The Misguided Matchmaker (8 page)

“Maddy?”
He wasn’t certain what he was asking, and her only answer was another
heart-wrenching sob. He reminded himself she was very young, scarcely older
than Caro, and probably given to the same hysterics. It didn’t fadge; the lie
stuck in his throat. Neither Caro, nor any other woman he knew, could have
weathered all she had gone through in the past twenty-four hours with the
courage and resilience Maddy had shown. She was weeping because she had good
reason, and his heart bled for her.

More
than anything else, he longed to take her in his arms and comfort her, but had
an uneasy premonition that once he gave in to the impulse, his life would be
forever changed.

Still
something about the pain etched on her face when she’d spoken of her
grandfather’s deception had touched him as nothing else had in a long, long
time, and her vulnerability when she’d questioned him about the father she
scarcely knew still haunted him. Premonition be damned! He reached over and
drew her to him.

“Cry,
Maddy. Cry it all out,” he crooned, rocking her until at long last her rigid
body relaxed and she released the startled breath she’d gasped when first he’d
touched her. With a smothered moan, she burrowed her face in his shoulder and
sobbed out her grief until his shirt was as soaked with her tears as it
previously had been with the raindrops.

Much
later, when her sobs had subsided and her slow, deep breathing told him she had
fallen into an exhausted sleep, he shifted his weight to arrange her more
comfortably in his arms. For a long time, he lay listening to the storm raging
outside, feeling the steady beat of her heart and the answering rhythm of his
own.

The
fierce thrust of desire that had gripped him earlier had mellowed, overshadowed
by an aching tenderness for the slender waif sleeping so trustingly in his
arms. The feeling was like nothing he had ever felt for any other woman.

He
stared into the darkness surrounding him, a man perplexed by the unexpected
depths of his own emotions. With a sigh, he acknowledged that, as usual, his
premonition had been right on the mark. From this moment forward, his life
would be irrevocably changed, and he feared not for the better. For this time
the ache that troubled him was of the heart, not the loins.

“
W
ake
up, Maddy. It’s almost dawn.”

The
voice sounded clipped, impatient, and Maddy struggled to do what it demanded,
but her eyes felt as if someone had rubbed sand in them during the night.

When
she finally pried them open, she found Tristan bending over her, lantern in
hand. With shocking clarity, she remembered she had wept all over the poor man
before she’d finally fallen asleep.

Had
she slept in his arms all night while the storm raged outside the cozy loft?
The depression in the straw beside her would indicate she had, and the last
thought she remembered before she’d dropped off to sleep had been how
comforting a man’s strong arms could be when one was badly in need of succor.

She
wanted to thank him for his kindness and assure him he need not worry; she had
cried her last tear. However, he gave her no opportunity to do so. Once again
he had drawn back into the same impenetrable shell of cold indifference he’d
assumed after their revealing conversation of the previous day. She wondered if
he only tried to keep his human side hidden from her, or if his checkered past
made him hold everyone at arm’s length.

It
was immediately obvious, once she climbed down the ladder from the
loft, that
she was back on a par with the dobbin when it
came to claiming his attention. Lower actually, since he completely ignored her,
while he patiently coaxed the reluctant old horse from its comfortable stall
with a promise of sugar when they reached a village where some could be
procured.

To
add insult to injury, he handed her a shovel and told her to muck out the stall
while he harnessed the dobbin to the carriage. It was plain to see this moody
Anglais
needed to be put in his place and, she decided as she shoveled the old dobbin’s
foul-smelling droppings into the bucket Tristan had provided, she was just the
woman to do it.

The
first crow of the farmyard rooster greeted her as she stepped from the barn
when her unpleasant task was completed, and the waiting horse and cabriolet
were but a deeper shadow in the gray, predawn light. Before she had time to
wonder where Tristan was, he bolted around the corner of the barn, swept her
up, and dumped her on the carriage seat.

“Are
you mad?” she gasped as he yanked the hem of his cassock up to his waist and
crawled over her to take the reins. Then she heard it—an angry shout from the
veranda of the farmhouse. Chickens scattered before the dobbin’s pounding
hooves, and she heard the unmistakable squeals of a mother sow and her piglets
as the right side of the carriage careened against the post of their muddy pen.

Behind
them, the farmers’ threats grew fainter as they bumped along the muddy lane,
but just before they turned onto the roadway, a bullet whizzed past Maddy’s ear
and imbedded itself in the trunk of an apple tree. “A near thing, that,”
Tristan declared grimly, glancing her way. “I’ll not cut it so close again.”
Maddy swallowed the lump of terror choking her throat and nodded her heartfelt
agreement. At that moment in time, she couldn’t have managed a word if her life
had depended on it.

A
short distance down the road, they topped a small rise to find the eastern sky
tinged a rosy pink and the first faint rim of pumpkin-colored sun peeping over
the horizon. “We’re in luck,” Tristan declared with a grin. “It appears the
storm has blown over, and we should have a fine day for traveling.” At least,
Maddy thought it was a grin. With a two-day’s growth of black beard masking his
features, it was difficult to tell.

Slowing
the panting horse to a steady trot, Tristan settled back in his seat as calmly
as if he were enjoying a pleasant country outing, and not escaping by the skin
of his teeth from an irate farmer. Apparently this sort of hair-raising
incident was nothing out of the ordinary to a man of his profession.

“I
have every hope of reaching a particular village just this side of Roanne well
before nightfall,” Tristan said a few minutes later. “There is an excellent inn
there which serves as fine a ragout as I’ve ever eaten, and the beds have
eiderdown quilts as soft as a cloud.”

He
paused. “There’s a marketplace as well, where I can do a bit of horse trading.”

“Horse
trading?”

He
nodded. “We can’t count on public conveyances. Thanks to Bonaparte’s escape,
most of them had already stopped functioning when I rode south. And our ancient
steed has a stout heart, but his legs are ready to give out. It’s time he was
put out to pasture where he need do nothing more strenuous than father a few
healthy colts.”

Maddy
glanced at the spavined old horse plodding down the road ahead of the small
cabriolet. Though she hated to admit it, she could see Tristan’s judgment of
the animal was correct. He would never make it to Paris, much less Calais. It
made her sad, as if she were somehow facing yet another painful loss to age and
infirmity.

She
blinked back her foolish tears. “I shall be sorry to see him go. I have grown
quite fond of him, and I know you have too.”

“Me?”
Tristan gave a snort of disgust. “I never confuse sentiment with practicality.
I have better uses for my brain than to muddle it with such maudlin nonsense.”

She
felt as if he’d slapped her across the face. It was plain to see the conceited
lout had more in mind than the ancient horse. He was, in fact, warning her she
shouldn’t attach any undue importance to his brief show of nocturnal
compassion. As if she would! She might be many things, but a fool was not one
of them.

She
found herself wondering if all the men of his country were as boorish as he. If
they were, she would certainly never make the mistake of becoming the wife of
an Englishman.

They
had had the road virtually to themselves the previous day; today, it grew
increasingly crowded with each passing hour. Many of the travelers were heading
north—Royalists fleeing before Bonaparte’s encroaching army. Others, loyal to
the emperor were pushing south to join forces with him and General Cambronne’s
gronards.

Twice
they were almost caught in brief, isolated clashes between the two factions,
but in general the Royalists and Bonapartists passed each other with no more
than shouted insults. Whatever their political persuasions, most Frenchman were
sick to death of bloodshed. Tristan suspected this general ennui would work in
the emperor’s favor. Unless some persuasive leader stepped forward to rally the
Royalist troops, the Corsican might well make good his boast to reach Paris in
twenty days.

Time
and again, the travelers heading south stopped him to inquire if he had come
from Lyon and if the rumors were true that the city had fallen to Bonaparte
without a shot. At first he was wary of these eager inquisitors, but when no
one challenged his and Maddy’s disguises, he became more confident and answered
their questions freely.

As
luck would have it, when they finally reached the “excellent inn” he had
touted, it was full to overflowing. All that was left was one small attic room
usually reserved for the servants of wealthy travelers, and Tristan had to pay
an exorbitant price for that. After thinking it over, he decided it would be
prudent to wait until after they’d supped to inform Maddy of the nature of
their sleeping accommodations.

In
the meantime, his stomach was rumbling with hunger and his mouth was watering
for a trencher of the inn’s delicious ragout. After seeing the horse and
carriage delivered safely to the stable, he led Maddy in search of their
supper.

The
noise in the public room was deafening. Everyone seemed to be talking at once
and the stench of stale sweat and sour wine was so overpowering when they
joined the other guests at the common table, it literally took his breath away.
He determinedly ignored it; nothing could kill his appetite for a hot, tasty
meal after another day of dry bread and hard cheese.

Beside
him, Maddy ducked her head and hid her face. “I fear we must leave,” she
whispered in a voice hoarse with panic. “I recognize the two old men at the far
end of the table, and they may recognize me if they see me. They are Royalists
from Lyon and have visited my grandfather many times.”

Hunger
dulled Tristan’s usual caution. “Nonsense! With your sunburned face and cropped
hair, no one would take you for anything but the
paysan
you purport to
be,” he whispered back.

She
accepted his judgment without demur, but the skepticism he read in her eyes
said she was far from being convinced. In truth, though he pretended otherwise,
he was more nervous than he led her to believe about the situation in which
they found themselves.

He
took another look at the men around the table, most of whom appeared to be
shouting insults at those seated across from them. He groaned. To a man, those
on one side of the table sported the white cockade of the Bourbons, those on
the other the tricolor of the Bonapartists—and from the looks of things, they
were on the verge of staging a reenactment of the French Revolution. If the old
dobbin could take another step, he’d be tempted to demand his blunt back from the
innkeeper and move on.

But
the dobbin was on its last legs, and he could plainly see that Maddy was so
exhausted she could scarcely hold her head up. In truth, he was not in much
better shape himself. There was nothing for it but to hope for the best tonight
and get an early start tomorrow.

But
like a gambler whose luck had turned bad, Tristan’s grew worse by the minute.
The buxom black-haired serving maid who approached them with their ragout took
one look at him and dropped the wooden bowl sending chunks of meat and potato
splattering in all directions.

“Mon
Dieu,” she gasped. “It is you—the devil-eyed Parisian with the clever hands.”
She crossed herself fervently. “Mother of God, I have slept with a priest.”

A
deathly silence fell on the crowded room at her damning words. All eyes,
Royalist and Bonapartist alike, turned accusingly in Tristan’s direction.

He
blinked, vaguely aware he remembered her as Babette—or was it Colette?—an
obliging tavern wench from an inn a good day’s ride to the north, where he’d
spent an energetic night between the sheets on his way to Lyon. What cursed
luck that she should have changed her place of employment at this particular
time.

Out
of the corner of one eye, he saw Maddy level a look at him that nearly singed
his two-day growth of whiskers. He chose to ignore it for the moment and handle
the more pressing matter of the goggle-eyed serving girl.

“My
good woman,” he said in the same tone of voice he’d heard the priest use when
delivering the old count’s funeral mass. “I do not know who you think I am, but
let me assure you, we have never before met.”

“But
your eyes, monsieur. No two men could have such eyes.”

“Ah!”
Tristan leaned back in his chair, with what he hoped was a beatific smile on
his face. “That explains your confusion.” He shook his head sadly. “I am sorry,
nay ashamed to admit, that you must have met up with my scapegrace twin
brother. We are as alike as two hairs on a dog. But he, alas, has refused to
enter the church as our good father ordained, but has chosen instead to follow
the evil ways of Lucifer.”

As
one, the men at the table murmured their acceptance of his explanation. As one,
they returned to their verbal jousting, if anything, more loudly than before.
It was all too apparent that neither Royalists nor Bonapartists wished to be
the first to cast the stone when it came to carnal sin.

“Je
ne connais pas
this
Lucifer,” the young maid said over the rapidly accelerating noise. “Never has
he stopped by the inn of
Scarabée Noir
. But this I say to you, Father.
You need feel no shame for your handsome, brother. There is no finer, more
generous gentleman in all of France.”

Dropping
to her knees, she scooped the bulk of the ragout back into the bowl and wiped
the remainder up with her already soiled apron. Her task completed, she gazed
up at Tristan with vacant brown eyes that gave her a distinctly bovine
appearance. Lord help him, he must have been drunk as a brewer’s horse to have
consorted with such a dim-witted creature.

The
little maid rose to her feet, a dreamy expression on her plump face. “Left ten
francs on my pillow, the gentleman did—just what I needed for coach fare to
come join
mon cher ami
, who is the ostler at this inn.”

Beside
him, Maddy made an odd choking sound and Tristan groaned. Devil take it, he’d
been hoisted by his own petard. “That is all very well, my child,” he intoned
in his most pious voice, “but fornication without the sanctity of marriage is
still a sin, and I admonish you to confess your encounter with my reprehensible
brother when next you visit your parish priest.”

He
cleared his throat. “In the meantime, would you be good enough to deliver our
supper to our chambers as soon as possible. I fear the mood of the public room
is about to become
to
violent for the tender
sensitivities of my young assistant.”

No
sooner had he uttered the prophetic words than a young Royalist with glazed
eyes and ruddy cheeks raised his glass and shouted, “
Vive le roi!
” An
equally inebriated young Bonapartist immediately retaliated by tossing his wine
in the face of the Royalist and shouting, “
Vive l’empereur!
”