Max headed unerringly for the billiard room and trouble, with Percy following, leaning on his cane and wondering if he could knock his friend down or get him passing-out drunk before any one of the million and one disasters that could happen happened.
But later, as he watched Max send one of the ivory balls at a comer pocket and miss, Percy began to think he had been wrong to worry. If Max lost this game, he would have to pay his opponent, the husband of his blond-haired mistress, an incredible fifty thousand livres. The wager had been all Max's idea and Percy hoped he would lose. Then perhaps the marquis de Tesse' would feel that his honor had been satisfied without resorting to pistols or swords.
"Alas, you fail again, monsieur," the marquis de Tesse' was saying, his black eyes flashing with taunting laughter as he picked up his cue stick to take his turn. "I hope you don't make love with the same lack of skill you exhibit at billiards."
Max said nothing, but his mouth stretched into a cold, lazy smile and his heavy lids drooped over his eyes until they were half shut. Percy, who knew just what that look portended, swallowed a sigh. Perhaps honor wouldn't be satisfied so easily after all.
Of course the real cause of all this, Percy knew, was not that silver-haired marquise in the ballroom. The real cause was a woman named Gabrielle, who had been more beautiful than the marquise ever hoped to be, and who had been loving and laughing and giving. Who had, damn her to hell, done more than break his friend's heart. She had broken his soul.
Percy had thought Gabrielle would be Max's salvation, and he couldn't understand what could have happened to drive her away. One night, shortly after she had first left him, Max had gotten drunk enough to try to explain. "I tried to warn her about me, but she wouldn't listen," Max had said, the words so slurred Percy could barely hear them. "I guess when she discovered the truth, she couldn't stomach it."
None of it had made any sense to Percy.
Nor did any of Max's actions in the subsequent months. For over a year, Max, who had been one of the worst rakes in Paris, avoided women the way the devil would cringe and cower at the sight of a crucifix. Then just when Percy had adjusted to this strange, morose celibacy on the part of his friend, Max resumed his old carousing ways by entering into a blatant and torrid affair with the wife of the marquis de Tesse, a man known for his hot temper and his love of dueling . . .
Maximilien de Saint-Just, Percy thought with a sigh, no longer played at dangerous games; he embraced them.
As the billiard game dragged on, the animosity between the two men became a tangible thing in the air, like mist. Word of the contest began to spread, and a crowd gathered in the room. Everyone knew that the Vicomte Maximilien de Saint-Just, bastard son of the famous marichal and now his acknowledged heir, was bedding the marquis de Tessa's wife. Now the two men had brought their rivalry to a game of billiards. It was just the sort of scandal and reckless wager the raffish, dissipated aristocrats of the Palais Royal set loved. A set where it was bon ton to take lovers and gamble away a fortune. And where duels, although outlawed, were fought with the smallest provocation.
To the delight of the crowd, the two opponents began to exchange thinly veiled insults faster than they could trade shots.
When the marquis de Tesse made a particularly difficult carom, the crowd sighed in admiration, and Tesse smiled triumphantly at Max. "I do hope you can afford this little exercise in humility, mon petit salaud. "
Percy winced at the insult, but Max didn't even blink. He was probably used to being called a bastard, Percy thought. Then he heard Max say, "How odd that your wife isn't here to watch your triumph . . . but then perhaps she doesn't care," and Percy bit back a groan.
The marquis, whose hands were braced on the green woolen cloth of the table as he bent to study his next shot, slowly straightened. Two white ridges of anger bracketed his mouth. "At least my wife is with me tonight," he said. "Where is yours?"
All the blood drained from Max's face, and the knuckles of the hand that gripped his cue stick whitened. "I'm not married."
"Aren't you? I heard you were. To some little shopgirl, wasn't it, who shared your bed less than a week and then fled from you in horror—"
Max lashed the cue stick—a thin, flexible shaft with an ivory tip—through the air and struck Tessa's cheek. Tesse" screamed and reeled backward, his hand flying to his face. Blood spurted between his fingers.
Percy grabbed Max's arm and wrenched the stick from his hand, but there was really no need. The damage had already been done.
"Name your weapons," the marquis said in a pain-clipped voice as blood leaked from the hand that cupped his face to drop onto the floor in bright red splashes.
"Pistols."
"Max, for God's sake—" Percy began.
"Tomorrow at dawn," Max said. "In the Bois de Boulogne."
"Agreed."
The marquis de Tesse allowed someone to lead him from the room. There was no sign of the marquis's silver-haired wife. Soon the crowd dispersed until only Max and Percy were left standing side by side next to the billiard table.
Percy stared at the hard face of his friend, feeling anger and a terrible sadness. "If he kills you, it will serve you right. You marked him for life."
Max said nothing. He went instead to a sideboard, where brandy and glasses were set out, and poured himself a drink. Max had started to raise the glass to his lips when Percy knocked it from his hand with his cane. Seizing his arms in a grip that would leave bruises, Percy turned Max to face a huge, gilt-framed mirror that hung on the wall.
"Look at yourself!" He gave Max a rough shake. They both stared at the reflection of the dark, patrician face that was still handsome in spite of the puffy flesh around the bloodshot eyes and the slack, drunken mouth. "What are you trying to do? Prove to the world that Gabrielle was right to leave you?"
Max jerked out of Percy's hands so violently that Percy stumbled backward. His cane clattered to the floor, and he had to grasp a chair to keep from falling. Although Percy was half a head shorter, he stood up to Max, toe to toe.
"What are you going to do now, Saint-Just? Cut my face, too? Pity I don't have a wife you can bed."
Max was breathing heavily and the muscles in his neck and jaw were drawn taut. "I want you to keep your nose out of my life."
"Well, I won't." He flung his arm toward the ballroom. "That particular tart isn't worth killing for, and she certainly isn't worth dying for. She might have a title and dress in satin and jewels, but she's still a whore."
"And I took her like a whore."
"So what does that make you?"
Max's lips curled into a tight smile. "A man who sleeps with whores."
Percy sucked in a sharp breath. "You are a bastard."
"I know. Will you be my second?"
"No. Yes. Damn you."
The old to-hell-with-it-all smile flashed across Max's face. "Quit worrying. If I was going to kill myself, I'd have done it by now. Tessa's a master with a sword, but he can't crease the back end of a cow with a pistol. Whereas I, as you know, can shoot the pip out of a card at fifty paces. And I wouldn't have hit the fool so hard if he hadn't made me lose my temper."
Percy smiled back shakily. "Christ . . . what in hell are you talking about?"
Max laughed. "I hit him first so he would challenge me, which made the choice of weapon mine. I won't kill him. I'll only wing him so that everyone's honor will be satisfied. I'll even give him his wife back. Now are you happy?"
"No," Percy said.
❧
Mist, as thick as milk, dripped off the skeletal branches overhead. Gauzy like a shroud, the gray dawn light filtered through the trees. There was an empty feeling to the air. Even the squirrels and blackbirds seemed to have fled from the Bois de Boulogne that cold November morning.
His back to his opponent, Max marched off the fifteen paces, only half listening to the echoing voice of the man doing the counting. The pistol dangling from his fingers felt heavy; his boots sank deep into the wet earth,
mulchy with fallen leaves. The dull throb behind his eyes was now a full-fledged headache. He had tried to sober up just enough so he wouldn't get himself killed. Now all he wanted was a glass of brandy and some sleep.
Suddenly he felt adrift, unable to remember why he was here, why he was dueling with this man over a woman he didn't love and wouldn't even want to see again after this day. This is pointless, he thought in the split second before he heard the call to fire.
He had always been able to move fast, and with an easy, athletic grace—even when not completely sober. He did so now, spinning around, raising the pistol, and pulling the trigger in one fluid motion.
The marquis de Tesse didn't have time to turn all the way around let alone raise his weapon and get off a shot. As a result Max miscalculated his aim, and instead of hitting the man in the shoulder, the ball pierced him high on the chest, knocking him off his feet. His white shirt turned instantly crimson.
Someone shouted and a pair of men brushed against Max, running toward the man lying still and bloody on the ground. Max stood where he was, unable to move.
The marquis's hand twitched once and was still. At last, Max started forward, but Percy got up from where he knelt beside the body and came limping back to stop him.
Anger mottled the American's face. "I hope you're satisfied, you damned fool. You'll go to prison for this."
A cold wind fluttered Max's shirt against his chest, and he shivered. "Is he dead, then?"
"Not yet. But the doctor says the ball's come perilously close to a lung, so he will be soon. Unless you're luckier than you deserve to be."
Lucky? Max fought off an urge to laugh. On its heels came a fierce, desperate need to be held and comforted. Simply that—to have someone put her arms around him and hold him tight. He hadn't felt that need since he'd been a small boy and listened with his ear pressed against the door to the creaking of the bed and the sound of his mother's moans. When had she stopped holding him? He thought it must have been the year he learned that her moans were not those of pain.
"You'd better leave Paris immediately," Percy said. "Go make peace with your father. Then when—if— Tesse dies, your father can intercede with the king on your behalf."
"Yes. All right," Max answered, not really listening.
Gabrielle, I need you, he thought with a yearning so physical he almost groaned out loud. Why, Gabrielle? Why did you leave me when you know I need you so much?
Chapter 16
Max drove the cabriolet at a fast, reckless speed. Too fast for the twisting, rutted road and the black night. A heavy snow was falling. It pelted against his face, so cold it burned. He was wrapped in a thick woolen greatcoat, but his hands and feet, in spite of his gloves and boots, had long ago grown numb. The coldness of the night matched what he felt. He was numb inside as well.
If he hadn't already been so close to his father's chateau, he would have stopped at some roadside inn. Only a madman would be out on such a night, he thought, and then laughed out loud. Hadn't she accused him of being mad often enough? Perhaps that was why she had left him. Perhaps she had feared he would go berserk and strangle her some night while she slept. Perhaps—
"What in fiend's name!" he exclaimed aloud.
As the cabriolet whipped around a sharp turn, a wraith rose out of the ground at the horse's head. The horse whinnied in fright, rearing up in its traces and sending the cabriolet skidding across the slick, muddy road. The carriage tilted precariously, and Max felt the right wheel skim along the edge of the deep ditch that lined the road. He hauled back on the reins, trying with brute force to turn the horse's head.
The wheel dug through the slush, biting into the firmer ground underneath, and the carriage righted. Max cursed and wrestled the horse to a standstill, then leaped to the ground and ran back to where he had seen, or thought he had seen, in a brief second and from the corner of his eye, a body lying in the ditch.
It was a body. It was curled into a tight ball and covered with a black cloak. Beside it, guarding it, was the wraith that had spooked his horse. The wraith seemed to be waiting for him, its form floating above the road, its face a blank white oval. It raised a beseeching hand, and Max, who was not normally a superstitious man, felt the hairs spring up on the back of his neck.
"Please, M'sieur," said the wraith, who was not a ghost after all but a small child wrapped in a ragged, pale coat two sizes too big for him. "You must do something. M-my ma-man won't wake up."
Max scrambled down into the ditch and knelt beside the body. He couldn't see much of her, but he could tell she was a woman. She had evidently been trying to claw her way out of the ditch, for one hand was stretched above her head, and her fingers had dug deep into the wet earth. She had been lying there for a long time, however, for at least two inches of snow covered the top of her thin, sodden cloak.
Max picked up the wrist of her outstretched hand. It felt as frail as a sparrow's wing, as cold and stiff as a block of ice.
Max looked up at the child. He was a very young boy, Max thought, although it was too dark and snowing too hard to see the child's face. "She w-wouldn't wake up," the boy said.
"I'm going to pick her up and carry her back to my carriage," Max explained, not wanting to alarm the child. He gathered the woman in his arms and climbed with her out of the ditch. She was as light as an ell of silk.
"She'll be all right," the boy said with false brightness as he trotted beside Max's legs. "After she wakes up. She's only a little sick."
She's dead, Max thought. The poor lad.
The cabriolet, a light, fast vehicle, was not designed to accommodate extra passengers. Max positioned the boy between his knees and propped the woman beside them on the seat.
He whipped the horse into a trot, going as fast as he dared with the heavier load. The woman was beyond help, but the boy wasn't. His frail body was racked with shivers, and Max saw he wore only rags on his feet. And it was snowing harder now; he couldn't see much of the road beyond the horse's ears.
Max had spent part of his adolescence at the Chateau de Morvan, his father's country estate, and he knew the way well. Although it was dark and the ground blanketed with snow, he found the turnoff easily. He pulled up before the great gilded iron gates.
"You there!" he shouted, and his breath billowed out around his face in white puffs. "Open up!"
He was about to climb out of the carriage to ring the bell when a man emerged from the front door of the gatekeper's lodge. He lifted a hooded lantern aloft, shining it on Max's face.
"Monsieur le Vicomte! We weren't expecting . . . You sent no word, otherwise I would have—"
"Quit dithering, you fool, and open the gates. I've a de—" He stumbled over the word as he felt the boy stiffen. "A sick woman here. And a freezing child."
The gate creaked open and Max drove through. As the cabriolet spun briskly down the winding drive, he heard the tocsin sounding his arrival.
The huge carved wooden doors of the chateau swung open as he pulled up, and a pair of servants formally dressed in silver and blue livery ran down the marble steps. Max handed the boy into their arms, but he himself carried the woman into the chateau's great hall.
It was so bright in the flambeaux-lit hall after the darkness of the snow-shrouded night that for a moment Max saw nothing but swirls of light and black spots dancing before his eyes. "One of you ride to Chaumard and fetch the doctor," he called over his shoulder as he started for the sweeping marble stairs.
"What are you going to do to my maman? Where are you taking her?" cried a small voice, and now Max felt something tug at the edge of his greatcoat.
Impatient, he paused to look down into a dirty, thin face streaked with dried tears. A lock of hair had fallen across the boy's forehead but, though it was grimy and limp, its golden color was unmistakable. As unmistakable as his vivid blue eyes.
Max felt his heart stop.
"Dominique?" he said. He didn't believe it, didn't want to believe it.
The boy sta
red back at him, and his blue eyes widened until they filled his face. "Papa!" His lips trembled into a smile. "You came! I told Maman you would come. She kept saying you were busy in Paris, but I knew you were really in heaven and that you would come when I prayed to you."
Max's arms tightened around the burden in his arms. And, slowly, for the first time, he looked down into the dead woman's face.
Gabrielle.
It was she—the same dark, flaring brows; the same wide, generous mouth; the same translucent, blue-veined skin. And her hair . . . it was still the bright color of flame, in spite of being wet and matted with dirt.
An emotion beyond defining ripped through him with such force he shut his eyes and leaned into the gilded banister. "Gabrielle ..."
He had been living for this. It had been his sole reason for living at all. This moment, when he would once again look into those lying purple eyes and have within his hands the power to make her pay for what she had done to him. The only woman he had ever loved. Gabrielle, his wife. Gabrielle, his betrayer. She had used him, lied to him, deceived him, and left him, and now she was here, in his arms, and she was beyond hurting, beyond revenge, beyond hate. And beyond love.
"Monseigneur ..."
Max looked up into the face of Guitton, his father's valet de chambre.
"The rose room is being prepared, monseigneur. Shall I take her there?"
"No ... no, I'll take her." He looked down at Dominique, who still clung to his coattail. A line had formed between the boy's light brows, and a dark shadow flickered in his eyes. He's guessed she's dead, Max thought, but he doesn't dare ask the question out loud. "See to the boy," he told the valet. "Take him to the kitchens and get something hot inside him. I've already sent for the doctor. But don't tell him-"
"I understand, monseigneur," the well-trained Guitton put in smoothly, and within seconds the hall was cleared and the vicomte de Saint-Just was left alone to carry his wife up the stairs.
There must not be an ounce of flesh left on her bones, Max thought. Her clothes were rags, barely enough to cover her, let alone keep her warm during the worst winter in centuries. Christ, how had she come to such a state? Why had she left him in the first place? Why, why, why?
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