Promise Me Heaven

by Connie Brockway

  “Oh dear. And what happened next?”

  “Next? I ran back to my room, of course.”

  “And Thomas?”

  “He came in the morning and thundered at the door. I couldn’t face him.”

  “Could you have misconstrued the situation?”

  Even though Cat’s face was puffed and tears still trickled from the corners of her eyes, her mouth twisted in caustic disbelief.

  “I am still unconvinced,” Hecuba said in reply to the volumes Cat’s expression spoke. “I have always felt Thomas held you in no little esteem. He has always been most careful of you. Far more so than you, a sheltered, unwed woman, could ever hope to realize. To have him so blatantly—well, it just don’t fit. Unless… Catherine, you weren’t toying with him, were you?”

  “I don’t understand,” Cat said, but her eyes refused to meet Hecuba’s.

  “Catherine, a man has certain physical urges at which he is at the mercy of. Certain women do, too. When those urges have been provoked, it is only natural to seek the means of relieving them. If those who initially provoked those urges are unavailable for whatever reason, they naturally seek an alternative. Do I make myself clear?”

  “No.”

  Hecuba pressed her lips together, muttered something under her breath then burst out, “Cat, if you teased the poor man into physical pain, he might have sought a willing piece of flesh to act as a substitute for that which societal and ethical codes forbade him. You.”

  “Oh,” Cat said, then, after a moment’s consideration, added, “But that doesn’t make what he did right.”

  “We aren’t talking right, Catherine. We are talking expedient! Believe me, when the itch is upon you, a self-encouraging clap on the back ain’t going to scratch it! My advice to you is to simply ignore the whole episode.”

  A fresh battery of tears spilled from Cat’s eyes.

  “What now?”

  “I can’t ignore the whole thing! Not two hours ago, I told him that I had taken lovers!”

  “Oh, Cat! Lovers? Whatever possessed you? Don’t answer. I already know. And how did Thomas react?”

  “Oh, Aunt Hecuba, he looked disgusted! I could see it. He might as well have shouted out that I lied. And then he just turned and walked away.”

  “Well, at least someone managed to keep their head.”

  “I wanted so to impress him with my sophistication. I wanted to prove to him he was not the only one who was attractive. All I succeeded in doing was making myself look like a complete idiot.”

  “Thank God your mother will be here in two days. She will know what to do.”

  Immediately, Cat’s face filled with remorse. “I didn’t mean to burden you, Aunt Hecuba. I know what to do. I set out to become a sophisticated woman, but have forgotten the practical aspects of my lessons. One must accept what one has no power to change. I cannot erase that French whore from Thomas’s history, but I needn’t align myself with her ilk. I shall apologize to Thomas on the morrow. Even if it kills me.”

  Hecuba regarded her in wide-eyed wonder. “Catherine, you really are the most sensible woman I have ever known.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But pragmatism is not always satisfying. Sometimes, Catherine, we must allow ourselves to fly in the face of convention. We must embrace the opportunities with which we are presented in order to find fulfillment. I will not say happiness—I know your views on that emotion—but I must say love. If I ever had the chance to try once more for love, I would take it. I swear I would. And I would expect nothing less from you.

  “Cat, I have had a long history with that emotion or its approximations. Sometimes I have experienced something illusively near it, once in a very great while the wonderfully, painfully real thing. For a time I had forgotten that whatever the cost even the mere chance of loving and being loved is worth everything we own or are or aspire to be. Don’t let practical considerations rob you of it. I won’t.” Hecuba spoke the last words like a vow. Then, as surprised with herself as Cat obviously was, she leaned down and placed her cool, papery-thin cheek next to Cat’s hot, damp one.

  She kissed Cat, wrapping her arms around her young body and hugging her tightly.

  “For all my brave words, I am still a bit of a coward,” Hecuba whispered, releasing her. She stood up, collecting the pieces of padding that littered the wrinkled counterpane.

  “Your mother will be here in a few days and all will be well. And really, Catherine, leave off the bawling, do. It makes your nose run.”

  Chapter 21

  Cat woke with a very cold nose. She burrowed under the cashmere blankets Fielding had heaped on her and squinted out from beneath the piles. It had to be very early. The brocade drapes were still shut against the tall windows; only a faint ghostly light illuminated its outline in the dark room. It was odd no maid had arrived to stir the coals in the hearth to life, chasing the predawn chill from the dismal room. Odder still, Fielding was not up fomenting some new scheme to glamorize Great-Aunt Hecuba.

  Over the last few months, Fielding’s allegiance had become fixed on the elderly duchess with a fierce, unexpected loyalty. With Hecuba’s reentry into the world of fashion, Fielding’s latent talent as a lady’s maid had achieved full expression. She worried, fretted, and stewed over the tiniest detail of Hecuba’s toilette. It wasn’t that Fielding ignored Cat. It was merely that “gilding the lily ain’t never so challenging as forcing a bloom on old wood.”

  Finding it impossible to fall back asleep, Cat dropped her feet onto the cold floor. Wrapping a blanket about her shoulders, she went to ask Fielding to fetch her a cup of chocolate. She tapped lightly on the door adjoining their suites, glanced over at the clock on the mantel. It was nine. Far past time for Fielding to be up and about. Frowning, Cat rapped harder until finally, in concern, she opened the door.

  The room was in havoc. Dresses, undergarments, shawls, and gloves were piled atop every available surface. A few pieces of jewelry were tangled with fans, ribbons, and pots of face powder, paint, and perfume. The armoire doors stood ajar, disinterred of all clothing. Trunks, half-packed, sat open on the floor.

  Cat entered slowly, a feeling of unreality settling over her as, in growing confusion, she looked about the room. A letter stood propped against a vase of fading flowers, her name scrawled on it in her great-aunt’s elegant hand.

  My dearest Catherine,

  I have eloped with the Marquis de Grenville and I have taken Fielding with me. She insisted and as the slight enhancements I have adopted require a sure and youthful hand, I have agreed. I am sure your dear mama will be willing to share her maid’s services with you when she arrives. I absconded because I have no desire to be badgered by the well-meaning but erroneous hand-wringing of either you or your mother.

  Affectionately,

  Hecuba Montaigne White

  There was a postscript:

  The pendant is, of course, paste, but a fine enough facsimile to fetch a pretty sum should you need it.

  Burn the black bombazines.

  Cat shook the envelope. A large, multifaceted gem slithered into her palm, trailed by a simple filigreed gold chain. Even in the dull half-light, it gleamed brightly. Cat stared at it. Slowly a bemused smile replaced her concerned expression.

  Hecuba had flown the coop with that old rooster! Cat imagined the frantic packing, the hasty departure, the headlong flight from Paris, putting as much distance between themselves and her mother’s ire as a twenty-four-hour head start allowed. Hecuba hadn’t wanted to be dissuaded, or patronized, or stopped. There was still a bloom in the old wood after all. Cat laughed outright.

  The old fake! Four years of sermons on base physical unions, self-restraint, and the evils of self-indulgence, all thrown over for an antiquated, spindle-shanked marquis with a twinkle in his rheumy old eye.

  Cat’s smile turned tender. Last night’s uncharacteristic kiss made sense now. Hecuba had been saying good-bye. Cat stared down at the bright bauble in her hand, Hecuba’s
parting gift.

  “Godspeed,” Cat whispered then padded back to her room to dress as best she could.

  After struggling into one of her warmer gowns, Cat jerked open the drapes, promising herself a word with the management regarding the lax manner in which the maids conducted themselves. They should have attended the room hours ago. The sky outside was leaden, heavy with low, scuttling clouds. Icy pellets skittered against the windowpane. Few people were out braving the ugly-looking weather on the street below her.

  Cat turned away from the depressing scene, hoping Hecuba had managed to outrun the weather. There was nothing left to do now but stay out of society’s eye until her mother arrived. It should be simple enough. No one need know she was alone, unchaperoned by so much as a maid, for the next twenty-four hours. If they did find out, she might as well kiss good-bye any social aspirations she entertained.

  Unfortunately, she was growing hungry. Her stomach growled in response to her thoughts. She had missed the late supper at Merton’s last night, having fled directly from her disastrous encounter with Thomas. The memory brought back the unhappiness Hecuba’s elopement had momentarily displaced. After she proved her integrity by offering him an apology for her outrageous words, she would avoid future meetings with Thomas.

  But she could not deny a frisson of anticipation at the thought of seeing him. He had lost weight. His big, lazy, bull-like strength had been pared down to pantherish leanness, his skin burnt dark, making the pewter streaks in his black locks gleam brighter by contrast. She refused to think of his expression of stunned incredulity at her scandalous words. But she could not rid herself of the image of him, his head rigidly upright, his shoulders squared with contempt, as he put distance between them as quickly as possible.

  Pocketing the paste bauble, she popped to her feet and headed toward the door as if by doing so she could walk away from her imagination. She couldn’t just sit here staring out the window for the rest of the day. She would have to get something to eat. Surely a midmorning repast would not provoke comment. Afterwards, she would arrange to have her meals sent to her room.

  There were few people in the main lobby when she arrived downstairs. A small queue garbed for travel was gathered at the doors, trunks, cases, boxes, and portmanteaus unceremoniously heaped in piles around them. Their voices throbbed in a low, collective hum of murmured conversation.

  A female acquaintance of Cat’s spotted her and whispered something into her husband’s ear. His head shot up. Scowling, he broke away from the group and came towards her.

  “Lady Catherine,” the gentleman said, “has Lady Montaigne White been able to procure passage from the city?”

  Cat didn’t know what to say in response to this odd question but unwilling to draw attention to herself, she nodded.

  He blew out his breath in what seemed to be relief, bobbing his head in approval. “Good. I told my wife she undoubtedly had, but one must take every care. Lovely young lady like yourself. Where will you be heading? Rouen, I expect. Seems everyone is heading that way. Well then, good. Best of luck, Lady Catherine, and to Lady Montaigne White, too, of course.” He bowed before returning to his anxious-looking wife.

  Cat frowned. Luck? What on earth did luck have to do with a journey? She considered following the man and asking for an explanation, but then he might discover Aunt Hecuba was not upstairs drinking a treacly cup of tea. Instead, Cat strolled past the group, offering the worried-looking lady a reassuring, if confused, smile as she entered the hotel’s small café.

  Something was not right. Even at this early hour, there ought to have been more people here, mulling over last night’s party, dissecting the company and their hostess’s social prowess. There was only one other couple in the large room, their table drawn close to an exterior window. They bent over their plates, speaking in hushed voices as they stared out into the street.

  The mâitre d’ arrived, breathless and distracted, to seat her with bare civility at a table in front of the far window. It was a full twenty minutes before a young man arrived, a stained apron tied around his skinny waist. He sloshed tea into her cup and slipped a plate of cold toast in front of her, hurrying off before Cat could frame a request for heartier fare.

  Bewildered, she turned in her seat. She craned her neck, looking out the window to see what was riveting the attention of the other couple. Three gentlemen stood at the bottom of the hotel’s steps, their arms raised in emphatic gestures, their faces contorted with anger as they vied for the attention of the driver of an open landau.

  Cat could not believe they were arguing over so patently unacceptable a vehicle. The sleet had iced the tarnished rails and sides of the carriage. The ragged top, stuck a quarter of the way up, did nothing to shelter the torn leather benches from the elements. The seats shone slickly, soaked wet beneath the driving rain. And yet, incredibly, the men seemed about to come to blows over its hire.

  The laconic-looking driver sat motionlessly, only his eyes flickering with avaricious interest. Finally one gentleman tossed a weighty-looking purse up to him. The driver’s hand shot out, grabbing it as he jerked his head toward the rear of his carriage.

  Immediately four women and three other men, including the couple from the lobby, skittered down the icy stairs. The women scrambled, unaided, into the carriage while the men tossed trunks and cases pell-mell into the back. The driver shouted something above the raucous complaints of the outbid men, and abruptly the four men hauled themselves up and over the handrails, squatting on the floor between the benches, there being no room for them to sit.

  The landau jerked forward. One of the women pointed at something left amongst the boxes and trunks still piled on the side of the street, tears streaming down her already wet face, her mouth framing a silent plea as the carriage lurched drunkenly around the corner and was lost to sight.

  Cat sat back in growing anxiety as the remaining men, their shoulders bowed against the rain, retreated back into the hotel. Fear, insidious and gnawing, stalked Cat’s thoughts. She hailed the waiter and was ignored. She lifted the now cold tea to her lips but set the cup down when she noted the amber liquid shiver in response to her trembling hands.

  “Lady Cat, oui?”

  Cat jerked her head up. Daphne Bernard stood beside her. The Frenchwoman’s dark head was raised, her eyes darting nervously around the nearly deserted room. Tiny lines of dissipation showed clearly in the flat gray morning light. The corded muscles stood out in her too slender neck. Her lips, which Cat remembered as being so red, were thin, bloodless lines. Only her eyes glittered as she continued her survey of the room. She looked down at Cat and tried a smile.

  “Lady Cat, am I not right?” she asked again. “But how could one forget la belle Anglaise?” She spread the dark skirts of her traveling gown and sank gracefully down across from Cat. “I sit.”

  “I would prefer not.”

  Daphne’s eyes shot toward her, briefly arrested in their eerie continuous movement. She stared at Cat in genuine surprise. “But why not? You are the victor! You have the so masculine Thomas securely beneath your English thumb. Why would you not accept your victory with graciousness?”

  Daphne frowned. “Ma chère, this situation is no place for groundless animosity. I am the injured party. After all, Thomas threw me out. Certainly he has told you so. Why else would a man throw out a woman who was offering him pleasure if not to relate so heroic a deed to his amour? Yet I, I who am most offended, I take no offense. I forgive. I am munificent!”

  “He threw you out?” Cat asked before she could stop herself.

  Daphne’s eyes opened even wider. “He did not tell you? Oh, Thomas! Not only noble and heroic, but stupid! Bah!” Daphne laughed, but hearing the amplified echoes in the silent room, suddenly stopped, quickly turning her head once more in her unnerving search.

  “Yes,” she continued quietly. “He threw me out. Oh, not bodily. But he raged so, breaking much furniture. I decided it is advisable for me to leave. I leave.”
<
br />   “I do not believe you.”

  “No? Oh.” Daphne shrugged. “What difference to me that you do not believe? None. Do not believe. Stupidity is an English trait.”

  Calmly claiming Cat’s cup of tea, Daphne quickly drained the fluid before settling back in her chair. She rested her palms flat against the table and looked Cat over, for all the world as though they were dear friends discussing the latest acquisition at the lending library. “So Thomas has procured you passage out of this accursed city?”

  “No, he has not. I am waiting for my mother and her husband to arrive.”

  “Then you shall be waiting a long, long time, ma chère. There is no way into the city now. And soon, as you well know, there will be no way out.”

  “What?”

  “The city, she is closed.”

  “What?”

  “Tiens! Surely you have heard.” Daphne frowned at her. “The Russians, the Prussians, they have been leaving the city for days. How could you have not noticed? Ah! I forget how insular you English are, so unwilling to associate with foreigners, even when you yourselves are the interlopers. But surely, last night you must have heard. Your baronet, Lord Arbothnut, he rode from Cannes with the news.”

  “What news?”

  “Napoleon. He has escaped. He has landed in France and leads an army to retake Paris. Everyone is leaving. Fleeing. I would leave, too, if but I could,” Daphne finished softly.

  “Why? You are a Frenchwoman.”

  Daphne’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “You do not know this man who loves you very well, do you? You do not know what he is. I tell you. You see, I was much admired by many of Napoleon’s advisors. Much admired. An acquaintance told me that certain things I had heard during some—how shall we say?—romantic interludes could benefit your country. As my so beloved sister is now married to one of you Anglaise, I feel I have family obligations. Too, I am well paid for the risks I take.