Susan Johnson (54 page)

“I wish you would,” she said softly, torn between fighting for his interest and the humiliation of pleading.

Shutting his eyes briefly against his own powerful feelings, he inhaled softly before his luminous eyes opened and he resumed buttoning his shirt. “I promised the Duchesse de Soissons,” he said levelly “to make an appearance at her ball.” Although until Empress’s drunken caller had interrupted the evening, he had forgotten the commitment.

“Could we talk about this?” Empress asked, sitting up in the shambles of the bedclothes and directing the full intensity of her perplexed, inquiring glance at the silent man swiftly dressing in the center of the room.

“There’s no point in discussing anything,” he replied tersely, tucking his shirt into his trousers, “although I sincerely thank you, Mademoiselle Jordan, for your time.” He could have been talking to a shopkeeper, for all the warmth in his tone. Raking his fingers through his long hair with brisk economy, he reached for his suit coat and, taking out the thin leather wallet large enough for French bills, extracted several and tossed them on the dresser. “Bill me if that’s not sufficient. I’m unfamiliar with the price of mother’s milk, but knowing you, I’m sure it’s costly.” A flicker of tenderness softened his harsh features before he added, “My lawyers will contact you concerning my son, mademoiselle, and I’d suggest you cooperate.” His light eyes went flinty, and his voice took on an astringent quality as he appended softly, “Just a friendly warning—if you try to keep my son from me, I’ll destroy you.…”

Empress went deathly pale at the primitive menace beneath the softly uttered words, instinctively drawing back, as though Trey’s dangerous voice alone could harm her.

Devastated by her flaming passion and its impact on him, Trey wouldn’t look at Empress again as she sat on the bed in beautiful disarray. He wouldn’t because he wanted her still,
could never have enough of her, and his pride—bred through generations of Absarokee chiefs—wouldn’t allow him to want the most popular widow in Paris. But the vice of pride served another purpose as well: It kept his voice steady when he bade her good night.

Neither, however, passed a pleasant night. Tormented, Trey decided to return to America and, after packing, spent the remainder of the night pacing the floor. Empress found sleep impossible, her heart shattered and bleeding. The anger in his voice had been killing … and fraught with coldness.

By morning, numbed and listless, she couldn’t cry anymore, drained of emotion, along with her tears.

Trey inaugurated the sunrise with a brandy.

A
s soon as it was decently possible, Trey had the concierge come up and arrange steamship tickets for New York. Once he had decided to leave, he had hoped to make connections that morning, but the earliest departure was a day away, so he pleasantly thanked the man, swore roundly the moment the door closed on his uniformed back, and poured himself another brandy to lighten his dismal mood. His trip to Paris had been an unfortunate mistake, except for the glorious fact that he knew of his son. And weighed against the bitter distaste when he thought of Empress, Max more than balanced the equation. The other children, too, were important to him, and he would have to see if arrangements could be made for visits, although after last night more than a polite request would probably be required. Fortunately with Empress, the leverage of large sums of money was sure to produce results … and fortunately he had large sums of money. She was at least predictable, he thought caustically … so
very
convenient.

After finishing his brandy he went out to wire his parents,
informing them of his return, and after the usual delays with bureaucratic red tape, it was mid-morning when he walked back through the grilled doors of the Hotel Athenée. The lobby was mildly adrift with those who included a morning constitutional in their regimen and were coming or going in pursuit of this healthy endeavor. Sam Chester stood out flagrantly in his evening clothes, but then so did Trey, as the only red Indian in the conventional assortment of businessmen and leisured gentlefolk. Sam shouted a greeting across the quiet lobby, obviously not entirely sober, and Trey smiled politely at all the curious darting glances, decided Sam was exactly what he needed today to take his mind off Empress, and from all appearances he had some catching up to do in the consumption of alcohol.

After the surprised questions were sufficiently answered in the usual laconic male fashion that disregarded past, future, and all but the immediate, nonemotional present, Trey and Sam retired to the Jockey Club to idle away the day. They talked horses, then inevitably women, in a quiet corner of the club and compared the merits of various cognacs as the day progressed. With the sun shining warmly through the tall windows, the cognac, drunk Trey’s favorite way, with a slice of sugared lemon as prelude, felt even warmer going down … and soothing, tempering the raw, brutal edges of his discontent and disillusionment. Talking with Sam, Trey was reminded of their carefree days at college when pleasure and play were prominent, problems were nonexistent, and nothing more serious than a tutor’s displeasure sullied the genial drift of days. Was it only a few years ago? He felt tired today, like an old man.

“Did you hear about the duel over the Duchesse du Montre?” Sam’s sandy brown hair stood on end with an electric energy commensurate with his vitality. At school he and Trey had always led all the youthful pranks, more reckless than most, their impulsive personalities recognizing a kindred spirit in each other, and Sam’s eyes were alight now with the delicious scandal of a young army officer fighting over a married woman fifteen years his senior.

Smiling benignly at Sam’s irrepressible interest in excitement of any kind, Trey said blandly, “Who hasn’t?”

“I can’t imagine dueling over her. She’s old.” Sam viewed any woman over thirty as ancient.

Looking at him over the rim of his glass, Trey pleasantly dissented. “I saw her at Dunette’s, and I think most would disagree with you. And
you
wouldn’t fight over a woman if you found your wife in flagrante delicto.”

Sam grinned. “True … with all the women in the world, it doesn’t pay to get overly excited about any particular one.”

Before Empress, Trey would have wholeheartedly agreed with his friend’s
dégagé
opinion, but circumstance had forever altered his former nonchalance. He wasn’t currently in the mood, however, to divulge his passion for one of Paris’s newest
horizontales.
“There do seem to be a great number of available women,” Trey said noncommittally.

“Aren’t there always,” Sam agreed with a dismissive shrug. Endowed with healthy good looks, a fine athlete’s body, and his father’s millions, Sam understood female surfeit. “Guiley had to flee to Belgium,” he declared, back to his amusing gossip.

“It won’t be for long,” Trey remarked, pouring himself another drink. “Form’s sake.”

“Her husband bought drinks here afterward, and bored everyone with tales of his young mistress,” Sam said. “You know the young dancer from the Comédie Française?”

Trey nodded. Who didn’t know of the newest star in the chorus?

“Montre doesn’t care about his wife, but who does, I suppose? You’re not married, are you?” he asked in hasty afterthought, since he and Trey hadn’t seen each other in two years.

“No.” Trey’s voice was crisp and clipped.

“Didn’t think so … not exactly the marrying kind, are you,” Sam said with a grin. “But if you ever
did
marry, would you consider fighting a
duel
over your wife?” The European custom seemed an anachronistic curiosity to Sam, particularly with his abstract disregard for female company other than in bed.

Trey thought of the rage he felt when he contemplated Empress’s admirers, and how he wanted to kill every man who touched her. He opened his lips before he spoke and then said very slowly, “I don’t know.”

It was the chill voice that prompted recall of the rumors about Trey through Sam’s increasing cognac fog. “Jesus, I forgot,” he blurted out. There had been a duel once after a long night of drinking in Montmartre when hardly anyone had been sober enough to count off the paces. Except Trey, of course. His hand had been firm and unwavering; only his glittering eyes were uncommonly brilliant. The man had died. And it hadn’t been over a woman, now that he recalled, although a woman was involved.

“I was trying to miss him,” Trey said, his voice moderate, his dark brows drawn together in a faint scowl. “Damn fool didn’t stand still.”

As the day progressed, Sam began insisting that Trey accompany him to LeNotre’s party that evening. “Can’t miss it, Trey. Best damn wine cellar in France.”

In his current frame of mind that suddenly sounded like a sensible reason for attending a party. “Might as well, Sam, it’s my last night in Paris.”

“Have to go, then,” Sam replied succinctly. “Need a drink and a woman on your last night in Paris.”

“Why not,” Trey said softly. It was over with Empress … finally. He could never share her, and she wasn’t the kind of woman to settle for one man. Ironic justice, he thought with bitter wistfulness. How often had he politely discarded a woman, lived his own life without limits. Now he’d met a woman doing the same … no limits for her. He felt suddenly, despite his years, weary, burned to ashes.

Although Empress had been committed to go to the LeNotre party for several weeks, she called Etienne, who had been planning to escort her, and left a message of regret, pleading illness.

Her heartache that morning was as unendurable as ever, fresh, as though Trey had left only minutes before, and she hurt so, she didn’t know whether she was capable of forcing a smile, and exchanging pleasantries. Food made her sick, her throat closed up every time she thought of Trey’s cold eyes, and only Adelaide’s perceptive invitation to take the children for the day saved her from the dread prospect of explaining Trey’s departure to them.

After a morning spent wallowing in self-pity, alternating with rage at Trey’s insulting contempt, Empress decided there was little future in either course and she had already shed enough tears over Trey Braddock-Black in the last months to float the French fleet. It was time to go on with her life. So when Etienne refused to acknowledge the butler’s polite, “Madame is not home today,” he said, “Thank you, Bartlett, you’ve done your duty,” handed him his hat and gloves, walked through the door of Empress’s sitting room a moment later with a boyish grin, and declared, “You can’t be ill, I’m taking you out tonight.” Empress greeted him with genuine affection.

In the course of his visit, he cheered her with his wry humor, distracted her with amusing anecdotes, made her feel cherished as a woman and valued as a friend. And after last night she was vulnerable to his captivating charm; she agreed to have him come fetch her at nine. He had ten dozen of the new Madame Isaac Pereire roses sent over to help buoy her out of her doldrums. Massed in all their lush magenta beauty in the foyer, the world’s most fragrant rose lifted her spirits. As did Etienne’s endearing gallantry.

The teasing tone of his enclosed note blended with a beguiling charm that amused and made no overt claims. In a bold scrawl that moved across the armorial embossed paper with an unconstrained rhythm matching his character, he wrote, in place of sonnets he was hoping to make her dizzy with the attar of roses at which point she might become giddy enough to say yes to him. Even his seduction was genial, nonthreatening, an offer to pleasant pleasure for them both, and upon reading his note, Empress abruptly decided that Etienne would be the most sensible, agreeable, and satisfying way to forget Trey. She had preserved her passion for him long past prudent judgment, and last night had coldly demonstrated the extent of Trey’s feelings for her.

She’d burned the money last night after furiously trying to tear it into shreds without success. In a tearful frenzy of strewn perfume bottles and frantic, hiccuping sobs, she’d found her manicure scissors on her dressing table, taken the bills she’d twisted out of shape, and sitting on the floor, cut the large-denomination francs into thousands of tiny pieces, as if each slash of the minute blades were another jagged cut
into Trey’s cold, black heart. Gathering the scattered scraps and fragments, her hysteria unabated by their mutilation, she’d flung them into the fireplace and kept the fire roaring till morning.

That night, she decided, Etienne’s crested letter in her hand and the rose perfume permeating the house, she was going to end her long celibacy, her misguided fidelity to a man who had no conception of the word. Etienne would be safe, no melancholy or broken hearts … and amusing. He’d also stave off the more serious suitors who wanted their love returned. She wasn’t ready for serious love and commitment and all the earnest tenderness and gravity that a consideration of marriage would imply. Her suitors who importuned for a wife would have to wait until her bleeding heart healed. For the moment all she wanted was to blot out Trey’s memory, and Etienne, if rumor was true, was skilled and seductive enough to eradicate Trey from her mind.

And all seemed pleasantly on track with Empress’s newly planned future: Etienne arrived looking magnificent in his evening clothes, living up to his reputation as the handsomest man in Paris. He was attentive to the children before they left, amiable as they rode to the ball in his specially designed carriage that allowed room for his long legs, devoted at LeNotre’s as an escort, conversationalist, and dance partner. And brightly amusing. Empress found herself genuinely laughing, something she’d thought forever impossible after the previous night.