Sweet Bravado Read online

  Nicole stood frozen in the center of her bedroom…

  her violet eyes dark stains of fear, her mouth trembling with unspoken protest. Valentin towered in her doorway, his unruly blond hair tumbling over his forehead and his eyes blazing with cold blue fire. Though his clothes were dirty and mud-spattered, he swept Nicole an elegant bow.

  “You cannot come in here,” Nicole whispered.

  “It would seem I already am in here, ma’am.

  I was given to understand that you insisted upon my presence.”

  “But not at such an untimely hour. This is quite improper.”

  “What, my dear, did you expect from a‘fortune-hunting rake’?” Nicole’s former rash words were flung in her face with quiet contempt; and as the Viscount stepped toward her, she thrust out her hand as if to ward him off. With a quick movement, he pulled her into his arms.

  “What are you doing?” she gasped.

  “Getting acquainted, my dear, in keeping with your charming request of my mother. What better way to settle matters and insure our forthcoming nuptials than by forcing your hand?”

  Some historical details have been altered to

  fit the needs of the story.

  Copyright

  WARNER BOOKS EDITION

  Copyright © 1979 by Alicia Meadowes

  All rights reserved

  Warner Books, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: October 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-446-56827-2

  To Dan and Mary Gallina.

  Home is where the heart lies.

  Prologue

  “Damn!” The angry Viscount of Ardsmore strode across the room to pour himself another glass of port. “A nice homecoming this has turned out to be.” He turned his blazing blue eyes on his mother who was seated across the room from him. “First a funeral and now this blasted will. I still can’t believe Aunt Sophie did this.”

  “That old woman must have been senile,” Lady Elea-nore fumed.

  “Nasty business,” Perry Harcourt sympathized.

  “Sylvie Moreau!” Lady Eleanore exclaimed bitterly. “That ballet dancer has had the last laugh after all.”

  The Viscount stared at her thoughtfully. “That is hardly to the point, madame., It is the daughter who concerns me, not the mother.”

  “But the daughter of a ballet dancer,” his mother protested.

  “What are you going to do, Val?” Perry asked.

  “Marry her,” the Viscount replied curtly. “Do I have a choice?” He looked from his mother to his brother, mocking their dismay. “Unless the lot of us decides to take up residence in Newgate.” He laughed at the horrified expressions on their faces.

  “Bad as that?” Perry questioned.

  “Worse. You know the Harcourt talent for spending money as well as I do,” Valentin drawled. “One might say Aunt Sophie has come to the rescue despite her damnable scheming. The old girl’s fortune is going to save our spendthrift skins.” The Viscount cast a bold glance toward his mother and winked slyly at Perry. “I have some rather pressing… er… expenses that can no longer be staved off with my infinite charm,” he said, mocking himself.

  “Know what you mean, old man. The Von Hoffman woman was flaunting some pretty fancy emeralds at Vauxhall…”

  “Mind your tongue, you young blockhead!” the Viscount snapped at his hapless brother, who flushed a deep scarlet. “Will you never learn discretion?”

  “My son.” Lady Eleanore came to him clutching at his arm. “I know the sacrifices you are making.”

  “Spare me the speeches, madame. We have much to discuss, since I return to France in the morning. First we must instruct Dilworth to find the girl, then—”

  “I say, Val,” the heedless Perry interrupted. “Don’t mean to throw in a damper or anything, but just suppose Nicole won’t have you?”

  “What!” Lady Eleanore cried. “Your brother, the Viscount of Ardsmore, and that little French nobody!‘She would not dare refuse!”

  “And there you have it, Perry. A marriage made in heaven.” Valentin Harcourt laughed sarcastically, then raised the port and downed it.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter I

  “C’est barbare! Our wits shall be jolted from our brain-box before we reach Paris in this tumbril of a coach,” exclaimed the agitated little Frenchwoman accompanying the young girl beside her.

  “Come, now, madame. Do not give in to your fears,” the young woman responded in an effort to keep up her spirits. “You will cast us both into such glooms that we will be quite undone. Let us consider my good fortune. It is not every day that a pauper such as myself is turned into an heiress overnight.”

  “Hélas, mon petit chpu. That is what troubles me most about this mad adventure. This marriage with that English devil! He will eat you alive, that one. I remember him at your dear papa’s funeral. So arrogant. And those wild blue eyes like Satan…”

  “Madame!” The sharp command silenced further babble from her companion but stirred up a veritable storm of unrest in the girl’s breast. She schooled her facial muscles into a mask of calm repose, but the frantic thoughts leaping wildly in her mind could not be subdued.

  Nicole Harcourt had met her frightening cousin Valentin, the Viscount of Ardsmore, only a few times during her childhood. She was thirteen years old the last time she saw him. Almost eleven years had passed since her father’s funeral, and yet the memory of Valentin Harcourt remained vivid in her mind. It was those fiery blue eyes that haunted her dreams and seemed to watch her haughtily through the accumulated fantasies of her adolescent years that she recalled most of all. Now she was on her way to meet Lady Eleanore, the Viscount’s mother, to make the arrangements to marry him. Could it be true? She—the wife of that blond god she had worshipped in the secrecy of her heart all these years?

  The presence of an inheritance had come as a shock. Aunt Sophie had remembered Nicole and made her, as well as Valentin, the joint heirs to her vast riches. Only four months ago Mr. Dilworth, a solicitor representing the Ardsmore interests had arrived at the small cottage in Beauvais where Nicole lived with Madame Lafitte and informed them of the will. Until Mr. Dilworth’s arrival, Nicole’s had been a life of quiet anonymity since the death of her mother three years before. Mr. Dilworth explained to the girl the incredible stipulation of her great-aunt Sophie’s will; that Nicole must marry his lordship, Valentin Harcourt, Viscount of Ardsmore, or the inheritance would be lost to the entire family. This was Aunt Sophie’s last attempt to reunite the two branches of the Harcourt family.

  Eleven years ago Aunt Sophie came to France searching out her favorite nephew, Rupert Harcourt, Nicole’s father. Aunt Sophie was determined to see her nephew reconciled to the Harcourt family, but her plans unravelled with the untimely death of Nicole’s father.

  His death left Nicole and her mother in difficult financial, straits, and almost completely isolated. They were alone in the world, except for a sister on her mother’s side whose tie to them had never been strong. Nicole’s aunt, Lorette Beauchamp, and her son, Phillippe, came to the funeral me
rely out of duty but offered little comfort to the lonely pair. In fact, Phillippe had snickered as the priest intoned prayers for the dead. It was Madame Lafitte who was their one rock of support throughout the trial of Rupert’s death and burial.

  Reluctantly, Sophie had supplied a small pension for Rupert’s widow, Sylvie Harcourt, and requested that Nicole be allowed to return to London with her and be raised in a manner suitable to a child of aristocratic lineage. But, unbeknownst to Nicole, Sylvie had spitefully declined. She refused to let the Harcourts have any further opportunity to dominate her affairs, even though it meant denying Nicole her place in English society. Sylvie could never forgive nor forget her frigid reception by the Harcourt family. When Rupert presented Sylvie Moreau, former ballet dancer from the Opéra de Paris, as his wife to that arrogant dynasty, they closed ranks in frozen hauteur. He had committed the unpardonable. Rupert, to his chagrin, found he was unable to disguise the vulgar ambition of his lovely dancer-bride and force her down the unwilling throats of the English ton. He eventually retreated from London to eke out a ramshackle existence in pursuit of faro and chemin-de-fer. In 1803, with a temporary cessation of hostilities between England and France, Rupert took Sylvie and Nicole to the Continent where he continued his unstable quest of Lady Luck.

  Although Nicole’s father had cut himself off from the family, he nevertheless communicated with Aunt Sophie. He refused all efforts on her part to mend the family breach. However, when Sophie heard of Rupert’s abrupt departure from England, she followed him with the intention of forcing him to comply with her wishes for peace, but it was too late. Rupert was fatally ill. Sophie attended the funeral accompanied by her great-nephew, Valentin, whom she had brought with her.

  A new idea to further her plans for reuniting the family struck Sophie as she studied Nicole standing next to Valentin, but it would have to wait. Sophie returned to England with Valentin, and the resumption of hostilities between England and France put an end to further contact between Nicole and the Harcourt family.

  It was still early afternoon, and snow was falling heavily as Nicole Harcourt and Madame Lafitte arrived at an imposing residence on the Boulevard St-Germain. The coach pulled into the courtyard before the Hotel Belmon-taine, relinquished its passengers, and continued on its way. Madame Lafitte and Nicole stood in the courtyard, looking about in bewilderment and wondering what was to happen next. However, Madame Lafitte was not one to lose time in matters of wonderment. She sprang into voluble action, mounting the stairs and tugging Nicole along. She pounded the brass knocker forcefully and complained loudly at their lack of reception.

  “C’est barbare!” complained the outraged Lafitte. “That not one member of the family should be here to welcome you. This is insupportable.” She chose her adjectives freely from both French and English.

  “It’s insulting,” Nicole agreed with heat.

  At that moment the heavy oak door swung open and a poker-faced butler ushered them into the library. Again the pair stood looking about uneasily. This time they were in the middle of a room hung with quantities of red damask draperies that shut out much of the thin November sunlight. A small fire in the grate did little to relieve the heavy chill in the air, and the single branch of lighted candles was of little assistance against the wintry shadows filling the room.

  “I suppose we may as well make ourselves comfortable,” Nicole suggested and seated herself on the nearest straight-backed chair. “Come madame,” she beckoned firmly. “Be seated here beside me.” They sat in contemplative silence for a few minutes.

  “I had hoped for more of a welcome from your relations,” admitted Madame. Lafitte as the minutes passed. “It does not seem they are overanxious to receive you.”

  “Receive me indeed! They should be waiting here with open arms to welcome me. Do not forget, Fifi, were it not for me, they would not have the prospect of great-aunt Sophie’s riches before them,” Nicole declaimed with much feeling of justice on her side.

  “But ma chère Nicole, the reverse is just as true of you. You stand to benefit no less than they. Come now, you must admit it,” chided Madame Lafitte, who had calmed down once she was quietly seated and removed from the discomforts of a jostling coach.

  Irritated, Nicole snapped, “Oh, Fifi, do not be so fair-minded. They do not deserve it. Look how they treat me already! Apparently they do not care enough to make me feel welcome in a strange house. It is evident that their attitude has not changed over the years. I am my mother’s daughter, after all, and they could never forget that she was a… a dancer. This sets the pattern, do you not think so?”

  “Patience, little one,” Madame Lafitte counseled.

  Nicole jumped up to pace nervously about the room. With a sigh she removed her pelisse and shook out her dark-blue dress. She untied her bonnet and began smoothing her hair into a semblance of order. She wore her dark tresses simply, without benefit of the hairdresser’s arts.

  “Stop fussing, Nicole,” Madame Lafitte broke through her thoughts. “You are quite presentable. Come, sit down.”

  “I feel better on my feet,” Nicole replied.

  At that moment Lady Eleanore, the Viscountess Ards-more, swathed in sables and exuding self-importance, sailed grandly into the library trailed by her niece and companion, Cecily Fairfax. Nicole, noticing their elegant toilettes, felt at a disadvantage in her simple merino.

  Lady Eleanore advanced toward Nicole, her thin lips pursed as she tilted her silvery head to one side and stared down her aquiline nose at the girl.

  “My dear Nicole,” Lady Eleanore finally broke through the frosty silence. “How happy I am to meet you again.” She made no apology for her tardy arrival.

  Nicole stood still allowing her cousin to brush her cheek with a cold kiss. “I too am happy to meet again after so many years, Cousin Eleanore.” Nicole spoke through stiff lips.

  “Cecily, dear, come meet Nicole Harcourt.” Lady Eleanore addressed the young girl behind her.

  Cecily examined the rather breathtaking picture Nicole presented and murmured her greeting. She viewed the silky luster of Nicole’s blue-black hair and the smooth ìvory of her complexion with a sudden flash of despair. This was an undeniable beauty. One look at Nicole’s violet eyes and Valentin was surely lost to Cecily forever. Valentin was soon to take this gorgeous creature to wife. There would be no room for Cecily in such a union. Her hatred of Nicole sprang forth on the moment.

  The Viscountess, viewing Nicole’s beauty with the dispassionate eyes of the future mdther-in-law, found her displeasure less in Nicole’s appearance than in her credentials. The daughter of a dancer! Well, what cannot be changed must be endured. The girl certainly had a presence about her, and her exquisite figure in the proper clothes would command admiration. Nicole and Valentin would make a striking couple, no doubt of it. The Har-courts would carry off the affair with their usual panache.

  This wedding, forced on her by Sophie’s eccentricity, must be accomplished with all due haste. Valentin’s expectations had held off creditors of every description far beyond their limits. The family coffers were bare and the situation was desperate, but there was no need for Nicole to be apprised of this. Such knowledge was sure to strengthen the girl’s position. Only look how bold she appeared, standing silently before them, waiting for her to carry on the business of this meeting.

  “Well, shall we put aside further display of amenities and get on with the business at hand?’ Lady Eleanore suggested haughtily.

  “As you wish, Lady Eleanore,” Nicole answered quietly.

  “We have ourselves just arrived from London and taken residence here at the Hotel Belmontaine. This house should afford us a suitable background for the wedding and all affairs attendant upon that event, don’t you think?” The Viscountess did not wait for an answer. “I believe it will be to everyone’s advantage to accomplish this wedding as speedily as possible. As a matter of fact, arrangements for a civil ceremony at the British Embassy have been scheduled for six weeks hence.
That will give us enough time for fittings and completing your trousseau, as well as a few quiet introductions into society.”

  Nicole was surprised at the speed with which everything was being arranged. “But my dear cousin,” Nicole interrupted her. “You go along too fast for me. I must inform you that I have not entirely made up my mind to this marriage.”

  The Viscountess stared unbelievingly. “What is that you say? Not made up your mind? Surely you are jesting,” she exclaimed sharply. “You are here. You know the conditions of the will. What else is there?”

  “There is another party necessary to fulfill the conditions of that will, I believe,” Nicole answered firmly.

  “But the Viscount has consented. He is perfectly amenable to great-aunt Sophie’s… demands.”

  “Perhaps I would like some evidence of a more tangible nature. I have yet to set eyes upon my prospective bridegroom in person. Eleven years is a long time.”

  “But my dear girl, this is a marriage of convenience. Surely you do not expect the Viscount to go through the hypocrisy of a courtship?”

  Her words stung Nicole cruelly. “Perhaps not a courtship, but at least he could give some time to our becoming acquainted.”

  Lady Eleanore turned her bewildered eyes to Cecily who shrugged her shoulders eloquently.

  Nicole was enjoying her cousin’s discomfort and sudden loss of grand manner. It assuaged a little that cold arrival earlier.

  During the lull that followed, Cecily Fairfax could hardly sit still. Could there be some hope for her after all? Would this half-French nobody relinquish her claim to Valentin? She could barely breathe, so great was her agitation.

  “My son is a member of the Duke of Wellington’s staff engaged in delicate matters of state for His Majesty in Vienna. As such he is not at liberty to come and go to satisfy the whims of a romantic girl.” The Viscountess picked up the attack again with alacrity

  “There is nothing romantic about my desire to reacquaint myself with Viscount Ardsmore, I assure you,” Nicole lied nervously. “There are matters he and I should settle between us before marriage plans proceed further.”