Konstantin’s hand jumped to his bare throat. “I never wear cravats. Unless I am required to.”
Gérard glared. The boy was going to make him look bad. “You cannot step out into public looking like you have lived in a cave all your life. ’Tis an insult to those who are forced to look upon you. Tomorrow, you are going straight to my tailor to conduct measurements for the sort of clothing a man like you should be wearing. Because if it looks cheap, it is cheap. And no one bows to cheap.”
Gérard leaned in and adjusted the lapel of Konstantin’s coat. He sighed. “I regret not giving you money sooner. When you awake tomorrow, my valet will properly shave you. With the amount of money going into your pocket, Levin, ’tis your duty to represent yourself well. Or no one will take you seriously.”
Konstantin swiped his hand across his unshaven jaw. “Forgive me. I get lazy sometimes.”
“I can see that.” Gérard glanced toward the clock on the mantelpiece and paused, realizing it was almost time for his ten o’clock evening visit. The one he always made every Friday night in passing since coming to London months earlier. “I do not wish to be rude, but I have an appointment to keep. Are you tired? Or are you up for joining me?”
Those brows shot up. “I would not be imposing?”
“No.” He sure as hell had nothing to hide. Gérard turned and strode toward one of the bookshelves. He ran a hand across the bindings of all the leather books before stopping and yanking one out. The usual fare. Candide: or The Optimist by Voltaire.
Gérard carried over the warped leather binding and held it out. “Take this for me.”
Konstantin took the book, eyeing it. “This has certainly seen a lot of use.”
“Good books usually do.” And he could say the same about the woman to whom it had once belonged. Gérard strode by trying not to get too agitated with the thought of seeing her still surrounded by countless men. It wasn’t as if he had refrained from women. Far from it. Between the two of them, they probably fucked half the world. “Come. And bring Voltaire with you.”
“Where are we going?”
Gérard paused, not looking at anything in particular. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold out staying away from her. His marred face aside, he genuinely feared being turned away and didn’t know what he’d do if she did.
Knowing the Russian was waiting for an answer, he offered, “I usually go alone, but I trust you. And truth be told, I would rather not be alone tonight.” He was tired of pretending that he could fill the void.
He never could. Not even after thirty years.
When his coach paused in the shadows before a very respectable-looking townhome, outside the light of surrounding gaslights, Gérard gestured toward the book with his cane. A cane Sade had gifted to him the night half his face disappeared. “Read.”
Konstantin shifted against the leather upholstered seat of the carriage and swiped up the book beside him. He hesitated. “Uh…is there a reason you want me to—”
“Start at part two on page one hundred and three.” Gérard pointed at him. “And above all, handle it with care. That is an original English printing.” It was also all he had left of Thérèse.
Konstantin paged through the book, eventually finding the page. He cleared his throat. “Part Two. Chapter One. How Candide quitted his companions and what happened to him. We soon became tired of everything in life; riches fatigue the possessor; ambition when satisfied, leaves only remorse behind it; the joys of love are but transient joys; and Candide, made to experience all the vicissitudes of fortune was soon disgusted with cultivating his garden.”
Gérard unlatched the window of the carriage and leaned out, staring up at the window where Thérèse could always be found when he needed her most. A silver-haired beautiful, beautiful woman draped in an ivory robe sat beside the window reading by a brightly lit lamp that illuminated her pale face. She adjusted her silver braid over her shoulder.
Gérard continued to watch her, wondering what she was reading. Age might have changed the color of her hair and dabbed wrinkles around her eyes, but she was still so fucking gorgeous. She would always be. His only regret was knowing his marred face dictated his inability to call on her.
Konstantin leaned in and eyed the window. “Should we be doing this?”
Gérard tapped his lips with a finger, trying to focus, and gestured toward the book again, without looking away from Thérèse. “Read.”
Konstantin shut the book, slid over to the window and leaned toward him. “Let me give you some advice. I have no idea how the English conduct themselves here, but in Russia, men are arrested for such things.”
Gérard continued to watch Thérèse as she tilted her head, clearly thinking about something. Maybe him? He had wanted her to see him that one night. If only to see what would happen. Her in a faint said it all. “Since when is love a crime, Levin?” he asked in the darkness of the carriage.
Konstantin glanced back up to the window. “Who is she?”
In an effort to contain his angst, Gérard gripped his cane tighter, his black leather glove creaking. “A whisper of everything I could have had but never will.”
“Did she marry someone else?”
That would have been a blessing. She would have been to bed with only one man, instead of the countless she had embraced over the years. He sometimes wished he hadn’t hired investigators to tell him about her life. Not that he had been a saint. Far from it. “She married every damn man in sight.”
There was a pause. “I am very sorry to hear it.”
Fuck. Blaming her in front of a man who did not know her was not what he wanted. She deserved better than that.
Gérard hit the end of the cane on the floor of the carriage. “I used to blame her for the path she took. But I have long since come to recognize it is I who destroyed her by not making an honorable woman of her. I was the one to drape her with her first set of diamonds.” And pearls. How she loved her pearls.
Yes, he had bought her for his schemes, but had paid for her with his soul.
Gérard glanced back toward her window again and paused, his cane stilling. The window was now dark, reflecting the emptiness she had left within him.
An exasperated breath escaped him. Re-latching the carriage window with an agitated swipe of his gloved hand, he settled back against the seat and muttered, “She has retired for the night.” Lifting his cane, he hit the roof of the carriage, commanding the driver to leave.
The driver snapped the reins and the carriage rolled forward, causing them to sway forward and back.
Gérard lowered his eyes to the gold head of his cane and rigidly tapped the palm of his gloved hand against it. He only got in a few minutes of looking at her. “Next time, I come alone. You talk too much.”
Konstantin quirked a brow. “Do you mean to tell me, since coming into London, you have been doing this every night?”
“I would never admit to such a thing.”
“Which means you have been.”
Gérard shifted his jaw. He used to come to her window every night when he first arrived in London. Glimpsing her was like drinking brandy. He couldn’t get enough of it. He had eventually dwindled his nightly visits down to mere Friday nights. For the sake of what remained of his sanity. “What of it?”
“Is she the reason why you came to London?”
There was no sense in lying to a Russian. “Yes.” And it took him too many years to find her.
“Have you called on her?”
Fuck that thought. “I would never.”
“Why?”
Lifting his cane up toward his face, Gérard edged the gold handle across the left side of his tied mask, causing it to shift. “This.” He lowered the cane from his mask. His marred face only bothered him when it came to Thérèse. The last thing he wanted was to see pity in her eyes.
His face aside, and the early financial struggles he had endured, which his mother’s family in England had kindly helped him through, he had a
ctually led a good life.
After leaving France, everything had miraculously turned to gold. Quite literally. It was as if he had merely been living in the wrong country with the wrong people all his life. Everything became whatever he wanted it to be. Except for the one thing he had always wanted most: Thérèse.
Konstantin gripped the book. “Forgive me for prying, but what actually happened between you and her?”
“Too much.” His words of what had come to pass between them were blurred. Some things he remembered all too well, others he did not. Not because age had erased the past but because he and his soul wanted to erase the past. He wanted to replace it with something new.
He averted his gaze to the dark night beyond the glass window at his shoulder. “I had to let them go.” And the worst of it? He had never even gotten a chance to see his son again. A babe in a cradle is all the boy would be to him. Both in his mind and in his heart.
He seethed out a breath, and verbally related more to Konstantin, half of which meant nothing to him. Because it didn’t matter anymore. It changed nothing.
Gérard rolled his eyes. “I have heard she associates with an array of men because of some school where she gives men advice on-on…private matters.” He shook his head, not at all surprised. “She was always outrageous. She lived for it.” His fisted hand hit the seat hard, reverberating through the carriage. “I need brandy,” he breathed out.
It was a pathetic way of letting himself whine given he hadn’t touched brandy or any liqueur after the woman called him a drunk and a liar the night they parted. Those words had burned the brandy right out of him. He had refused to even listen to the doctor when he was told to drink a good bottle of any spirit to quell the pain that marred the left section of his face not even two hours after she had left him.
In some way, he knew he had earned it.
Whilst on the ship with half his face bandaged and suffering in agonizing pain, a bright-eyed Japanese stowaway had taken pity on him, shared his opium, and despite their little language barrier, introduced him to the art of knotting Asanawa ropes to keep his hands and his mind occupied through the pain. It turned into a passion of perfecting an elaborate array of knots that represented who he was and how he felt.
Konstantin squinted. “So you have been in London these past few months and still have not called on her or your granddaughter?”
Gérard tossed his cane from one hand to the other, back and forth, knowing full well what the boy was getting at. “My face aside, I genuinely doubt Thérèse would permit me to have an association with Maybelle. She and I did not part on the best of terms.”
There was a moment of silence. “How do you know what she will or will not allow if you have not called on her?”
He didn’t know. Gérard glanced toward the window and the night beyond. He knew he was wasting what little was left of their time. If he called on her, at least he would finally know what was or wasn’t possible. He also wanted to meet his granddaughter. Usually, the girl sat with Thérèse at the window, but for some reason, she hadn’t been at the window in weeks. It bothered him.
“Call on her.” Konstantin leaned closer. “After everything you survived, including a whole revolution, there is no shame in what you endured or why you wear a mask. Call on her.”
Gently tapping the cane against the floor of the carriage, Gérard fixed his sight at nothing in particular. “Will you go with me if I call on them?”
“It would be an honor. When do you want to go? Shall we go tomorrow?”
Gérard’s gaze snapped toward him, his throat tightening at the thought. “Are you mad? No. The day after.” He hardly looked decent. “I need time to trim my hair. As do you.”
Konstantin bit back a smile. “The trimming of our hair should only take a half hour.”
Lowering his chin, Gérard drawled, “Whilst I appreciate your intentions, I ask that you refrain from any further comments.”
Konstantin held up a hand and then set it against his mouth.
If only women were just as cooperative and understanding.
Two days later
Grand-mére,
Edmund and I are not in Cairo quite yet. We have yet another month before we arrive at our destination. Shortly before boarding our connecting ship, I wanted to write a quick missive and thank you for the marvelous sense of humor you clearly do not lack. Edmund found the leather dildo you packed in our trunks in honor of our new marriage. He and I decided to leave it on the seat of a hackney we hired and hope it will find better use at the hands of whoever finds it. Leather dildo aside, I miss you very much and wish to assure you my marriage is everything I imagined it would be. Edmund and I intend to travel for some time. I promise to write again the moment we arrive in Cairo. I am breathlessly awaiting that first glimpse of the pyramids.
Sending you all of my love,
Maybelle
Gently folding the letter, Thérèse kissed it and then tucked it into the drawer of her writing desk. She sighed. There was no word of a pregnancy yet.
A knock came to the door, making her pause and glance toward it. “Oui?”
Clive cleared his throat from the other side. “There are two gentlemen here to see you, Madame. The Duke of Andelot and a Mr. Levin. Both are in the parlor waiting. Are you at home? Or shall I take their cards?”
Her heart popped. Dearest God. He was— “Oui! I will be right down!”
Scrambling up from the writing desk, the chair she was sitting in toppled over with a bang and clattered against the fullness of her skirts. She winced, not bothering with it, and bustled over to her dressing table.
Thérèse jerked to a halt before the mirror and gaped at herself. Her gathered hair, which had fully silvered by the time she was forty, had actually become her trademark. One she was proud of. It accented her eyes and whispered of all the adventures she had embraced.
While she had repeatedly sought out Andelot’s whereabouts and had even knocked on Mrs. Berkley’s door to do it, no one seemed interested in helping her. Mrs. Berkley, the evil thing that she was, took pride in ensuring she did not find him.
Thank goodness she was wearing a decent outfit.
Grabbing up her pearls from her jewelry box, which she knew he would recognize given the amount of money they cost him back in the day, she frantically draped them over her throat and arranged them.
Dabbing some rouge on her lips and some perfume on her wrists, she arranged her lace gown and drew in a shaky breath. It was like being eighteen again. Feeling like she mattered to him was beautiful, and no matter what happened, she would cherish this moment which she thought she would never see.
She took hold of the cane, which the doctor insisted she use. The man still believed her fainting spell had been due to apoplexy, despite her protests that it had merely been shock. She now decided having something to occupy her hand was a good thing.
Canes exuded power. One swing and—
Gathering her skirts, with the cane in hand, she darted toward the bedchamber door and flung it open. She set her chin, hitting the cane to the ground with one hand and tried to regally walk down the corridor, but her mind and her silly heart would not have it. She swung up the cane and broke out into a run, gathering her skirts again and did her best to run down the stairs without tripping over her own feet and gown.
Once she neared the foyer, her heels clicked frantically against the wood floors in a half-run as she drew closer to the parlor. Slowing her steps, she dragged in a calming breath, lowering the cane to the ground again and swept into the doorway with sashay worthy of more than a courtesan.
Gérard casually sat in one of the chairs. Upon seeing her, he uncrossed his leather riding boots, but otherwise did not rise.
Their eyes collided across the distance, making her throat tighten as the unnerving tingling in her stomach melted away all the years of angst she thought would never go away.
She barely managed half-breaths.
It was like returning to their
days in the forest.
His face was, as last time, hidden beneath a well-fitted black velvet mask. Only those piercing blue eyes and the lower portion of his mouth and shaven jaw peered through. The visible marring of puckered skin on the left side of that jaw below the tied mask hinted at the damage hidden.
They stared wordlessly at each other in the pulsing silence.
Her hand gripped the cane hard in an attempt to even her breathing.
Gérard shifted his jaw beneath the mask and rose to his imposing height, clothed in all black, right down to his leather boots. That over-muscled physique appeared even more impressive than she had remembered. It hinted he had spent countless hours perfecting every muscle he had. That silvery-steel hair, which had been swept back from his forehead made him look all the more debonair.
Adjusting his black leather gloves in the manner of a duelist, he strode toward her, his booted steps steady and determined. He paused directly before her.
The scent of leather and expensive cologne wafted the air between them. She swallowed, fighting the tremor of her body. All the years of carefully cultivated poise evaporated. Every moment that she had laughed when she felt like crying, sighed when she felt like screaming, or climaxed with another man’s name on her lips was gone.
She was a courtesan no more.
In his presence, as it had been then, she was nothing but a woman who wanted to belong to only one man. Him. Only him.
Widening his muscled stance, Gérard gruffly announced in English, “We will speak in English for the duration of this conversation. Because all things French are dead to me since I left Paris.”
It was no surpise. Fortunately, her English was now as good as his.
She inclined her head toward him, her eyes never once leaving his masked face or the edges of that marred skin that peered out from beneath the velvet. Her chest tightened.
The Duke of Andelot Page 28