Luck of the Wolf (15 page)

“As the bride of a traitor and regicide!”

“Why should you care what happened in a distant country twenty years ago?”

Babette leaned over the table, hands pressed flat to the polished wood. “It is not a distant country that concerns me. I tell you, Yuri…nothing is worth betraying her like this. Or betraying your dearest friend.”

“I cannot afford such friendship now,” Yuri muttered.

“Are you certain you can afford mine?”

His brown eyes, so full of the feeling he refused to
express, gazed mournfully into hers. He was little better than a villain himself, but always, always, she became weak and foolish in his presence. Even though he was weak and foolish himself in so many ways.

Babette could feel herself beginning to lose control. That would never do. She could still hardly believe what Yuri had told her after he had taken her out of the warehouse. It was a fairy tale of epic proportions. An infant girl born into royalty in a distant land, the child of murdered parents, swept away from those who might exploit her and brought to the thriving new nation called America to be raised by the distantly related Reniers, very few of whom knew her true background or name. The most absurd thing Babette had ever heard.

Or it might have been, had she herself not risen from a naive, ill-educated peasant girl to become the most celebrated whore in New Orleans. And regardless of her rank, Anna—Lucienne, Alese, or whatever name they called her—needed her now. A clear head was the only thing that would give Babette the slightest chance.

“There must be another way,” she said. “You said yourself that the duke was exiled from his own country and has no current allies in Carantia. He will have to depose yet another king in order to claim the throne.”

“You seem to forget, my dear, that the king in question is a weakling who lacks the support of the Carantian people.”

“And di Reinardus will have such support? That I very much doubt. You said that the
loup-garou
nobility in Carantia, including the duke, prefer to oppress the human majority, which will hardly endear him to his subjects. And ambition blinds him. He will make
a mistake.” Babette bent closer to Yuri. “We must tell Cort everything.”

“Out of the question.”

His expression was unyielding. He had made up his mind. Perhaps if he had not been so bent on protecting
her…

“You convinced di Reinardus that Anna needs further refining before she becomes his bride. That is the only reason he let us go. Perhaps if I were to leave now, you might not find it so simple a matter to achieve what he demands.”

“That will not protect you, my dear.” Yuri closed his eyes and waved his hand. “Go. Go if you wish. I will not stop you.”

Because he knew he wouldn't have to. For all her bold words, she didn't doubt just how dangerous di Reinardus could be. She'd met his kind before. Even if she thought she could elude the duke's henchmen, she could never leave Yuri to face the man's wrath alone. Or abandon Anna to an equally unhappy fate.

Babette drifted away from the table, scarcely knowing where she walked. Anna had already lost so much, taken from the only family she had ever known and whisked away to a usurper's stronghold.

Naturally di Reinardus didn't think of himself as a usurper. He saw himself as the one who would set things right in the tiny sequestered nation of Carantia, where
loups-garous
ruled and humans—until the reign of Anna's more enlightened parents—had been less than second-class citizens, as they were again under the current king.

Di Reinardus
had
been exiled, to be sure. And now his foppish, ineffectual cousin ruled instead.

But Alese would change all that. He would keep her with him, isolated and friendless, and force her into marriage as soon as she came of age.

He might have done it years ago, if she had not escaped. Escaped to become Anna, strangely bereft of all the graces she would have learned among the Reniers. It was as if she were a different girl entirely.

A different girl
.

Babette paused to touch the hard, dry nose of one of the poor dead creatures hung on the wall in the large drawing room. When Yuri had first identified Anna as Lucienne Renier—Alese di Reinardus—he had been unable to explain how she had fallen so far from the young lady she must have been. The girl had become a blank slate, her previous existence wiped clean, or so Yuri believed.

So
di Reinardus
believed.

With a little shake of her head, Babette wandered to the window. The night was very dark here. Her thoughts were no less so. Yuri was blind in so many ways. Had he ever for a moment considered the possibility that Anna had not merely lost her memory, but that she was not Alese di Reinardus at all?

“Babette,” Yuri called, his voice impatient.

“Un moment,”
she murmured. So many bewildering possibilities. Anna could read Russian and speak French. According to Yuri, she readily Changed into a wolf, though the Reniers preferred to ignore their animal side. A well-bred lady's most thoughtless gestures were alien to her, and she despised the clothes a woman of culture wore with artless grace.

Such skills and preferences were not simply forgotten. They were trained into a child until they became a
matter of instinct. Amnesia could not drive them into hiding.

But if Anna were not Alese, who could she be? Could two such identical girls exist?

They might. If they were twins.

T
HAT THOUGHT BROUGHT
all others to a stop. It was a ludicrous notion. Babette knew far too little of Carantia and its royal history. Surely di Reinardus would know if there had been a second princess…a princess who had a wildly different background than Alese di Reinardus.

And Babette knew she had absolutely nothing to back her peculiar theory except the intuition of a woman who, even in her most cynical moments, had always recognized the possibility of miracles.

She glanced back at Yuri, who was pouring himself a glass of the vodka he'd found in the sideboard. He would only scoff if she shared her suspicions. For now, she must concentrate on what she could be sure of.

And she still intended to save Yuri from his own worst impulses. As she intended to save Anna, whoever she might be.

“I'm coming,” she said, giving the words a subtle flavor of resignation. She joined Yuri at the table. “Let us go up to bed.”

He downed the rest of his drink. “Are you sure you want me in yours?”

She laid her hand on his shoulder. “We have been friends too long,
mon ami
.”

Yuri gave her a weary look. “Yes,” he said. “A long time.”

They went up the stairs together. And after they had
comforted themselves with each other, Babette went downstairs again and made herself a pot of tea.

“You can't sleep, either?”

Anna's voice was barely a whisper, but Babette could hear the strain in it. When she turned, she was not surprised to see a young face drawn with exhaustion, shadowed eyes and tangled hair that had not seen a good brushing in several days. Even those minor flaws could not dim such remarkable beauty, but Babette well knew that beauty wasn't enough.

Spirit was everything. And Anna's had been badly affected by something that had happened during the days when she and Cort had been traveling alone together.

Just as Cort's had been in ways he had been desperate not to show.

“Perhaps you would like some tea?” Babette asked, indicating a chair at the small kitchen table.

The girl sighed and nodded, allowing Babette to pour.

“Are you quite well,
ma petite?
” Babette asked after a long silence.

“I'm never sick,” Anna murmured.

“But something is wrong,
n'est-ce pas?
”

Anna lifted the cup to her lips, set it down again and pushed it away. “I—” Suddenly she looked at Babette with that direct, guileless stare. “Do you like mating with Yuri?”

Babette nearly dropped her own cup. Tea sloshed over the rim.
“Excusez-moi?”

“I know what you do at night.” She hesitated, but there wasn't a trace of a blush on her fair skin. “I heard him call out your name.”

Calmly Babette rose, found a towel and mopped up the spilled tea. “It is not polite to listen, Anna. At
the very least you must never suggest that you have heard.”

“I didn't think you would mind,” Anna said. “You said we would be good friends.”

Ah. That was the rub, balancing the lessons and Anna's need for firm discipline against her hunger for a confidante. If Cort had once served that purpose, he could do so no longer.

Especially since it was apparent now that Babette's intuition had not entirely deserted her.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “And I meant what I said. But even between friends, some subjects…”

“Are you ashamed of it?”

Babette could hardly keep her countenance. “Do you think I should be?”

“No.” Anna fidgeted in her chair, the unhappiness in her face even more bleak than before. “Why won't people talk about it, Babette? What is so bad about two people touching each other that way?”

This girl was not a complete naïf. Inexperienced, yes. Bewildered, to be sure. But in some ways she was as wise as any woman Babette had ever known. Wise in ways society was never likely to appreciate.

Wise…and perhaps more experienced than she seemed, in spite of the bizarre gaps in her education.

“Lying with a man is nothing to be ashamed of,” Babette said gently. “But it must be done only in the right circumstances.
Par exemple,
for an unmarried girl to do so would be considered scandalous in most circles—including the one you will soon be rejoining.”

“But why? What is so special about marriage? Why should that make any difference?”

Babette was amazed anew that even such basic matters were unknown to Anna. She could only have
been living in some dim recess far from civilization. A mountain cave in China, perhaps, with monks who never spoke a word.

“It is complicated,
ma chérie,
” she said, deciding to begin as if Anna had indeed been living in a cave all her life. “Marriage is one of the institutions that binds society together. I had intended to speak of the rules of courtship as we progress. Is there a reason you must have the answer now?”

Anna ran her finger through a drop of tea Babette had missed. “I just want to understand.”

“Surely your parents were married. You have no memory of them at all?”

“No. And Fra—I don't remember anyone else ever telling me about it.” She dropped her chin into her hand with a dejected look. “
Why
do people get married?”

“There are many reasons, Anna. It is the relationship most women and men seek when they become adults. It is a way for people to live together when they feel affection for one another.”

“You're not married to Yuri, are you?”

Babette hesitated. There was no point in concealing the truth. “No,” she said. “I am not.”

“But that doesn't stop you from feeling affection for him or sleeping in the same bed with him.”

This was turning out to be so much more difficult than even Babette had imagined. “One must carefully weigh one's obligations to family, station and society before making the decision to form such a relationship outside the bonds of matrimony,” she said. “In the case of a young lady like yourself, such activities would be unwise for many reasons, not least among them the disapproval of one's family.”

“But
why
should they disapprove?”

“The prohibition goes as far back as the custom of marriage itself,” Babette said. “As a rule, few men enjoy the prospect of wondering whether or not a child is theirs or another man's. And the strictures against motherhood among unwed…” A sudden, alarming thought occurred to Babette. “Do you know how babies are born, Anna?”

Anna rolled her eyes. “Of course. The same way fawns and kittens are born. The male and the female mate, and in a few months the mother gives birth.”

And, in truth, that was more than many a young girl knew. “Yes,” Babette said, “but babies are quite different from fawns and kittens in one important way. No one thinks anything of a dog whelping a litter. But a young woman who has a baby without a husband is not regarded kindly. Her reputation is ruined.”

“Don't people want babies?”

“Of course most women want children, as do most men. That is another important reason for marriage. We are not speaking of wanting, but of what society expects.”

Anna pulled her cup toward her and sniffed the tea with a kind of indifference that didn't deceive Babette in the slightest. “Does a baby happen every time people mate?”

Alarm overwhelmed Babette's self-control. “No, but the risk cannot be ignored. An unmarried mother is considered a very bad woman, and her situation is very difficult. She is unlikely to have any means to support herself or her child, and supporting a child is very difficult without money.”

“But people work to get money, don't they? Why couldn't she work?”

“Few would hire such a woman, even if she could find suitable employment.”

“And no one will help her?”

“No man, not even the father, will feel obligated to assist her in any way. Even her family may choose to disown her.”

“But it's all right for a man to help make a baby and leave the mother by herself?”

How clearly Anna pointed out the hypocrisy of “good society.” “Unfortunately, that is often the case.”

“And even the woman's family would hate her?”

This was definitely no longer a matter of conjecture. Anna was asking for very personal reasons.

“Is something worrying you, Anna?” she asked. “You know you may confide in me. About anything.”

Anna was quiet for a long time. The tea crew cold. Babette was nearly convinced that the conversation was finished and she would never receive an answer when Anna spoke again.

“I don't want my family to be angry with me,” she said. “I want to know what's right and wrong so they'll still want me.”

But it wasn't only that, Babette thought, her heart aching for Anna's wretchedness. It was about Cort, and what must have happened along the trail to the lodge.

If Anna was with child…

“I'm certain they'll want you and love you,” Babette said. “We will make sure of that.”

Anna sighed. “Love,” she said, as if the word were as foreign to her as the concept of marriage. “People get married because they feel…affection for one another.”

“Most people, yes,” Babette said carefully.

“But do men and women who love each other
always
get married?” Anna frowned. “Does Yuri love you?”

Babette rose. “I think that is enough for tonight, Anna. You must sleep if you are to be fresh for our lessons tomorrow. You do want the Reniers to be proud of you, do you not?”

Anna sat up straighter, her chin jutting with stubborn determination. “I
will
be good enough for them,” she said. “I'll be good enough for anyone.”

With her usual strong spirit restored, Anna went back upstairs. Babette was left to sip her cooling tea and think back on everything Anna had said.

Perhaps her first guess had been wrong after all, and Anna had not slept with Cort. The attraction between them had never been in doubt, but until their arrival at the lodge, Babette had been certain that Cort had kept firm control over his desire for Anna. He certainly would have considered the danger of getting her with child, and how that would ruin his and Yuri's plans.

Yet Anna's questions about babies had been alarming. And then there was her defiant statement: “I'll be good enough for anyone.”

Did that, too, have something to do with Cort? Anna clearly loved him…or believed she did. When had she recognized her feelings? Had she declared them to Cort? He had obviously been avoiding her, but had he given her to believe that she was in some way not good enough for him?

Babette set her teacup down with a bang. Had she so badly overestimated Cort's sense of honor?

Honor
. As if any of them possessed the slightest crumb of it. Nevertheless, in spite of her own obvious errors in judgment, Babette was determined to protect Anna from this moment on. No man was going to take advantage of her again—not Cort, not Yuri and certainly not Duke Gunther di Reinardus.

But first she would have to learn exactly what was going on between Cort and Anna. And until Yuri came to his senses, she would have to tread very carefully indeed.

 

“W
E BEGIN WITH
the undergarments.”

Aria stared at the corset with dread. She had seen them before, of course—in the magazines Cort had given her, in drawings and advertisements that claimed “Perfection of Shape, Beauty of Finish, Durability in Wear and Moderation in Price.” She knew nothing about price or durability, but there was nothing beautiful about it, and as for the shape…

“How can anyone fit into that?” she asked.

Babette smiled and turned the corset around. “You see the laces in the back? These adjust to the figure. The hooks in the front allow you to remove it without unlacing, which of course would require a maid.”

Aria rested her hands on her waist. The magazines had made it very clear that ladies were supposed to be very small there, and wide on top and below. But Aria didn't think she was very big around the middle to begin with. Cort had seemed very happy with the way she looked when they…

No. She wouldn't think of that. She had made a mistake in asking all those questions of Babette last night. The answers hadn't helped. They didn't change anything at all.

But she did know a few things she hadn't before. What if she and Cort had made a baby? What if she were to become very big around the middle, so that no corset would ever fit her? Would Cort hate her even more if she did? The Reniers surely would.

It was too late to worry about babies now. “Why
would anyone want to wear something they can't put on themselves?” she asked Babette.

“No respectable young women can be seen without stays. It would be considered a sign of loose morals.”

Everything Babette taught her seemed to be about good and bad behavior, and being “respectable.” It seemed that “respectable” people had to have other people, servants, do things for them that they could easily do for themselves. Aria couldn't imagine why anyone would want to be a servant, or why
she
would want to have one.

“Will I need to have a maid, too?” she asked.

“You need not concern yourself with such considerations until you are with your family again,” Babette said. “For the time being, I shall help you with your toilette.”

Aria slumped on her chair.

Babette shook her head. “You must sit up,
chérie
. Your spine must never touch the back of the seat, no matter the state of your emotions or the weariness of your body.”

Aria sat up again. “That would
make
you sit straight,” she said, pointing at the corset in Babette's hands.

Babette smiled. “Indeed, there are some advantages to modern fashion.”