Ryan's Bride (10 page)

Eventually, after finding food and shelter wherever they could, they made their way to Paris. Her mother had to sell the earbobs she had been wearing when they ran away to pay for their passage.

Angele rocked back on her heels now, her new striped gingham skirt bunched about her ankles. The bow of the plumed poke bonnet tickled her neck, and she tugged at it to loosen. It was a cool day, and she had draped a fine cashmere shawl over her shoulders.

She had been in such a hurry that morning it was surprising she had managed to make herself presentable. But she’d had to rush in order to get away from Corbett. She still did not trust him and wondered if she ever would, because something about the way he looked at her sometimes made her flesh crawl. And try though she might, she had not been able to put his crude behavior that first day out of her mind.

She hoped that once she became Ryan’s wife and moved into the mansion at BelleRose, she might feel differently. She wanted everyone to accept her, and planned to do everything she could to make them. After all, once she left, there would be no turning back. Her future depended on Ryan, and though she didn’t love him, she planned to dig in her heels and stay, no matter what.

As she mused, a man carrying a shovel came walking up the trail to the paupers’ section. He saw a woman bent over a grave and squinted against the sun to see her better. Even from a distance, he could tell she was dressed in fine clothes. Probably rich. So what was she doing kneeling at a pauper’s grave? Surely anyone of means would not have kith or kin buried in such a place.

He continued on. He had another grave to dig for someone else too poor to be buried anywhere else.

Angele did not notice the man as he passed by. She did, however, hear the approaching carriage.

“
Mademoiselle
Benet?” The man holding the reins over a splendid black horse removed his top hat and smiled uncertainly.

She straightened and lifted the hem of her skirt above her ankles to keep it from dragging in the tall grass as she walked toward him. “
Oui.
I am so pleased you could meet me,
monsieur
. I was afraid you wouldn’t receive my note in time.” She had only been able to get away from Corbett long enough the day before to slip a messenger a few francs to deliver the envelope to the stone cutter.

“I am Wilfrin Montague.” He got down from the carriage. “I brought some sketches of my work. Do you see anything you like?”

She leafed through them and quickly seized upon the drawing of an angel, carved into a modest stone. “This one.” She gave him a slip of paper on which she had written her mother’s name and the date of her birth and death.

“Very good.” He put the paper with his others. “It should take me a few weeks, and I will put it in place myself.”

He told her the price, and as she counted out the money, he remarked, “It is so good of you to want to put a stone here. Few people do in this section, you know.”

Angele knew, all right, and if she had the means and the time would have had her mother moved. But she had neither, nor would she ever see the marker. She trusted the stone cutter, however. Besides, he had no way of knowing she was leaving France, never to return, so he would keep his promise.

He cast a glance up at the dark clouds gathering. “It looks like it might rain. Would you like to ride out with me? It’s a long walk back to the gates.”

She said she would be pleased. He helped her up into the carriage, and she cast one last glance of goodbye at her mother’s grave.

She didn’t see the man peering out from behind a tree perhaps fifty feet away.

Corbett wished he knew what Angele was doing. The sneaky bitch had almost gotten away from him, but he had been too smart for her. The day before, he had seen her slipping back up the stairs from the lobby. She was supposed to be in her room, claiming she had a headache. He had no idea what she had been up to and couldn’t find out. The desk clerk and concierge were no help. So Corbett vowed she’d not sneak off from him again.

He was watching her like a hawk soaring above a mouse, waiting for the right moment to strike. Ryan expected him to accept her and be nice to her, and Corbett knew it wouldn’t do for him to say anything against her that he couldn’t prove.

She had refused to go to dinner with him the night before, claiming her head still hurt, and he had arranged for soup, fruit, and baguettes to be delivered to her room. But he had hired one of the hotel’s baggage boys to keep vigil during the night, lest she try to leave.

This morning, when he had knocked on her door to ask whether she was ready to have breakfast and begin their final day of shopping for her luggage, she had again complained of a headache. Calling through the door, she said since Ryan was due back later in the day, she would go with him to buy the trunks if she felt better. If not, he could go get them without her.

Suspicious, Corbett had hidden outside a doorway just down the street from the hotel.

He didn’t have to wait long.

She came out and began walking hurriedly, purposefully, along the Canal St. Martin. He followed, keeping a safe distance lest she look over her shoulder and see him.

He was puzzled when she turned through the massive wrought-iron gates of the Père Lachaise cemetery. She passed the area of the well-to-do, buried in mausoleums resembling miniature mansions made of rock, or with tall, sky-reaching stones to mark their place of eternal rest. He assumed she was visiting a relative’s grave, but when she continued on, he began to think perhaps she was going to exit through a rear gate—till he saw that she was actually heading for what could only be the burial section for the poor. Few markers, sunken, untended graves, it was a very dreary place.

He stopped to get a rock out of his shoe, then stepped into a hole and twisted his ankle. Cursing softly, he stumbled into a stone grotto where there was a bench. He sat down to massage his ankle and allow the pain to subside, then followed in the direction Angele had gone.

By the time he found her; she was kneeling beside a grave, and he darted behind a tree to watch. Then the man in the carriage came, and Corbett silently cursed because he could not hear what they were saying. They didn’t talk long before the man took her arm and helped her into the carriage.

Excitement mounting, Corbett ignored his aching ankle and hurried as fast as he could after the carriage.

Not only had Angele met a man in the most remote part of the cemetery—a perfect trysting place—but she had also left with him. He felt a thrilling rush to think of what Ryan’s reaction would be when he told him. She was exactly as Corbett had suspected—a conniver, a schemer. She was obviously after the Tremayne money, and the man she’d just met might be in on it.

Maybe, he thought, imagination running wild, they planned to rob Ryan and then kill him. There was no telling what she was capable of doing. He might even be in danger himself.

But when would they strike? They were due to leave for Le Havre in the morning, and—

He had reached the gates and slowed in wonder.

She was walking briskly along, and it appeared she was headed toward Montparnasse. The man and the carriage were nowhere in sight, so what the hell was she up to?

She continued on, and he struggled to keep up. His ankle was throbbing. It was also starting to rain. They were going to be soaked, but she kept on going, seemingly oblivious to the weather.

The Abbaye Val-de-Grâce loomed ahead with its two-tier façade and dome modeled after St. Peter’s in Rome. Angele was, Corbett realized with a start, returning to where she had been caught stealing reticules. Then it dawned she was actually headed for the catacombs. Rounding the corner of Place Denfert-Rochereau, she lifted her skirts and plunged right into the woods and the embankment leading to the underground stone quarries.

The skies opened and the rain poured down. Corbett uttered an oath which was received with a frown by two nuns leaving the abbey. He ducked his head in apology and darted by them. It was dry inside, and he could wait there until Angele came out. He damn well had no intentions of following her any farther. She could call them catacombs or whatever she wanted, but as far as he was concerned they were sewers, and she was nothing but a sewer rat. And the sooner Ryan realized that, the better. There was still time to stop the madness…time to keep him from making a terrible mistake. Denise was the wife for him—and also Corbett’s assurance of continuing to live at BelleRose.

Angele needed no light to show her the way. This time, however, she was not being chased and could pick her way along carefully so she wouldn’t fall in a puddle. Still, she tried to walk quickly. No longer disguised as a boy, it was dangerous for her to be there. But there was one more thing she had to do before she left Paris.

She took the first tunnel to the left, where the old people lived.

A fire was burning, casting wild shadows against the cold, gray walls.

A man and woman were huddled together near the flames for warmth. Worn, frayed woolen shawls hung about their bony shoulders. Their heads were bowed, and their gnarled, veined hands were intertwined.

They did not hear Angele approach. Their hearing had faded along with their hope for a better life in old age.

She knelt before them, and they gave a startled cry in unison.

“Dear Lord…” the old man whispered in a paper-thin voice. “What do you want of us…” Milky eyes blinked in terror.

The woman made soft moaning sounds as she pressed closer to him.

Angele did not have time to explain how once they had befriended a bedraggled boy—or someone they believed to be a boy. They had shared what little food they had. They asked no questions. They knew the boy grieved because his mother had died. And they had wrapped their arms around him in comfort.

Angele had shared the tiny cavern within the catacombs with the couple. She knew they had a hard time, for they could not move about like the younger folk.

She took the rest of the money she had not spent from her reticule and folded the old man’s fingers about it. “Take this,” she whispered. “It will help you for a while, at least.”

His mouth fell open when he saw how much it was.

“I wish it could be more.” She pressed her lips to their foreheads in turn while they stared at her in bewilderment, then she left as quickly as she had come.

Ryan paced anxiously about in the lobby. The clerk behind the desk peered at him over his glasses, then sighed as he started toward him again.

Splaying his fingers on the counter, Ryan asked for not the first time, “Are you sure you don’t know where they went? It’s getting late, and—”

“No,
monsieur
,” the clerk repeated with forced politeness and patience. “I have no knowledge of either the lady or the gentleman.”

“And you say you’ve been here since morning?”

“
Oui.
It is almost time for me to leave.” He sounded as though he was glad.

Ryan had been at the hotel since noon. He had told Corbett when to expect him. There was a lot to be done to get ready to leave for Le Havre at first light the next morning. In addition, he and Angele needed to fill out some papers so the ship’s captain could perform their marriage ceremony. Time was growing short, and Ryan was getting worried.

He had the concierge open the door to Angele’s room, worrying she might be in bed sick. He had seen the trunks she had bought and had delivered. They were cheap, and he was disappointed, but it was too late to do anything about it now. But why hadn’t Corbett helped her make the selection? He knew about such things, and Angele couldn’t be expected to, what with her background.

Ryan didn’t know where to start looking and began to imagine all kinds of things that might have happened. Maybe they had both been in some kind of accident. Worse, what if Corbett had had too much to drink as he sometimes did? Angele would be terrified.

Damn it, he fumed, he never should have gone off and left her. If his father got angry because he came home without the horses, so be it.

As he paced about, he thought again how he knew so little about the woman he was going to marry. True, she was lovely and he looked forward to their wedding night with heated anticipation, but there was a remoteness about her, a coldness, that bothered him. He had not tried to kiss her. Had not even put his arm about her, really. Yet, if he made to touch her, she winced, as though she found his closeness revolting. He only hoped that once they were married things would be different. Probably she was only shy, afraid, as any virgin would be. Then, too, she had been suddenly thrust into a world she’d never known before, and that had to be frightening.

He tried to get his mind on something else. She had been right about Francois DeNeux. He had excellent Anglo-Arabs, and Ryan had bought three mares and three stallions, spending more than he’d planned—but money was never a consideration when it came to horses. He intended to have the finest in all of Virginia, maybe the entire South.

The situation at hand crept back into his mind once again. They had to be all right. Corbett would not dare do anything foolish.

Ryan turned toward the stairs, thinking he should go wait in his room. Evidently the clerk had told some of the other employees he was upset, because they were starting to look at him strangely as they passed. Besides, he had whiskey in his room, and he could use a drink.