Noticing how pale her lips were, Cat applied a bit of the bright red salve Aunt Hecuba had secreted in her reticule. The color was a dark slash in the dimly lit room, but as Cat stepped out into the ballroom, brilliant with taper, oil, and chandelier, her mouth glistened like a ruby enticement.
She saw Thomas at once. It seemed both inevitable and as though she was seeing him in a dream. The shift and pulse of moving figures obscured him momentarily. Craning her neck, she stared, sure this was some vision.
It was Thomas. But Thomas as she had never seen him. He was clad in close-fitting dark evening dress, his shirt flawless white linen, his cravat a snowy foil to his swarthy complexion. He was listening politely to one of his companions, but his eyes traveled the occupants of the room in a slow perusal even as he bent from his great height to catch the words of a jewel-bedecked beauty. He looked thinner and taller, darker and more dangerous. It was impossible to tell whether he had shed a mask or adopted one, so smooth and assured was his address, so polished and graceful his movements. An image of a Roman statue of a centaur came unbidden to her mind. All muscle and sinew, power and grace.
Flustered, Cat turned, seeking escape.
Thomas listened with feigned interest to the unblushing invitation of the woman at his side. To be once more in Paris, listening to feminine voices speaking overly familiar words, raised specters Thomas would have just as soon left buried. He had looked around, a tiny frisson of desperation in his scrutiny, searching to see if Mariette Leons was there even though he knew she wouldn’t be. Instead, he had seen Cat.
She laid his ghosts. There was simply no room for specters when Cat was in sight. Even though all he had was a brief, tantalizing glimpse of her, one immediately lost in the crowd.
With scintillating results, Cat had wholeheartedly embraced the French styles. No anemic little muslins for her. She wore a shimmering silk gown of an iridescent peacock blue. Her deeply cut bodice was adorned with brilliant crystal beads and gold embroidery.
Atop her gleaming nutmeg-colored curls, she had perched a ridiculous construction of lace and ostrich feathers that dipped gently in time to the sway of her hips as she walked. On most women, it would have looked absurd, but Cat had in her eye something that acknowledged the absurdity, making it, incredibly enough, provocative.
Thomas left the woman in mid-proposition. Cat was simply irresistible. He could not help being drawn to her side regardless of what her reception of him might be. He was as unable to withstand her attraction as he was incapable of denying it.
The crowd shifted as he passed, an occasional hand laid upon his arm, familiar voices calling his name, all seeking to delay him, all ignored. And then he was behind her. The curve of her neck, the jut of her shoulder blade, the gentle indentation of her spine cloaked by the transparent purity of her skin, were all infinitely tempting to him.
“Lady Catherine.”
She spun about. There was something of tears, the tiniest shadow of joy, before he saw it: distress so intense that his own sad smile became an acknowledgment of her pain as well as his own. In this, at least, they were companions. And then it was gone.
The brilliance of that one brief moment of honesty vanished. Her lips reworked themselves into some acceptable expression. She jerked her chin up.
At least, he thought wearily, now I know my lines.
“You’ll get a crick in your neck doing that, Cat. Besides which, it has been done too often. Didn’t I teach you that allure relies on the novel, not the hackneyed?”
A spark of anger flashed in her incredible eyes. Her chin climbed higher.
Better fire than ashes.
“And, Cat, I fear you have given Fielding rather more of a free hand with your toilette than her talents warrant.” He stepped back and perused her bejeweled, laced elegance with doubtful appreciation. “You look like some divergent form of a particularly gaudy butterfly.”
There was no reply.
“And this silence. Very effective in creating a momentary mystique, but you stand in danger of overdoing it.”
A young man in uniform approached from behind Cat, obviously intent on speaking to her, but Thomas could not let it end here. The look he shot the boy was deadly and proprietary. The lad veered sharply away.
“What are you doing here?”
He turned to her in surprise. “I find I have a yen to indulge myself in society.” His eyes glimmered roguishly. This was his special milieu. He was acknowledged king of this very sort of innuendo. He was a rake; it is why she had sought him out. It was why Daphne Bernard had sought him out.
She turned and walked away.
Thomas shadowed her from the room, following her into the dimly lit corridor before hailing her again.
“So, Cat,” he said, “how goes the game? Has the estimable Strap come up to scratch yet?”
She whirled around. “Strand! His name is Strand!”
“Ah yes, Strand. And has he?”
“No.”
She could not see his relief. The darkness spared him that.
“But he is at the precipice?”
Cat mistook the relief for amusement. “Yes. Of course. Was I not a star pupil?”
“Oh, methinks there is some honing that might be done yet,” Thomas answered. “And I, of course, in the spirit of true gamesmanship, humbly offer my services.”
“Are you mocking me?”
“Yes, milady, I believe I am.”
She glared at him, unaware how bewitching she looked, her hair gleaming like burnished bronze in the lamplight, her green eyes as mystical as a woodland pond, her breasts rising and falling in fascinating agitation. He was content to devour her with his eyes, unsure why he needed to goad her to anger, only aware he had been transfixed by the fear that her pursuit of Strand might have come to fruition.
Suddenly Cat was before him, a beguiling smile on her lips, her arms about his neck, tugging him down to her. Momentarily startled, he allowed himself to be drawn toward her parted lips, reflexively seeking her mouth with his. But she held him back. Her eyes danced triumphantly, staring straight into his own dazed ones.
“Caught you off guard, Milord Libertine? May-haps you have been too long from town, and ’tis I can offer you some instruction.”
But he was master of himself once more, and he only leered down at her, straining forward over her. “Whatever lessons you wish to bestow, I am all aquiver to receive,” he countered, daring her with the velvet of his voice to continue the contest.
She jerked back. “The devil take you for being so good at this!”
He mustered what will he had left and stepped back from her. “Well, after all, Cat, I have been at it much longer than you.”
“So then I can look toward my dim and distant future years with the hope of being able to play at seduction with the same sure-handedness that you do?”
“If you so wish.”
“Why are you here, Thomas?” she asked once more. “And no double meanings now, if you please. I am not a prospective conquest and I would you did not treat me as such.”
He shrugged in feigned hopelessness. “I cannot help it, Cat. It is an involuntary reaction whenever I am in the vicinity of a well-favored dame. My cross, but I bear it as well I can.”
He silently cursed as she paled. “Excuse me, Cat. You do it so well, I forget this is only a cloak you have donned and not real. I fear old age has made me forget appearances are, after all, deceiving.”
She shook her head, he suspected more angry that his words had affected her than at the words themselves.
“I have been here a fortnight, Thomas, and have put into practice what you have taught. I am well on my way to becoming in fact the fiction we authored. And here I was studying for advanced degrees when I had not even mastered the rudiments. There simply is no teacher in Paris who can offer me all of your experience and expertise. There is nothing for it, Monsieur Ruin, you shall have to take me back under your wing and become the latest of my lovers.”
<
br /> Thomas’s head snapped back as though she had struck him. He raised a hand and, finding it shaking, let it fall to his side. He stared at her for a long moment before bowing stiffly. “I congratulate you.”
Turning blindly from her, he strode through the door.
He did not see the tears that slipped unchecked down her cheek, nor hear her soft litany after he had gone.
“Damn, oh damn.”
Chapter 20
Thomas made it to the Mertons’ library, feeling as though the hounds of hell themselves were on his heels. He shut the door with exaggerated care before bracing his fists on the back of a convenient chair and letting his head fall forward. Dragging great breaths of air into his lungs, he shut his eyes against the image Cat’s words had invoked. Cat and her “lovers.” A new wave of pain gripped him.
An unseen hand rapped on the door. Another applicant for his favors? Yet another forward little filly eager to see if his reputation stood the test of time? Eager to try his oft-tried body and see if his finesse, or dimensions, or staying power, or whatever the hell they sought, justified the reports?
He prowled to the door and threw it open.
Giles Dalton, Lord Strand, lounged against the doorjamb. The quip died on his tongue as his discerning eye took in the caged quality of his friend’s stance.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Giles asked quietly.
“Tell you what?”
Strand entered the room, devoid of his usual casualness. Some people said Thomas’s self-possession bordered on the cold-blooded. In the years Giles had known and worked with Thomas, only once had Strand seen him lose that self-control. The much-tortured and abused body of a French informant, not much more than a boy, had been dumped outside the inn where they waited. His expression now was similar to the one he had worn then: rage and indescribable grief. And the perpetrators had paid the ultimate price.
Strand closed the door behind him. “You should have said she was important to you.”
“I thought it was clear.”
“You implied a brotherly concern. You did not say you loved her.”
Thomas didn’t bother denying it. Not to Giles. “And what difference would that have made? Would your vigilance have been any less? Besides, the lady had set her mind on your seduction long ere I met her. Who am I to stand in the way of love’s true path?”
“Lady Catherine doesn’t love me.”
“She might come to.”
“She might already be in love.”
He gave a brief snort, empty of humor. “Not with me. She has just gone to considerable pains to tell me she has had lovers since arriving in Paris. I know she was hurt, but I didn’t expect her hurt had turned to hatred. And hatred is the only emotion I know of strong enough to make my little pragmatist imperil all her plans for a spot of revenge.”
“She was lying.”
Thomas’s expression grew sardonic. “I know she was lying. And I also know why. She wanted to draw blood. Lord, she must despise me to risk her reputation so! Any number of people could have overheard her! Thank God, I do not think any did.”
“One could wish you had informed me of how things stood, Thomas.”
“There was nothing to inform you of. Nothing has changed. The lady sought my expertise in the matter of seduction. You were, and are, the motive for the request. But you know that. Good God, man, all society knows it! She ain’t the most subtle thing.” Thomas’s smile was bittersweet.
“Thomas—”
“No. Cat has elected you as best fitting her designs. You’d be a bigger fool than I if you turned your back on such a gift. Marry her, Strand. Marry her now, and take her out of Paris. Tonight. It isn’t safe to stay.”
“I cannot.” Strand’s mobile face was fixed.
“Why? You needn’t fear I will spend the rest of my days littering the halls of your family manse, languishing heartfelt sighs each time the lady passes. Too embarrassing for everyone involved. Cat would probably stir me up an emetic should I indulge myself thus. No, I will take myself out of her scope until I can attend her with the most passionate disinterest.”
“I would,” Strand said. “It doesn’t particularly please me to acknowledge it, but I would marry her. It seems I am forced to acknowledge that at heart I am an overindulged child. Because, having grown accustomed to thinking of Lady Cat as being mine for the asking, I am most discomforted to find that which I took for granted is, after all, no sure thing.
“There is nothing so sweet to the juvenile mind than that which might be denied. And so, in hindsight, Lady Cat is not merely a comely chit who dresses well. She is a paragon of womanhood. Her wit is sharper, her intellect keener, her beauty more stunning… all because it might be refused me. Or perhaps I simply see her more clearly. Or perhaps you see her most clearly, and I have borrowed your eyes. I cannot say. But I would marry her. If I could.”
In the charged silence, the door once more opened silently on well-oiled hinges and Jack Seward entered, his light frame clothed in a military uniform.
“I’d thought you would be gone by now,” Seward said in surprise.
Strand did not answer him, addressing Thomas instead. “I cannot. His Majesty’s intrigues, once more, take precedence over my own. I am sent south.”
“Why?” Thomas demanded.
“Napoleon has escaped from Elba,” Seward said. “Already there are blockades being set up in some of the outlying villages. He is accumulating an army with each step he takes.”
Thomas wheeled on Strand. “And you would have left her here?”
Strand’s chin snapped up. “I have admitted to some unpleasant traits. Ignoring my obligations is not one of them. Seward will accompany Lady Catherine to Dieppe.”
“I am afraid that is impossible,” Seward said. “I have arranged her passage on a packet to Brighton, but I cannot escort her to Dieppe to meet it. Napoleon is reported to have mustered nearly seven thousand men. I cannot leave Paris.”
“Bloody hell,” growled Thomas.
“You’d best leave now, Strand, while the roads south are still open,” Seward said, the alarm in his voice adding impetus to his words.
“I understand.” Strand turned. “I would have found some way of guaranteeing her safe conduct, Thomas. I swear it.”
“I know. Safe journey, Strand.”
A smile of relief and amusement broke over Strand’s features, returning them to their more accustomed expression of careless charm.
“After you see her home, you can always come back and play,” Strand suggested, and then was gone.
Seward paused before following him out. “The packet leaves in four days. I don’t know when there will be another.”
“Confound it, Catherine!” Hecuba sat down on the bed beside her great-niece. “I’d thought you were over these self-indulgent histrionics. Of all the dratted times to come down with a case of weeps!”
Cat answered by burying her face deeper into the pillow. Hecuba scowled at Fielding, hovering ineffectually at the foot of the bed.
“Go away, Fielding. All that compassionate fluttering is only encouraging the gel. Go fold my dresses or flirt with the doorman, or… oh, just go!” Fielding bobbed a curtsey and fled.
“Now,” Hecuba said, reaching out a beringed, veined hand to stroke the silky tangle of Cat’s hair, “tell me what this is about. And none of your gulping disclaimers this time, m’girl. I spent a fortnight listening to you muffle your sobs—and a bad job you made of it, too—and I’ve no patience left. Now, out with it!”
Cat lifted her face. Her tears had streaked her cheeks with little rivulets of gummy face powder. The skin beneath was splotched red. Her eyes were wounded, stricken.
Hecuba paused in divesting her bodice of the wads of stuffed cotton, “bust improvers,” she had lately begun using in order to augment her figure and sighed. “It’s Thomas Montrose, ain’t it?”
Cat’s lower lip trembled.
“I knew he was trouble the instant I laid eyes
on him. Far too dangerous-looking. The sort who excites the reckless quality in a woman, makes her want to take a peek at the black side of her nature, to embrace the untamed impulses which…” Hecuba’s eyes had glazed over in enthralled speculation. She dragged herself back to the matter at hand. “Whatever happened in Brighton, Catherine?”
“He… he… I can’t say!”
“Did that scoundrel take advantage of you while you were under his care? That blackguard! There are rules that all men, no matter how base, must attend to, and to take advantage of a young, chaste girl—”
“He didn’t take advantage of me!” Cat wailed.
“Oh.” Hecuba withdrew the last piece of padding from her gown leaving the bodice to hang limply on her withered chest. “And is that the problem?”
Cat thrust her head back under the down-filled pillow.
“Oh.”
The word spurred an instant reaction from Cat. She bolted upright, her eyes flashing. “I wouldn’t want him. He’s depraved.”
Incredibly, Hecuba smiled. “I would have said Thomas Montrose capable of a good many things, but depravity isn’t one of them.”
“But he is!”
“Tell me.”
“I saw him, Aunt Hecuba. The night of the Regent’s fete. After he escorted you back to the hotel… he arranged an assignation with that… that… French…”
“Whore?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you know this, Catherine?”
“Because I saw them.”
Hecuba lifted a brow in question.
“I went to his room. To thank him for helping you.”
“Such manners! Prompt, as well as pretty,” Hecuba murmured sardonically.
“ ’Tis true! His door swung ajar when I started to knock on it, and I just looked in. That woman was twined about him, and he was naked to the waist. She was kissing his naked chest, and his head was thrown back! Oh God! He opened his eyes and saw me in the mirror.”
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