“I don’t care,” Gerard flung out as he stood and walked to the window. “If that’s why I matter to him now how can he reasonably expect any loyalty from me?”
“Alfred Cochran is not a reasonable man, not when I knew him.”
Gerard stared at him. “What was the great fight between you two? Most French and English officers find themselves in accord when not shooting at each other.”
“He stole something from me.”
“Stole?”
“A woman. I do not look like it now but I was quite a romantic fellow at one time.”
“He stole your woman?” Gerard winked at Conde who clamped a huge paw over his mouth to suppress a snort of laughter.
“Don’t joke, Gerard. It was not like that. She was a lady and he wooed her with false words. I was the one who loved her. What are you thinking?”
Gerard threw his hands up. “That the lady should have had the choice. Only property is stolen, not people.”
The general laughed. “If only you knew. Now go to bed before I have Conde beat you.”
“Very well, I see I have dug far too deep into the truth to suit you, sir.”
“Young rascal.”
* * * * *
The next morning Juliet was grimacing over some ill-made tea in their hotel suite when Charles entered and poured himself a brandy. She frowned at him drinking this early but when she tasted the tea again admitted there was some excuse. She was wearing a new dress she’d had made and was not at all sure she liked the tiny capped sleeves and low bodice in spite of what her maid Sophie said.
“What did you think of Gerard?” He came and sat with her.
“I never got to meet him. He seemed to scowl a lot. And he looks to be a bit of a dandy but I’m no judge.” She put down her cup and saucer with finality.
“Not when I talked to him. I think he simply needs guidance. I am to meet him today at noon. I promised you would come.”
“And my purpose is to lure him into Uncle’s clutches?”
“More like your clutches. One reason for convincing him to come to England is to get you your freedom early. Just think. If you marry him your affairs will be turned over to your husband and you can live anywhere. And even after I marry Melanthe I still won’t come into my money for four years.”
“I had not thought of that before but what if he turns out to be worse than Claude?”
Charles gave a snort of laughter. “Juliet, come now. Who could be worse than Claude?”
“You are right, I’m sure. I wanted to come when I felt so sorry for Gerard and his father. Now I am losing my courage. By all we have heard John really is dead. We should bring his son home.” She got up and walked to the window. How could Paris still be so beautiful after all the years of war? Appearances meant nothing.
“You’d better come and find out if you can stomach the fellow. He seems biddable to me. And you must marry someone.”
“Why, why must I marry anyone?” She turned to Charles and he tilted his head to one side, meaning he was considering what she said.
“In point of fact you don’t have to marry. Father left us his fortune in equal shares. But neither of us has access to anything except what the general gives us.”
“Until we are twenty-five.”
“And that’s seven years away for you. If you can’t like the fellow then we just forget that part of it but I really think we should try to bring him home for his own sake.”
Juliet shook her head. “Poor boy. It must be horrible losing one’s father to war.”
Charles frowned. “I don’t think it matters how you lose them.”
“I’m so sorry to remind you.” She went to him and hugged him. “Charles, what would our lives be like if Father had not gone down in that ship, if Mother had not died of despair?”
“I imagine we’d be living in our house in London. You might be married by now.”
“And you?”
“I would still be chasing wool contracts. I would not even know Melanthe.”
“And you do love her?” She released him to scan his face.
He pursed his lips and frowned. “Perhaps I just feel sorry for her. But my instinct to protect her cannot spring from a bad part of my character. I think by now she is in love with me. So it would be ill done of me to ignore her expectations since she has none other. Besides, I don’t love anyone else and the general does like to keep the wealth in the family.”
“Then we must make a push to get to know Gerard. If I don’t want him perhaps Melanthe will take a fancy to him and you can let him cut you out with her.”
Charles laughed. “Quite the little matchmaker. But I warn you people do not always go on as you think they should.”
* * * * *
When Gerard slipped out the side entrance of the school Charles was waiting and his beautiful sister was with him. She had worn her hair long at the theater, glorious locks of it coiling around each side of her delicate neck. Now it was tucked under a straw bonnet except for some stray wisps that danced in the gentle morning breeze. Her jonquil gown made her look vulnerable like someone needing protection.
“Allow me to present my sister, Juliet Chandler. This is your cousin, Gerard Cochran.”
“Mon plaisir—I mean, my pleasure, Miss Chandler. I am so used to French now that I have to think about English.” He looked into her blue eyes and realized here was a woman who could never deceive or betray a man. She was innocence itself. He also realized that, after taking her hand and making a pretense of kissing it, he should have released it and finally he did, then bowed awkwardly.
“I wish my French were that good,” she said as she rose from a curtsy. Her voice was intimate and husky as though she was under some strong emotion. But what?
“Where shall we go?” Charles asked.
Gerard looked over his shoulder. “I know a cafe. We will dine. I usually don’t bother with a midday meal but we cannot talk in the street.” He took Juliet’s arm on the pretext of guiding her safely across the thoroughfare and simply neglected to release her until he had seated them at a sidewalk table and received permission to order for them. Gerard requested a soup he knew was good with bread and cheese and a good wine.
Chandler turned to him. “That servant I saw you with, he isn’t just a footman, is he?”
“Conde?” Gerard shrugged. “I used to think he was my jailer but I could easily evade him now if I wished. He goes out with me only at night now.” He tasted the wine presented, shrugged and the waiter poured.
“Where are you living?” Charles asked.
Gerard felt some embarrassment to admit he was staying with his grandfather’s enemy and his father’s if he mistook not. “Why do you wish to know?”
“You are heir to your grandfather’s estate now that your father is dead.”
Gerard shrugged and noticed Juliet looking at him with concern. “Yes, I know it but surely there is another to fill that role.”
“Not now that we know you are alive,” Juliet said. “If you return with us both Nash and Claude will be displaced.”
Gerard smiled and took a sip of wine. “Then don’t tell them I am alive.”
“But I have written home already,” Charles said. “The general will want you to come.”
Gerard pushed his glass in small circles on the old wooden table. He had made his decision, chosen to stay with Soutine and now they were showing him a different way. “I wager he will not. If he has such a disdain for things French he will not want me.”
Charles leaned across the table. “That accent would disappear after a month or two in Northamptonshire.”
He laughed. “But I don’t want it to. I have worked a long time to speak French like a Parisian.”
“You mean to stay here?” Juliet asked in disbelief.
Gerard shrugged. “Why not?”
The waiter brought their food then and Gerard could see Juliet and Charles trade dubious looks until the man left them.
“What will yo
u do?” Charles asked as he picked up his spoon and looked at the bowl suspiciously.
Gerard grinned. “It’s leek soup, not a bowl of poison, Chandler.”
That made Juliet giggle. She had already sampled the soup. A woman of courage in spite of her delicate looks.
“What will you do?” Chandler repeated.
“I have not decided yet. I have some thought to study medicine and Paris is a far better place for that than London.”
Juliet cleared her throat. “When I mentioned displacing Nash and his son I meant that would be a good thing. Your Uncle Nash has a viperish tongue and Claude’s always been a bully. I can’t count the number of times I have had to rescue our young cousin Jack from him. If he ever inherited the title he would be impossible.”
“But if you are only cousins surely you don’t have to put up with them. You can live somewhere else. But, forgive me if I presume too much. Perhaps you are not free to do as you wish.”
Charles sighed. “If Uncle were to die in the next four years we would both be under Nash’s thumb and he might try to force Juliet to wed Claude whom she detests.”
Gerard felt his head snap toward her. She was so beautiful and now her cheeks flamed with color. Any woman would be embarrassed to have someone think her a helpless possession. “But he can’t really force you, can he?” He stared at the girl and her intensity impressed him. She didn’t seem vulnerable when she held her head up and looked back at him. He’d wager no one could compel Juliet to do anything but at what cost to her he hated to think.
“He can make our lives miserable,” Charles said. “But if you come Great-uncle would be distracted from both of them. Your father was the middle brother, older than Nash by a year or two, so eventually you would become the owner of the estate and half interest in one of the most prosperous wool mills in the north. Uncle and Father were partners in the mill.”
“Is that supposed to lure me to England? It wasn’t enough to hold Father.”
“The rift between your father and your grandfather was none of your doing. I tell you, Uncle wants you home.” Charles reached for the cheese and gnawed a piece of the hard French bread as an alternative to the soup.
“We each make our own path and choose our own punishment for our mistakes.”
Chandler looked surprised. “No one wants to punish you. You are too young to realize your loyalty should lie with your family in England.”
“I wasn’t speaking of me. My grandfather set his course and has reaped loneliness. Let him live with that.”
“What do you know of retribution?” Juliet asked, her fine brows drawn together.
He stared at her in fascination. He could read her face like a book. “I have been present on some of the most grisly battlefields of the last decade. I suspect I know far more of it than you.”
She glanced down, her lips trembling until she set them in a thin determined line. That made him feel small to taunt her with that comment. He knew nothing about Juliet. She might be far more courageous than he had ever been.
“Forgive me. You have come here to invite me home and I am being churlish. All I want is some news, not to make you both uncomfortable. I know little about my family and I confess I am curious.”
Charles cleared his throat. “Besides your Uncle Nash and his son Claude, Nash’s mother Helen is yet living. The General’s younger sister Emma, a widow, lives there as well with her two children.”
Juliet clasped her hands in her lap. “Our mother Edith was a niece to General Cochran, the only child of his brother who is dead. Our parents are both deceased.”
“Not a prolific family,” Gerard said.
Charles nodded. “Hence the search for the heir.”
Juliet looked him in the eye. “I have thought about what your life must have been like and feel sad for you. There is no reason you should help us. You owe us nothing.”
“Indeed I would do anything I could to help you. But here in Paris there is an old man I owe a great deal, my life in fact. I do not feel I can abandon him to follow a whim.”
“Could he not come with you?” she suggested leaning forward over the table in her eagerness.
“To England?” Gerard shook his head as he discarded the thought.
“Why not? I would think he would be glad to see you safely bestowed.”
“Yes, a wonderful idea,” Chandler agreed. “We’ll invite him to go with us and he can judge for himself if it is not better for you to take your rightful place than to stay here.”
“What is his name?” Juliet prompted. She perched on the edge of the wobbly wooden chair, the meal forgotten.
“He can barely walk now but I assure you that if my benefactor ever met my grandfather there would be blood on the table within the hour.” He took a sip of wine, keeping them in suspense. He must be honest with them. Once they knew the truth they would let him alone. And yet he wanted to prolong the moment when they wanted him to come with them. He did not want to let go of the possibility of being with Juliet even though he knew nothing could come of it. Was he falling in love with her in less than an hour?
“But who is he?” she insisted.
“General Henri Soutine.”
Charles gaped at him.
“Retired of course,” Gerard added, then drained his wineglass.
“A Frenchman?” Juliet asked.
“General Cochran’s mortal enemy,” Charles supplied. “Whatever we do, we must never tell Great-uncle where you have been living.”
“I see,” Juliet said. “Will you at least wait until we receive an answer to Charles’ letter?” She reached for his hand and held it. At that moment with her small competent hand grasping his in her effort to help him, if she had asked him to move the earth he would have made an effort.
“Yes, of course but I don’t think it will change anything. It has been a pleasure meeting you.” He drew her hand to his lips and kissed it for real, then reluctantly released her. “Now I must get back to class.”
He went to settle the account with the waiter but when he came back outside they were waiting for him so he took Juliet’s arm again and escorted her toward the académie with Charles walking on her other side. He began to wonder if even Juliet, sweet and innocent though she was, had an instinct for using that to convince him to come with them. They were silent for the walk back.
“How can I get word to you?” Charles asked.
Gerard pulled a stub of pencil from his pocket and scratched his direction on the back of one of Chandler’s cards. “You can send a note here.”
“Will you receive it?”
“Yes, of course. I told the general about you and he was not at all surprised. I am not really a prisoner, you know.”
He looked back as he crossed the street and realized that Juliet did not believe him, that he would chose to stay with an old enemy rather than return to the bosom of his family however neglectful they had been. How sweet of her but how naïve. Besides he had not yet puzzled out why Soutine had rescued him and he could not leave that question unanswered.
As Gerard turned back toward the door Juliet watched him with concern. Yes he wore foppish clothes and lace cuffs yet he moved and spoke with the assurance of a grown man. He had been trampled by life and resented that. She could relate since she felt trampled as well. He was perhaps too sure he was right but then he had lost both his mother and father. That had made her grow up fast as well. If he had not been willing to make decisions he might be dead now.
She worried for him yet felt he would be able to survive since he had already come through so much. But she so wanted to get to know him, to take him home with them where he could reach his full potential. Or would be become like Nash and Claude, waiting for handouts? Even she and Charles had to depend on their great-uncle but not by choice. Sometimes it seemed like the others were just waiting for the general to die.
“What are you thinking?” Charles asked as they walked arm in arm toward their hotel.
“About wheth
er Gerard might be right.”
“What do you mean?” Charles guided her across a thoroughfare though she was the one who dragged back on his arm so they did not get trampled by a carriage team.
“I want him to come with us to take his rightful place but I don’t want to see him under Great-uncle’s thumb.”
“He’s too young to be on his own.”
“He can’t be more than a few years younger than you and he’s seen so much more, been through so much more.”
“That’s hardly my fault.”
“It’s not a flaw, Charles but a condition of life. I wish he had not suffered so much yet that might be the making of him.”
“What are you saying, that we should let him stay here? Great-uncle is counting on us. We cannot fail him.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I simply feel we have created a turning point in Gerard’s life and we have to respect whatever decision he makes.”
“He’s hardly competent to decide if he should whistle a fortune down the wind. He could come with us and then return if he doesn’t like Great-uncle.”
“And Soutine’s health?”
“What I suspect, is that Soutine is using that to hold Gerard for whatever evil purpose he has in mind and that our cousin is not as free to come and go as he thinks he is.”
“What could Soutine be planning? He saved Gerard’s life.”
“He’s turning him into a dandy. You said it yourself. Gerard needs to go to his family before he becomes Soutine’s puppet.”
“I hardly think that is likely. Gerard is self-assured. No one will control him if he does not wish it.”
“Do you want to know what I think?” he asked.
She smiled. “I feel you are going to tell me anyway.”
“I think Soutine is going to use Gerard to embarrass General Cochran, turn him into some sort of society fop then present him in London as the heir to Old Stand. If Soutine controls Gerard he can ruin Old Stand.”
“That seems very unlikely. You’ve never even met General Soutine. How can you make such assumptions about him?”
“What other explanation can there be for him capturing the grandson of an old enemy? He wants his revenge.”
Reluctant Heir Page 4