The Bluestocking’s Absolutely Brilliant Betrothal (The Notorious Briarwoods #6)

Chapter 2

L ord Achilles Briarwood sat back in the beautiful leather chair embossed with studs and stared as the members of his club made absolute tossers of themselves.

He’d been born Cronus Briarwood. A rather imposing name for any infant. An incident with a croquet mallet to his ankle had earned him the appellation Achilles, and it had stuck. Though he felt for the doomed hero, he’d been rather grateful for the nickname. Cronus had had a rather violent streak, castrating poor Uranus, for one, and had been overthrown by his son, Zeus.

Yes, Achilles was a far better name. His long-gone papa had loved the fallen Titan, but…even for the Briarwoods, Cronus had been a bit much.

Thoughts of his father, who had been a magnificent man, should have lifted his spirits. They did not.

Music was playing in one corner and cards were being played at another table. Wine was being poured at such a pace that it looked like a gurgling fountain. And, well, gentlemen were acting like absolute… idiots .

Something gentlemen were often doing.

He was, of course, accustomed to this. Members of the ton were not exactly known for their restraint. Oh, the ton wanted the common people to think so. But the truth about lords and gentlemen in general was that they were quite emotional, quite wild, and didn’t like rules.

Generally, the ton felt, even if they did not say so aloud, that rules were for the middle class and below. Rules did not exist for men like himself, his family, and their world.

Still, if there were not rules, there was a code. As long as the general framework was kept in place, anything could be done in private.

But the Briarwoods, his own family, handled this privilege and strange circumstance uniquely. Sometimes they threw out said general framework, but one of their own essential tenets was that they didn’t like to use anyone.

Their dislike of the ton’s framework stemmed from a dislike of the rigidity of society, of the way that the ton thought that things should be, how things should go, and how certain people should always be in charge.

Achilles had spent most of his life living it to the fullest. He had had a glorious time. His parents had always encouraged him to do so. He loved art. He loved Shakespeare. He loved travel. He loved food. He loved wine. He loved women. He loved conversation and philosophy.

There was really very little that he did not love, except for injustice. And injustice truly was under the surface of almost every conversation one had with a member of the ton.

He had been in France not very long ago and had gotten out just in time, just before it had gotten truly bad. He’d managed to escape with his cousin Jean-Luc, who was now currently sitting beside him, glaring with eyes as sharp as any dueling blade at the antics about them.

“When are the English going to do something?” Jean-Luc demanded.

“I think it’s too late for anything to truly be done,” he replied, though his words pained him. “The king and queen are dead.”

Jean-Luc’s brows drew together. “It is the most horrifying state of affairs,” he said. “The Marquis de Lafayette has fled and been imprisoned by the Austrians. And what happened to the Princess de Lamballe…” He grimaced.

Achilles’ stomach churned at the mere thought of the poor lady’s gruesome end at the hands of the mob.

“How can we live in a world where such atrocities occur every day?” Jean-Luc demanded.

Achilles didn’t want to point out to his cousin, whom he admired very much, that the world was full of atrocities and that the wealthy and powerful did the most horrible things to poor people on a daily basis. Jean-Luc was speaking from a particular point of passion and fear and frustration. The fact was that many of his childhood friends were now imprisoned or dead, having had a rather unfortunate introduction to Madame Guillotine.

France?

France was a sea of insanity now. Anyone who expressed any sort of approval for the king or queen, any aristocrat, or anyone who bore a moderate sort of thinking was now being villainized…and put before the Tribunal.

Only the most extreme ideas and actions were approved.

Now, the final say was had by Robespierre. Robespierre was going to paint Paris red with blood. Achilles looked around again at the men acting so merrily, and he wondered how many of them would be dead in the next decade.

War was a whisper away.

How many of them might be willing to go to war to save people in France? He rather thought that it was not as many as some might think. England was a land of great warrior aristocrats. There was no question about that. Certainly, many second sons had risen up and gotten powerful titles because of their daring exploits in the military.

Achilles had a feeling deep within his soul that all of the present calamity was going to amount to one of the worst wars that anyone had ever seen.

It wouldn’t be a small war. It would be a sweeping one. But what could he do to stop it? He had enjoyed all that life had to offer for so long, but now he felt rather disgusted, as if he had gone to a dinner and been given far too many courses and been forced to eat them all.

He felt a little bit ill.

Jean-Luc certainly looked ill, as if he might cast up his accounts at any moment. The man had stopped drinking wine because, well, drinking wine only made him angrier. It was a remarkable thing for a Frenchman.

“I want to scream at every single last one of them,” Jean-Luc said, his hand curling into a fist. “To shake them and make them see what is happening.”

“They don’t want to see,” Achilles warned. “We’re on the verge of a great war,” he said. “None of them want to admit that the country is about to finally realize what’s actually happening and be forced into action.”

Jean-Luc swung his gaze to him. “It is appalling,” he said.

Achilles nodded. “It is appalling. All of the innocent people dying. It is the history of humanity,” he bit out.

And now he no longer had the stomach for silliness.

For years, he’d been a rake, a bit of a rogue, and certainly one of the jolliest members of society. He had thought for certain he had no wish to marry for many years. But as he had watched each of his siblings take up vows, have children, and be happy, well, he suddenly wanted to throw himself into the fray of matrimony. He longed to find someone who might give him a bit of peace, to help him get off the mad carousel of life, entertainment, silliness, and debauchery, which seemed to lead only to weakness, an infirm brain, and a dismal end.

Over the years, he’d seen some of his friends meet dismal ends because of too much celebration. It wasn’t really celebrating life, what they did. It was throwing oneself into a mixture of poison and calling that poison joy.

There was nothing joyful about it. One had to know when it was time to evolve, to change, to grow, to stop making merry in such a mad way and choose the real merriness of life, which was family, which was love, which was, well, commitment.

Jean-Luc cocked his head to the side. “You have the strangest look upon your face, mon ami. What is it?”

“I want to find a wife,” Achilles stated honestly.

Jean-Luc coughed. “A wife? For you?”

“Yes,” he said without apology.

“I thought you were a confirmed rake,” Jean-Luc said. “You certainly seemed so when Ajax married.”

“Ajax married some time ago now,” he said, digging his arms into the rests of his chair. “And, well, even then I was beginning to want more out of life. I professed that I wouldn’t marry for ages. But the truth is I’ve watched society fall into such disarray, and I’ve realized what’s important.”

“And that is?” Jean-Luc arched a brow. “A wife?”

“Love,” Achilles said earnestly. “Real love, true love. The sort of love that happens between two people who understand each other. Like Ajax and his wife.”

Jean-Luc gave the sort of nod of his head which only a Frenchman could muster. A sort of understanding and a dismissal all in one. “I could see your point of view. I am not certain it will work the way you think it does. Your family, our family, is particularly lucky in the finding of a wife. But surely… Someone must be unlucky .”

The idea that Achilles could be the unlucky one hung in the air between them.

Achilles frowned. “Thank you for your optimism.”

“I have no optimism left,” Jean-Luc confessed, his dark eyes flashing. “Half of the people I know are dead and the other half, well, they’re trying to escape or are imprisoned. And I, for one, cannot face it any longer and do nothing.”

“Then don’t do nothing,” Achilles whispered. “I’m sure we can find ways to help them. I helped you, after all, and your sisters.”

Jean-Luc pressed his mouth into a thin line, then blew out of breath. “I can never go back to France.”

“Of course you can’t. The risk is far too high,” Achilles agreed. “But surely there are things we could do, people that we know. We can begin reaching out. We can begin getting people out more effectively.”

He and Jean-Luc had already gotten several people out. They had ships that would sail up and down the French coast, and sometimes they could get people out on small boats, but it was no easy thing. For the present rulers of the Jacobin party, and most of the French, now hated the English.

Once, Paris had been full of English people who dearly loved Parisian clothes, architecture, and food.

Most of the English had now fled.

From his English friends abroad, he’d heard about French aristocrats who had escaped out of France into Italy, to Naples, and how they were living terribly.

Sometimes, though it made him feel ill, he wondered if the aristos of Versailles had simply reaped what they’d sown. And yet so many of them had also been innocent. And no one deserved the sort of brutal death that was now being seen. Achilles swallowed.

Life was a complicated coil. He would not say such things to Jean-Luc, for his cousin’s heart was broken. The death of the king and the queen in France had truly been a blow. No one had truly expected that the revolutionaries would go through with it.

They had imprisoned Marie and Louis. Surely that should have been enough, but it had not been enough. And the trials that had taken place had galled the nation.

The stories about the little prince and what the little prince had been made to say about his own mother.

He looked away, took up a glass of water, and drank it to the dregs. How he longed to drown himself in brandy, but he would not. There was no merit in such a thing.

What use was he if he pickled himself?

No, there was only one thing he wanted to do. He would find a wife; he would find someone to love. He would find someone to have children with, not because he needed to somehow soothe himself, but because he wanted to defy the chaos of the world and declare that he believed in a world that was still capable of joy, that was still capable of love, and that was still capable of humanity.