Until the day he came back to his rooms and Gerard was there, dressed like a gentleman, the dark clothes of his shadow-life gone.
After the first brief moment of surprise, Marcus accepted his presence, found it unremarkable that this mysterious half brother of his would be able to track him down, would even want to find him again. He was family, in as inevitable a way as Leona and Natasha were.
“Even for a bastard son, these rooms are impossible,” Gerard declared, his deprecating gaze sweeping over the tiny apartment with its frayed decorations.
“They are what they are,” Marcus said with a shrug and a glance at Pell who was just visible in the antechamber through the open door. Gerard glanced as well, then scuffed the inside of his shoe against the worn parquet floor.
“I suppose they are that,” Gerard admitted. “You’d better stay with me.”
Marcus’s gaze shot up immediately. Those hollow eyes stared through him almost. A mask. What was behind it?
“I’m curious about you,” Gerard said, offering an answer to Marcus’s unspoken question. “About what I might have been.”
Marcus had no response to that, but Pell urged Marcus with pleading eyes to agree.
“I suppose we’d best,” Marcus said.
Later that evening, after Pell had overseen the transfer of belongings and Marcus had completed his last official duty of the day, he arrived at Gerard’s apartment.
It was every bit as commodious and luxurious as the man had intimated. Marcus wondered if this were the sort of apartment Natasha’s parents had lived in before they fled Paris. Or had it been something even grander, more in line with Talleyrand’s residence?
“Welcome,” Gerard said, clasping him on the back. “Here, let’s have a drink. Unless you had your fill at Monsieur Talleyrand’s?” He said the man’s name with an amused sneer.
“I was only there for a moment, to deliver letters. I thought the man part of Napoleon’s government, but apparently there is bad blood there,” Marcus said, throwing his coat across the arm of the sofa a moment before he threw himself down.
“Talleyrand,” Gerard repeated with a smirk. “The man is wilier than anyone and has no loyalty. He should be away from Paris, with the empress, but yet here he is.”
“What are you saying?”
“He arranged to make himself needed here so he could ensure Napoleon is deposed and ensure his own future security. Men like him, and like the Austrian Metternich, are wilier than even our grandfather. Remember that.”
There was a bond between Gerard and himself. Marcus wondered if the bond would be there with his other six illegitimate half siblings. Or was it the shadow of Lord Landsdowne that did this? Gerard had spoken of loyalty. Was he loyal to their grandfather?
“What do you do, Gerard, when you are not working for grandpere?” He emphasized the last word with a slight sneer, the way his half brother had first said it. “How are you supported?”
“Not by soap,” Gerard answered with a laugh and then gestured out the window, across the river. “Look, the lilac is in bloom. Abundant.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
…do not let my grandfather intimidate you. You need not answer to him in any way. He is not to be trusted. I am staying with my brother, Gerard––I did not write you of him yet––he is my half brother, older by several years and raised in Paris by a tutor my grandfather furnished. If you wish to write me, you may do so to this address. The post should be more reliable now. I do hope to hear from you.
The tenor of Marcus’s letters had changed abruptly from polite distance to something more familiar. There was nothing overt, no professed desire for her, no apologies, and yet, that very lack appealed to her. He wrote only of his experiences, and Natasha was able to view him just as a man, to share through his words the details of his life. In return, she did the same.
As May passed and edged into June, there was so much to recount. The Season was riotous, jubilant, and the new Viscountess Templeton was invited almost everywhere, her scandalous past overshadowed by the news of Napoleon’s abdication and by the fact that her husband was now in France at the center of the action.
Abdication. Elba. Routed. Napoleon.
Marcus would be coming home. No anger filled her at the thought, merely a curiosity, an excitement, an idea that something would be different. In his absence, she was finding her place, enjoying London, some hybrid of the Natasha of her youth and the Mrs. Prothe of Little Parrington.
Life flowed, moved without anything to differentiate the days. Her friendship with Jane and her meaningless flirtation with Carslyle offered diversion. And though she knew it would anger Marcus to hear of that flirtation, its simple existence offered her confidence. No matter how limited her world, she had choices.
At a dinner at Lord Langley’s house, Lord Landsdowne pulled her aside, congratulated her on weathering the storm. He no longer terrified her, and the conversations of his intimates as well were ones in which she could hold her own.
The earl was hunched over his cane, shifting slowly from side to side, wavering almost, but the servant who was always by his side did nothing to steady him.
“Thank you, my lord,” she said quietly, knowing something was expected of her. “You have been kind to me.”
“You are family, Lady Templeton,” he chided. “Family is the most important. I have tried to impart this to Marcus, but he has always been stubborn. Set in his ways.”
She laughed, the warm rush of affection she felt for this image of her husband startling her. “He is stubborn. And determined.”
The earl inched closer, his shuffling bringing him almost to her ear, and when he finally spoke in a whisper, she realized that this had been his intent.
“Marchmont’s been keeping strange company, I hear.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Natasha demurred, though she had heard the same thing from Jane about the man widely considered to be one of the greatest scientific minds of their day. These people were strangers for all she went to their dinners, danced in their drawing rooms. If one were to label company strange, Natasha might very well find herself in that category, especially as she’d collected some of what Jane labeled a “fast set.” Especially as she had agreed to sit for Monsieur Aleceur.
“I am worried for my friends. Most of all for Lady Marchmont.”
“Worried, my lord?”
“Yes. Lady Jane calls me a foolish old man for my concerns, but you understand. Next to family are my friends, my dear friends, and I wouldn’t want them mixed up in anything that might endanger them.”
“Surely not. I can understand your concern, but I assure you I know nothing of it.”
“Perhaps if you spent some more time with Lady Marchmont,” he suggested, trailing off, shifting away.
The request was made so casually, so out of concern for his good friend, that it was only after Lord Landsdowne left that she recognized of the oddness of the request. All the little intrigues of his group were the sort she had heard of in her father’s stories of the Russian court, but yet were so different from the blunt brutality of her own family’s history. And Marcus had warned her not to trust Lord Landsdowne.
Sound came back to her in a rush as she looked around the room: the clinking of glass, the high pitch of female conversation and the lower thrum of the men, the discordant notes of the violinist’s instrument receiving its last tuning.
Jane stood with two men whom Natasha vaguely recognized. She had been introduced to them, but at that moment she could not name them.
“My luck.”
At the now familiar voice, Natasha looked to her right and found Carslyle holding two glasses of champagne. He was smiling, but as usual there was no smile in his eyes. She accepted her glass with her own surface smile. This was why she liked the man; to hide his own secrets, he would never wish to know what lay beneath.
“My sister says these are the driest gatherings in London,” Carslyle commented, scanning the room over his glass.
>
“I didn’t realize you had a sister, my lord.”
“Yes. How do you find these soirees?”
“The conversation is quite enlightening. Of course, my opinions seem to be in the minority,” she admitted.
“Ah, well. You aren’t like us. It’s refreshing,” he said, and she felt half offended, half relieved by his words. She didn’t want to be like these people, who talked about issues that affected thousands of people as if those people didn’t matter. As if all that mattered was what Jane called, “the essential preservation of our way of life.” But after all these months of playing along, braving the sideways glances and behind-hands whispers, a part of her wanted to belong.
“I am rather like one of those animals in the menagerie, caged and tittered at,” she said, punctuating her words with a studied sip of her champagne. She thought of the way her mother would lift the glass, the elegant curve of her wrist.
He laughed, and for a moment it frustrated her. It seemed that condescension oozed from these people like sap from trees. They could no more help it than the trees could. So smug, so settled in their knowledge. Marcus, for all his overbearing need to possess her, had never once looked at her as anything other than an equal.
Memories flashed through her mind like lightning: Marcus helping her clear the table, walking into the nursery with that puppy in his arms, standing at her front door with his declaration of love on his lips. She wanted to curl up and savor these images, and then the fondness of her thoughts shocked her.
“But in all seriousness, Lady Templeton,” Carslyle said, dragging her attention back to him. “Whoever would wish to cage you?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It had been ages since Marcus had attended so many balls and routs and celebratory dinners in succession. It seemed his countrymen were eager to flock across the channel, and Paris was awash in festivities.
His diplomatic work was minimal, and he was able to turn much of his attention to his soap manufacturing. He made new contacts and found that there was opportunity to expand his business in Paris. He was inspired, as well, by the richness of fragrances from Parfum Lubin. There was so much more he could do back in England beyond soaps. As he toured Paris, he sent gifts to London for Leona, for his mother, perfume from Parfum Lubin for Natasha. The idea of his wife bearing a hint of that fragrance on her body as they made love became a recurrent fantasy.
He wrote copious letters to his man of business, to his mother, Leona, and Charlotte. He wrote to Natasha, though he knew his letters were more reserved than his desire. But, just as he had to suppress his eagerness to return home, intuition told him to hold back his ardor for her now, to let her have this distance. If he had heeded that instinct back in Little Parrington, if he had not forced her hand and cut short the wooing, then perhaps events might have played out differently. He still remembered that moment when she had been so clearly on the edge of acceptance, of willing submission.
It had been easier to send letters than to receive them. It was only after another week in Paris that the situation seemed to have settled and mail found him regularly. From his mother came the usual description of daily life. An account of Leona, of how Lady Jane Langley had befriended Natasha. There was a letter from Natasha as well, writing of that same friendship, of the social events she had attended, saying that his daughter missed him and that Natasha hoped he was well. He reread her words several times, looking for anything that would reveal her feelings to him. Even more ridiculously, he held the paper close to his face, searching for any scent of his wife, anything that might satisfy the longing within him. But the only scents were of paper, ink, and sea.
He turned to the letter from Charlotte, who, from the thickness of the envelope, appeared to have written of everything, and in great detail. Her neat penmanship, familiar as his own, made him instantly homesick. Her style, as well, was familiar. She wrote of the Season, of the lingering chill, of her introduction to the Queen, all events he had read of before from his mother’s perspective.
I am staying with our cousins in London. Before you wonder at this strange turn of events, I should explain that the unfortunate previous connection between you and the new Lady Templeton has become public.
Guilt struck at him sharply. He should have expected no less, but he hadn’t really been thinking, hadn’t been trying to protect the rest of his family. He had only been following his heart. With a sigh, he breathed past the knot of pain and focused on what he could now control. As he read more, he was grateful and embarrassed that someone else had stepped in where he could not. He didn’t wonder that neither his mother nor Natasha had mentioned this; his mother bore everything with a stiff upper lip, and Natasha––Natasha wouldn’t wish to let him see any weakness.
That thought made his heart ache, even as he took pride in his cousin’s next words.
Your wife, however, seems to have borne her shame admirably and without great inconvenience. Lady Jane Langley accompanies her everywhere and she has the absolute support of your grandfather. Which, as you know, is invaluable.
His grandfather, again.
Cousin, I regret to be the bearer of bad news…
He saw black. He saw red. And his fist throbbed in agony.
“My lord.”
Marcus whirled around, aware only of the rage that consumed him.
“My lord, your hand. It is bleeding. And the wall!”
“What about the wall?” Marcus whirled back around to stare at what had captured Pell’s attention. The wall was cracked, a hole the shape of his fist revealing the wood beneath, the plaster chipped, dust settling on the writing table below. Ah. The wall. Then his fist pulsed, and the pain rushed through his arm.
“I’ll fetch bandages, my lord,” Pell said quickly, as if he too had awoken from a daze.
Damn her! He slammed both his palms down flat on the writing table, as he hung his head, ignoring the fresh jolt of pain. There was so much more pain in his chest.
She was his wife, dammit. His. And he was here, stuck here in Paris. Impotent.
Carslyle. He would kill the man. He knew him, one of the Group of Eight, one of his grandfather’s cronies. The old man, of course, had a hand in this as well, in ruining Marcus’s life any way he could. Fury flooded him again, outrage at everything in the world, at his grandfather. At Carslyle. He would throttle the man. He didn’t need a fair fight, a duel. His bare fists would be enough to break the smug politician’s miserable face. He would kill him.
Violence colored his thoughts and guilt struck him just as hard, a thousand images flooding his head––Natasha fallen on the stones below that London window, hair wet with blood. Blood. Everywhere. Dripping down walls.
“My lord?”
Marcus opened his eyes. Saw Charlotte’s letter beneath him, wet with his blood, imprinted with the shape of his hand.
“Won’t you sit, my lord, and let me attend to your hand?”
Marcus shuddered, lifted his head. Finally he straightened his body, crumpled the letter up in his fist before he realized what he was about. He let go, let it fall to the table. His hand was not as injured as all that. The places where wood had splintered into his hand still welled up with blood, but mostly the hand was bruised.
“It’s barely a scratch, Pell,” he said, even as he sat down in the chair. The valet pulled a chair next to him and then brought the basin of water, towel and bandages.
As his valet worked, washing the hand, pulling tiny fragments of wood from it with tweezers, Marcus looked away. The first flush of anger settled into nausea and then into nauseated despair.
Five years. Five years he had spent dreaming of her, vowing to find her, to apologize, beg her forgiveness. Five years he had held Natasha sacred in his heart––loved a woman who didn’t even honor their vows of marriage. He’d wasted his life, his inheritance, everything––on nothing.
“My lord, please, stop moving,” Pell chided, prying open the hand Marcus had fisted. “This is more than a scratch.
We’ll have to fetch a surgeon.”
“I saw the parlor,” Gerard said. “Do you care to explain why you are destroying my rooms? Or your hand?” He walked closer to Marcus, picked up his arm. Marcus twisted it away.
“Broken it, have you?”
“I’ll pay for your wall,” Marcus said, looking back to the book in his hand. The same page he had stared at for the greater part of an hour.
He watched his brother out of the corners of his eyes. Gerard stood for a long moment and then finally moved to a chair, took a seat. Slouched in that Gallic way of his.
Almost two months Marcus had lived here, in these rooms that belonged to his half brother, while that man had come and gone, never saying where, never saying why. And yet, despite all the secrets, they had…grown close.
Marcus realized with a sudden release how much he had missed this, or had never had it. The camaraderie of a brotherhood either created or by blood. Strange, dangerous as this brother was, he was not dangerous to Marcus.
But then he had trusted his judgment before, and here he was, a husband not half a year and already a cuckold.
Marcus slid his legs over the side of the bed and pushed off with his uninjured hand.
“I need a drink.”
“Come then,” Gerard said, returning to his feet with alacrity.
The café around the corner and down the street was noisy and smoke filled. Marcus had walked by it dozens of times and not looked at it twice. Its clientele were French from all walks of life. Here there was no sign of the Russians or the British, the Austrians, the Prussians, or any number of other nationalities that made up the current Parisian atmosphere. There were no vacant tables and they stood by the bar, waiting for the barkeep to make his way down.
The men nearest him, in their plain brown coats and close-cropped hair spoke in their quick Parisian dialect, and Marcus caught only one word in five.
The barkeep slapped a brandy down in front of them both, and he realized Gerard had ordered. So used to the years of blockade was Marcus that the ability to walk into any café or inn and order brandy freely still amazed him. He drank it down and then another, and a third, still in silence. He was just beginning on his fourth, slowly, the alcohol finally creeping warmly through his body, numbing his hand, numbing his soul.
Lord of Regrets Page 21