Stormfire (48 page)

"You are most gallant, General," Catherine replied in clipped French. "I shall be pleased to meet them."

₉
Sean's lips twitched. The regal little devil's company

manners made Napoleon's emissary seem like a lapdog merchant.

"Colonel . . but where is he?" said Fournel, looking about for his executive officer. "He was here a moment ago."

"He's outside admiring the horses,
mon General,"
eagerly volunteered the Polytechnique lieutenant.

"Ah, yes, I might have known." Fournel went on to introduce the convenient Lieutenant Andre Courbier, whose brown eyes grew melting as he offered his compliments. One by one, the officers tried to outdo one another with flattery as they were presented.

Several Ulster landowners and their wives were scattered among the group along With a newspaper publisher. As Catherine greeted them, the landlords were polite, their wives distant, and the newspaperman shrewd, his addresses no less eloquent than those of the Frenchmen, but lightly barbed. He was just beginning a pointed inquiry about Catherine's family and Sean was preparing to interrupt when the front door opened and the missing officer came gaily into the foyer. "Magnificent! But those blacks are
formidable!
French barbs mixed with Irish strains. Mesdames, messieurs, we shall do brilliantly together in this enterprise. There can be no
doubt. . ."
His eyes came to rest on the dark beauty surrounded by his fellow officers.

Catherine stared back. It was Raoul d'Amauri, the young Frenchman who had courted her at Windemere.

Fournel waved him over. "Mademoiselle Flynn, my wandering executive officer, Colonel Raoul d'Amauri."

"Mademoiselle Flynn." Amauri's usually expressive brown eyes were polite, no more.

His commander glanced at him, "I fear my young friend is overwhelmed by your beauty, mademoiselle. Ordinarily, he is most eloquent, even for a Frenchman."

Amauri bowed. "Indeed,
mon General
I assumed my brother officers had already pressed their fortunate advantage in my absence and numbed the young lady's ears with paeans to her charms. Mademoiselle Flynn may find the welcome silence unforgettable."

Sean smelled a rat. For all her calm response, Catherine looked as if she had seen a ghost, and the handsome Amauri resembled neither a neuter nor a pederast. The Frenchman's facile cover-up and easy smile concealed a control Sean had employed himself when in the presence of a man he had cuckolded. Had he been less than certain he had been Catherine's first lover, he would have been cheerfully inclined to dismember the young Frenchman. As it was, he decided to give Amauri a bit of rein.

At that moment, Liam came downstairs. He tersely nodded to this guest and that, having met the officers earlier that morning. Ignoring both his brother and Catherine, he took a glass of wine from Rafferty, tossed it down, took another, and began to converse with an acquaintance from a neighboring estate. Finally everyone was assembled. Pulling on their gloves, twenty riders filed out onto the terrace.

The hunt master, Tim O'Rourke, waited with a pack of sleek Irish hounds, some frolicking about his mount's heels, the older dogs sitting quietly, tongues lolling.

Accustomed to letting Catherine mount by herself, Sean suddenly noticed three Frenchmen vying for that honor. His own Irish officers, though equally eager, wisely kept their distance. Catherine laughingly bestowed upon Cour- bier the honor of assisting her up, and Sean eyed the fellow's hand on her tiny waist with the goodwill of an Apache. On his left, Amauri watched with tolerant amusement. "My friends are like pups, all standing on each other's ears."

"I take it your approach will be less awkward?"

Amauri looked pointedly from Numidian to the big black Sean sat and laughed. "I have been known to poach, monsieur, but not under the gamekeeper's nose."

"Don't jump to conclusions, Colonel. Miss Flynn has a mind of her own, and my brother is more inclined to game- keeping than I."

Amauri glanced at Liam; certainly the young lord wore the look of a jealous man. His efforts to keep his eyes from the English girl were almost pathetic. Still, it would be wise to be careful. Catherine Enderly had the potential of a spark in a powder keg. He cocked his head. "So? Mademoiselle Flynn and your brother have an arrangement?"

Sean shrugged. If the Frenchman knew Catherine, it was best to let him think she was visiting Shelan incognito to have a private dalliance. Amauri would play a close hand if he knew his host was her lover. Only an idiot would make overtures to an ally's woman before going into war beside him—or in front of him.

The Frenchmen surrounded Catherine like a school of fish as the riders rode out across the countryside, but shortly after Tim sounded the horn and the pack set out in full cry, her big black led the pursuit. Amauri maintained the pace until they neared the fringes of a sparse wood. That such a rarity must be Klendenon's Bog, he realized from study of Irish campaign maps, and he remembered a shortcut lay down a rocky ravine. Sean saw him veer off, and guessing why, let Mephisto have his head and drive through the main group of riders until he alone was in sight of Catherine. As he came over the rise, she was turning south to follow the hounds when Amauri cut her off and waved her to follow him. Without hesitation, she disappeared after him into the wooded glen.

In the shelter of the trees, the Frenchman dismounted. He helped Catherine off her horse, then after leading her by the hand to a fallen tree, indicated for her to sit. He stood watching her. "I had to see you alone.
Tu com- prends?"

"Yes."

"What are you doing here, Catherine?" he asked in French. "Your father said you were in Capri, then Monte- bello. Every time I inquired about you, it was somewhere different."

"Is that so strange? You know I was bored by school. And I adore traveling," she drawled with light defiance, almost daring contradiction.

"Does your father know you're here?"

"I suppose so. But then, he's a busy man. Too busy to bother keeping track of my every movement. And I'm a busy woman. I'm enjoying my freedom." The lovely smile was teasing.

"You've changed."

"Have I? In what way?"

"For one thing, you've beeome beautiful." He walked around her. "I anticipated it, only not like this. It's quite incredible."

"I was leading the hunt, Raoul. Have you really brought me out here for belated flattery?" The smile still played about her mouth.

He lifted a quizzical eyebrow. "You don't even bother to blush when a man looks you over. Yes, you are very different, I think. No longer just a cocky little schoolgirl. You're more assured, less . . . virginal."

She looked him in the eye. "We'll soon be missed, Raoul. I suggest you return to the house. A loose shoe, perhaps. I shall have taken a tumble, unfortunately joining the others after they've gloriously mangled the fox."

"Tres facile.
But,
chirie,
you dislike hunting. Why pursue the fox so hotly if you don't wish to claim the trophy?"

She stood up. "I take pleasure in riding an unpredictable course." Her head tilted up at him. "Women delight in perversity. Any good Frenchman knows that."

"Ah, yes. Perversity." He snapped his fingers. "Perhaps that's it. I should have thought Lord Liam Culhane to be a most predictable man. His brother seems to promise more challenge. But possibly you didn't realize that when it began and now continue your affair out
of. . .
perversity."

Catherine's expression did not change. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Your affair with Lord Culhane. That's why you're here incognito, isn't it? His brother hinted as much." He sighed. "You've broken my heart,
chirie.
I should so much have liked to be first."

She tapped his chest with the crop. "With a cocky little schoolgirl?
Ch&ri,
don't speak to me of challenge."

His eyes crinkled teasingly. "Oh, I'll survive the disappointment of missing the. appetizer, so long as I may enjoy the banquet at leisure."

"An invitation to dine is not forthcoming, Raoul. I suggest you satisfy your appetite elsewhere."

He struck his forehead in mock chagrin.
"Quelle d&esse cruelle!"
He looked at her beseechingly. "Don't you like me anymore?"

For the first time, a trace of her old familiar smile flickered about her lips. "Yes, Raoul, I like you. How could I not? You're irresistible, always able to make me laugh."

He looked at her shrewdly. "Even now, when you don't want to?"

She deliberately misunderstood. "But you're wrong, Raoul I'm not angry—although you've spoiled the hunt—just a bit disappointed. There will be so little of this sort of amusement for a long while."

"Why do you say that?"

Her lashes flicked up. "What do you take me for? I know why the
Meridian
is here."

Amauri's brown eyes imperceptibly hardened. "Did Liam Culhane tell you?"

She smiled. "That would make him not only a reassuringly boring lover, but a dangerously unreliable ally. Not the sort to be cozy with, especially in war. No, Liam told me nothing, but it's not difficult to put two and two together. Papa, too, has had arrangements with your government for some time. That must have been why you visited Windemere in the first place. What will he gain from this? A dukedom? That's next on his agenda, I'm sure . . . even better"—the thought stwick her even as she spoke—"a dukedom and the chair of the governor general of Ireland." She laughed lightly at his frown. "Naturally you've promised leadership of the government—to the Culhanes as well. They have a legitimate claim, I believe. What a scramble that will be!" She ran the crop along a log. "I suppose poor Papa will be disappointed. Now that he's disgraced, he cannot be of much use to you. So it's either Culhane or one of Napoleon's numerous relatives on the throne of Tara. Which do you put your money on,
mon cher
Raoul?"