Chapter 1
Chateau du Soleil
March 27, 1814
High in one of the fanciful white towers of Chateau du Soleil, Natalya Beauvisage was writing a novel. Her scarred desk was positioned to afford her an ideal view through the three narrow windows that pierced the wall, and she spent much of her days dreamily appreciating the luminous beauty spread below the chateau.
It was a long way from Philadelphia, where she had lived until traveling to Europe nearly six years ago at the age of twenty. Natalya might have grown used to her surroundings, but she refused to take them for granted. The Loire Valley was, she’d decided, unquestionably the most beautiful place on earth. The river itself swirled over blond sand, past light willows, shimmering poplars, and vineyards that spread over voluptuously curved hillsides. The valley’s magical element was its golden, pearlescent light, which washed the soft landscape as if it were a watercolor.
As a writer, Natalya reveled in the history that saturated the Loire Valley. She had grown up in a newly formed, headstrong, idealistic country. America was still raw in many ways. France, on the other hand, was redolent with history and style. Each day Natalya found herself looking out over a meandering river where centuries exchanged memories across the banks. Rumor had it that this very chateau had been the inspiration for Charles Perrault’s “Sleeping Beauty,” but she had stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago.
Times had changed, and Natalya was certainly a far cry from the damsels who may have languished in this very tower, waiting for brave knights to ride up and carry them off. She had dreams, certainly, but they did not center around the appearance in her life of a handsome prince. With her usual sense of dramatic originality, Natalya had chosen dreams that she could pursue and realize all by herself.
Shaking her head, she smiled and looked back down at the last page she meant to write that afternoon. The approaching twilight seemed to be in league with a spring storm. Purplish clouds burgeoned against a glowing sky, and the light was waning by the moment. When fat raindrops began to pelt the leaded-glass windows of the tower, she put down her pen, stored her day’s work in the top drawer of her desk along with the other one hundred seventeen pages of her manuscript, and left the tower study.
Lisette Beauvisage heard the soft tapping of Natalya’s footsteps on the circular stone staircase that led from the tower to the family quarters. Peeking into the corridor, she called to her, and when Natalya came into sight, Lisette gave her niece a radiant smile of greeting.
“I’m just about to soak in my bath and sip tea. Won’t you share a cup with me and chat for a few minutes?”
“Gladly,” Natalya replied, her face alight. “I do crave conversation after a day in the tower. If I hadn’t seen you, I would have been forced to converse with the tapestry in the gallery!”
Laughing, she followed her aunt into the spacious bedchamber that had been refurbished at the turn of the century. The white paneled walls were now lightly embellished with gilded wood relief, and the windows and bed were hung with draperies of soft powder blue. Lisette had chosen furnishings from the Louis XVI period, which featured rich, inlaid woods and classical lines. Two paintings of sylvan woodland painted by Lisette herself adorned the walls, and vases of daffodils splashed the room with yellow. Her delicately etched porcelain bathtub had been moved from her dressing room to a spot before the hearth, where a fire blazed cheerfully.
“Doesn’t that look heavenly?” she asked, gesturing toward the bath. A maid was just pouring in the last pitcher of steaming water. “I love to bathe in front of the fire when the weather is gloomy.” She turned to the maid, a petite young black-haired girl named Marie-Helene, and spoke in French, requesting tea for two and some cakes. Then she shed her silk dressing gown and stepped into the bathtub.
Natalya reclined on a chaise and smiled. “I hope that I am half as beautiful as you are twenty years from now Auntie.”
“I’m sixteen years older than you, not twenty, but if that was a compliment, I accept.”
At forty-two, Lisette Hahn Beauvisage had long been secure in her beauty. Her elegant, willowy figure and lovely face, offset by pale golden tresses, had changed little over the years. At twenty-one, when Lisette had been the proprietress of Hahn’s Coffeehouse in Philadelphia, she had cared little for her appearance and was in fact eager to dissuade men from admiring her. Since Nicholai’s entrance in her life, however, Lisette had come to appreciate all her gifts and take pride in her feminine attributes. She had mellowed, although she continued to cherish her rights as an individual. True, she respected her husband and secretly thrilled to his masculinity, but that did not prevent her from insisting she stand with him as an equal in their marriage. Her children had grown up watching her not only work alongside their father, but also pursue her own love of painting. Her feelings and moods were known to be as valuable as his, and she believed that this was a great lesson for their children.
“I dreamed last night that Adrienne came home from London,” Natalya remarked, accepting a cup of tea from Marie-Helene.
Lisette gestured for the maid to set her tea on a side table, then returned to the task of lathering her arms. “I wish that my daughter could come home. This horrible war makes travel so dangerous that we’re afraid to let her join us even for holidays.”
“Don’t forget that the war is the reason you sent Adrienne to school in London. Uncle Nicky seems safe enough here, probably because he came before the French Revolution and has won the loyalty of the locals. But it’s hard to know how Adrienne would be treated if she tried to carry on a normal life here.” Natalya sipped her hot tea and smiled. “She’s much more outgoing than James. After all, at seventeen... well, she’s a young lady and needs the company of others her own age, while James is perfectly content to stay at home where it’s safe. As long as he can play the man alongside his father, and have his horses and books, he’s happy.”
“For the moment.” Lisette’s tone was wry. “Have you noticed his voice getting deeper, or the fact that he’s grown two inches since Christmas?” She sighed. “Already fifteen... He’ll be ready to go off in search of female companionship, if you take my meaning.”
Natalya closed her eyes. “James seems remarkably sensible to me. Perhaps he’ll listen to his cousin Talya and be wary of romance. Life can be so enjoyable without the complications of affairs de coeur.”
Stifling an impatient response, Lisette turned her head to regard Natalya. How innocent she looked! Except for her eyes, which ranged from aqua to turquoise like her father’s, she was the image of her mother, Caroline. They had the same delicate features and honey-colored hair, the same slim gracefully-curved figure. She had every gift necessary to attract men, but she seemed oblivious to her own charms.
Lisette couldn’t help sighing as she noted the concealing white cashmere shawl that Natalya wore over her pale peach chemise frock with its fashionably low neckline. At twenty-six her niece showed no inclination to marry at any time in the near—or distant—future. She insisted that she was now able to make her own way in the world, as an author, and therefore had no need of marriage.
“What was the meaning of that sigh?” Natalya queried, looking up at her aunt.
Lisette laughed. “Oh, I was just meddling in my own mind again. Worrying about you, wishing you’d fall in love and marry and—”
“Live happily ever after?” she finished. “Why don’t you be honest, Auntie, and admit that if you hadn’t met Uncle Nicky, you probably wouldn’t have been married at twenty-six, either! You’d have gone on supporting yourself at the coffeehouse, determined not to settle for some bland barrister simply because society preferred that you have a husband.” She was leaning forward now, eyes dancing mischievously. “Can you deny it? I’m absolutely right, aren’t I?”
“You needn’t behave as if I have been matchmaking at every opportunity. Why, it’s been more than a year since I even invited a man to dine with us.” She put on an innocent expression. “And you’re right. Perhaps it’s the mother in me. You’re completely enchanting, and I can’t help wishing that you had someone to love....”
She sought to divert her aunt’s attention. “Perhaps, if I can ever arrange to go home to Philadelphia, I might meet the man who will change my mind.” She sighed. “It’s just astonishing how much I miss home. Today, as I worked on the character of the mother in my new book, I was struck by the most overpowering longing to be with Maman. The thought of seeing her and Papa and Kristin, of coming in the front door of Belle Maison, sleeping in my old bedroom, visiting Grandmama...” She paused, her voice catching. “I yearn for it so, it brings tears to my eyes.”
Lisette sipped the last of her tea. “I miss Philadelphia, too, and I don’t blame you for wanting to go home after nearly six years. You know that Nicholai is exploring every possible way to get you back to America, but—”
“I know, there is a war on.” Natalya’s eyes blazed a brilliant turquoise. “It is frustrating that I cannot travel where I please!”
“Sometimes I cannot help wondering if part of the reason you’re so determined to sail for home is the fact that everyone tells you, you cannot,” Lisette said mildly. Stepping out of the bathtub, she wrapped herself in a thick towel.
“I’ll find a way,” she insisted. “And I’m not motivated by stubbornness, or a whim. Something inside”—she pressed a hand over her heart—“tells me it’s time. It’s the same inner voice that bade me leave Philadelphia and travel to Europe after my twentieth birthday!”
Before she could frame a tactful reply, Marie-Helene appeared in the doorway.
“Madame, there is a stranger outside, insisting that he speak to M’sieur Nicholai.” The little maid’s eyes were wide with trepidation.
“M’sieur Nicholai and James have not yet returned from their ride to Saumur?”
“No, madame.”
“Well, I’m sure that they’ll be back momentarily. It’s started to rain, hasn’t it? You must ask our visitor in, give him a drink, and assure him that M’sieur Beauvisage should arrive home within minutes.”
Marie-Helene looked pained. “Madame, this man is... a stranger.”
“Whatever do you mean by that?” Lisette was losing patience. “If he is a friend of my husband’s—”
“He does not look like any friend of M’sieur Beauvisage’s that I have seen before. He looks almost—dangerous....” The maid began to wring her hands nervously.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Natalya exclaimed, “I’ll go down and deal with the man!”
Standing, she drew her shawl close around her slim shoulders and hurried out of the room. Marie-Helene scuttled along behind, head down. They descended the curving, white marble stairway, Natalya’s fingers skimming the rail of the intricately carved, black wrought-iron balustrade. At the bottom stretched the chateau’s long gallery, magnificent with its floor of black-and-white marble squares and its renaissance tapestries. Through the gallery’s long windows Natalya could see the stranger who struck such fear into Marie-Helene. Clad all in black, he stood inside the arched doorway to the chateau’s east wing. A slight breeze billowed his cape and caused him to lift his head, giving Natalya a glimpse of a rakish, dark, bearded face.
Baby hairs prickled along the back of her neck, a novel sensation that startled her.
“Voila!” hissed Marie-Helene. “You see? He is a devil!”
Natalya blinked. “I see nothing of the kind. Your imagination is driven wild by this ferocious weather.”
“Je t’implore, do not open the door to him!” the maid cried.
As she crossed the stone entry hall, Natalya realized that Marie-Helene was scurrying in her wake like a child trying to hide behind her mother. She put her hand on the latch and warned, “You needn’t cling to me if you’re so terrified of this person. I can deal with him on my own.”
“Mais, non! I cannot leave you, mam’selle. I am here to serve you with my very life, if need be!”
Natalya stole a brief glance heavenward and tried not to smile. “I’m sure I don’t deserve such blind devotion. You’d better brace yourself, then. I’m going to open the door... now!” She was nearly laughing as she pushed back the bolt, lifted the latch, and dragged open the heavy door. Her eyes were sparkling with merriment, and a silken curl came loose to brush the side of her cheek.
Then, Natalya focused on the stranger. Her body stilled and her smile faded, while the pounding of her heart grew deafening. Never before had she seen so striking a man. The effect was intensified by the angry twilight, which hurled raindrops, faster and faster, at the black-clad giant.
Perhaps he wasn’t really a giant, Natalya amended, ever aware of her tendency to embellish reality; but he was bigger than her father or Uncle Nicky, both of whom were tall and broad-shouldered. The stranger’s size was made more menacing by his black cape, which swirled out over worn trousers stuffed into muddy black boots. Most arresting of all, though, was his proud head, with a profile that bespoke arrogance and danger. Natalya was struck by his wild, wet black hair, which was laced with silver, and by his pale face with its sculpted bone structure and steely eyes. He wore a trim beard, and his mouth looked sensual and hard all at once.
“Bon soir, madame,” the stranger said in a voice that sounded hoarse and tired. “I beg your pardon for this intrusion, but I have come a very long way to speak to your husband.”
Startled, Natalya exclaimed, “You’re English!”
“I’m afraid so,” he admitted. “And you are... American?”
“Yes. M’sieur Beauvisage is my uncle. My aunt is upstairs at the moment, but my uncle will be back directly. Would you care to come in and—” She heard Marie-Helene gasp and felt her tug urgently at the back of her shawl. Natalya gave her a quelling glance. “You must excuse our maid. She has taken it into her head that you are a dangerous character and—”
The man turned his head sharply, as if he had heard an expected but unwelcome noise. “If you don’t mind, I’ll accept your invitation,” he said hurriedly. “This weather is devilish.”
Before Natalya could step out of the way, he pushed past her, causing Marie-Helene to cry out. Natalya herself was beset by a sudden wave of apprehension as she realized that he now knew her uncle was not present. In the interest of fairness and good manners, she had written off his appearance to the rain and wind, but now she could see that beneath the cape his clothing was frayed, his hair and beard were overdue for grooming, and there was an evil-looking scar across the hand that reached out to push the door closed. When he turned again to look at her, she immediately recognized the threat in his gleaming gray eyes.
Natalya wasn’t surprised when he put his hand under his cape and drew out a long, sharpened dirk. At that moment, she became aware of the clatter of hoofbeats entering the courtyard of the chateau.
“Do as I say,” the man said curtly, “and neither of you will be hurt.” He stared hard at the trembling Marie-Helene. “Compose yourself! When those men on horseback reach the door, they’ll describe me, and you must tell them that you have not seen me, do you understand? You must be calm and convincing, little girl, else your beautiful mistress will feel my blade.” He waited for the maid’s crazed, wild-eyed nod, then lifted Natalya off the floor and carried her into a tower alcove just a few feet from the door. “Do not fight me,” he ground out. “Be silent!”
The hand covering Natalya’s mouth was wet and smelled of horse and sweat and damp wool. His other arm clasped her waist, and now she felt the tip of the dirk press upward between her breasts, the steel cold through the thin muslin of her gown. His body seemed to surround her: powerful, musky, terrifying. As more unknown and potentially dangerous men pounded at the door, Natalya waited for her heart to explode.
“Shh. Don’t move,” the stranger whispered, his breath madly ticklish against her ear. “If you’re very good, perhaps I’ll give you a kiss after they’ve gone.”
This sudden burst of teasing humor, so peculiarly and arrogantly male, made Natalya long to sink her teeth into his palm. Never had she met a man whom she despised more!