The Sometime Bride (30 page)

Sir Giles allowed himself a small moment of congratulation as he recalled his and Thomas’s part in the frantic efforts to get the royal family and the Portuguese navy out of Lisbon harbor and on their way to Brazil. Thus making sure there were no ships left for France to confiscate, no royal family to get in the way of England’s plans in Portugal.

Once again, Sir Giles’s eyes strayed to his ward and he wondered just what he was doing, unleashing Thomas Audley’s offspring on an unsuspecting London society. And on his dear Clara.

A genuine beauty, young Catherine—just entering the height of a loveliness whose fine bones and delicate skin would still be with her when dandling great-grandchildren on her lap. But the cool independence in her great green eyes caused Sir Giles’s not a few qualms. Without a doubt there was fire behind the cool façade. Over the years Thomas had interspersed his reports with many a dryly humorous reference to the problems of raising a willful young sprite with a temper which could rival Vesuvius. And now . . . she was his. Willed to him, as it were, by a man who in a better world would have lived to regale his grandchildren with tales of how he once helped Wellington chase old Boney all the way back to France.

The young officer, making the rounds to ensure the passengers’ comfort, moved on and Sir Giles ambled over to take his place on the sofa next to Catherine. Dona Blanca occupied a well-upholstered chair beside them. As was her custom at home or at sea, year in and year out, she was working on her embroidery. Both women wore gowns of full mourning, black from their small lace caps to their shining patent slippers.

“
I have wondered,” Sir Giles began tentatively as Catherine welcomed him with a gracious nod, “if you have heard from Blas since Thomas’s passing.”

She did not evade the question, as he half expected her to. “Marcio Cardoso took the news to him in person and brought back a letter.” The white of the knuckles clenched in her lap betrayed the calm of her voice. “It was . . . brief. He expressed his regrets, wished me well on my new life in England. He sent his love to Pierre.”

Appalled, Sir Giles could only stare at the shuttered, heart-shaped face. What in God’s name had Thomas done to the boy? Or did Blas truly not want her?

“
I cannot help wonder,” Cat continued quietly, tacitly admitting the rejection in Blas’s letter, “if I shall be accepted in London. It is most kind of your wife to offer to sponsor me,” she added hastily, “but I do not wish to shame her. I cannot but think the daughter of a Portuguese gaming house can scarcely be acceptable to the
beau monde
.”

“
You are the granddaughter of a much-respected vicar, the great-granddaughter of the Earl of Ailesbury,” said Sir Giles firmly. “That your father was the younger son of a younger son and forced to earn his living does not keep your birth from being above reproach. And your mother was from a distinguished Scottish family, I am told.”

“
There will be a hundred officers in London who know me only as the girl from the Casa Audley,” Cat persisted. “I can just hear them,” she mimicked: ‘You remember, don’t you, Sinjun? That house where all the public rooms were used for gambling. Deuced good suppers they had too! Quite a few fortunes whistled down the wind at the Casa Audley.’” Catherine ended with a delicate shudder followed by a defiant tilt of her head against this all too realistic possibility.

Sir Giles found the faint quaver in Catherine’s voice, the valiant thrust of her chin even more appealing than the aura of quiet sophistication which had previously surrounded her. “With luck, they’ll all be fighting in France,” he muttered under his breath.

Aloud, Sir Giles said: “You are far from penniless, Catherine. Your father prospered with his many enterprises in Portugal, and he has been well paid for his invaluable services to the crown. All in all, you have more to offer a husband than all but the most wealthy young women on the marriage mart.”

The words were said. The course clearly laid. Catherine Audley Perez de Leon, widow, was going to London to find a husband. Because she had been rejected by the young devil of a husband she already had.

Blas. The Bastard. Who was her husband only if he chose to be resurrected.

Sir Giles switched smoothly to a more comfortable topic. “I think you will be pleased with Branwyck Park,” he said. “It is not a pretentious property, but the prospect is delightful, the tenants prosperous and the short distance to the city monstrously convenient. I assure you, my dear, a young woman with a country home and a comfortable income will not be scorned.”

Blanca had been listening with fierce intensity in an effort to follow the English conversation. English beasts! If they should dare to reject Catarina . . . Ah, no, my Tomás. I, Blanca Magdalena Inez Dominguez, will not let that happen! And Blas? The English dog who had not had the courage to say
no
to Tomás. Who perhaps had found it convenient not to say
no
. May he burn in hell if he did not come for Catarina. If he did not love his wife enough to keep her.

Blanca jabbed her needle into the cloth with the ferocity of a sword into the heart.

“
Ah, mon brave, mon petit chou, tu es un ange!
” To Cat’s chagrin, Blas had proved to be right. Only being called a little cabbage could coax a small, thin smile from Pierre’s solemn face.

“
He is too much an angel,” declared Blanca over the boy’s head as he sat in Cat’s lap. “He should be driving us insane on this interminable journey, and he simply sits there and looks out the carriage window with those great blue eyes like some solemn old owl perched in a tree.”

Cat nodded her agreement, her voice exhausted from pointing out the wonders along the road. At times it seemed she had not missed a single cow, pig, sheep, chicken, dog, cat, farm cart or horse between Plymouth and this, the last few miles to Branwyck Park.

Worn by two weeks at sea followed by four endless days in a post chaise, young Pierre had weathered the ordeal with more aplomb than his elders. When not eating or sleeping, he had regarded the passing scenery with careful attention, listened, without squirming, to each story told (whether in French, Portuguese or English) and in general amply demonstrated he had been born following the drum and was a seasoned traveler. The ladies had nodded wisely to each other when Sir Giles had elected to ride beside the coach on the long journey north, but in truth he need not have worried about traveling with a child. It was almost as if the small boy was capable of fearing that bad behavior might forfeit the security of his new life.

A particularly nasty hole in the road nearly jolted the ladies out of their seats. Cat grasped Pierre so hard he squeaked in protest. “
Pauvre petit!
” she cried. “Sir Giles says we are nearly there. Home, Pierre,
connais-tu
?
Une grande maison
. Our new home.” The little boy gazed back in silence, blue eyes wide, his gently waving blonde hair adding fullness to thin, patrician features which already gave promise of the handsome youth he would become.

“
How loudly he cried out, Dona Catarina,” said Rosalía Santos from the rear-facing seat. “Perhaps the good lord sends us a sign.” Fervently she crossed herself before reaching out to relieve Catherine of her burden.

Cat studied the little boy who was settling himself into Rosalía’s ample lap, one small thumb tucked into his mouth. “Perhaps you are right,” she said softly. “Except for the time his toy soldier fell off the balcony and was run down by a cart, that is certainly the most sound I have heard him make. Perhaps England will be good for all of us.”

“
God be thanked we are almost there,” said Blanca with considerable fervor. “I can only hope Tomás’s man of affairs has seen to hiring a staff . . . and that there are beds to lay our heads on.”

Since Blanca had said exactly the same thing on numerous occasions over the past month, Catherine merely murmured reassurance while another question tugged at the back of her mind. “Blanca, did Papa ever mention how he happened to acquire Branwyck Park? He did not tell me of it until just before he died, and a very great surprise it was. Do you suppose it was an inheritance? He cannot have bought it himself for he never left Portugal.”

“
Never has he mentioned the house to me until”—Blanca’s eyes darkened with sorrow—”until the very end when he begged me to go with you to this Branwyck. I know nothing of how the house came to him.”

Catherine leaned back against the cushions, trying to find a spot where the continual jouncing was less noticeable. “I shall have to ask Sir Giles,” she said wearily. “It cannot be such a mystery, after all. I am simply enormously grateful we have a house.” And if the man riding beside the carriage had had black hair, amber eyes and the look of a rough-hewn devil about him, all weariness and fears would be forgotten. If Blas were with her, she would not be going into exile. She would be going home.

As the heavy traveling coach turned off the main road onto a narrow avenue nearly overhung by tall oaks, four noses were pressed to the glass, the occupants blissfully unmindful of their dignity. A gasp, a murmured exclamation, as Blanca caught sight of Branwyck Park. A swift exchange of seats, and it was Catherine’s turn to gasp in amazement. Set in a well-scythed park studded with oaks, copper beech, giant rhododendron and other ornamental shrubbery, Branwyck was neither the quaint thatched cottage Catherine half-expected, nor foursquare Georgian, nor classic Palladian. Confronting her was her dream of what a house should be—a seventeenth century manor house of mellow rose brick with mullioned windows and a series of asymmetrical gables which gave its façade a charming, almost lopsided appearance. It was a marvelously appealing structure, a house which welcomed residents and guests alike. Though larger than Catherine expected, it was modest enough compared to the great country houses of the nobility which she had glimpsed on their journey north.

In her haste to exit the carriage, Catherine nearly tripped down the steps, provoking the young footman assisting her to forget his place long enough to welcome her with a friendly grin. He was later to regale the staff with how he was that close to being bowled over himself when he saw what a looker she was. And who’d a thought she was the missus, a young chit like that. Fallen on his feet with this job, he had!

In response to a letter sent by Sir Giles the moment their ship had docked in Plymouth, the staff had been kept in readiness. Swiftly, they assembled in the entrance hall, the smallest tweeny skidding down the back stairs from the nursery with a feather duster still clutched in her hand. A frown from Arthur Goggans, who was hoping his new position as butler would eventually lead to a great house in the city, sent the littlest maid scurrying into line just as the footman threw open the door and Dona Catarina Perez de Leon swept into the hall closely followed by the rest of her party. Sir Giles brought up the rear.

Fatigue forgotten, Catherine smiled charmingly upon her staff, managing words of sincere appreciation to Goggans and the housekeeper Mrs. Mary Plumb, for even an initial glance revealed the house had been polished into splendor for the arrival of its new residents. As Cat reached the little tweeny at the end of the line, who was introduced as the nursery maid, she took careful stock of the small, wide-eyed face. “I am so glad you are to help with the nursery, Nan. It will be good for Pierre to have a young person about.”

Suddenly, Catherine found she was shaking. Safely at journey’s end, her stamina was crumbling into the reality of physical and mental exhaustion. She managed a quirk of a smile for Mrs. Plumb. “If you would be so good as to have Pierre and Rosalía taken to the nursery and given hot water for baths and whatever food Rosalía desires for the boy, I would be exceedingly grateful.”

Although Mrs. Plumb was of the opinion the young mistress was far too gracious in her manners—”Needs to be higher in the instep,” she later confided to Goggans—she was pleased to demonstrate the competency of her housekeeping. Within five minutes the weary travelers had been dispatched to their rooms and the entry hall was once again quiet. Only the tramp of footmen carrying heavy trunks up the graceful curves of the matching marble staircases broke the stillness of Branwyck Park.

Chapter Sixteen

That evening, when the weary travelers gathered in the drawing room after supper, their opinion was unanimous: Catherine was most fortunate in her new home.

“
The nursery needs some work,” Blanca pronounced. “All else is perfection. I cannot understand how Tomás managed it. I would have said he was so occupied with his work that buying a home or hiring an agent to decorate it—as anyone can plainly see has been the case—were the very last things on his mind.”

“
And I would have said he could not afford it,” Cat added thoughtfully. Branwyck Park was far more than she had expected.

Sir Giles paused in the act of pouring brandy from a cut-glass carafe which the butler had placed on a small Chippendale table near the fireplace. The look on his face was very odd indeed. He resumed his task, then lowered himself into a gold brocade wingback chair close to the ladies. Sir Giles was a man who spent most of his days analyzing a mountain of data. He clasped his hands around the snifter to warm the liquid to the desired temperature. Patiently, he waited to hear more.

“
My rooms are also perfection,” Cat said. “I was not aware Papa had the slightest idea I loved those particular shades of blue and green.”