A frown knitting her brow, Catherine stared from one man to the other. She could hear the undertone, catch the sense of a warning given, but could not understand the meaning.
“Ah, well,” Marcus said, his thin lips stretching thinner in the parody of a smile. “I am here, now, among the cultivated and the captivating.” He bowed first to Giles and then to Catherine.
“It occurs to one to wonder why—” Giles said, musingly.
“For Catherine’s sake, without doubt. To see such a beautiful corpse.”
“We heard of your near demise also. Your second escape was from my husband’s sword, was it not?” Catherine asked in cool tones. “Perhaps we should congratulate each other.”
“Without doubt, and I will add felicitations for your good fortune in finding a new protector so quickly. You will not mind, I take it, if at my third meeting with Rafael destiny should guide my hand and make of you a widow?”
“That requires thought,” she answered, one finger tapping her chin. “Or, perhaps not. Even with the help of destiny it seems unlikely. I am persuaded at a third meeting that one of you must die, however. Poor Marcus.”
At the involuntary move of the other man, Giles shifted, blocking his path. Taking Catherine’s arm, he inclined his head in the most spare of bows. “You must excuse us. Catherine’s mother requires to be rescued from the clutches of the faro dealers. I gave her my most solemn oath that I would come and carry her off before she lost her last picayune.”
A few minutes later, waiting for their carriage to be brought around, he leaned to whisper, “You are a witch.”
“Thank you,” Catherine said, and did not smile.
The days of early winter passed, fluctuating from cold to warmer again and again, followed in this repetitious cycle by the inevitable chill, depressing rain. The streets became quagmires impassable to carriages. Giles, Catherine, and her mother walked to the cathedral for the celebration of Midnight Mass on Christmas eve. It was cold in the church, and crowded, but Catherine knelt for a long time, the flames of the votive candles flickering in her eyes.
New Year’s was a more festive occasion with the exchanging of gifts reserved for this day instead of the more solemn holiday of Christmas. There were a number of soirées planned for the evening before New Year’s eve. Catherine had promised to drop in on at least two of them following a late dinner at home with Giles and her mother.
Due to the condition of the streets sedan chairs, relics of the last century, musty smelling, with peeling paint, were brought out for the ladies. They could be seen everywhere, lurching down the streets, swaying around corners, four slaves grasping the carrying poles. A few of the more sumptuously fitted out ones were the property of those who lived in town. It was one of these, upholstered and curtained in aqua velvet, its carving touched with gold leaf, that Giles had procured. He did not say so, but Catherine suspected it had come from the Navarro town house. She found the letter “N” embossed on the squabs. Riding in it, Catherine felt like a lady of the court of the Sun King. She had leaned to confide the observation to Giles, strolling beside the chair when it came to a halt that sent her flying off the seat onto her knees.
“What is it?” she called. She could hear whistles now, and cowbells ringing, and the beating of what sounded like pans and pots and kettles. Shouting grew into the roaring of a moving mob.
“It’s a charivari,” Giles shouted about the din. “They are turning down this street.”
Catherine sighed, and righting herself, pulled aside the curtain and looked out. A rickety sedan chair was just passing. From behind its curtain peered the pale, frightened face of a young girl little more than a child. Tears glistened on her cheeks and her wedding veil was askew. The man racing at her side, his head twisted back over his shoulder, was middle-aged, with gray peppering his hair and a near white mustache. His small rounded belly was supported by thin legs, and his stockings were parting company with his old-fashioned formal knee breeches.
Though understandable, there was no need for such fright. Charivaris were always given to widows and to widowers, which the man undoubtedly was. The yowling and noise would stop as soon as the crowd was invited to partake of food and drink at the groom’s expense. The flight was a mistake. It only made the gathering of high-spirited men and boys more determined, and attracted the attention of others. They were capable of keeping up the racket for days, or until they were satisfied.
Step by step Catherine’s chair was forced back against the wall as the narrow street filled with the surging mob. The noise was deafening.
And then the sound around Catherine’s chair changed, taking a vicious tone. She felt one of the carriers stagger. The chair shuddered under an impact and was dropped with a teeth-rattling jar. There was a scrabbling grab at the handle, and without thinking, Catherine reached to hold it from the inside. A man screamed. The scrabbling stopped. Voices cursed and yelled. The chair was buffeted as in a strong wind with the scrape and slide of struggling men vibrating against its side.
Trapped on one side by a house wall, and the back of Giles’s dark blue evening cloak on the other, Catherine could not get out. She could only crouch, waiting her chance.
“Navarro! For Navarro! To me! To me!”
The voice was Giles’s. The words in the charging soldier’s rallying cry made little sense. From what quarter did he hope, or, expect, succor?
Abruptly the clash of arms grew louder. The growl and grunt of hand to hand combat intensified. A hoarse yell broke. The wet thud of running feet in the mud slapped the air. Within seconds all that was left was the panting quiet of victory.
Drunkenly, the chair righted itself and moved off, turning back the way they had come. In a single glance, Catherine saw Giles, cleaning his sword on his handkerchief, his beaver hat gone, and blood dripping from a cut over one eye onto the snowy folds of his cravat. She sat back, clasping her hands tightly in her lap, thinking furiously.
At her mother’s house Giles drew her from the chair with firm but gentle hands and half led, half carried her into the entrance hall. The long echoing space was lighted but empty since they were not expected back for some time.
In the soft glow of a girandole, Giles halted and gathering both her hands in his, stood inspecting the oval of her face minutely for sign of pain or injury.
His eyes darkened. A faint tremor ran through him. Slowly he drew her into his arms to rest her head against the broadness of his shoulder.
“Catherine,” he said on a long sigh. “Beautiful, brave Catherine. It is more than a man can, or should, be asked to bear, to see you, and know you are set apart for friendship’s sake. It is more than I can bear — for I do love you so.”
“Touching,” a voice drawled from the direction of the salon.
Giles stiffened, then slowly they drew apart, facing the man lounging at his ease in the doorway.
“Touching,” he said again. “I find it so, and I am the wronged husband.”
23
“Rafe,” Catherine breathed because she could not help herself. The sound lingered in the air, to her ears a supplicating exposure.
“Madame, I give you joy of the day,” he said, his bow wholly lacking in deference. “I had the traditional token gift about me to present to you in observance of the season, but I seem to have mislaid it.” Rafael bowed, then turned the impact of his gaze on Giles.
“I will not fight you, Rafe,” the big man said with emphasis.
“No?” was the soft reply. “I will agree that I might have some slight advantage since you appear to have just come from a fray.”
“We were attacked by some of Marcus’s paid ruffians.”
“That explains the tender scene I so basely interrupted then, as an excess of the protective instinct.”
“Not entirely, though I shudder to think of Catherine in that madman’s hand,” Giles answered. “I love her and I want her for my wife. I am not without influence in the territorial legislature. A civil divorce can be a
rranged, if you will let her go.”
“And what makes you believe I will do that?”
“I think we all know the circumstances of your marriage,” Giles said, steadfastly refusing to be intimidated by the man before him. “No one could say you have ever been devoted to Catherine, but I will give you credit for being concerned with her welfare.”
“Will you? Thank you, Giles. And am I to take it she will fare better with you?”
“I believe she will.”
“That’s all very well, but how does Catherine feel about it?”
With a shake of her head, Catherine refused the question. “Tell me, Giles,” she said, “just now when you raised the cry of Navarro, who came to your aid? Not Navarro himself?”
“No—”
“Was it, perhaps, Rafe’s river boatmen?”
Giles nodded, his face pensive with lack of understanding.
“Men, you, my husband, had set to follow me, to spy on me?”
“I had a different word for it,” Rafe said, tilting his head, “but I suppose the effect was the same.”
She looked away from that bright and secret face sculptured in shadow. Giles was a secure bulwark behind her. “I am so tired,” she said, “tired beyond telling, of standing a pawn in this game you and Marcus are playing.”
“It has been an exciting game,” Rafe suggested.
Listening carefully, she could hear no plea in his light tone. “Yes,” she said, “but all I want now is peace.”
“And love?” When she did not answer he added, “Courage, ma lionne.”
“And love unbartered, freely given,” she agreed carefully.
The spitting of a candle wick was loud in the quiet. “You see so much, chérie, that one expects your vision always to be clear. This time there is the chance that it is clouded by fear. Make your safe marriage, and welcome, if that is what you want. But be certain that is what you want.”
Was he, in his cryptic fashion placing a choice before her? If so the allusion was too fragile to wager her heart upon.
And Giles, what of him? He had given her uncomplicated kindness and the unexpected boon of his love. What had she to give in return as the hours slipped away into the New Year? She felt, in very truth, empty-handed, empty-hearted.
“Since you leave it with me,” she said as coolly as possible, “I will let you know what I decide when I have had longer to consider.”
Derision leapt into her husband’s eyes. His glance flicked to Giles and locked. “That answer, I think, is not worth the crossing of swords.”
For him to mock her caution was insupportable. It touched off a slow burning anger that charged her thinking. A man with so small a regard for the cautious way would not cavil at speaking his love — if it was there. No, if a choice was being offered to her, it was between love and mere desire.
“My answer did not please you?” she asked. “Let me try again—”
The coldness of her tone was a warning. A guarded look appeared on Rafe’s face. “Out of pique?”
“It may be as good a way as any, and at least it will be a marriage of my own choosing. If Giles does not object, how can you?”
“Easily. I could claim his life as forfeit.”
Giles stirred as if he would confront Rafael, but Catherine lifted her hand, touching the back of it to his chest. Without taking her eyes from her husband’s she parroted, “Out of pique?”
Caught in his own trap, a full flush mounted to the angular planes of his face. He did not speak; certainly he did not give Catherine the better answer she waited for in hope and dread. Victorious, she watched him leave the field, crossing the hall with his lithe stride, and let himself out into the cold night. It was a pity, then, that his going left her with the hollowness of defeat.
“I am sorry,” Giles said abruptly. “I would not have caused you this embarrassment if I could have prevented it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Reaching up, Catherine unfastened her cloak and let it fall from her shoulders. Giles caught if tossed it with his split gloves onto a walnut side table, and followed her as she moved slowly into the salon.
“Would you like something to drink?” Catherine asked, pausing at a cabinet with her hand resting on the ornate knob. A moment after she had spoken she noticed that the brandy decanter had already been taken out. It sat near the most comfortable chair in the room, an empty glass beside it.
“Thank you, no.”
Giles’s voice sounded strained. She turned her head, her amber eyes wary.
“Catherine, you must realize what was said tonight was not as I planned it. But neither was it a sudden decision, something concocted from the need of the moment. I have discussed what I proposed with your mother—”
“But not with me?” she interrupted.
“Credit me with a little sensibility, please, Catherine. You weren’t ready to trust another man.”
“I — you are right. I’m sorry,” she said, her gaze falling. “My acceptance was less than gracious, and I am sorry for that also. Consenting to marry one man with all due form and delicacy while freeing yourself of another requires, I find, more subtlety than I can manage.”
“I have nothing to complain of,” he replied and paused. When she only smiled wryly without replying, he went on. “The process of setting you legally free may be disagreeable. There is, and always has been, a stigma attached to divorce. Is this what is troubling you?”
Catherine shook her head. “Hardly. I should, by now, be used to having my name bandied about. You do realize, don’t you, that you are proposing to take to wife a woman who masqueraded as a quadroon and was mistaken for one in truth, one who was so thoroughly compromised in the process that she was forced to marry her abductor? A woman that then betrayed her marriage vows with another man and eloped with him only to fall into the hands of river boatmen—”
“Catherine, please, there is no need.”
“A creature who seduced a rich merchant, and afterward, descending to her proper level, spent a number of weeks in a bawdy house; and when rescued from such degradation by her husband, was then, humiliatingly, returned home to her mother as unwanted?”
“You are too harsh with yourself.”
“How can I be? I am the scandalous, the notorious Catherine Navarro, nee, Mayfield, La Lionne.”
“And you are becoming overwrought,” Giles said, moving to cup her elbows with his hands. “You can’t discourage me with a list of your misdeeds. I know the truth.”
“The truth is what the world believes to be the truth. Are you certain you want to jeopardize your future by marrying someone of my character and reputation?”
“Don’t say that, don’t ever say that.” He gave her a slight shake. “You are a beautiful and courageous woman who was caught in events over which you had no control.”
“And an innocent one?” she asked.
He did not hesitate. “As innocent as it pleases you to tell me you are.”
“Dear fool,” she whispered, her laugh shaky. She had to laugh. She could never explain tears to him.
“And if it does not please you to tell me,” he continued, without objecting in the least to the odd endearment, “I will never ask. I will try all my life to cherish you and keep you safe — and at peace.”
“Why, Giles. Why me?” It was a cry that questioned the attraction she had seen in too many faces.
“There is about you, Catherine, the bright sweetness of a dream I have had all my life. When I first saw you it was as if I recognized you, and wanted there and then to hold and keep you for my own.”
“Oh, Giles—” Compassion ran with the husky timbre of penitence through her voice. Pity was near to loving, but for this man it was not enough.
As if divining her thoughts, he lifted his head, his blue eyes clear. “I don’t ask you to love me,” he said, “only that you allow me to love you.”
It was too much, a declaration too near stripping the soul to nakedness. That he was willing to do it
for her sake was an obligation of unbearable weight
Gently she freed herself, eyes on a level with the dark blue shimmer of the short cape overlying his evening cloak. “I will never forget the things you have said,” she told him in her softest tone. “At this moment I am more grateful for them than I can say. But there is much time before us, much waiting before we come to pledges and plighting. I will promise this, if you will continue to be patient with me, I will try with all my heart to be what you deserve.”
Giles inclined his head in acquiescence. If he was disappointed, he hid it well. Stepping aside, he threw his cloak behind his shoulders, then from an inside pocket, brought out a handful of small but gaily wrapped packages. “It is nearly 1811. Open your gifts, and I will go and let you rest. Perhaps in the new year you will find an answer which will gladden both of us.”
She had for him a muffler of white silk which she had embroidered and fringed herself. His first gift to her was a small theatre fan of painted satin with mother-of-pearl sticks. His second was a slim volume in red morocco of The Iliad, translated by M. de Rochefort. The third was a box of ebony inlaid with ribbon streamers in mother-of-pearl.
“You have given me too much,” Catherine protested as she lifted the cleverly hinged lid. She looked down. Her fingers grew numb. The small box fell from her hand, strewing pins in a gleaming arc. They scattered over the rug, golden hairpins among the wool garlands of pink roses and purple lilac, softly shining with remembrance.
“No!” Catherine cried in denial of the black wave of pain sweeping past her careful defenses. “No—”
Picking up her skirts, she evaded Giles’s restraining hand and ran from the room. At the foot of the staircase she turned, and saw him, indistinct through her tears, in the doorway behind her.
“Forgive me,” she said, “but I cannot marry you after all. The fault it not yours. It — is in me.”
~ ~ ~
It was her old nursemaid, Dédé, blundering into her room in the middle of the morning who roused her. The Negro woman had aged tremendously in the months Catherine had been gone. Her hair had grown white, her hands trembled visibly, and she had developed a timidity of manner which hurt Catherine as much as it irritated her.
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets) Page 81