The past was the wrong direction. The only direction now was forward.
Chapter 5
Caterwauling: Going out in the night in search of intrigues, like a cat in the gutters.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
Nick’s feet hit the flat cobblestone sidewalk at a clip that could only be characterized as a near run. He flipped up his collar to guard against the dense layer of fog that now wrapped Paris in a shroud of mist.
How great was the temptation to find the nearest tavern and drink this night into oblivion in hopes of a clearer head tomorrow. But it wouldn’t work. He needed to keep moving. A long and circuitous ramble through the city was the only way to rid himself of the panic rioting through him.
What had he been thinking? Mariana wasn’t a spy. She might be the most obvious person he’d ever known. It was a quality that simultaneously charmed and struck a note of terror within him, but he couldn’t deny that it was part of her appeal.
He exhaled a sharp gust of air through gritted teeth. It wouldn’t do to think about Mariana’s appeal right now. What he should do was return to the hotel, admit his mistake, and help her pack for London.
But he couldn’t return to the hotel. He’d left her in a state of partial undress in her bedroom, and he didn’t trust himself not to finish the job of removing her corset of a trollop, her gossamer muslin chemise, her stockings, her garters, her everything. Then what? His efforts of the last decade—to keep his distance, to keep her safe—would be entirely undone.
Not to mention he’d almost revealed the truth about the opera singer.Blast. What exactly did he hope to accomplish with that particular revelation?
Did he want to anger Mariana into leaving Paris? Or was it to win her back?
Ridiculous. The truth would likely upset her more than the original lie.
Ten years ago, it had been easy to tell himself that it was the necessary choice, the best choice to ensure her safety. He’d repeated words likenecessityandsafetyto himself until he believed them—almost. A deeper truth lay below the façade. He’d taken the convenient way out of their marriage, and he knew why.
As his feet carried him forward across slick Parisian byways, his mind traveled back, beyond the night a lie ripped their marriage apart. It went toward the day he’d met Mariana, and she’d become an obsession from which he would never recover.
~ ~ ~
The Cotswolds
5 March 1811
Nick was late for the most important meeting of his nascent career. Over the course of the morning, what he’d thought would be a straightforward ride from London had devolved into a tangled knot of missed turns and wrong country roads. Every mile or so, he unleashed another round of invectives against his blasted bad luck.
Near the end of his tenure at Cambridge, a family friend, one Mr. Bertrand Montfort, had approached him at a social gathering with an interesting offer from the Foreign Office. He was riding out today to explore its possibilities. A younger son, like himself, needed an occupation, and the church wasn’t his calling. A position within Whitehall was worth investigating.
At long last, he found himself galloping across Montfort’s Cotswolds estate, the sprawling house just ahead on the verdant horizon. Suddenly, his gaze snagged on a flurry of movement on the periphery of his vision. Some hundred yards to his right walked a young woman and a dog, skirting the edge of a copse of woods. He and his horse slowed to a complete stop while he watched this tall and willowy woman, long hair the hue of wild honey streaming down her back, locate an imperceptible trail and vanish inside the shadowy depths of the woods.
For a full minute, he watched the spot where she’d disappeared as if he could conjure her up at will. Something about her—her decisive stride, her air of determination, or the glimpse of the transcendent beauty of her profile—spurred his heart to race faster as she embedded herself into the forefront of his mind. Who was she? Had she been a figment of his imagination? He then heard the muffled baying of a hound, and the reality of her grabbed hold of him and refused to let go.
Even as he spent the remainder of the day closeted with the other three Foreign Office recruits in Montfort’s study, receiving the details of their first mission on the Peninsula—Napoleon hadn’t finished ravaging Spain and Portugal just yet—the knowledge thatsheoccupied the same premises as he, completely overshadowed the proceedings. He was ravenous for any morsel of her.
Her name was Lady Mariana Montfort. She was his host’s niece and would debut this Season. And, if he allowed it, she would be the ruin of him. No one had to tell Nick the last part.
If he believed in fancy and whimsy, he might have thought it love at first sight. Of course, he believed in neither fancy nor whimsy. And, love, well, he didn’t believe in that either.
When she joined the small group at the supper table, he would have sworn the air in the room became lighter, almost effervescent. He avoided looking directly at her, even as he studied her from the corner of his eye. For most of the meal, she remained quiet at the table, her attention darting from conversation to conversation and her full lips occasionally tipping up into a quick smile at a witticism.
It was when she’d disagreed with an opinion that he’d first heard her speak. “What do you meanthose dirty immigrants?”
“Oh, the Catholics from Ireland and those Latin countries. You know, Italy, Spain, and the like.”
Nick watched her chin notch higher as she warmed to the debate. “Lord Farnsworth, where else would you have found the cheap labor to build your mansion in Grosvenor Square?”
“Precisely,” Lord Farnsworth replied. “Montfort, your niece certainly has the right end of the stick. Well done, good sir.”
