Hearts Beguiled

by Penelope Williamson

  Gabrielle expected Aumont to lead her toward the grand salon, but he hesitated a moment longer. "Madame ... I wasn't sure you would approve." His face left no doubt that he didn't approve at all. "It is a . . . creature Monsieur le Vicomte has installed in the nursery."

  Gabrielle paled. "A creature?"

  Aumont's nose twitched. "An owl, madame."

  "Oh ..." She swallowed a smile. "Well, I shall have a word with monsieur."

  He bowed. "Thank you, madame."

  As Gabrielle followed the majordomo's spare frame toward a pair of double gilt-paneled doors, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a mirror and almost sighed aloud. Her undressed hair had been whipped about by the damp winter wind and now frizzed and swirled around her head like a lion's mane. She had deliberately chosen the plainest of her new gowns to visit Simon and Agnes—a soft gray wool with just a hint of lace at the bodice and sleeves—not wanting to seem as if she were flaunting her new status as the wife of a vicomte. She had thought the dress elegant when she put it on earlier; now she decided she lacked only a mobcap on her head to keep from looking like a charlady.

  Aumont swung open the doors and stepped aside. "Madame la Vicomtesse," he announced.

  Gabrielle squared her shoulders and flung up her chin to march into the room. As she swept past the majordomo she had the oddest impression that he winked at her.

  The marechal stood at the far end of the room, his arms folded across his chest, his back to the fire. He was tall-taller even than Max—with a thick, round chest, shaped and corded like a wine barrel, and thighs that resembled tree trunks. He was in court dress, wearing a coat of yellow velvet heavily laced with gold and white satin breeches. His fashionable clump-heeled, square-toed shoes were adorned with diamond buckles and an elaborate, powdered wig curled down around his shoulders.

  He would have looked foppish but for his massive size and the harsh lines on either side of his haughty, thin-lipped mouth. Instead, he looked like what he was—a man whose mere word could command armies.

  He raised a quizzing glass to one eye and surveyed her through it, and his lips curled into a sneer that so resembled one of Max's that it was all Gabrielle could do not to smile in spite of her nervousness.

  "For over the past year I've been hearing a ridiculous rumor that my son had taken a shopgirl to wife," he drawled, speaking in the heavy, pompous style noble. "But although Maximilien has always delighted in dreaming up schemes to besmirch the noble name I gave him, I had thought such a thing beyond even him." He sighed and dropped the quizzing glass, looping its string around his finger. "Alas, I see I am mistaken. Not only is he capable, he seems to have done it."

  "Monsieur le Comte." Gabrielle performed a deep and respectful curtsy as befitted a dutiful daughter-in-law, but when she straightened she proudly met the comte's hard gray eyes, and said nothing. She refused to defend her lineage or her past to this arrogant man.

  "I understand there is a child. A boy," the comte said. "Is it my wastrel son's?"

  "No, monsieur."

  He raised a pair of thin, dark brows. "Indeed?" He shrugged his broad, elegantly clad shoulders. "Then I shall not ask who the father is." Again he surveyed her with the quizzing glass. "I can understand what caught Maximilien's eye. You're rather beautiful in a windblown way. But I would have thought you too small through the hips to produce a boy. Are you breeding now?"

  Angry color stained Gabrielle's cheeks. "That is none of your affair, monsieur.''

  "On the contrary, it is very much my affair. For if you aren't yet breeding, then perhaps it isn't too late for me to have this preposterous union annulled."

  Gabrielle almost burst into wild laughter. She couldn't believe this was happening to her again. She wouldn't have been surprised if the comte next produced a lettre de cachet and waved it beneath her nose, threatening her with the Bastille.

  Suddenly she was consumed with an indignant anger. She was tired of having these men wreak havoc with her life merely because they were obsessed with bloodlines and titles and who would be occupying a moldy old chateau five hundred years in the future. Why was it only women understood that what mattered in this life was not tomorrow, but now-having a mate you loved and who loved you to share your bed and your table; having happy, healthy children to nurture and watch grow. Why should it matter to this pompous, arrogant man what woman his son chose to marry, as long as Max found happiness and love?

  She flung her head up and glared at the comte with violet-eyed fury. "If you intend to offer me threats or money with your next breath, monsieur, then I suggest you save it. For I was married to your son before God and married I shall stay until God chooses to sever the union, preposterous though it may be."

  "Better take warning, my dear father," said a silky, sardonic voice, "my lady wife is frighteningly proficient with a pistol. If you insult her further she may challenge you to a duel."

  Maximilien de Saint-Just leaned with negligent ease against the door frame, his long legs crossed at the ankles, his hands tucked into the pockets of his breeches. As usual the sight of him brought an automatic smile to Gabrielle's lips and a funny, shivery feeling to her chest.

  On the other hand, the sight of his son brought a scowl to the marechaVs face. "Speaking of duels, I hear you've killed the marquis de Tesse! He happened to have been a friend of mine."

  "As far as I know he still is." Max sauntered into the room. Though she wasted not an ounce of pity on the comte de Saint-Just, Gabrielle couldn't help thinking the mocking smile on Max's face would have tried the patience of even the most sweet-natured parent.

  "Why not rush over to Tessa's sickbed right now?" Max drawled lazily. "I'm sure he'd be delighted to see you."

  The comte waved an imperious hand. "Never mind about that. It's this marriage of yours that I've come about—"

  "You've come to congratulate me. I knew you would be thrilled."

  "You have a year to rid yourself of her," the comte said, speaking of Gabrielle as if she were no longer in the room. "I've already arranged it with the marquis de Sevigne! You're to marry his daughter next Epiphany."

  Max threw back his head and laughed. "Good God! The girl can't be more than fourteen!"

  "And her husband will inherit half of Brittany."

  "Then you marry her." Max slipped his arm around Gabrielle's waist and drew her to him. "If you enjoy your marriage bed as much as I do mine, you'll soon have a whole new crop of sons to replace me with."

  Gabrielle blushed at Max's frank language, but the comte wasn't looking at her. His eyes, dark with anger, were boring into his son's face, and his hands clenched into tight fists.

  "By God, I might have named you as my heir before the court and the king, but that doesn't mean I still can't rectify the error!"

  Max shrugged. "Then do it."

  The comte turned on his heel and marched to the door. But he paused at the threshold to look back at his son, who still stood in the middle of the room with his arm around Gabrielle's waist. "I often wonder what devil possessed me the night I sired you."

  Max's arm squeezed Gabrielle so tightly the breath was pushed from her lungs, but his voice as he spoke was light and mocking. "Yes. Well, a lot of people have suffered over the years for that one mistake of yours."

  The comte's face turned puce and he looked for a moment as if he would choke on his fury. Then the doors closed behind his broad back with a resounding and childish slam.

  Gabrielle sagged against Max's shoulder. He smelled of tobacco and brandy and she wanted to kiss him, but something about the reserved way he held himself prevented her.

  She sighed and he misunderstood the reason for it. "Don't pay any attention to my father. He's always been more bluster than bite—which maybe explains why France can never seem to win a war." He cupped her chin and lifted her face. "Would you mind if I were suddenly poor and titleless again?"

  "Don't be an idiot." She shivered. "But he's a terrible, nasty man."

  "Forget about him.
I have something for you." Max released her to take a piece of paper from his coat pocket. It was a lettre de cachet. The one with her name on it, signed by the king.

  She took it with a hand that trembled and looked up at him with shining eyes. "Oh, Max . . . How?"

  "I traded for it with a vow of silence. There are certain tidbits of information the duc de Nevers would just as soon never reach the ear of the king." He smiled wickedly. "Actually it's the queen he fears even more, for he was once responsible for the disgrace of a particular favorite of hers. If she ever discovered it was Nevers in back of the plot, she'd have his balls fried in oil and brought to her on a silver platter—"

  "Max!"

  He laughed. "Sorry, ma mie. I forget sometimes you're such an innocent." He leaned into her and she thought he was going to take her into his arms, but at the last moment he pulled back and she tried to keep her disappointment from showing on her face.

  "The duc has begged to see his grandson," he said, in a voice that was clipped and dry. "I told him the decision's yours, and he has agreed that's how it is to be."

  She stiffened. "I'll think about it." She looked down at the lettre de cachet that she still clutched tightly in her fist. There were so many things she wanted to ask him. How had he come to possess the kind of knowledge that so frightened a powerful man like the duc de Nevers? Did all this mean that Max had decided to forgive her for running away? Did there remain within his heart even the tiniest spark of love for her?

  He was staring at her, and his face looked hard, indifferent, almost cruel. It was how he always looked at her now, except when in the throes of passion. But passion wasn't love. Or was it?

  "Max. I ... I don't know how I can ever repay—"

  "A husband has certain obligations to protect and care for his wife," he said stiffly.

  Shameful tears welled up in Gabrielle's eyes and she turned away so he wouldn't see them. "Nevertheless, I'll always be grateful."

  He took a step backward and bowed formally. "As you wish. I bid you good evening, madame."

  He was almost out the door before she stopped him.

  "Max, will . . . will you be home later tonight?" She clenched her hands behind her back to control their trembling. "Dominique was asking," she lied shamelessly.

  "I have an engagement."

  "Oh," she said, feeling sick.

  His lips twisted at the corners into a knowing smile. "Does Dominique want to know where the engagement is, and whom it's with?"

  Gabrielle sucked in a sharp breath. "Why you ... you rake! If you're going to see your mistress, I'd just as soon not hear about it!"

  He laughed. "Then I'll take care not to tell you. Au revoir, ma mie. "

  ❧

  Late that night, the black berlin pulled up before the duc de Nevers's townhouse in Versailles. At the top of the steps, as he waited for the door to open, the lawyer Louvois looked across to the palace next door—where Louis XVI rested his royal, and probably drunken, head.

  Louvois smiled to himself. At this very moment throughout the land, elections were being held to select representatives to a meeting of the Estates-General. It was the first time this parliamentary body would meet in a hundred and seventy-five years, and they were not going to be in a congenial mood. The king hoped to bail France out of bankruptcy by getting permission to tax the privileged orders, the clergy and the nobility. The privileged orders had other things on their minds— notably to wrest as much power as they could from the king. The bourgeoisie, the great and heavily taxed middle class that had wealth but no privileges, wanted to be given what the nobility already had.

  And the people? Louvois laughed out loud. The people wanted bread for three sous a loaf.

  Soon, my fat old King Louis, he thought, there will be no more highborn lackeys willing or able to hand you your nightshirt and empty the royal chamber pot.

  The door opened behind him, and Louvois turned to follow a lowborn lackey up the stairs and into the bedchamber of the duc de Nevers. The duc was lying in bed staring at the portrait of his son. Louvois repressed a sigh and unconsciously touched the scar on his cheek. Must we, he thought, go through all this once again?

  Louvois had never quite recovered from the crushing disappointment of last year—when he thought he'd had her, Gabrielle, that haughty little aristocratic bitch, at the very tips of his outstretched fingers only to find she had somehow slipped from his grasp. He had railed at that fool Abel Hachette for giving her a chance to escape, only to have the financier shrug and reply in icy tones that he had provided Louvois with all the information he had. If Louvois could do nothing with it then he, Hachette, could hardly be blamed.

  To this day, Louvois still haunted the entrance to the apartments above the Cafe de Foy. He'd had it watched every minute when he couldn't be there. But if she had ever been there in the first place, she certainly never came back.

  "... and if the vicomtesse agrees, then I shall be able to see my grandson soon," the duc was saying.

  "What did you say?" Louvois exclaimed, realizing too late by the shocked expression on the duc's face that he had shouted the question. He lowered his voice and tried to remain calm. "Did ... did you say you've found your grandson?"

  "My dear Louvois, that's what I've been telling you. It seems the bi— my son's wife has remarried. To the vicomte de Saint-Just, son of the great marechal. "

  Darkness clouded the edges of Louvois's vision, and he had to blink several times. "Are you telling me that Gabrielle has married the vicomte de Saint-Just? That you know where she is?"

  The duc gazed dreamily up at the portrait. "Gabrielle . . . Yes, I remember now. That was her name. Gabrielle. Monsieur le Vicomte says the child is called Dominique. He has blond hair and blue eyes." He frowned. "Is the girl a blond? I don't remember."

  "She has golden-red hair," Louvois snapped. "And violet eyes. Haven't you sent anyone yet to arrest her, you—" He stopped himself just in time from calling the duc an old fool. "She's slippery and dangerous as a viper. Dieu, she could be anywhere by now. And could have taken the boy with her," he added, thinking that at least would break through the duc's nostalgic reverie.

  The duc did whip his head around to rivet me lawyer with agate-hard eyes. "The woman is to be left alone. Do you understand me, Louvois? Monsieur le Vicomte de Saint-Just has made that very clear. If I have any hope at all of ever seeing my grandson, the boy's mother is to be left in peace."

  Louvois saw a shadow of fear flicker across the duc's face. "I understand," he said, and he did.

  But he didn't care. It was Gabrielle he wanted, not the boy. The duc's wants didn't interest him in the slightest.

  Still, Louvois thought, almost trembling in his excitement, he could afford to be patient now. She wouldn't be running away this time. This time she thought herself safe. He could afford to leave her where she was, thinking herself protected by her powerful, titled husband.

  Louvois repressed a shiver at the memory of his one brief encounter with the dangerous man who had turned out to be the vicomte de Saint-Just. No, he would need to play very, very carefully if he was going to safely wrest the bitch from beneath that haughty nose. But he could do it, oh yes, and he knew just exactly how he was going to do it.

  Again excitement gripped him, and he had to hold his breath to keep from laughing out loud. He thought of a certain jewel box, locked within a chest in his apartment. It contained no diamonds or rubies, but something far more precious—his own signed, blank lettre de cachet that he had appropriated years ago against just such an eventuality, that he would have an enemy who needed to be disposed of, quietly, and without a trace.

  Chapter 21

  His dark, sardonic face, half obscured by the black moire" domino, leaned close until their lips almost, but not quite, touched. He ran his finger along the edge of her bodice where the stiff silver lace just covered her nipples. Gabrielle shivered, and her mouth parted as she sucked in her breath.

  Max's lips twisted into a satisfied
smirk as he pulled away from her to settle back against the leather seat. He turned his head to look out the carriage window. Carnival revelers, roaming the streets of Versailles on foot, pressed against the coach's sides. Some, dressed in grotesque costumes, looked like demons from a particularly colorful hell. Others were nymphs, dressed in gauzy costumes that revealed too much.

  "We'll be another five minutes at least, just reaching the palace gates," Max said.

  Although she had a perfectly good window on her side of the black japanned coach, Gabrielle leaned across Max's lap to look out his side. As she pressed her palm on his satin-covered thigh to brace her weight, she felt the hard muscle tremble, and she laughed low and soft in the back of her throat. Max was usually the one to start this teasing game of seduction, but she always won it.

  Ahead of them, to the gilded gates of the royal residence of Versailles, streamed a glittering cortege of coaches— carved, painted, and pulled by shining, caparisoned horses.

  The road was lined with dozens of Swiss Guards bearing torches, and the palace rose up against the purple night sky, looking as if it were on fire with its hundreds of high windows filled with blazing light.

  Gabrielle felt the heat of Max's eyes on her, and she turned her shoulders slightly so he could get an even better view of her shockingly deep ddcolletage. His breath caressed her neck, causing her diamond chandelier earrings to sway and tickle her skin. The coach lurched, and she pretended to lose her balance, grasping him between the legs-He groaned aloud and, grabbing her wrist, lifted her off his lap and pushed her back against the seat next to him. He held her in place with his arm pressed across the rising mounds of her breasts and brought his face so close to hers she could have licked the corner of his mouth with her tongue. She wet her own lips instead.