Violet had heard of the Duc de Morny; he was mentioned now and then in the news sheets, and Gilbert had spoken of seeing him briefly on the street. The illegitimate son of Queen Hortense of Holland and her lover, supposedly the Comte de Flahaut, he was the half-brother of the emperor. A man of singular charm only three years younger than Louis Napoléon, he was known as a bon vivant and connoisseur of women, in spite of his marriage to a natural daughter of Czar Alexander I of Russia. He had done much to bring his half-brother to power and held a prominent place in the current government.
“My husband and I,” Violet said, “would be honored by an introduction.”
“We will present your husband also, if you must have it so. Ah, but this nice discretion, this delicacy, recalls something to our mind. You must be the lady of the flowers.”
Violet sent him a swift upward glance. “Your Majesty?”
“Massari has been scouring the hothouses of Paris and badgering the flower-market vendors for choice blossoms. He demands unblemished perfection and will accept no substitute for the species he desires. Everyone knows there is a married lady of great beauty and greater propriety in the case, though he will not speak of her. There has been much speculation.”
She lowered her gaze to the braiding on his coat. “There is nothing to say I am that lady, Your Majesty.”
“The thing is obvious, if you notice how Massari is regarding us. We should be wary; he will be ready to assassinate us.”
“Surely not.”
“He has a temper when pressed.”
“You sound as if you know him well?” She could not resist turning the comment into a question.
“Europe is like a village in some respects; from Rome to London and Vienna to Marseilles, everyone knows everyone else, at least in certain circles. And everyone talks. Massari has a great number of friends, but is enough of a mystery man to maintain the interest of those easily bored.”
“Mystery?”
“You are not aware of his background? He and Morny have a great deal in common; you would be amazed. Come with us to a small room where it is quieter, and we will tell you.”
It was done so smoothly, his sweeping turn, which brought them to the edge of the dance floor as the music ended, his hand under her arm guiding her toward the direction he wished her to go. Violet was concentrating on the implications of what the emperor had said about Allain rather than on what he was doing. She was inside the door of the small withdrawing room before she remembered Allain’s warning.
Her skirts swirled around her ankles as she came to an abrupt halt. “Wait,” she said in haste. “Perhaps I — had better not leave the ballroom, after all. My husband will not be pleased.”
“But your husband has left you to your own devices for some time now.”
“Yes, and for that reason may be looking for me even now. I had best go and see.”
“And waste such a perfect opportunity for a passage at arms? Don’t be shy; come to us!”
He was stronger than she would have guessed, and bolder. Thrusting an arm about her waist, he swung her away from the door and kicked it shut. In the same movement, he dragged her against him and sought her lips.
She turned her head sharply, pushing against his chest with both hands. “No, Your Majesty! Please—”
Her defense almost broke his hold. He gave a laugh of surprise before he redoubled his efforts. Catching the back of her neck, he slid his fingers under the knot of ringlets at the back of her head to tilt her face upward. She twisted in his hold as his mouth grazed the corner of her lips.
The door opened, letting in a gust of warm air and music. Allain stepped inside, then closed the panel behind him. “Your Majesty,” he said in quiet tones. “You will, I trust, pardon the intrusion.”
Violet pushed away from the emperor with a gasp of relief as Louis Napoléon’s hold loosened with his surprise. The emperor whipped around to face the other man. His voice grating on the order, he said, “You will leave us!”
Allain moved without haste to Violet’s side. “Not,” he said succinctly, “without the lady.”
Napoléon drew himself up. “We will not support this interference.”
“I’m afraid you will have to,” Allain answered, his attention on Violet as he offered her the support of his arm. “We bid you good evening, Your Majesty.”
The emperor opened his mouth as if he meant to either protest further or call his guard. Abruptly, a gleam of humor rose in his eyes. He shrugged with elaborate casualness. “Very well, pluck the flower yourself, Massari. But I warn you, there may be thorns.”
“I am aware,” Allain answered, his voice grave and his regard steady as it rested on Violet’s flushed face.
Turning, he led her from the room.
They had taken only a few paces into the ballroom when Violet began to speak in jerky, disjointed phrases. “I am so grateful you came. I never dreamed — I know you said — but I couldn’t imagine that he would—”
“He is a goat.”
Allain’s tone was so savage that it sent a flicker of terror through her. She was not certain if it was possible for an emperor to receive a challenge to a duel, but she had heard that timbre in a man’s voice before, in New Orleans, and knew it portended pistols for two, and breakfast for one.
She made a small sound of distress as she put a hand to her head. “I would really like to leave, if I could. Perhaps you might help me find Gilbert. I can’t think where he can be all this time, unless he is in one of the card rooms.”
“Yes, but are you all right?” he asked.
“I have a little headache, only. I promise I don’t intend to swoon.”
“I have no objection, so long as I’m here to catch you,” he said, his mood lightening slightly as he smiled. “But it’s impolite, you know, to leave a gathering before the emperor. You will have to slip away by a side door, and without bidding your hostess goodbye.”
“I hadn’t thought. Perhaps I had better stay.”
Reluctance was heavy in her voice. It wasn’t just the headache that drove her. The tensions of the last hour, the contretemps with Gilbert as well as Louis Napoléon, and now the idea that people were watching and gossiping about her and Allain, had become too much. There was no one she knew at the ball, none of Gilbert’s relatives and acquaintances; everyone was a stranger and, in spite of the French tongue, foreign to her. She had been taught all her life to think of herself as French, but she was beginning to realize that she was something different, an American of French extraction.
Allain studied her pale face, then shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll make your adieus. Let us go in search of your husband.”
They found Gilbert at a faro table with a stack of gold coins in front of him. He barely looked up as she approached, and took no time to consider her request. He was winning, couldn’t she see? He could not go while the cards were in his favor. Besides, he had been certain she was enjoying the dancing.
Violet, watching the tightness of her husband’s mouth, thought he was glad to have a reason to refuse her. She would not lower her dignity by asking more than once. She turned away.
Allain, who had been standing just behind her, did not move. To Gilbert he said, “Your pardon, m’sieur, but have I your permission to escort Madame Fossier in your stead?”
Gilbert turned deliberately to face him. There was a heavy frown between his brows as he met Allain’s clear gaze. He held a gold coin in his hand, turning it slowly between his fingers.
A soft silence descended as the cardplayers glanced at each other, then toward the two men. Allain, sustaining Gilbert’s stare, slowly raised his head. His features congealed in implacable challenge, and there was an intimation of steel in the gray blue of his eyes. His trim, broad-shouldered form took on an imposing, almost regal stature. The force of his anger, perfectly controlled yet unremitting, was palpable.
Gilbert inhaled with a soft, hissing sound through his teeth. The frown dissolved from his face. He
blinked rapidly.
The fear that Violet had suppressed earlier returned with renewed force. She put out her hand to touch Allain’s arm in a calming gesture. Her voice tight in her throat, she said, “Your permission, Gilbert?”
He moistened his lips before he answered. His voice was hoarse as he said, “As you like.”
“Thank you,” Allain answered for Violet with brusque courtesy. Drawing her hand through the crook of his arm, he turned and led her from the room.
Violet glanced back at her husband as she went. Gilbert was watching them with angry bewilderment in his face. It was apparent that something he had seen in Allain’s eyes had decided him against crossing the artist.
She turned her head to look up at the man who walked beside her. His manner was assured, relaxed now. She thought of leaving the house, of entering his carriage and driving through the dark and empty streets of Paris with him. Alone, with him.
Anticipation and an odd dread fluttered in her veins, swelling around her heart.
This ball had not, Allain admitted to himself, been the best of ideas. He had wanted to give Violet a night of pleasure, to see her shine among the best of Paris society, and yes, to have an excuse to hold her in his arms. It had not turned out precisely as he had planned.
He was embarrassed. It had been a long time since he had felt the need to annihilate another man. That it should happen with one older and less experienced, one whom he had wronged in thought if not in deed, was ignoble. He should never have forced a confrontation. His anger and concern for Violet did not excuse him. He had no right to chance making matters worse for her merely because his blood was at a boil.
It was the emperor whom he had wanted most of all to spit on his sword like the strutting turkey-cock that he was. The insufferable conceit of Louis Napoléon, to think he could sully Violet’s lovely purity by tumbling her in a dark corner like some kitchen maid. Discretion had made a challenge unwise. He should have offered it anyway. What did he care for discretion, or for France if it came to that? He was only a transient, a chance visitor. His interest, like his danger, was elsewhere.
It had been Gilbert’s misfortune to cross him too soon after the confrontation with Louis Napoléon. Humiliation or death, that had been the choice Violet’s husband had been forced to make. He would not soon forgive his wife for being the cause of it, or for witnessing his coward’s retreat.
If Gilbert had found the courage to stand up to him, what would he have done? The honorable thing would have been to delope, to fire into the air and allow the wronged husband his just shot. But would he? Ah, no. He would have killed Violet’s husband in cold blood and for the most base of motives, to make her a widow. At least he would have tried. God forgive him.
He glanced at Violet as she moved behind him from the ballroom and down the narrow backstairs. She walked like a queen, or an empress, with her head high and back straight, deaf to the whispers that followed them. She was formidable in her pride and virtue. The courage her husband lacked was as natural to her as breathing. To treat such a woman as a child to be cosseted or punished at will was the act of a stupid man, one who deserved to lose her.
Amazing, to think that she would risk everything by going with him. He had not expected it. He had watched her struggle with the bounds prescribed for women of her class in these last weeks, and had respected her for it even while he made his delicate attacks upon her will. He would not have been surprised if, tonight, she had chosen the safety of remaining with her husband even in his defeat. Or perhaps because of his defeat.
She had not. She had chosen him.
Nothing had ever made him feel so proud.
Nothing had ever made him feel so humble.
Gilbert Fossier was not worthy of this woman. The trouble was, neither, perhaps, was he.
10
JOLETTA OPENED HER EYES WITH slow care. There was a pounding ache in her head, and every joint in her body felt as if it had been jarred loose from its moorings. She was lying on the sidewalk. A number of people were clustered around her. There was something soft under her head, possibly a rolled sport coat. Rone, in shirt sleeves, knelt on one knee at her left shoulder. He held her hand in his warm clasp, rubbing it a little as he frowned down at her.
At her other side was a darkly handsome man in a tan leather jacket, a shirt of cream silk, and with dark aviator glasses pushed on top of his head, pressing into the crisp black waves of his hair. His gaze upon her was brooding and concerned, though his rough-cut features lightened into a smile as he saw that she was conscious.
“My apologies, signorina,” he said, his voice low and deep. “I should not have pushed you so hard, except there was no time for care.”
Italian. She recognized the accent, the bronzed tan of his skin, the inimitable style of what he wore, without real surprise. There was a curious rightness about it. It was a moment before she realized why, and then she grinned a little to herself, at herself. A near street accident. Violet’s Italian. Ridiculous. Her brain seemed to have gone a little haywire.
She lifted her free hand, to touch her head. There was the wet stickiness of blood in her hair. “The — car,” she said, her voice a little uncertain.
“Long gone,” Rone said. “It never touched you.”
“The driver could have stopped; he must have seen what happened,” the other man said, his thick brows meeting over his nose in a disapproving scowl.
“You saw him?” Joletta winced a little as her probing brought a throb of pain.
The Italian reached to take her fingers. Drawing a handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped away the bloodstains as he spoke. “Unfortunately not. There were people running everywhere, you understand? And I only had eyes for you who were in the imbecile’s path. Ah, signorina, believe me, please; I would not for the world have been the one to hurt you.”
“I’m — glad you were around,” she said. “It would have been all right, I think, if the pole hadn’t gotten in the way.”
“Exactly so. But I should introduce myself. I am Caesar Zilanti, at your service, signorina.”
Rone’s gaze was sardonic as it rested on the other man. To Joletta he said, “It might be best to save the introductions until later. Right now I think I should get you to a hospital.”
“Was I out that long?” she asked.
“Only a few minutes, not that the time means anything.”
“It’s just a bump; I’ll be all right in a minute. I don’t think I need—”
“You may have a concussion,” he said, his voice firm. “It won’t hurt to see a doctor to make certain you’re okay.”
“He is right, signorina,” Caesar Zilanti said in tones of caressing persuasion.
“But I don’t want to sit around all night in a hospital waiting room,” she protested.
“It should not take so long.” The Italian’s dark gaze was earnest. “I’ll be happy to drive you; my car is just along the street here.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Rone said shortly. “We can find a taxi.”
The other man raised a brow. “At this hour? You must be joking. Allow me to do this much, please, to soothe my conscience.”
There was something in the atmosphere between Rone and Caesar Zilanti that troubled Joletta. They were too polite, the way they looked at each other across her was too wary. She wondered if there had been some kind of confrontation between them while she was out, if maybe they had words over the way the Italian had pushed her.
She could not worry about it just now. The sound of their voices seemed to echo in her head, making it ache. She also felt foolish lying there on the sidewalk while they argued across her.
“All right, all right, I’ll go to the hospital,” she said, struggling to sit upright, “only let’s get it over with.”
“Benissimo, in my car?”
“Whatever is fastest,” Joletta answered.
Rone’s expression was grim, but he made no objection.
The hospital visit did not ta
ke as long as Joletta had expected. The process was efficient and the female doctor who saw her seemed glad to have an opportunity to use her English. Joletta had a very slight concussion, the woman said, hardly enough to show up on the X-ray film. There should be no need for hospitalization so long as she took reasonable care of herself: no long hikes, fast games of tennis, or anything of that nature. The usual over-the-counter headache remedies should suffice, though they would give her something a little stronger now. She should, of course, contact a doctor at once if the pain grew worse, if she experienced any dizziness or change in her vision. Otherwise, she should enjoy her visit to France; that was the prescription.
“Perhaps you will now allow me to take you both to dinner,” Caesar Zilanti said when they were outside the hospital once more. “I would feel better, if you would. It’s early, yes, but we could go somewhere and relax over a drink until a more suitable hour.”
“I don’t know,” she said, glancing at Rone.
“Sorry, but I can’t,” Rone answered. “I have some calls I need to make.”
She thought he had told her he had his business arranged so he needn’t keep in such close touch. He might, of course, only be using that as an excuse. Regardless, she was not sure she wanted to cope with making conversation with a stranger just now without him. Joletta turned toward Caesar Zilanti with an apologetic smile. “I think it might be better if I have an early night. I appreciate the invitation, really.”
“Perhaps tomorrow night?” The Italian’s dark gaze held appeal.
“It won’t be possible, I’m afraid. We leave in the afternoon for Lucerne.”
“Too bad,” he said, “it would have been a great pleasure. But you will permit me to drive you back to your hotel, yes? Good.” The silver Alfa Romeo he was driving was parked not far away. As they walked toward it he went on. “Many tourists go on from Switzerland to Italy. Do you visit my country by any chance?”
“We’ll be there four or five days,” Joletta said.
Caesar gave her an incredulous look and a shake of his head as they reached the car and he opened the door for her. “Too little, far too little. There is so much I could show you, if I were there.”
Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) Page 15