Stormfire

by Christine Monson

  "He said that?"

  "He promised his blessing." His warm hands slipped down to her cold ones. "Catherine, I learned a hard lesson in Ireland. I love your independence as I love you. I'll be a good husband and your child will be as my own. I'm only sorry my proposal must come on the heels of your bereavement." His cinnamon eyes burned with warm, inviting fires. "You wanted me once with all the innocent passion of a young girl. Now that you've grown up, is it so impossible to love me?"

  She touched his face sadly. "If I were capable of loving again, Raoul, it could easily be you."

  He grimaced ruefully. "Then you've nothing to lose. If you cannot love anyone, you might as well have me." He tapped her nose and laughed softly. "You underestimate the confidence of a Frenchman. If I should concentrate all my irresistible charm on you, how can you help but surrender in time?" Without asking permission, he kissed her, fully and deeply.

  Catherine felt her pulse quicken, and wondered dimly whether it stemmed from sexual excitement or her highly strung nerves. Amauri's kiss hinted at considerable skill as a lover. His lips sought her throat, and breathlessly she pushed at his chest. "Raoul, you must let me think. You're making me dizzy."

  His eyes took on a sleepy look. "Good. I want you to feel dizzy. I want you to fall into my arms, to let me feel like a conquering hero. I want you, Catherine. When I make love to other women, it's you I see." His lips caressed her cheek. "You, I feel."

  "Raoul, you haven't thought this out."

  "I've thought about it for three years, but you'd disappeared."

  Gently, she disengaged herself. "Raoul, please try to understand. Everything's happening too quickly. I have to think-1 must see Sean. Liam was his brother; he'll be affected more than anyone."

  "Of course," he said easily. "Do you want me to contact your father?"

  "No, I'll write him," she responded quickly.

  "I'll invite Sean to dinner; he'll come once he knows what's at stake."

  The private discussion between the Culhanes was charged with bitter grief and hard silences. Knowing Sean would not let her sacrifice herself to preserve his safety, Catherine was evasive about his danger. Sean, not wishing to frighten her even more, was equally evasive. More than Catherine, he realized a visit from the minister of police at this point had to be a scare tactic. Now, Napoleon only meant to bring his quarry to ground, but if he found out about Artois, he might have her guillotined.

  Sean's own inquiries to Madeleine had turned up only good reports of Amarai. A hell-raiser, but no worse than most, Amauri was a good commander, respected by his men and fellow officers. He drank and gambled, but not foolishly. He could easily afford a family and seemed ready to settle down. Culhane had nothing against the man except his allegiance to Napoleon, but Amauri could hardly be rebuked for patriotism.

  Finally, Culhane coüld only stand by silently, trying to hide his wretchedness and sense of loss, but knowing he was failing completely because Catherine's eyes were luminous with tears. Not daring to touch, they moved about the library like carefully precisioned planets, knowing divergence from the prescribed orbits promised disaster. All the while, some devil kept whispering to them, "Run. Take your forbidden love and flee. No one will know." Until Catherine suddenly clamped her hands over her ears. "I'll marry him! Only let's have it done quickly!"

  Amauri and his mother were waiting in the drawing room. Sean extended his hand and said simply, "Congratulations, Raoul."

  The baronne kissed Catherine's pale cheeks, then Amauri drew her to his side. The happiness of the betrothed pair was toasted in champagne, but Sean's throat recoiled as if the wine were gall.

  CHAPTER 25

  Lilies and Pearls

  The champagne at Amauri's bachelor dinner three weeks later was no better, and Culhane bluntly ordered whiskey from a passing waiter. He drank it raw, letting its fierceness eat at his innards as he watched a line of skimpily clad nymphs prance through a burlesque ballet. Their shrill squeals and lascivious wriggles, encouraged by raucous shouts from the disheveled males who crowded Madame Hortense's Maison Rouge, did little to relieve his depression. As a satyr-boy chased the nymphs through silver-painted paper laurel trees, they threw flower garlands to the noisiest of their admirers. The reigning champion was a chasseur with the lungs—and apparent ardor—of a Zeus transformed into a white bull. Festooned with garlands like a maypole, the chasseur let loose with another languishing bellow. Seeing a lackey with a tray, Culhane abruptly exchanged his empty glass for a full one and tossed it down, no longer caring what the contents were.

  "Surly bastard, isn't he?" Javet, barely sober himself, murmured none too softly to a brother officer.

  Apart from the others, the Irishman, a grim half smile curving his lips, silently eyed Javet. The man had been egging him on all evening, his subtlety decreasing as his liquor consumption increased.

  Javet made another deliberate aside. "Perhaps Culhane's disposition can be traced to his missing equipment."

  His companion laughed. "He might be better pleased by a private performance with that satyr-boy."

  Javet laughed mockingly. "He'd much rather seek his pleasures between his sister-in-law's thighs, if he can find room between Amauri and Bonaparte."

  The Irishman reached Javet in two strides. "Keep your mind on me, Javet. If you want a fight, you've got it."

  Javet grinned mirthlessly, his eyes glazed with liquor. ''Sabers. I want the satisfaction of carving up what's left of you! La Place des Vosges at sundown tomorrow evening. Name your second.

  Sean shrugged. "I don't—"

  "May I offer my services, Monsieur Culhane?" Emmanuel de Grouchy, his long face impassive, appeared at Sean's elbow.

  "Thank you, General."

  "I am Lieutenant Antoine Le Clerc. I'll second Captain Javet, sir," offered Javet's friend, chagrinned to have become involved in a questionable quarrel over a woman favored by Napoleon.

  "Very well, gentlemen," the general replied. "I suggest we adjourn until tomorrow."

  After Javet and Le Clerc had gone, Grouchy lingered with Culhane. "Javet will have second thoughts, you know. Once he sobers, he'll regret everything he said."

  "Until the next time he gets drunk. See you tomorrow, General."

  As he left Hortense's, Sean flexed his right wrist and fingers. The fingers were still stiff and the wrist without its former strength. He could not sustain a drawn-out fight with a cavalry saber.

  Catherine turned as Culhane was admitted to an anteroom beneath Notre Dame where she waited with the baronne d'Amauri and twelve bridesmaids, all strangers, all hand-picked by the baronne from families of the ancien régime and the Republic. The bride's incredible beauty struck the Irishman like a blow, though she was as white as the lily-embroidered satin dress, its train a gleaming river across the burgundy carpet. Long-sleeved and high-necked with appliquéd lilies edging the fragile curve of her jaw and wrist, the dress drifted into satin loosely studded with tiny pearls as it swept to the ground. Atop her sleekly chignoned hair was a coronet of lilies, pearls, and diamonds. A vivid memory of her chipping at the Megan's varnish and grinning at him with paint on her sunburned nose put a hard knot in Sean's throat. He bowed slightly to the girls in aqua satin, then kissed the baronne's hand. As he took Catherine's icy hands, he felt their trembling. "You're lovely, little one."

  She looked at him as if she longed for the earth to crack up and swallow her.

  Sean noticed his medallion through the appliquéd lace at her throat and remembered. Gently he slipped his ring off her finger and put it onto her right hand as her fingers dug into his, her eyes going the color of ink.

  The baronne noted the slight convulsive movement and her smile became determinedly set. "Archbishop Lepec will be ready by now, I believe. I hear the opening chords."

  "Are you ready, Kit?" Sean asked quietly.

  "Yes." The reply was little more than a whisper, but her head came up and her hand moved to rest gracefully on his arm. Two bridesmaids settled the
cloudlike veil over her face.

  The organ was thunderous in the stone cavern of Notre Dame, but the shattering color of the soaring stained-glaSs windows diminished even the music as they arched toward the April sky, the fabulous rose window like an overturned goblet spilling claret light across the tiny humans below. Catherine felt lost, surrounded by implacable, impersonal centuries as she watched her husband-to-be and his honor guard, a vague mass defined only by the scarlet slashes on tKeir uniforms, slowly approach through the gray gloom. On either side of them, the cream of Paris, ostrich plumes waving and jewels gleaming in craning masses of color, lined the strip of scarlet carpet that arrowed to the altar where she waited with Sean. Then Amauri and Fourquet, his best man, in gold-emblazoned blue tunics, came into focus.

  As the two officers assumed their plaees, the archbishop, resplendent in white and gold, began to drone the opening passages of an interminable High Mass. Yet too soon,

  Catherine felt a rigid tension in Sean's body just before he gave her hand to Amauri; then he was gone. She would have bolted after him like a panicked animal, but the archbishop was clasping her hand into Amauri's. She mumbled the last phrases and Amauri's deeper voice firmly under- toned them. He slipped a heavy diamond onto her finger and lifted her veil. She stared up at him like a vacant doll as his lips brushed hers, then they turned and walked quickly up the long aisle as the dress swords of the honor guard flashed up to form an arch. On the front left row of wedding guests, Napoleon's thin face smiled easily. Suddenly, Catherine-wondered if the cascading lilies on her dress, like the aristocrats among her bridesmaids, had been Napoleon's idea. Then from somewhere, green eyes tore through the crowd to hers and her own paper Bmile began to crumple.

  The smile, however, outlasted the wedding reception and the hundreds of guests who dropped crumbs and admired the elaborate wedding gifts as they flowed through the baronne's house. Even Josephine was envious when she saw the fabulous Celtic jewelry the bride had been presented by her brother-in-law. As Josephine ran her finger across a massive gold and ruby brooch, Fouché quirked an eyebrow. "Undoubtedly, the fellow has access to the Irish National Treasury."

  Napoleon laughed. "To some extent, he's entitled to it." He turned to Murat. "Find Monsieur Culhane, Joachim. It's time I met him."

  "Madame." Sean Culhane kissed Josephine's hand, then Caroline Murat's, and his face impassive, nodded slightly to Napoleon and Fouché.

  "We are delighted to welcome you to Paris, Monsieur Culhane," Napoleon said amiably. "I regret recent occurrences in state affairs have prevented me from inviting you to the Tuileries." Though his head barely reached Culhane's shoulder, Napoleon showed no sign of feeling overshadowed. Confidently, his eyes seemed to bring all men to his level.

  As Napoleon and Culhane exchanged guarded pleasantries, Josephine, having heard the gossip about the Irishman, eyed the newcomer to Paris. His Spanish-style beard and moustache gave him the look of a ruffian, but an elegant ruffian. With a connoisseur's eye, she studied the savagely cut cheekbones and irregular nose. A raw scar was barely visible under the short-cropped, curling black hair at his temple; a second wickedly slashed across his cheekbone and the left corner of his mouth. She found him dangerously attractive, but because of the cool assessment in his eyes, as he had lazily kissed her hand, her long, silent perusal was deliberate and a little cruel. In contrast to Napoleon's energetic movements, the Irishman had an almost languid grace, and she remembered the other stories. Seeing his eyes, she wondered. When talk turned to ballistics, Josephine, as if disenchanted, drifted away with Caroline. "I don't agree with Murat, Caro. I think the man may be dangerous."

  The sun was setting over the narrow, red-brick houses lining the Place des Vosges when two black carriages pulled into its deserted expanse of cobblestones. On the surrounding rooftops, narrow chimney silhouettes sliced the sun and streaked the courtyard below with dimming bars of copper light. Grouchy, accompanying Sean Culhane, stepped from one of the vehicles and waited as three men dismounted from the other: Javet, Le Clerc, and Doctor Emile Fourquet were still in dress uniform from the Amauri wedding. Grouchy preceded Culhane as the two groups approached one another and halted a few feet apart. "Gentlemen. Captain Javet, do you wish to apologize to Monsieur Culhane?"

  Javet bit his lip. He looked pale, as if still under effects from the party the previous night. He knew he was in the wrong, and sensed the others knew it, too. He could only brazen out his rash insult. "I do not apologize, sir."

  "Monsieur Culhane, do you withdraw your challenge?"

  "I do not."

  "Very well, gentlemen, choose your weapons."

  The combatants discarded their cloaks, headgear, and jackets. Le Clerc presented a long black bundle, and from it unfurled a pair of sabers. The two men selected their weapons. Culhane slashed his saber in an experimental enveloppement, then waited, one hand on his outthrust hip, the saber point resting on the toe of his boot while Javet tested his own weapon.

  "Gentlemen, are you ready?"

  "Ready." Javet took his position. Sean nodded and the opponents crossed sabers. For a few moments, nothing seemed to happen, only a tentative brushing of saber tips. Then, at the same instant, Culhane and Javet slid backwards and the sabers flashed dimly in the gathering gloom. As Le Clerc was to relate later, the duel was not a fight, but an execution. In less than a minute, Javet lay sprawled on his back on the cobbles, his jugular pulsing away his last moments of life from an angled slash to the left side of his neck and shoulder. His shirtfront rapidly turned black in the dusk until the whites oí his eyes gleamed like gray pearls.

  That night on the île de la Fraternité, the door of Number 15 opened and Mei Lih stepped back into the shadows, the white silk of her dress forming a. nimbus behind the candle she held. Sean took the candle and placed it in a wall sconce. Silently, he reached for her, pulling her to him even as he kicked the door closed, crushing his mouth down on her and tangling his hands in the silk of her hair until her heart battered against his chest.

  He carried her quickly to the sofa in Madeleine's drawing room and tore the thin shift from her slender body. Half closing his eyes, he buried his face against her breasts then entered her swiftly, urgently until he did not even hear himself harshly gasping Catherine's name as he drove deeper into oblivion.

  "The house looks remarkably as it did before the Revolution, Raoul; even Grandmère would have been amazed at what your workmen have accomplished, and so quickly, too."

  Raoul d'Amauri laughed as he showed his bride the last of the ground-floor rooms of the old Comtesse de Vigny's handsome seventeenth-century mansion on the former Rue Royale. "I'm glad you didn't see it before. The last occupant was a former stableboy, now a treasury official. The furniture sprouted antimacassars like mushrooms."

  Catherine had to smile. Raoul's irrepressible good temper and effort to ease the strain of the long day had earned her gratitude, but images of Sean, hoarded in brief, miserly glimpses at the reception, still haunted her. Where was he now, the one who should have taken holy vows by her side and claimed her tonight forever? She tucked an arm about her husband's. "It's difficult to thank you properly, Raoul. You've done so much."

  He smiled confidently and brushed a tendril loose from her chignon. "Oh, I'll think of many ways to make you appreciate me, but you must thank Napoleon for the house."

  She stiffened. "Napoleon?"

  "It was his wedding gift." He paused. "He has also arranged for the Vigny holdings to be returned to you. You've a stack of papers to sign, even before beginning to answer all the social invitations piled up with the wedding gift replies." He tapped her nose. "Being the wife of an ascending general is going to keep you busy."

  "You're to be a general?" she said incredulously. "And Napoleon is giving my property back? I don't understand. I thought he'd be furious. . . ."

  "The First Consul is a generous and gracious man," Raoul said impressively, his faint note of pedantry at odds with his usual lightheartedness. "Undoub
tedly, his chagrin has been outweighed by his desire for doniestic alliances. What more delightful way than a fairy-tale wedding?" He looked teasingly crestfallen. "Aren't you even going to congratulate me? After all, I'm the most fortunate fellow in the world today."

  "Of course, I'm . . . very happy for you, Raoul. I'm sure you've more than earned your promotion."

  Amauri chose to ignore the uneasy note in her voice. "Come, let's celebrate," he said coaxingly, and drew her into the dining room. The long table was set for two. On the table and sideboard gleamed some of the baronne's massive silver pieces, loaned until the wedding silver and porcelain could be transferred. Perhaps, she reflected as Raoul seated her, the place would seem less sterile after her own things arrived. Then silently, she sighed. Her own things, for all their lavishness, included nothing she had chosen herself, not even the furniture: all Directoire. How much more appealing had been her grandmother's pieces, which had ranged back to Frances I. Grandmother's bed had belonged to Diane âe Poitiers, mistress of Henry II; it had been a tiny bed, perfect for the petite Comtesse.

  Bed. She tried not to think of it.

  But too soon, dinner was done. Although she had eaten slowly to conceal her lack of appetite, Catherine knew Raoul was not fooled; he even looked faintly amused and she wondered how their dinner conversation might have slanted had the butler not been present. She had already met five servants: butler, cook, gardener, and two maids. She would have little to do but smile once the obligatory correspondence was completed, and Raoul had even suggested a secretary for that!

  Now he was suggesting they retire, and feeling the butler's eyes boring into her brain, she fixed a smile on her face and laid her napkin by her plate. After all, my girl, you're not a virgin. There's nothing your husband can do to you that hasn't been done already.