Deceive Not My Heart

by Shirlee Busbee

  Frowning Morgan asked, "Was maman tactless about it? Did she call it charity?"

  Dominic shook his head. "No. Maman was tact itself—she likes Leonie, and Morgan, you have to remember that she—along with the rest of the family—truly believes that Leonie is your wife. Maman was only trying to help, but Leonie will have none of it." His gray eyes contemplative, he finished, "She's determined not to take a damn thing... except her dowry. Wait, I take that back—she will allow maman and father to give Justin presents, but she also puts a limit on that. Doesn't want him to become spoiled, she says."

  Morgan stared at his whiskey glass for a few minutes after Dominic ceased speaking. "She doesn't seem to be precisely what one envisions as an adventuress, does she?" he said finally.

  "That's what I've been telling you. She wants that damned dowry, I'll admit that, but Morgan, by heaven that seems to be the only thing she wants from you. She won't let us do anything for her—there's a perfectly good carriage and a spanking team to pull it, as well as a half dozen mounts suitable for a lady eating their heads off in your stables, but does she ride them? Hell, no! She takes a mule to town!"

  The image brought no glimmer of amusement this time to Morgan's eyes. Slowly he mused, "She might be doing it for a purpose, did you ever consider that?"

  Puzzled, Dominic demanded, "How do you mean?"

  "Just that by not reaching out and taking what has been offered and by sticking so determinedly to her demand for the dowry, that she has only strengthened her position." Looking over at Dominic, he said wryly, "You already half believe her story. And by acting as one would expect a young lady in her position to behave, she makes it even more difficult to disprove her claims."

  "I hadn't thought of that," Dominic admitted.

  "Think about it," Morgan murmured. "If she were greedily demanding other things, taking with outstretched hands everything she could possibly get, wouldn't that tend to support my statement that she is a scheming adventuress intent upon blackmailing me?" At Dominic's slow nod, he went on softly, "But by appearing to object to maman's kindness and all the other things she could have, doesn't that distort the image? Doesn't it make you secretly admire such apparently high-principled actions?"

  Dominic moved uncomfortably in his chair, not liking the picture Morgan was fashioning. And yet, every statement Morgan made could be true and Dominic felt a faint surge of resentment against Leonie. She'd almost tricked him. Thank God Morgan wasn't about to be taken in by her clever act!

  There was little more conversation between the two brothers, and a few minutes later, Dominic left to seek his own bed at Bonheur, while Morgan slowly walked up to his suite and entered his bedchamber. Signs that Litchfield had been there before him were evident—a candle flickered on the mahogany dressing table; a dark blue and black brocade robe was laid neatly across the sapphire blue coverlet on his bed, and a tray with a glass and a crystal decanter of brandy was on the night table. Morgan smiled. What in God's name would he do without Litchfield?

  That same thought was echoed again when he discovered the warmed water that had been left in a thick pottery pitcher on the dressing table next to the candle. Stripping off his travel-stained clothes, Morgan gave himself a hasty, refreshing wash and then with a sigh of pleasure slipped naked into his bed.

  Exhaustion dragged at him like a sea-tide, but he discovered to his frustration that sleep would not come. Fragments of the conversation with Dominic buzzed around in his brain until finally he had a thundering headache.

  He didn't want to think of Leonie, didn't want to begin to question his own reactions, to wonder if he had read the situation correctly, to even allow, for one tiny second, doubt in his own conclusions to creep into his mind. He believed implicitly every word he had spoken with Dominic and yet lying in the darkness of his room he found himself questioning his judgment, unaccountably wanting to find excuses for her behavior. And that, of course, infuriated him.

  The news that she had done as she had threatened and laid the entire situation before a judge had shaken him as much as it enraged him. He hadn't really believed she would go that far, and it proved, at least to him, that she and those with her must feel that her story was damned near impossible to discredit. It also, he decided, revealed that they had realized that he wasn't going to be quite the easy gull they had first thought. Why else would they risk the thing being put to trial?

  Morgan had no answers and after tossing restlessly, he abandoned any pretense of sleep. Shrugging into the brocaded robe, he splashed some brandy into the glass, walked over to a window, and stood staring out into the blackness of the night.

  The brandy managed to relieve some of the tension that coiled inside of him and the throbbing of his temples lessened, but sleep still eluded him. He was now too tired to sleep, and while his body sagged with weariness and his eyes were scratchy from lack of rest, his brain was working furiously, unwilling to let sleep sweep over him.

  Methodically, pushing aside his unwanted attraction to Leonie, Morgan went over the facts for the thousandth time, his thoughts just as confused when he finished as when he had begun. He was aware again of a nagging sense of something he should remember, some little, now forgotten, incident that had occurred six years ago that would give him the solution to the problem.

  When he finally sought his bed, only one thing was certain: somewhere there had to be a man involved. That conclusion was inescapable, if only because of Justin's existence. So where was the man? And while Leonie might be perfectly capable of forging his signature, a gut feeling that couldn't be ignored made Morgan positive that a man, perhaps the man had forged those papers. And if that were true, where in hell was this man?

  * * *

  Morgan wasn't going to have to wait long before he found himself face to face with the man who had forged his signature on the marriage papers. At that precise moment, Ashley Slade was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on a French ship sailing for New Orleans, the sole purpose of his trip to find the little bride he had wed six years ago using Morgan's name.

  The reconciliation with his father, the Baron Trevelyan, had lasted just as long as it had taken Ashley to become bored. Home hardly a week, he rode his father's prize stallion into the ground, carelessly destroying the magnificent animal if only because the horse was the pride of his father's stables. Next he had precipitated a cold-blooded, brutal fight with his younger brother, Miles, nearly blinding that pleasant young gentleman in the process. The baron tried to make excuses , but when it was discovered some three months later that Ashley had deliberately seduced the young lady Miles had been engaged to marry, and that she had taken her life when he refused to save her from ruin was the final straw. Looking at his eldest son, his heir, with a loathing he had thought impossible, his handsome face working with both sorrow and anger, the baron had banished Ashley from the ancestral acres.

  Ashley spent several months in London going through Leonie's dowry with a lavish hand, and it was only when the money was gone that he discovered that not only had he been banished from home, but that his father had no intention of either paying his mounting bills or making any sort of a settlement upon him. It was a disagreeable situation that Ashley had never envisioned.

  For some months he managed to stave off his debtors and even tried his hand at card-sharking, but eventually he was forced to flee or find himself in prison. The possibility of having his father murdered in order to hasten the inheritance that would one day be his did cross his mind, but with regret he discarded it—the way his luck was running lately someone was certain to connect him with it.

  Deciding a rich wife would be the solution to all his problems, Ashley cast his lures about, but unfortunately for him, his reputation had gone before him and the heiresses were all quickly hustled away whenever his handsome person appeared on the horizon. And after living the precarious existence of a highwayman for almost a year, Ashley finally came to the conclusion that his fortune was not to be made in England.

&nbs
p; France called. Napoleon's star was on the ascendency and Ashley decided that any nation where a Corsican upstart could become the most powerful man in the country definitely held possibilities. Consequently in the summer of 1801, almost exactly two years after he had married Leonie under Morgan's name in New Orleans, Ashley found himself in French territory.

  Due to the hostilities raging between England and France, his crossing had not been pleasant and he hadn't been certain of his reception in France, but the meeting with the smuggler who had sailed him across the channel to France proved to be propitious. The smuggler, and sometime spy for the French, Garret Penryn, was of an aristocratic background, and his history was not unlike Ashley's. Before Ashley departed the small sloop at Cherbourg, it had been decided that Ashley would turn his hand at spying.

  Through Garret, Ashley was guided to the master spy, Joseph Fouche, the minister of police, and after several harrowing meetings with that ruthless, calculating gentleman, Ashley agreed to spy for France. Some six weeks later he returned to England, ostensibly a changed man.

  Where before his scandalous life had been flamboyant, he now conducted his affairs with discretion; he now had money, money he claimed to have won in France; but more importantly, he seemed to have become fascinated by anyone in the military. He made it a point to make friends in high places in the Horse Guards and for several months he proved extremely adept at his new profession, supplying Garret with information about troops and supplies that was eventually relayed to Fouche in Paris.

  The Peace of Amiens in the spring of 1802 annoyed Ashley—spying was proving to be a most profitable profession, but Fouche's fall from power that same year worried him. A trip to Paris was required.

  Fortunately, Ashley discovered that his future was not in jeopardy, and more to the point, he was gratified to find that Napoleon was aware of the service he gave France.

  Born with a natural grace and charm as well as a handsome person, Ashley managed, during the months that followed, to insinuate himself into Napoleon's circle, fawning and clawing his way into favor. He supplied the French government with information about the English, who now flocked to Paris during the Peace of Amiens.

  The not unexpected outbreak of war between England and France in May of 1803 pleased Ashley, and he returned to England, his pockets full of French gold and his head filled with optimistic thoughts. And the future was very rosy for Ashley that spring—he had Napoleon's favor, an unlimited supply of gold, and the promise of further rewards in the distance.

  The fact that he was betraying his own homeland bothered him not at all. He still rubbed shoulders with his old cronies and was still accepted by polite company; he was able to gamble and wench just as he always had, only now he didn't have to worry if the baron would pay for it. He lived just as he always had, the only difference being that he passed along vital tidbits of information to the French and they paid him handsomely for this service.

  Morgan's trip to England might have stopped this delightful state of affairs if they had chanced to meet. Fortunately, when Morgan arrived in England, Ashley was in France, and by the time Ashley returned to his familiar haunts, Morgan had crossed to France to spy for Roxbury and England. And if Morgan had barely escaped from France with a company of dragoons at his heels, Ashley, some three weeks after Morgan had sailed away on the smuggler for America, nearly fell into the hands of the excise men sent to stop his meeting with the English smuggler, Garret. The excise men, like the dragoons, were unsuccessful in catching their quarry and the spring of 1805 found Ashley again in France, this time with the door to England closed against him.

  It didn't take Ashley very long to discover precisely who had betrayed him, and the knowledge that Morgan seemed to have bested him once more infuriated him and made him long to get the better of his detested cousin just once. Someday, he vowed viciously, someday, my dear cousin, you will pay dearly for disrupting my life and my fortune. The loss of his lucrative bargain with the French was a blow to Ashley's future, but he was resourceful and immediately reestablished himself within Napoleon's circle, the desire for revenge against Morgan momentarily put aside.

  It was an unpleasant shock for Ashley to discover that the French were no longer receptive to his advances, and of course now there was no longer an unending flow of money—he no longer had anything that the French wanted. Fouche was once again in power, though, and Ashley quickly offered his services in helping to ferret out English spies in France. Ever the cynic, Fouche accepted his offer.

  Eventually Ashley would have outlived his usefulness and probably would have ended up with a dagger in his back, except for two events.

  The first came about quite by accident some weeks later, when he trailed a suspected English informant to the Loire Valley. The gentleman Ashley followed happen to visit with friends who owned a magnificent estate nestled against the gentle rolling hills, and like the good spy that he had become, Ashley grew curious about them. It was then that the first hint of the fortune that might be his came to light. The estate was named simply Chateau Saint-Andre and that name struck a cord of memory within Ashley. More questions revealed that the family had all died during the Terror, but one old woman vaguely remembered that a branch of the family had gone to America... to Louisiana.

  Unable to believe what this might mean, Ashley retreated to a nearby country inn to do some deep thinking. Was it possible that the little chit he had married in the summer of 1799 was the heiress to this estate? And if she was, if he could prove it, how would that benefit him?

  It was true that Napoleon, in an effort to weld the remaining aristocracy to him, to lure back the emigres who had fled to England, had been restoring many of the grand estates confiscated during the Terror. Perhaps the great man might be willing to do the same for an emigre to America. Especially one married to a man who had proved himself a loyal patriot of Napoleon's new France....

  Deciding he needed more information, the suspected spy for the moment forgotten, Ashley discreetly questioned the inhabitants of the small village near the Chateau Saint-Andre searching for some proof of his suspicions. He found it finally in an old family Bible.

  It was a miracle the Bible had survived, and it was only the fact that it had fallen into the hands of one of the loyal members of the Saint-Andre household that it had not been destroyed when the family had been dragged to the guillotine. The Comte Saint-Andre's valet had managed to save a few things from the house that terrible day and one of the things he had saved had been that Bible in which were recorded the births and deaths in the Saint-Andre family for the past hundred years.

  Ashley wasn't interested in the past; it was the last entry that riveted his attention, the last entries that dealt with the branch of the family which had emigrated to America. Staring at the spidery, black ink in which Leonie's name and birth were recorded, Ashley's pulse quickened.

  By God, what luck! The little bitch was the last Saint-Andre! And he had married her! Under Morgan's name it was true, but he had been the one to marry her, not Morgan!

  Gaining possession of the Bible proved a bit of a problem; the old valet, while willing to show it to this handsome gentleman, wasn't about to relinquish it. Ashley tried cajolery, bribes, and finally threats. Nothing worked, so he simply stole it.

  The Bible safely in his possession, Ashley forced himself to turn to the task at hand—the possible spy staying at the Chateau Saint-Andre. But it was the family who lived at the chateau which now interested him. They would, Ashley reflected coldly, have to be displaced in order to smooth the way for his wife's claim to the estate.

  Ashley found out little more on this trip. His quarry left for Paris the next day and Ashley had no choice but to follow him.

  In Paris, Ashley reported to Fouche that he had come up with nothing new, and Fouche was not pleased. He was even less pleased when Ashley brought up the subject now dearest to his heart.

  Fouche looked across at Ashley with cold eyes as they sat in his office. "Do you really
expect me to believe that you are married to this Leonie Saint-Andre? And more importantly do you really expect that Napoleon is going to turn over to you an estate that has already been given as a reward to someone else? Especially to you—an English traitor?"

  Ashley flushed and his lips tightened. "Napoleon thinks highly of me! And if I can prove that she is my wife, that she is the rightful heiress to the estate, why wouldn't he return it to her? He's returned several other such estates to the legal heirs."

  "But not," Fouche said dryly, "estates that have already been disposed of. Forget it! Put your mind to business or you might find that I have no use for you."

  Doggedly Ashley argued, "Suppose it turns out that the people who now own it are spies? That they and that young fool I followed are really, as we suspect, working for the English? What then?"

  Fouche smiled thinly. "That would indeed put a different complexion on the matter."

  And that was Ashley's second stroke of luck. With information which he obtained through bribery and murder it was discovered that the new possessors of the Chateau Saint-Andre, the family Cloutier, while not spies for the English, were part of an underground group who were planning to assassinate Napoleon.

  Almost triumphantly he laid the evidence on Fouche's desk and murmured, "And now what do you say about my wife's claim?"

  Fouche sent him a cool, considering look. "I would say, Monsieur Ashley, that if you can present Leonie Saint-Andre here in France, with proof that she is whom you claim—the last Saint-Andre and your wife—then perhaps it is possible that out of gratitude, our glorious Emperor might indeed bestow upon her the estates that had belonged to her family."