever she returns.”

Gracie folded her arms over her narrow breasts, an expression of great satisfaction upon her usually grim face.

“It's Mrs. Grace to you, young woman, and don't you forget it,” she said slowly, eyeing the trembling young woman. “And Her Grace needs her sleep when she comes in. Why, she usually is so done in, poor soul, that she just tumbles into bed and don't stir till morning.”

“Mrs. Grace,” Catherine pleaded, “it is of utmost importance. Truly. You must—” And seeing the expression on the older woman's face, she quickly amended, “Please, please, just tap upon my door when Her Grace returns. I am sure she will want to speak with me as well. I know she will,” she pressed, seeing the indecision on the other's face.

“All right,” the older woman grumbled. “But don't be surprised if she sends you off with a flea in your ear. For having a chat with her ‘companions' ain't what she's used to when she comes dragging in after one of them big dos.”

Gracie turned abruptly and closed the door in Catherine's face smartly. One of those cats got her tail caught in the door at last, she sniffed with contempt as she caught a last glimpse of Catherine's stricken face. It's the Lord's judgment upon all of them wicked females.

Back in her room, Catherine slowly removed her shawl with trembling fingers and sank down upon her bed. Her first thoughts were of self-condemnation. She had dithered, and her selfish, cowardly procrastination had led her to this. For if she had been truly virtuous and truly courageous, she would never have been caught in such a coil. If she had thought herself derelict in remaining in the duchess's employ, it now seemed that she never really understood the full extent of the danger she had placed herself in.

And yet, she thought, groaning to herself, she should have known. Step by step, her complacence had led her to this, as surely as in any morality tale she had ever suffered through at Sunday sermon. She had accepted all, by slow degree, just as the vicar had warned her. A few months ago, if anyone had told her that soon she would be able to accept as commonplace nightly invitations to strange gentlemen's beds, she would have been appalled. Or if they had said, straight-faced, that she would have permitted a nobleman's ardent embrace without deadly shame, or even, in the quick of her soul, welcome it, she would have thought them mad. And perhaps, worst of all, if they had hinted that she would have been able to suffer blithely the reputation of a light-skirts, she would have laughed in their faces. But all of this she had done. And see what it had come to.

One cannot wear the feathers of a bird of paradise without being hunted as one. Why should anyone believe her now? And, she thought, rising and pacing in her agitation, it had gone beyond explanations. For M. Beaumont would not care to hear weak excuses. He had seen her as a cyprian, so he had decided to use her as one. She must speak with the duchess, collect her wages, only a few weeks before time, and go now. For she wondered if even the duchess's influence could prevent M. Beaumont from going ahead with his plans. And yet a small persuasive voice in the deeps of her soul still whispered that she would not have to leave yet—that she would not have to brave the world alone as she went back to England, that the duchess was still her employer, was still a woman of title and influence, and would still protect her.

It might be, Catherine thought, as she paced her room and listened for every creak in the old hotel walls for the duchess's return, that now the dowager herself would have had enough and would wish to return home as well. And then Catherine would find the entire incident just a frightening, cautionary false alarm.

So she persuaded herself as she waited; so she consoled herself as the hours ticked by. For she could not face the thought that she was trapped, that her future had been taken out of her own hands.

When the tap came upon her door, Catherine started. It had been so long a wait that she was sure Gracie had not told the duchess after all, out of spite.

Catherine straightened, ran her hands over her hair, licked her lips nervously, and went into the dowager's rooms. She had practiced her speech, but it died upon her lips as she caught sight of her employer. For the duchess had changed, as if in a moment As if she were some once-vigorous plant that had been touched by the icy finger of winter.

She stood, Gracie hovering by her side, waiting for Catherine. But she seemed not to stand so straight as before, and to be rather oddly shrunken and debilitated. No longer a regal and imperious peeress of the realm, but only an old woman. The icy eyes that had gazed sharply at life and its pleasures seemed watery and weak in the candle's glow, and when she spoke her voice was querulous and edged with self-pity. Catherine gaped at the transformation. She did not know that it was only that the duchess's brief late flowering was passed, that her moment of spectacular beauty was over. It had been inevitable, for no beauty remains forever, but its flight had been hastened by terror and anxiety.

“Well, good riddance,” the duchess said, staring at Catherine, but instead of backing the words up with a haughty stare down her long nose, her eyes seemed to waver.

“Your Grace,” Catherine began, recalling herself after the shock of seeing the dowager so transmuted, “there has been a terrible mistake.”

“No mistake,” the duchess said. “You've found greener pastures. Can't blame you. You're young, with the world ahead of you, and you've seen a better chance and grabbed it. Violet told me you would, and she was right. So go, and be demned to you.”

“I don't want to go,” Catherine cried. “I want to stay with you. M. Beaumont told me that you had agreed to my leaving, but I swear I don't want to go. I had no idea of what he had in mind. And I want to stay with you. Please tell him that he was mistaken.”

The duchess sank into a chair.

“Why shouldn't you want to go, eh? He said there would be riches aplenty for you.”

“But Your Grace, please,” Catherine said, going to the duchess and sinking to her knees by her feet, “please listen. You know that I served you faithfully.”

Gracie gave a short bark of laughter.

“No, listen,” Catherine pleaded, “I came as your companion. I didn't know about Rose and Violet then. And when I discovered they were accompanying you as well, it was too late to turn back.”

Catherine faltered, for how could she claim that the dowager's two companions were nothing but highly priced prostitutes and that she, knowing all, had not been the same?

“I have been only your companion,” Catherine said fervently. “I have done nothing else, I promise you. I am not right for the life M. Beaumont projects for me. You must know that.”

“I don't care what my girls do when I'm not about,” the duchess said, turning from Catherine. “I don't know and I don't care. What they get up to is their business, so long as they don't involve me.”

“But I have got up to nothing,” Catherine cried.

“It was a mistake,” the duchess mumbled, “all a great mistake. I should have hired on someone who was up to snuff, who wouldn't enact such tragedies.”

“But it would be a tragedy for me,” Catherine protested, rising to her feet and staring down at the duchess. “Can't you see that? Can't you just tell M. Beaumont that you refuse, that you wish me to stay on with you? I promise to be no further trouble.”

The dowager avoided Catherine's eyes and instead began to talk rapidly to Gracie.

“I told him I wanted to keep the chit. I told him I was a woman of some influence. I told him that he had colossal nerve to try to dictate to me—the Duchess of Crewe. But he didn't back down. No, he didn't. Do you know what he told me? He told me I had no influence in France. That he had power over my life and death. That he could clap me in prison, duchess or no, and leave me there to rot away until my countrymen would extricate me. He told me that soon the English would all be in his power. And when I told him he was speaking fustian—and I did, Gracie, I did, I was so angry at the fellow—do you know what he told me?”