Kasey Michaels - A Reckless Beauty

To Joseph Charles Groller

Welcome to the world, Joey!

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

March 1815

FRENCH SOIL ONCE MORE, so long denied him. Paris awaits!

Napoleon Bonaparte, by the grace of God, Emperor of France, King of Italy, etc., etc., halts at the head of his army of less than one thousand of the Old Guard who had chosen to be exiled with him on Elba for more than a year.

The moment is here. He comes face-to-face with an equal number of royal troops that have appeared with orders to exterminate him and his “band of brigands.”

Bonaparte dismounts and walks forward ten precise paces on the dusty road. One slight, small man, alone between two armies. Unarmed. Vulnerable.

“Soldiers of the fifth army corps!” he shouts defiantly to the royal troops, his voice carrying in the still air. “Don’t you know me? Is there one among you who wishes to kill his Emperor, let him come forward and do so. Here I am!”

And, in a move so daring it brings gasps of dismay from both sides of the line, he throws wide the simple gray cloak covering his chest.

After a tense silence, the cry goes up from all sides. “Vive l’Empereur! Vive l’Empereur!”

The one thousand are now two thousand. Bonaparte remounts and surveys his new army from atop his charger, and then stands straight in the stirrups.

Solemnly, silently, he points toward Paris.

And the world trembles…

Becket Hall, Romney Marsh

DINNER OVER, Ainsley Becket relaxed in his favorite chair in the drawing room, listening to his children as they discussed Bonaparte’s adventures since escaping Elba several weeks earlier.

Breakfast, luncheon, dinner, the conversation never seemed to vary. What will Bonaparte do? Where will he strike first? Will the Allies cede all command to the Iron Duke? Will Wellington be able to defeat the man he had, remarkably, never before met in battle?

Ainsley let their individual voices fade into the background as he concentrated on his children.

Such a disparate group, all eight of his children; seven of them the children of his heart, and now all of them grown, some of them already gone their own way, with his blessing.

Morgan, a wife and mother now, lived on her husband’s estate near London, her Ethan Tanner, Earl of Aylesford, undoubtedly laboring very long hours at the War Office.

Chance, Ainsley knew from the letter he’d received from his oldest son a week ago, was also back at work in the War Office, as all of England braced itself for the inevitable clash with the man they’d believed vanquished.

Ainsley sipped at his snifter of brandy, selfishly content that these two men had found a way to serve the Crown without exposing themselves to battle, and stole a look at his son Spencer, who was bouncing his young son, William, on his leg as Mariah Becket smiled at them both.

Would Spencer willingly leave his small family and go to war again? Ainsley planned a quiet talk with the boy, who had sacrificed enough in America, and needed to think first of his wife and son, and the second child Mariah now carried.

Eleanor and her husband, Jack, sat close together near the fireplace, a stack of Paris newspapers Ainsley had acquired in his usual secretive, inventive ways piled in Eleanor’s lap. There still was no baby to be held in her arms, a sorrow she hid most times, but one that Ainsley knew ate at his oldest daughter’s heart.

Callie, the youngest, and the only child born to Ainsley and his lost Isabella, continued her argument with her brother Courtland about the latter’s assertion that he should buy a commission in the army Wellington was hastily forming to confront the French emperor, now that the majority of the Field Marshal’s troops had been sent to fight the Americans. As it was, foreign troops would outnumber English troops two-to-one.

Courtland, always the solid one, the rock of the Beckets, firmly believed in duty.

Callie, with all the surety of a seventeen-year-old, firmly believed Courtland belonged to her.

“You and Jack have enough on your plates, Court,” Ainsley said quietly now, making his point without overtly referring to the roles the two men played aiding the local smugglers, and Courtland nodded his reluctant agreement.

“I know, sir, but I believe you and Jacko are still reasonably capable and can run Becket Hall in our absence. Besides, we’ll have Boney corralled and in a cage in a few months, if not weeks.”

Callie, always sharp, sharper than most females were raised to be, spoke up. “In a cage, you say, Court? I believe—you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, Papa—that it was Marshal Ney who promised the now displaced King Louis that he would bring Bonaparte to him in an iron cage and place him before Louis’s throne.”

She grinned at Court. “Would that be the same iron cage, Courtland, hmm? Especially now that Ney is back to perching on a cushion at Bonaparte’s feet, apologetically licking his boots?”

Mariah Becket laughed as she took young William from her husband and lifted him into her arms. “She’s got you there, Court. You men. So much bluster, so many promises. Spencer? I’ll see you upstairs, and meet you with a book tossed at your head if you dare to even hint that you’ll attempt to follow the drum again.”

Everyone waited until Mariah had left the drawing room before bursting into laughter at Spencer’s expense.

“Well and truly tied to the apron strings, aren’t you, old fellow?” Jack Eastwood asked, earning himself a speaking look from the love of his life. Morgan or Mariah would have delivered a sharp jab to his ribs, but the petite, ladylike Eleanor needed only to send a level look from her speaking eyes, and Jack subsided, murmuring a quiet, “Sorry, Spence.”

“It’s all right,” Spencer said, walking over to the drinks table to pour himself a glass of wine. “I know I can’t go. And neither can you two, not when the Black Ghost has to ride out with regularity, and definitely not when we still don’t know where our old friend Edmund Beales might next show his face—and recognize yours. What if he’s acting as Talleyrand has, and has now thrown in his lot with the Alliance, abandoning Bonaparte after the fiasco that was his attempt to free him from Elba last August? Bonaparte might not be quite in love with the man now, you know?”

Mention of Edmund Beales cast the room into silence for some moments, and Ainsley was, as always, thrown back in time, remembering the days when he’d considered Edmund his best friend and partner. Before Edmund’s betrayal. Before Isabella’s death at Edmund’s hands. Before the massacre on the island that had brought them all to England and the protective isolation of Romney Marsh seventeen years ago. Before they’d learned that Edmund still lived, and had taken his study of Machiavelli’s mad genius to heart, believing himself destined to control the destinies of half the world. Before…before…before…

“It’s true,” Callie said, breaking the silence, as she saw the shadows in her papa’s eyes, and wanted them gone. “None of you can be seen by Beales, as he may have seen all of your faces at one time or another. So you can relax, Papa, nobody is running off to war. Except Rian, of course,” she added, her pretty face marred by a frown as she thought about the day, a few weeks earlier, Rian had made his farewells and ridden away with an eagerness he couldn’t quite disguise, his commission in his pocket.