To Ruin a Gentleman Page 8

  She smiled more widely. “Oh, really?”

  “In fact, I’d have to say that my ruination is complete.”

  “You’re ruined?” She arched a brow.

  “Utterly. You ruined me for other women.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, I see. Now you will tell me you’re in love with me.”

  He’d already been half in love with her, but he knew he must tread carefully here. “I could fall in love with you. I think I started falling the moment I met you.”

  “That was lust,” she countered.

  “Very well. The moment you walked away from me and into that mob of peasants, head held high.”

  “That was shame.”

  “How about the moment I put my tongue—”

  She placed a finger on his lips. “There’s something between us,” she acknowledged.

  He moved his hips. “I think that’s my—”

  She laughed. “You are incorrigible.”

  “Good thing or we wouldn’t be where we are. I’m glad you asked me to stay.”

  “I don’t see how I could have refused you.”

  “In that case, perhaps you will not refuse me if I ask you to go to England with me.”

  She shook her head. “Not a chance. I must—”

  This time he put a finger on her lips. “I can see I will have to do more to persuade you.”

  “Will you?” she sounded breathless. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do to change my mind.”

  “We’ll see about that.” And he kissed her again.

  IN THE MORNING HE WOKE before her and though he knew he should rise and prepare to depart, it was difficult to pull himself from her arms. She was warm and her scent of apples and honey made him want to bury his nose in her hair and make love to her all over again.

  The night they had shared wasn’t enough for him. He didn’t know if three nights or three hundred would be enough. He would probably have to marry her, but the trick would be convincing her of that—this woman who insisted on throwing herself into the path of danger. Perhaps once this madness in France was over, she would reconsider and he could...

  The sound of raised voices drew his attention. Had the coaches arrived already? Surely the servants would have roused them. Hugh rose and went to the window, opening the shutters and looking out. The sun was still low in the sky, the day just dawning. The Rue Saint-Honoré was empty but for the flicker of sunlight on the cobblestones below. Dew sparkled on the flowers planted along the walks and in the boxes on the windows, but soon enough the July sun would burn it away.

  “What is it?” came a feminine voice, and Hugh turned. Angelette had risen on one elbow, her long dark hair falling over her bare shoulder in a tumult of tangles and curls.

  “I don’t know. If the attack had begun, surely we would have heard the cannons of the Bastille.”

  She nodded. “But the people are congregating, marching.”

  The sound of raised voices lifted and fell, echoing through the early morning stillness. “The sooner we are out of the city, the better.”

  She pressed her lips together and looked away. “Perhaps you could stay another day.”

  He shook his head. Crossing quickly to the bed, Hugh took her hands. “I must leave today, mon ange. Soon enough the mobs will forget the Bastille and remember how much they hate the nobility. Then there will be no safety anywhere.”

  She nodded. “I suppose you are correct.”

  “I am correct. Dress quickly.” He stood and pulled on his breeches. “I will see if all the preparations to depart have been made. You can still change your mind. We could be in Calais tonight. Or if the roads are crowded and we do not make good time, we will stay in another town. I have exporters in almost every town or village. They will take us in, and we’ll be safe.” After pulling his shirt over his head, he gathered the rest of his clothing, bent to kiss her, and went to the door. “I’ll wait for you below.”

  Hugh had dressed and, since he had very little to pack, made haste to find the butler. On the way downstairs, he encountered the vicomte coming up. “How are the preparations?”

  The vicomte shook his head. “Nothing is ready. I asked the servants to bring our trunks to the foyer, but they haven’t been moved.” The two men continued down the stairs, pausing outside the drawing room, which was empty and dark.

  “Then have them do it now.”

  “That won’t be easy. I can’t find any of them.”

  Hugh closed his eyes. It made sense. When he’d heard the sounds of the crowds gathering somewhere in the city, the house had been far too quiet. He should have heard the servants bustling about to prepare for the day. “They’ve left in the night.”

  “All but a few maids and my chef. The maids are too scared to speak. My chef just curses and calls the others imbeciles.”

  French chefs were notoriously arrogant. It didn’t surprise Hugh that the chef thought himself better than the other servants. But a few maids and a haughty chef would be of little use. “We’ll have to move the trunks ourselves. Do you think the coaches were ordered?”

  “I don’t know. I sent my man with the money, and he returned with the bill. I have no reason to believe he lied.”

  “Then we proceed as planned.” But now they had an added worry. If the servants had turned against them and the mob decided today was a good day to kill more nobles, then the Merville servants knew the vicomte and his wife planned to leave Paris. They could send the mobs after them. Hugh could only pray the people were too busy at the Bastille to think of the hated nobility that day.

  Hugh and the vicomte moved the trunks themselves. By the time they had finished, the day had dawned and the heat was stifling. Shouts and chants had sounded all morning long, but there had been no firing from the guns of the Bastille. “What time were the coaches to have arrived?” Hugh asked.

  De Merville checked his pocket watch. “They are already late.”

  Hugh’s chest felt heavy with dread.

  “We should eat something before our journey,” the vicomte said. “At least we still have our chef.”

  In the dining room, the vicomtesse and Angelette sat drinking coffee. Both were dressed in traveling clothes and bonnets, which gave Hugh hope. He might have wished they looked less like nobility, but even dressed as servants the women would stand out. They were too clean, too pretty, too elegant. The vicomtesse looked pale and worried. Angelette looked resigned. “No coaches?” she said, not sounding surprised.

  “I am certain they are but delayed,” the vicomte said with a smile. “Surely they will be here before we are finished eating.” He poured himself coffee and filled a plate. Hugh wasn’t hungry, and he would never understand the French love affair with coffee. He would have asked the chef for tea, but he didn’t intend to drink it.

  “What sort of conveyance do you own?” he asked.

  The vicomte shook his head. “A small phaeton for use in town and one town hack. That is all.”

  The phaeton wouldn’t even fit all four of them much less any of the de Mervilles’ luggage. And that was assuming the servants hadn’t taken the horses when they departed. “Then if the coachmen will not come to us, we will have to go to them.”

  The vicomtesse set her coffee cup down with a rattle. “But surely you cannot think to go out into the city. You could be killed.”

  Hugh considered. “The Bastille is to the east, just outside the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. I assume your man ordered the coaches in the Palais-Royal, which is west of us.”

  “Yes. Everything can be obtained from the Palais-Royal.”

  Owned by the Duc d’Orléans, the Palais-Royal was full of coffee shops, merchants, and at night, prostitutes. The duc took a portion of all sold there and had become a very rich man. But the area had also become a gathering place for those espousing revolutionary ideals to speak and distribute pamphlets. Crowds often gathered there to listen to men argue for equality and revolt. The duc had allowed this to go on because he covete
d his cousin’s throne and saw in the people a way to overthrow King Louis XVI and take his place.

  “Then if the mobs are east and I go west, there should be no danger.”

  “We go west,” Angelette said.

  “No.” Hugh rose. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “You just said there should be no danger.”

  Hugh glared at her. “I don’t expect any, but if there is, I’d rather you were here.”

  Now Angelette stood. “And I would rather not stay hidden away. I want to know what is happening as much as you do.” She walked past him and out the door of the dining room. Barely pausing, she glanced over her shoulder. “Coming?”

  Hugh gritted his teeth before turning to the vicomte. But perhaps seeing Paris as it was now would convince her to leave with him. “Lock your doors and close the shutters. Do not open the door for anyone but the comtesse or myself.”

  The vicomtesse rose and took his hands in her small, cold ones. “May God go with you, monsieur.”

  Hugh nodded grimly, then followed the path Angelette had taken to the foyer. As he joined her on the street below, he heard more shots and breaking glass. Law and order had fled and soon chaos would reign. Hugh prayed God too had not abandoned Paris.

  Nine

  Angelette adjusted her tall hat, black with a silk ribbon as the only adornment, to shield her face from the sun. The pale orange redingote she wore buttoned at her cinched waist and was open at the chest and down the front to display her white underdress. The wide lapels and capes on the sleeves made it good for wear in all weather, except perhaps the heat of July in Paris. She’d worried her clothing would identify her as a noble, but thus far the nobility was not being attacked on the streets. As soon as he stepped out of the house on the Rue Saint-Honoré, she made certain Hugh was behind her and then reminded herself to breathe again.

  She couldn’t stop her mind from wandering back to the night before, when he’d stepped into her chamber and not long after stepped out of his clothing. Now that she knew what he looked like under his dark green coat and tight breeches, it was hard not to imagine taking them off him again.

  “You may cease scowling at me like that,” she said.

  “I don’t like this. If something happens—”

  She held up a hand. “If something happens, then I’ll be at your side. If I’m to stay here on my own, I must see what I’m dealing with.”

  “True enough.”

  Surprised by the easy victory, she tucked her arm through his and they began to walk toward the Palais-Royal. The houses on this street were mostly owned by the nobility. Angelette did not know if the residents had fled the city or were in hiding. All was quiet and all was shuttered. She glanced over her shoulder at the de Mervilles’ house. It too looked quiet and empty.

  “You can do as much good in London—perhaps more even—as you can here. Perhaps if you left, you would be running to something, not away,” Hugh pointed out as they strolled. His voice was even and his stride casual, but she did not miss the way he looked right and left, his eyes like a hawk’s, alert for any trouble.

  She wished she could see the matter as he did, but from every angle she looked, departure seemed to be nothing more than a retreat. “My sister is in London, and my mother lives in the north of England, but my life is here.”

  “Perhaps you could make a life there.”

  She scoffed. “Living with my mother? Imposing on my sister and her husband?”

  “Living with me.” He paused and she tilted her head to see his face from under the brim of her hat.

  “I know we threw propriety to the wind last night, but I’d rather not sacrifice my reputation and the honor of my family by becoming your mistress.”

  “I don’t want a mistress.” His bright eyes looked down at her, and she wasn’t certain what she saw in them. Something warm and inviting. Something that made her want to kiss him again. She blinked. No matter if the street was deserted, she could not kiss him.

  “What do you want?” she asked, and her voice did not sound like her own.

  “A wife.”

  Her arm dropped and she stepped away from him, her back pressing against the wall of the house behind her. “Are you...” She swallowed.

  “Shall I get down on one knee?”

  “But you don’t even know me.”

  He gave her a look of pure incomprehension. “I know you. I know you’re stubborn and loyal. You’re smart and brave and cunning when you need to be. You’re passionate and giving and not afraid to take what you want either. You are everything I have ever wanted.”

  She stared at him. “But what if we don’t suit? I’m irritable in the morning and I like my solitude. I dislike riding, but love long walks. You don’t know any of those things. You don’t know my favorite color or flower or—”

  “I’ll have a lifetime to learn. All I really need to know is whether or not you’ll have me.”

  “But...” She sputtered. “Do you even love me?”

  He wet his lips with his tongue, and her heart seized, afraid he would say no. “I have never been in love,” he admitted. “I can’t say that I know what it feels like, but if this is not it, I don’t know what is.” His gaze, clear and steady, bored into her. “Do you love me?”

  “I...”

  A shout and the scuffle of feet made both of them turn back toward the direction they had been heading. A group of about six men, boys really, had stepped out from a side street and were marching up the Rue Saint-Honoré. They wore coats, some military in style, and trousers, but most were barefoot. All had small round pieces of red, blue, and white cloth pinned to their breasts.

  “Who are you?” one of them demanded as the group neared. “Are you friends of liberty or the enemy?”

  Angelette opened her mouth to tell this man that he had no right to speak to her in such a way, but Hugh took her wrist and squeezed. “We are friends of liberty,” he said, making his English accent apparent.

  “You’re British,” said the youth, who couldn’t have been one and twenty.

  “Yes.”

  The leader looked them up and down. “The British are no friends of liberty.”

  The men muttered their agreement, moving forward menacingly. Most held some sort of weapon. A few had old muskets Hugh doubted had powder or shot, but many carried kitchen knives or crudely made weapons.

  “But we are friends of liberty. That is why we stripped our king of his power years ago and created a constitution and a parliament.”

  “A parliament ruled by aristos,” the leader said and spat. “The people will rule France.”

  “Then long live the people,” Hugh said. He turned to Angelette, his eyes filled with warning.

  She could hardly find her voice. “Long live the people,” she repeated finally.

  “Aristos,” said someone in the group of what Angelette now realized must be part of the citizens’ militia. “Death to the aristos.”

  A few mutters of agreement sounded, and Hugh pulled Angelette behind him. Her legs would barely move. This was not the Paris she knew. The boys moved forward, and Hugh stepped back. Angelette closed her eyes, and then the air exploded in a burst of sound that seemed to rock the entire city.

  Angelette was thrown against the building. Her hat toppled from her head, and for a moment all she saw was the gray of the wall and the blue of the sky turning over and over. When she regained her balance, she looked up and into Hugh’s concerned eyes. “Did I hurt you?”

  “I don’t think so.” She took a mental inventory of all her aches and pains. None were serious. “Did you throw me to the ground?”

  He gave a her a rueful smile. “I was trying to protect you. Obviously, I made a muck of it.”

  She raised her hand to cup his cheek, but the moment was short-lived. The half dozen members of the citizens’ militia shouted and jostled and pulled her and Hugh to their feet. “The Bastille! Down with tyranny! Down with the Bastille!”

  Angelette was yank
ed roughly to one side and Hugh to the other. Another boom resounded over the city, and Angelette realized it must be the cannons of the Bastille. Was the garrison there really under siege?

  “Let us go,” Hugh was saying over the ringing in her ears. All around them, people had come out of their houses. Doors had opened, windows were raised, and Paris lifted its head to peer about.

  “We haven’t done you any wrong. We only want to go to the Palais-Royal.”

  “You’re coming with us,” the leader told them, motioning his men. Angelette was grabbed roughly and pulled forward. “Our troop leader is at the Bastille. He can decide what to do with you traitor aristos!”

  Angelette tried to protest that she wasn’t a traitor, but the men didn’t listen. She was dragged along with them, past the de Merville house, along the Rue Saint-Honoré, and closer and closer to the roar of the crowds at the Bastille.

  HUGH KNEW AS SOON AS they arrived that the situation was serious. From the little conversation he overheard, he surmised that a group of peasants had been shown inside the fortress to negotiate, but as the negotiations dragged on, the crowds had grown impatient and attacked the fortress, gaining entrance into the undefended outer courtyard.

  He and Angelette were thrust into the midst of the crowd, surrounded by men and women with pikes, who shouted and screamed and pushed to enter the Bastille. People pushed against them on all sides, screaming and jostling, and it was all Hugh could do to hold on to Angelette and keep his footing. Then the soldiers fired on the crowds. Everyone screamed and ducked down. Some ran for cover, but others rose from overturned wagons and behind walls and fired back. The cannons fired again, shaking the entire city and making Hugh’s ears ring. Choking smoke rose from windows of the Bastille and drifted into the courtyard where the mob had managed to set fires and obscure their activities.

  Hugh coughed into his sleeve and fought to keep Angelette close. If he could only find an opening, he could take her and disappear into the crowd, but not only were the crowds too thick, the small militia holding them captive were attentive. He should have fought them earlier—six against one were steep odds—but now he had no chance. He and Angelette were dragged along, closer to the courtyard and the fighting as the boys of the citizens’ militia searched for a leader to whom they could present their spoils. Hugh was taller than many of the other men and he could make out the fallen drawbridge that had been the barrier between the Bastille’s courtyard and the outside. As they neared it, pushed inexorably along, he dragged Angelette against him, using his body to shield her.