Stormfire (2 page)

Far less appealing was el conde Ramon Diego de Valera of Seville, whose black eyes gleamed with an insinuating intimacy that sat ill on a cold, hollow-cheeked face. He had pursued her like a vulture and had intimated her father favored his suit. She made it clear she found him revolting, yet she was on edge. The Treaty of Ildefonso the previous year had settled Spain's differences with France and united the rival sea powers into a formidable juggernaut. Could it be that her father was negotiating with Valera for a way to maintain England's naval superiority? Was she somehow the price for his services?

When she put the matter to her father, he flatly dismissed it. "I've no intention of marrying you to the count. You have possibilities, Catherine, we've yet to develop." As it turned out, the Spanish count had his own nasty ideas for her development.

Fortunately, her frequent company with Amauri held Valera sullenly at bay for a time, and her interest in the Frenchman gradually became more than merely polite as his charm drew her out. With chestnut hair and cinnamon eyes, he radiated a sunny vitality that engaged everyone, but his jaw and mouth had an unmistakable resolution that belied his guileless eyes. He had maneuvered her into
her first kiss, experienced on his part and intriguing on hers. How to prevent him from completing her seduction had become more of a contest than she had expected.

Just then, she decided how to handle Alice. Completely unabashed, Catherine swung slim legs out of bed and walked over to the dresser. Idly, she picked up a diamond- initialed hairbrush and began to give her hair long strokes. "Do you really mean to say, Alice, you slept through everything? Remarkable. Of course, Napoleon's army cannonading your bed couldn't awaken you, so how could a small skirmish between France and Spain over tiny England have any effect?"

Totally confused now, the maid frowned, then suddenly waggled the rapier at the dark smears on the coverlet. "Blood! Ye've gone and done it! Yer mother and grandmother would be ashamed o' ye!"

"Why? Neither of them was totally faithful to one man. As you've often told me, most of the trinkets I've been wearing were gifts to Grandmaman, and she did more than dimple for them." When her hair bloomed outward like a dark flower, Catherine dropped the brush on the dresser. I look pale and tired, she thought as she stared at the mirror. I have circles under my eyes, a headache, and the disposition of an adder. Yet that swashbuckling Frenchman insists I have the power to drive men mad. In spite of' herself, she began to smirk into the mirror.

At that, Alice went into a fury. "Don't ye dare stand there lookin' like a cat in a creampot! How do ye know that belly won't blow up come spring?"

"Where's my peignoir, Alice? I want a bath. Mignon has seen to the hot water, I hope."

Snatching up a peignoir and slippers, Alice scurried furiously behind her mistress as Catherine headed for the bath. "Think ye're so smart after havin' done it once, nobody can tell ye anythin'. Let me tell you, there's no guarantee ye ain't pregnant, missy!"

"Oh, yes there is," Catherine said as 3he tested the waiting bath water with her toe. "And I said France
and
Spain, Alice. I believe I mentioned last evening that two gentlemen were seriously inclined to bed me, did I not?"

Alice's jaw dropped. "Ye greedy little hussy! I ought to
take this slipper to yer backside . . ." She advanced with a glint in her eye.

Her prey slipped down into the gilt mosaicked bath and flicked a bubble at her. "Calm down, Alice. You'll have an apoplexy. As you're so fond of saying, 'There's no point bolting the barn door after the horse has run away.' Don't you think you should have given me solid advice last night instead of chortling over my sorry plight? While it is true that two
uninvited
men were in my bedroom and they both had my virtue against the wall, it's also true the blood on the bed isn't mine. I was pawed, not raped."

Alice sagged onto a stool. "Why, for heaven's sake, didn't ye call me?"

"The Spaniard threatened to murder you."

"Ah, ye poor lamb! That serious, was he?"

"That serious," Catherine replied dryly. "The Frenchman rescued me just in the nick of time." So close a nick, she thought privately, he must have been ready to bounce into my bedroom himself.

"For heaven's sake," said Alice again, "I thought they was just moonin' about."

"So did Father. He thinks I should be calm about such things."

"Well, what do ye mean to do?"

"Take his advice, naturally. Don't I always?"

A week later, John, the butler, handed Catherine into the coach schoolbound for Bath, then secured the few pieces of luggage. She had decided not to take the new wardrobe back to the academy, and Alice, chastened, had not insisted. Dressed in a high-ruffed white silk blouse, forest green velvet jumper with frogged jacket, silver gray bonnet, and loden cloak, Catherine was the picture of a well-bred student.

She waved to Alice and the tiny cluster of servants who gathered to see her off, then tucked her hands back into a silver fox muff as the carriage rolled away. Quickly, the graceful Palladian mansion receded into the trees of its surrounding parkland. Leaving the side curtains open, Catherine defied the chill to view the scenery, which was among the most beautiful in England. The lakes were icebound, their shorelines blending into rolling forests whose weblike networks of branches cut sere, abstract friezes against the gray sky. Though the lake country was shrouded in lonely silence, she loved its still seclusion.

Today she saw none of it, her mind preoccupied with the dismal prospect of returning to Bath. I owe it to Father, she reflected with dejection. He has never asked anything of me but this one obedience about school. Besides, revolt promised nothing but added monotony. Foolish as the school was, it was preferable to a convent or, worse yet, marriage; one more year and that grim prospect must be faced. Many girls of the senior form had already announced betrothals.

Catherine's mother's marriage had been arranged. The daughter of one of the richest men in France, Elise Enderly, as comtesse de Vigny, had brought to her marriage a considerable dowry, assurance of a great fortune upon the old comte's death, and rights of succession in the event of the deaths of two brothers. Unfortunately, ^when Catherine was six the upheaval of the Frelich Revolution had swallowed the entire family and its estates. Her dowry already spent on renovations to Windemere, Elise was reduced to the position of a bad bargain.

All in all, Catherine had not suffered from the marriage. Elise was a vivacious woman, more like a sister than a mother, and if John Enderly was dismayed at being saddled with a penniless wife, he never showed it. An indulgent father, he encouraged Catherine's quick mind and, in turn, she idolized him. Although he was not physically demonstrative, she often thought he yearned to be a more sympathetic parent than his nature allowed. After her mother's sudden death, she was dismayed to be banished to school when they needed each other most.

Her first months at the academy had been plagued by nightmares. She became slovenly, a habit she still had to fight. She felt abandoned, unloved, and guilty of some obscure, terrible crime. At last, the sheer boredom of the school had calmed her, and outwardly she had adapted. She gave up begging to stay home because it so upset Enderly that he lashed out in tight-lipped anger. He reminded her of the months after her mother's accident, when she had been disoriented with hysteria, and had had to be restrained and confined. She would
not
return to Windemere with its upsetting memories. His rejection at such a sensitive time had stunned Catherine into submission.

As far as marriage for love went, she had no illusion that her father would grant her an indulgence he refused himself, and even less illusion about single women without family protection and financial support. She had not a penny of her own.

Love. Alice had said once that Elise Enderly had loved and been loved as few women ever were. There had been another, somewhere, sometime, whose memory had brought her mother sadness and delight. Elise had never spoken of him but his existence had shadowed John Enderly and instigated occasional bitter quarrels. Catherine knew it was useless to question Alice. The two had long ago decided to let Elise's secret die with her.

"It's all right, Alice," Catherine remembered answering softly. "I won't be like Maman. She lived and died loving the wrong man. I shall take care to avoid that."

Yet when Raoul had left Windemere, she had missed him badly. She had spent the rest of the uneventful balance of her visit arguing with herself that infatuation was not love.

Catherine caught up the cloak collar against her windward cheek and sighed ironically. Why even think about it? An immediate, efficient marriage loomed ahead like a well-oiled guillotine.

As the late-afternoon sun slipped toward the horizon, trees stretched fragmented shadows across the snow. Reluctantly, she closed the side curtains against the increasingly bitter chill, thinking Carson, the new driver, must be cold. She burrowed farther into the corner to brace against the sway of the coach and drifted into sleep.

Sometime later, Catherine awoke, vaguely aware something had disturbed her. Surely she could not have slept all the way to the inn. She blinked sleepily in the darkness of the coach and shifted position slightly, feeling cramped but not really uncomfortable. The coach's pace seemed faster and the wheels passed over ruts and rocks with jarring jolts. Perhaps that was it. A second later she was wide awake.
Too many horses.
The steady drum of the coach's team had been matched by other hoofbeats, which moved at the same relentless pace. Had her father summoned an escort because of some threat, perhaps from Valera?

With a fingertip, she drew baek the side curtain. A horseman flanked the carriage. Her throat tightened as stealthy investigation revealed two riders on the opposite side. Even by the wavering light of the coach lamps, their faces could be seen clearly enough. These were not her father's men! Were they the Spaniard's hirelings? Carson had made no protest when they joined the coach, so he either knew them or had been coerced to continue driving without interruption.

Catherine felt in her pocket for the small knife she had decided to carry to discourage future Valeras and made up her mind. Bracing against the lurch of the coach, she cautiously stood and tried the latch of the roof hatch. The door's sudden heaviness warned that luggage was strapped across it. Bracing the weight against a shoulder, Catherine lowered the door as far as possible, then strained a hand through the opening and sawed clumsily at the luggage lashings. She was almost hurtled off-balance by the carriage's pitch, but finally the strap parted.

With the door still on her shoulder, she lowered it by fractions while she supported the descending luggage with the other hand. She lowered the small trunk to the floor and straightened. As she rubbed her back with oae hand and clung to the strap with the other, she reflected that if her prospective bridegrooms were too grotesque, she might become a professional contortionist. She discarded her bonnet, then stood on the cushioned seat and cautiously raised her head through the opening. A rampart of luggage surrounded the hatch. Quickly, a valise followed the trunk into the coach, which left just enough room for her body atop the roof.

Catherine wedged elbows on either side of the hatch and pushed off the seat below. For one horrible moment she hung in space, legs scissoring, then heaved upward. Staying low, with a grimace at the pressure on her midriff, she wriggled upward until her hip rested across the hatch rim. Clutching the remaining luggage straps with both hands, she panted, thankful for the darkness and muffling carriage racket.

Once Catherine had adjusted to the cramped space and closed the hatch, a new problem presented itself: the cold was penetrating, and even though the luggage broke the wind's whistling blast, she would soon become too numbed to escape. Between chattering teeth, she silently cursed her thin gloves and stockings.

She shivered violently, wondering when the coach would reach its mysterious destination. The blowing snow could not obliterate the sea tang in the air, so they were not headed in the direction of Bath; more likely, this was the Liverpool road. Thanks to encircling drafts and the snow gathering in her cloak folds, her nose began to run. With a spark of malicious glee, she wiped it with one next-to-useless glove and pictured Valera's face when he was delivered a red-nosed, blue-faced lump. Oh, that his ardor might become as frozen as her feet!