The Deception Read online

  The

  Deception

  ______________________

  Catherine Coulter

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and

  incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or

  are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is

  entirely coincidental.

  THE DECEPTION

  A SIGNET Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1998 by Catherine Coulter

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by

  mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

  Making or distributing electronic copies of this book

  constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the

  infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin

  Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 0-7865-1081-1

  A SIGNET BOOK®

  SIGNET Books are published by and imprint of Dutton

  NAL., a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  SIGNET and the “S” design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: February, 2002

  To Catherine Lyons-Labate.

  She loves chocolate and gardenias.

  She loves to laugh, she’s unconditionally cheerful.

  Best of all-she laughs at my jokes.

  Chapter 1

  London

  December 2, 1814

  He was hot and impatient, wanting nothing more than to bury himself in her and forget for a while at least that there were monsters out there that could bring a man to despair. He was heaving with the effort as he managed, finally, to balance himself over her. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice as raw and naked as his soul, “I’m sorry,” and he knew in that moment that he simply couldn’t be of any use to her at all. He wondered if indeed he was being any use to himself in those moments he exploded deep inside her, losing all sense of self, all sense of who and what he was, or of belonging to anyone or anything. He was scattered and drifting, and he relished the brief oblivion. But after the shattering pleasure receded, he was again incredibly alone. And once again he remembered there was evil out there in the night.

  He slowly moved away from her, feeling himself come back into painful focus, seeing the shadows the fire cast on the walls opposite her bed, following them to the deeper shadows that filled the corners of the bedchamber, bathing everything in gray emptiness. No, the emptiness was inside him, and he was the one who yet lived.

  He turned to her. She was lying on her back, her legs still spread, one graceful hand lying fisted on her white belly. He lightly closed his hand over hers, lifting it. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I will do better.” She wasn’t going to tell him it didn’t matter to her if he treated her like a vessel of convenience, because it did matter. She’d known him for two years, not a very long time to know a man as complex and proud and ferociously sexual as Richard Clarendon, but enough for a woman who was as arrogant in her own way as he was, and well used to gratification, to say, “You’re never a careless or selfish lover. You might as well tell me what’s wrong.”

  He lightly kissed her knuckles, then laid her hand back onto her belly. He smoothed her fingers, splaying them on her white flesh. “You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice as absent as his mind was from her.

  “Yes, I know, but that doesn’t matter. You’re beautiful as well. Now, what’s wrong, Richard?”

  He rose slowly, walked to the fire that was no longer raging but soft and glowing, and stretched himself. His large body was bathed in golden light. She admired his mind as well as she admired his body—both were quick and graceful and powerful. “You’re tired,” she said, breaking into his silence. “Yes, very tired.” He was more than that. He was also a fool. He had hoped that being with her would somehow renew him, make him savor life and its living once more, but it hadn’t. He felt even more tired than he had an hour before. “Yes,” he said. “Very tired. I’m sorry,” he said yet again. She rose and walked to him, pressing herself against his side. “It’s that girl, isn’t it? The one who married Phillip Mercerault? The one who turned you down? Your man’s spirit still wants her?”

  That made him smile. Things would be much simpler if Sabrina was responsible for the pain that had burrowed so deeply in him that he doubted if it would ever retreat. “Man’s spirit? How is a man’s spirit different from a woman’s spirit?”

  “They are very different. Your spirit nurtures your belief in yourself. If a woman rejects you, it’s your own worth that is wounded, not your heart. A woman’s spirit is a desert to be filled with a man’s attention. Hers is easily wounded, for men don’t excel in giving full attention, it isn’t their way. So both men and women suffer from pain; only their pain is very different from each other’s.”

  “To debate that would be an impossible task. No, this has nothing to do with Sabrina. She and Phillip did as they should. She’s pregnant, and Phillip is happier than I’ve ever seen him.”

  She nodded, realizing that he was telling her the truth. “Then what is it? Is your mother ill?” “No, she’s perfectly fit.” “You miss your father?”

  “Yes, of course. He was the very best of men. I will miss him until I die myself.” He paused, then looked down into that quite lovely face. “You won’t cease, will you, Morgana?”

  “No.” Her hand was on his arm. There was nothing seductive about it, but still his body reacted. She saw the renewed heat in him, the force and energy of him turning to her, and she quickly backed away. “Before you leap upon me again, tell me.”

  “A woman shouldn’t plague a man. Oh, hell, it’s all about murder, Morgana, the needless murder of someone who shouldn’t have gotten himself killed, someone who was very close to me.”

  “Did you kill the murderer?” She said it so matter-of-factly that he started. The duke rammed his long fingers through his black hair, sending it to stand on end. “No, I don’t know what particular man killed him. I’d like to dispatch that man to hell where he belongs, but it’s what’s behind him that drives me to fury and despair. I begin
to wonder if any of us are safe anymore.” He turned back to the fire, his head down, and she knew he wouldn’t say anything more. He was in pain. She would help him. He paid her to be at his beck and call, but this was one time when she would have quite willingly taken him into her arms for absolutely nothing at all.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and pressed herself against him. He was hard against her belly. She kissed his shoulder, laid her face against his chest. “Come, let me help you forget, at least for a little while.”

  He didn’t take her back to her bed. He lifted her, driving upward deeply into her. He wondered if he was hurting her, but then he touched her and she made that soft sound deep in her throat, and he knew she was close to her climax. He didn’t let her down this time, but when he left her forty-five minutes later, she knew that he still felt as cold as stone.

  Chapter 2

  Romilly-sur-Seine, France

  February 10, 1815

  It was late. Evangeline set her brush beside the silver-handled comb on the dressing table, too tired to braid her hair. She heard her maid, Margueritte, laughing softly and humming even as she smoothed the wrinkles from the blue velvet gown that Evangeline had worn that evening.

  She stared at herself in the mirror. She was too pale, and there was no laughter in her eyes or on her lips. She was tired, so very tired, and it was deep, all the way to her soul.

  She knew a horrible wrenching inside. She knew what it was as well. She wanted to go home, to England. She hated France.

  But she couldn’t tell her father, it would hurt him deeply. And she loved him more than she loved anyone on the face of this earth. When they’d heard that Napoleon had been defeated and Louis would be returned by the English to the French throne, he’d been so pleased that he’d grabbed her up to dance with her.

  They’d returned six months before to Romilly-sur-Seine, not to their ancestral home but rather to a smallish manor house that lay but two miles from the chateau. A wealthy merchant lived in their home now, with his fat wife and six offspring.

  Her father hadn’t cared. He was pleased to be home, to speak his own language again, to laugh at the things a Frenchman was supposed to laugh at. He’d never really understood the English humor. She imagined that he’d simply never wanted to take all that was English into himself, and so he hadn’t. He spoke English beautifully, but his thoughts were always in French. She wondered what her mother, a very English lady, had thought about that, for surely she knew that her husband would never move his thoughts and dreams toward her.

  He’d lived for twenty-five years in Kent, married to the daughter of a local baron, who’d lived with them since he’d lost all his own money gambling. She’d liked her English grandfather. She doubted now that as an adult she would care for him at all, but a child had no such qualifying notions. He’d died before she’d gained an adult’s mind, and thus he would be forever a romantic figure in her thoughts.

  She was the mirror image of her father. She spoke French beautifully, like a native actually, but she simply wasn’t French. How to tell her father that she was miserable, that she would die before she married a Frenchman like the Comte de Pouilly, Henri Moreau, a rich, handsome young nobleman who left her cold and rigid, no smile in her mind, much less on her mouth?

  The evening had been long and trying, largely because Henri, for no good reason she could think of, had determined with appalling certainty that Evangeline would make him the ideal wife. The good Lord knew she had discouraged him, but his hide was thicker than the bark of an oak tree. He wanted her. Every chance he got, he tried to trap her against a wall or against a tree, or push her into the bushes to try to kiss her. He’d managed it once. She’d bitten his tongue.

  There was a light knock on her bedchamber door. She smiled automatically, rising, for she knew it was her father. He always came to her every night before she went to bed. It was one of her favorite times.

  She called out in French, because she knew that’s what he wanted to hear from her, “Entrez.”

  Her father, Guillaume de Beauchamps, the most handsome man she’d ever seen in her life, strode through the bedroom door like a warrior he really wasn’t. What he was, she thought, still smiling as he came toward her, his hands outstretched, was a philosopher. Women flocked to him. Even when he spoke to them of the metaphysical underpinnings of Descartes, they usually just smiled at him and moved closer.

  “Papa,” she said, and walked into his arms. Nature had given him the face and the body of a warrior. He was magnificent. Few people knew that his heart didn’t beat properly, that she worried about him constantly now, for he was fifty-five on his last birthday, and the English doctor had told her that there was nothing to be done, that he must rest and remain calm. He had said it was a good thing her father was a philosopher; that would keep him seated and thinking. The only problem was that her father became dreadfully excited when he read Montaigne.

  “Tu est fatigue, ma fille?”

  “Oui, Papa, un peu.” And she thought to herself, yes, she was tired, but she more than just a little tired. All of her was tired, and dispirited.

  She turned to her maid. “Margueritte, c’est assez. Laissez-nous maintenant.” And again, as she always did when she spoke French, she thought in English. “Leave us now, that’s enough.”

  Margueritte’s plump fingers batted a final wrinkle before she gave Monsieur de Beauchamps a lustful look, hummed her good nights, and closed the door after her.

  They grinned at each other, listening to Margueritte’s humming as she walked down the narrow corridor to the third floor.

  “Ah, Papa, assieds-toi.” She eyed him closely as he sat on the other chair in her bedchamber. She took a deep breath and said in English, “You had so many of the ladies after you this evening.”

  He sighed, seeming not to notice her shift, and replied in French, “Even if they are with their husbands, they feel compelled to flirt with me. It’s very distressing. I simply don’t understand, Evangeline. I do nothing untoward to bring them to me.”

  She laughed, unable not to. “Oh, bother, Papa. I have never seen you distressed in my life. You adore the attention. And you know very well that all you have to do to bring the ladies to your side is to simply look straight ahead with no expression at all on your face. You could probably be drooling, and they would still come to you.

  “Now, tell me. Did you speak only about your philosophers when the dozen ladies told you how very handsome you are?”

  He said with great severity, “Naturally. I spoke tonight of Rousseau. A dunderhead, but his ideas give one some pause, in a manner of speaking. Not much, really, but he is French. Thus one must pay him some attention, occasionally.”

  She couldn’t stop laughing. Her father merely looked at her, his handsome head slightly tilted to the side, a mannerism they shared. When she finally wiped her eyes, she said, “You are the best papa in the whole world. I love you. Please don’t ever change.”

  “Your mother, bless her sweet heart, was the only one who tried to change me.”

  Evangeline, still chuckling, said, “My mother simply tried to pry something out of her husband other than ramblings of a metaphysical nature. Now, I am given to understand that it is a wife’s duty to gather her husband’s attention to herself and not let him ramble off too often seeking answers to unanswerable questions.”

  “You mock me, my girl, but since you are so very dear to me, I will forgive you.” He sat back in the chair, set his hands on his knees, and continued after a moment. “You did not enjoy yourself this evening, ma fille. You were surrounded by all the young people, all the young gentlemen admired you greatly, and you danced every dance. I only managed to snag one with you. And my dear Henri was gratifyingly attentive.”

  “There is nothing gratifying about Henri. He is more persistent than a hungry gull, and more stubborn than our goat, Dorcas, in Kent, and his hands are sometimes damp. If he would just realize that there are other things in this vast world besides his h
orses, trying to feel my bottom, the income from his rents, and the prospect of adding me to his possessions, perhaps I could remain in his company for more than five minutes without wanting to smack him.”

  “You said a lot there, Evangeline, but naturally all I heard is that he is trying to seduce you. Your bottom? Oh, dear, I suppose I will have to speak to the boy.”

  “He is no boy. He is twenty-six.” “Oui, but that is very young for a man. It has always been evident that boys take longer to ripen than girls. It is unfortunate, but it is evidently God’s plan. Henri is perhaps a bit foolish, but he will mature as he gains years. Henri is high in his family’s favor. He now manages the family estate whilst his uncle spends all his time with King Louis in Paris. This will mature Henri, that is what his uncle told me.

  “And, my dear child, you are nearly twenty years old. It’s long past time for you to take a husband. You have been ripe enough for two years now. Yes, a husband is just what you need. I’ve been too selfish.” “No, I’ve been the selfish one. Why would I wish to marry, Papa, when I have you?”

  “You have never been in love,” he said, a magnificent frown furrowing his brow and making his beautiful gray eyes glitter with humor. “You would never think to say such a stupid thing if you had.”

  She was dead serious now, leaning toward him, her hair falling over her shoulder. “I cannot see that marriage is such a wonderful thing. All the ladies who swoon over you, what of their husbands? What of love with them? It seems to me that marriage is simply a way for a lady to go from her father’s house to her husband’s house; the only difference is that with her husband she’s expected—indeed, it’s demanded of her that she produce children and obey her husband’s every whim. I don’t think so, Papa.”

  Monsieur de Beauchamps just shook his head. She was stubborn, his daughter, just like her dear mother, Claudia, who’d dug in her English heels more times than he could begin to remember. That brought a thought. Could it be that Evangeline was even more stubborn than her lovely mother had been? Could it be that she was as stubborn as her great-aunt Marthe? He must take a firm hand; he didn’t like it, but it was his duty. He had to sound unutterably serious. “My child, you must be set onto the proper road in your thinking. Love isn’t necessary for a successful marriage.”