The Paris Affair (42 page)

He gave a bleak smile. “They’ve at least agreed to clear Bertrand Laclos.”

“Do you think Bertrand will come back?”

Concern flickered in his gaze. “I hope so.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “I hope he’s learned that you can’t run away from the past.”

She swallowed. Hard. Then she touched his face, her fingers not quite steady. “No. All one can do is focus on the future. Wherever it may lead.”

 

Rupert closed the door of his study and dropped down at the desk. Gabrielle was out with Stephen and the house felt quiet. Oddly, he felt easier with Gaby now he was no longer trying to make himself think of her as his wife. Instead he could see the friend of his childhood. It was something to be grateful for.

The afternoon heat had leached into the room. He unbuttoned his coat and tugged at his cravat in a way that would horrify his valet. He’d had no word from Bertrand since Bertrand had driven out of the inn yard with the St. Gilles family. And it was Malcolm to whom Bertrand had sent word of their safe arrival in England, not him. Which made sense, Malcolm was the one who had engaged Bertrand’s services. But that didn’t take away the sting.

A month ago Rupert would have said he could simply be happy knowing Bertrand was alive and safe. But now he knew that was laughable. He felt torn in two.

He looked round at the stir of the door against the carpet, expecting the footman. His breath stopped. Bertrand stood in the doorway, the shadows from the passage at his back, the light from the windows falling over his face. It was still hard to believe he was real and not a ghost.

For a long moment, they simply stared at each other.

“It won’t be easy,” Bertrand said. “And we can’t go back.”

“No,” Rupert said. It hurt to breathe. As though the wrong step could shatter his every hope for the future. “But we can find a way to move forwards.”

Bertrand met his gaze and stepped towards him.

Unlike
Vienna Waltz
and
Imperial Scandal,
in which I was specific about dates, with
The Paris Affair
I have used a more open time line so I could weave in a number of events in the late summer of 1815. For instance, Edmond Talleyrand’s duel with Karl Clam-Martinitz and the Duke of Wellington’s ball took place on 30 July. Harriet Granville and her husband were present, but Caroline and William Lamb had not yet arrived in Paris. Wellington’s difficulties with Frances Webster’s husband came to a head later in the month, and Wilhelmine’s affair with Stewart also came to an end later than it does in the book. Fitzroy Somerset was in England recovering from his wounds at the time, but I have put him and his wife in Paris.

The Royalist plot in which Étienne and Christian Laclos and Antoine Rivère were involved is fictional, but the British are known to have financed a number of Royalist plots. Fouché is also suspected of having employed agents provocateur.

Clam-Martinitz did wound Edmond Talleyrand in the face in their duel, but Edmond did not attempt to strike Clam-Martinitz in the back (my apologies to Edmond for this bit of authorial license). Dorothée attended Wellington’s ball the night of the duel (Harriet Granville remarks on how she danced as though nothing had occurred), but she did not attempt to stop the duel and she did not get caught up in an anti-Bonapartist attack afterwards.

Boigne, Adèle d’Osmond, Comtesse de.
Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne,
vol. 1. New York: Helen Marx Books, 2003.

 

Cooper, Duff.
Talleyrand.
New York: Grove Press, 2001.

 

Creevey, Thomas.
The Creevey Papers: A Selection from the Correspondence & Diaries of Thomas Creevey, M.P.
Edited by Sir Herbert Maxwell. London: Murray, 1904.

 

Frazer, Augustus.
The Letters of Colonel Sir Augustus Simon Frazer, K.C.B
. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1859.

 

Granville, Harriet.
Letters of Harriet Countess Granville 1810–1845,
vol. 1. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1894.

 

Gronow, Rees Howell.
Reminiscences and Recollections of Captain Gronow,
vol. 1. London: John C. Nimmo.

 

Jones, Proctor Patterson (editor).
Napoleon: An Intimate Account of the Years of Supremacy
. San Francisco: Proctor Jones Publishing Company, 1972.

 

Kincaid, John.
Adventures in the Rifle Brigade
. London: T. and W. Boone, Strand, 1830.

 

Longford, Elizabeth.
Wellington: Pillar of State.
New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1972.

 

McGuigan, Dorothy Gies.
Metternich and the Duchess
. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1946.

 

Mercer, Cavalié.
Journal of the Waterloo Campaign.
London: Greenhill Books, 1989.

 

 

About This Guide

 

 

The suggested questions are included
to enhance your group’s reading of
Teresa Grant’s
The Paris Affair.

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