Baron: The Deception Part 1

The Deception.

Catherine Coulter.

To Catherine Lyons-Labate.

She loves chocolate and gardenias.

She loves to laugh, she's unconditionally cheerful.

Best of all-she laughs at my jokes.

Chapter 1.

London.

December 2, 1814.

He was hot and impatient, wanting nothing more than to bury himself in her and forget for a while at least that there were monsters out there that could bring a man to despair. He was heaving with the effort as he managed, finally, to balance himself over her. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice as raw and naked as his soul, "I'm sorry," and he knew in that moment that he simply couldn't be of any use to her at all. He wondered if indeed he was being any use to himself in those moments he exploded deep inside her, losing all sense of self, all sense of who and what he was, or of belonging to anyone or anything. He was scattered and drifting, and he relished the brief oblivion. But after the shattering pleasure receded, he was again incredibly alone. And once again he remembered there was evil out there in the night.

He slowly moved away from her, feeling himself come back into painful focus, seeing the shadows the fire cast on the walls opposite her bed, following them to the deeper shadows that filled the corners of the bedchamber, bathing everything in gray emptiness. No, the emptiness was inside him, and he was the one who yet lived.

He turned to her. She was lying on her back, her legs still spread, one graceful hand lying fisted on her white belly. He lightly closed his hand over hers, lifting it. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I will do better." She wasn't going to tell him it didn't matter to her if he treated her like a vessel of convenience, because it did matter. She'd known him for two years, not a very long time to know a man as complex and proud and ferociously s.e.xual as Richard Clarendon, but enough for a woman who was as arrogant in her own way as he was, and well used to gratification, to say, "You're never a careless or selfish lover. You might as well tell me what's wrong."

He lightly kissed her knuckles, then laid her hand back onto her belly. He smoothed her fingers, splaying them on her white flesh. "You're beautiful," he said, his voice as absent as his mind was from her.

"Yes, I know, but that doesn't matter. You're beautiful as well. Now, what's wrong, Richard?"

He rose slowly, walked to the fire that was no longer raging but soft and glowing, and stretched himself. His large body was bathed in golden light. She admired his mind as well as she admired his body-both were quick and graceful and powerful. "You're tired," she said, breaking into his silence. "Yes, very tired." He was more than that. He was also a fool. He had hoped that being with her would somehow renew him, make him savor life and its living once more, but it hadn't. He felt even more tired than he had an hour before. "Yes," he said. "Very tired. I'm sorry," he said yet again. She rose and walked to him, pressing herself against his side. "It's that girl, isn't it? The one who married Phillip Mercerault? The one who turned you down? Your man's spirit still wants her?"

That made him smile. Things would be much simpler if Sabrina was responsible for the pain that had burrowed so deeply in him that he doubted if it would ever retreat. "Man's spirit? How is a man's spirit different from a woman's spirit?"

"They are very different. Your spirit nurtures your belief in yourself. If a woman rejects you, it's your own worth that is wounded, not your heart. A woman's spirit is a desert to be filled with a man's attention. Hers is easily wounded, for men don't excel in giving full attention, it isn't their way. So both men and women suffer from pain; only their pain is very different from each other's."

"To debate that would be an impossible task. No, this has nothing to do with Sabrina. She and Phillip did as they should. She's pregnant, and Phillip is happier than I've ever seen him."

She nodded, realizing that he was telling her the truth. "Then what is it? Is your mother ill?" "No, she's perfectly fit." "You miss your father?"

"Yes, of course. He was the very best of men. I will miss him until I die myself." He paused, then looked down into that quite lovely face. "You won't cease, will you, Morgana?"

"No." Her hand was on his arm. There was nothing seductive about it, but still his body reacted. She saw the renewed heat in him, the force and energy of him turning to her, and she quickly backed away. "Before you leap upon me again, tell me."

"A woman shouldn't plague a man. Oh, h.e.l.l, it's all about murder, Morgana, the needless murder of someone who shouldn't have gotten himself killed, someone who was very close to me."

"Did you kill the murderer?" She said it so matter-of-factly that he started. The duke rammed his long fingers through his black hair, sending it to stand on end. "No, I don't know what particular man killed him. I'd like to dispatch that man to h.e.l.l where he belongs, but it's what's behind him that drives me to fury and despair. I begin to wonder if any of us are safe anymore." He turned back to the fire, his head down, and she knew he wouldn't say anything more. He was in pain. She would help him. He paid her to be at his beck and call, but this was one time when she would have quite willingly taken him into her arms for absolutely nothing at all.

"I'm sorry," she said, and pressed herself against him. He was hard against her belly. She kissed his shoulder, laid her face against his chest. "Come, let me help you forget, at least for a little while."

He didn't take her back to her bed. He lifted her, driving upward deeply into her. He wondered if he was hurting her, but then he touched her and she made that soft sound deep in her throat, and he knew she was close to her climax. He didn't let her down this time, but when he left her forty-five minutes later, she knew that he still felt as cold as stone.

Chapter 2.

Romilly-sur-Seine, France.

February 10, 1815.

It was late. Evangeline set her brush beside the silver-handled comb on the dressing table, too tired to braid her hair. She heard her maid, Margueritte, laughing softly and humming even as she smoothed the wrinkles from the blue velvet gown that Evangeline had worn that evening.

She stared at herself in the mirror. She was too pale, and there was no laughter in her eyes or on her lips. She was tired, so very tired, and it was deep, all the way to her soul.

She knew a horrible wrenching inside. She knew what it was as well. She wanted to go home, to England. She hated France.

But she couldn't tell her father, it would hurt him deeply. And she loved him more than she loved anyone on the face of this earth. When they'd heard that Napoleon had been defeated and Louis would be returned by the English to the French throne, he'd been so pleased that he'd grabbed her up to dance with her.

They'd returned six months before to Romilly-sur-Seine, not to their ancestral home but rather to a smallish manor house that lay but two miles from the chateau. A wealthy merchant lived in their home now, with his fat wife and six offspring.

Her father hadn't cared. He was pleased to be home, to speak his own language again, to laugh at the things a Frenchman was supposed to laugh at. He'd never really understood the English humor. She imagined that he'd simply never wanted to take all that was English into himself, and so he hadn't. He spoke English beautifully, but his thoughts were always in French. She wondered what her mother, a very English lady, had thought about that, for surely she knew that her husband would never move his thoughts and dreams toward her.

He'd lived for twenty-five years in Kent, married to the daughter of a local baron, who'd lived with them since he'd lost all his own money gambling. She'd liked her English grandfather. She doubted now that as an adult she would care for him at all, but a child had no such qualifying notions. He'd died before she'd gained an adult's mind, and thus he would be forever a romantic figure in her thoughts.

She was the mirror image of her father. She spoke French beautifully, like a native actually, but she simply wasn't French. How to tell her father that she was miserable, that she would die before she married a Frenchman like the Comte de Pouilly, Henri Moreau, a rich, handsome young n.o.bleman who left her cold and rigid, no smile in her mind, much less on her mouth?

The evening had been long and trying, largely because Henri, for no good reason she could think of, had determined with appalling certainty that Evangeline would make him the ideal wife. The good Lord knew she had discouraged him, but his hide was thicker than the bark of an oak tree. He wanted her. Every chance he got, he tried to trap her against a wall or against a tree, or push her into the bushes to try to kiss her. He'd managed it once. She'd bitten his tongue.

There was a light knock on her bedchamber door. She smiled automatically, rising, for she knew it was her father. He always came to her every night before she went to bed. It was one of her favorite times.

She called out in French, because she knew that's what he wanted to hear from her, "Entrez."

Her father, Guillaume de Beauchamps, the most handsome man she'd ever seen in her life, strode through the bedroom door like a warrior he really wasn't. What he was, she thought, still smiling as he came toward her, his hands outstretched, was a philosopher. Women flocked to him. Even when he spoke to them of the metaphysical underpinnings of Descartes, they usually just smiled at him and moved closer.

"Papa," she said, and walked into his arms. Nature had given him the face and the body of a warrior. He was magnificent. Few people knew that his heart didn't beat properly, that she worried about him constantly now, for he was fifty-five on his last birthday, and the English doctor had told her that there was nothing to be done, that he must rest and remain calm. He had said it was a good thing her father was a philosopher; that would keep him seated and thinking. The only problem was that her father became dreadfully excited when he read Montaigne.

"Tu est fatigue, ma fille?"

"Oui, Papa, un peu." And she thought to herself, yes, she was tired, but she more than just a little tired. All of her was tired, and dispirited.

She turned to her maid. "Margueritte, c'est a.s.sez. Laissez-nous maintenant." And again, as she always did when she spoke French, she thought in English. "Leave us now, that's enough."

Margueritte's plump fingers batted a final wrinkle before she gave Monsieur de Beauchamps a l.u.s.tful look, hummed her good nights, and closed the door after her.

They grinned at each other, listening to Margueritte's humming as she walked down the narrow corridor to the third floor.

"Ah, Papa, a.s.sieds-toi." She eyed him closely as he sat on the other chair in her bedchamber. She took a deep breath and said in English, "You had so many of the ladies after you this evening."

He sighed, seeming not to notice her s.h.i.+ft, and replied in French, "Even if they are with their husbands, they feel compelled to flirt with me. It's very distressing. I simply don't understand, Evangeline. I do nothing untoward to bring them to me."

She laughed, unable not to. "Oh, bother, Papa. I have never seen you distressed in my life. You adore the attention. And you know very well that all you have to do to bring the ladies to your side is to simply look straight ahead with no expression at all on your face. You could probably be drooling, and they would still come to you.

"Now, tell me. Did you speak only about your philosophers when the dozen ladies told you how very handsome you are?"

He said with great severity, "Naturally. I spoke tonight of Rousseau. A dunderhead, but his ideas give one some pause, in a manner of speaking. Not much, really, but he is French. Thus one must pay him some attention, occasionally."

She couldn't stop laughing. Her father merely looked at her, his handsome head slightly tilted to the side, a mannerism they shared. When she finally wiped her eyes, she said, "You are the best papa in the whole world. I love you. Please don't ever change."

"Your mother, bless her sweet heart, was the only one who tried to change me."

Evangeline, still chuckling, said, "My mother simply tried to pry something out of her husband other than ramblings of a metaphysical nature. Now, I am given to understand that it is a wife's duty to gather her husband's attention to herself and not let him ramble off too often seeking answers to unanswerable questions."

"You mock me, my girl, but since you are so very dear to me, I will forgive you." He sat back in the chair, set his hands on his knees, and continued after a moment. "You did not enjoy yourself this evening, ma fille. You were surrounded by all the young people, all the young gentlemen admired you greatly, and you danced every dance. I only managed to snag one with you. And my dear Henri was gratifyingly attentive."

"There is nothing gratifying about Henri. He is more persistent than a hungry gull, and more stubborn than our goat, Dorcas, in Kent, and his hands are sometimes damp. If he would just realize that there are other things in this vast world besides his horses, trying to feel my bottom, the income from his rents, and the prospect of adding me to his possessions, perhaps I could remain in his company for more than five minutes without wanting to smack him."

"You said a lot there, Evangeline, but naturally all I heard is that he is trying to seduce you. Your bottom? Oh, dear, I suppose I will have to speak to the boy."

"He is no boy. He is twenty-six." "Oui, but that is very young for a man. It has always been evident that boys take longer to ripen than girls. It is unfortunate, but it is evidently G.o.d's plan. Henri is perhaps a bit foolish, but he will mature as he gains years. Henri is high in his family's favor. He now manages the family estate whilst his uncle spends all his time with King Louis in Paris. This will mature Henri, that is what his uncle told me.

"And, my dear child, you are nearly twenty years old. It's long past time for you to take a husband. You have been ripe enough for two years now. Yes, a husband is just what you need. I've been too selfish." "No, I've been the selfish one. Why would I wish to marry, Papa, when I have you?"

"You have never been in love," he said, a magnificent frown furrowing his brow and making his beautiful gray eyes glitter with humor. "You would never think to say such a stupid thing if you had."

She was dead serious now, leaning toward him, her hair falling over her shoulder. "I cannot see that marriage is such a wonderful thing. All the ladies who swoon over you, what of their husbands? What of love with them? It seems to me that marriage is simply a way for a lady to go from her father's house to her husband's house; the only difference is that with her husband she's expected-indeed, it's demanded of her that she produce children and obey her husband's every whim. I don't think so, Papa."

Monsieur de Beauchamps just shook his head. She was stubborn, his daughter, just like her dear mother, Claudia, who'd dug in her English heels more times than he could begin to remember. That brought a thought. Could it be that Evangeline was even more stubborn than her lovely mother had been? Could it be that she was as stubborn as her great-aunt Marthe? He must take a firm hand; he didn't like it, but it was his duty. He had to sound unutterably serious. "My child, you must be set onto the proper road in your thinking. Love isn't necessary for a successful marriage."

"You weren't in love with Mama?"

"Oh, yes, but as I said, it isn't necessary. A similarity of thought, of values, of philosophies, that is what is necessary. A certain respect for each other. Nothing more."

"I never heard Mama agree with you on anything, yet I heard the two of you laughing many times when you were alone in your bedchamber. I used to listen with my ear pressed against the door when I was young. Bessie, one of the maids, caught me, and told me never, ever to do that again. And then she blushed fiery red." Evangeline laughed at her father's own rise in color. "It's all right, Papa. As you said, I'm nearly twenty years old, old enough to know a bit about what happens between a husband and wife. But as I said, as far as I know, neither of you ever agreed on anything, even down to what you had for dinner. Mama hated sauces, and you hated to see a piece of meat naked.

"Mutual respect? I don't want a marriage like that, Papa. Besides, Henri is so very un-Eng-" She stopped cold.

"Ah," said her father.

She gave him a smile that was on the sheepish side. She fanned her hands in front of her. "The truth is, many times words fail me when I speak of Henri."

"Perhaps you would wish to say that poor Henri is so very un-English?" Monsieur de Beauchamps regarded his daughter from beautiful deep gray eyes. He felt a surge of concern. He knew with perfect clarity in that moment that his daughter would never find contentment in his country. But she would try to pretend, for him. No, he was wrong. He was tired. She would come around. Hadn't he finally given in and a.s.sumed contentment for England? He'd spent more years there than she had lived.

"Papa, I'm sorry, truly, but I would rather depart this earth a withered spinster than marry Henri Moreau. Then there are Etienne Dedardes and Andre Lafay-they're oily, Papa, yes, that's exactly what they are. Their eyes don't meet yours when they're speaking to you. Oh, I don't know, they're nice, I suppose, but they're just not to my liking. And their politics, surely they shouldn't speak of the king as they do." Then she gave a sublimely Gallic shrug, most unlike, he thought with a fleeting smile, her English mother.

"There has been so much change, Evangeline. Louis has not behaved as he ought since his return to France. As much as I deplore it, I understand that many Frenchmen feel betrayed by his stupidity, his excesses, his lack of understanding of the situation here."

"I don't see that the common folk can lay claim to the high road. They themselves are so cursed petty toward each other. And they have the gall to mock the English, who saved them. I must tell you it makes me quite angry." She shut her mouth, rubbing her palm over her forehead. "I'm sorry, Papa. I'm tired, that's it. My tongue doesn't always obey my brain when I'm tired. I'm a witch. Forgive me."

Monsieur de Beauchamps rose and walked to his daughter. He lifted her out of her chair. He looked into her brown eyes, Claudia's eyes, full and wide and so deep, a philosopher could find the meaning of some truths in them. He patted her shoulder and kissed her lightly, in his ritual manner, on both cheeks.

"You are beautiful, Evangeline. You are more beautiful on the inside than you are on the outside." "I'm a pea hen and you know it. Compared to you, I'm not even a pea."

He merely smiled, lightly rubbing his knuckles over her chin. "You are also too used to the stolid English. They are, I suppose, a comforting race, if one doesn't mind being perpetually fatigued by their heavy meals and boring conversation."

"So what you love about me is merely my French half? Surely, Mama never bored anyone."

"No, she never did. I love even your fingernails, ma fille. As for your dear mother, I'm convinced that her soul was French. She admired me, you know. Ah, but I digress. Perhaps an old man should accept the fact that you are, despite his wishes, more English than French. Do you wish to return to England, Evangeline? I am not a blind man, you know, and I realize that since your return you have not been happy."

She hugged him tightly, her cheek against his, for she was very tall for a woman. "Papa, my place is here with you. I'll grow accustomed. But I won't marry Henri Moreau."

Suddenly there was loud banging on the heavy doors downstairs, and the sounds of boots kicking against wood. There was a scream. It was Margueritte. Then there was Joseph's voice, loud and frightened. Another scream, the sound of someone being struck hard, and a man's loud voice.

"Don't move," Monsieur de Beauchamps said to her. He was at the bedchamber door, flinging it open. She heard the sound of heavy men's boots thudding on the wooden floor of the corridor. It sounded like a small army.

He suddenly backed away, and Evangeline rushed forward to stand beside him. Two heavily cloaked men appeared in the doorway. Both of them held guns.

One of them, his face pitted and dark with beard stubble, stepped forward, his eyes on Evangeline. He said nothing, looked at her, not just her face but her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her belly. She felt such fear she thought she'd vomit.

He said to the other man, "Look at her. It is as we were told. Houchard will be very pleased."

The other man, fat, his face pale and bloated, stared at her. Guillaume de Beauchamps yelled as he managed to wrest away his gun and rammed it into his big belly. "You won't touch her, you puking little pig." A gun slammed down on his head. Evangeline rushed to her father, trying to catch him as he fell unconscious to the floor. She ended up half on top of him. The man with the pitted face raised the gun again. She covered her father's head with her body.

The other man was clutching his fat belly. He gasped with the pain. "No, don't hit him again. He won't be any use to us dead." "The b.a.s.t.a.r.d hurt you." "I'll live."

"The old man will pay." He turned to Evangeline. Houchard had taught him the value of fear and shock, particularly when it was deep in the night. He looked at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then said, "Take off that nightgown now. Hurry or I'll do it for you."

Chapter 3.