ANNIE BURROWS has been making up stories for her own amusement since she first went to school. As soon as she got the hang of using a pencil she began to write them down. Her love of books meant she had to do a degree in English literature. And her love of writing meant she could never take on a job where she didn’t have time to jot down notes when inspiration for a new plot struck her. She still wants the heroines of her stories to wear beautiful floaty dresses, and triumph over all that life can throw at them. But when she got married she discovered that finding a hero is an essential ingredient to arriving at “happily ever after”.

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The Earl’s Untouched Bride

Captain Fawley’s Innocent Bride

Annie Burrows

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The Earl’s Untouched Bride

Annie Burrows

Chapter One

Giddings opened the door to find His Lordship standing upon the step, his face set in such rigid lines a shiver went down his spine. It was a relief when the Earl of Walton looked straight through him as he handed over his hat and coat, turning immediately towards the door to the salon. Thank God young Conningsby had taken it into his head to pass out on one of the sofas in there, instead of staggering back to his own lodgings the previous night. It was far better that it should be a man who could answer back, rather than a hapless member of staff, who became the butt of His Lordship’s present mood.

But Charles Algernon Fawley, the ninth Earl of Walton, ignored Conningsby too. Striding across the room to the sideboard, he merely unstoppered a crystal decanter, pouring its entire contents into the last clean tumbler upon the tray.

Conningsby opened one eye warily, and rolled it in the Earl’s direction. ‘Breakfast at Tortoni’s?’ he grated hoarsely.

Charles tossed the glass of brandy back in one go, and reached for the decanter again.

‘Don’t look as though you enjoyed it much,’ Conningsby observed, wincing as he struggled to sit up.

‘No.’ As the Earl realised the decanter was empty, his fingers curled round its neck as though he wished he could strangle it. ‘And if you dare say I told you so …’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it, my lord. But what I will say is—’

‘No. I listened to all you had to say last night, and, while I am grateful for your concern, my decision remains the same. I am not going to slink out of Paris with my tail between my legs like some whipped cur. I will not have it said that some false, painted jilt has made the slightest impact on my heart. I am staying until the lease on this apartment expires, not one hour sooner. Do you hear me?’

Conningsby raised a feeble hand to his brow. ‘Only too clearly.’ He eyed the empty decanter ruefully. And while you’re proving to the whole world that you don’t care a rap about your betrothed running off with some penniless artist, I don’t suppose you could get your man to rustle up some coffee, could you?’

‘Engraver,’ snapped the Earl as he tugged viciously on the bell-pull.

Conningsby sank back into the sofa cushions, waving a languid hand to dismiss the profession of the Earl’s betrothed’s lover as the irrelevance it was. ‘Judging by the expression on your face, the gossip-mongers have already been at work. It’s not going to get any easier for you …’

‘My mood now has nothing whatever to do with the fickle Mademoiselle Bergeron,’ he snarled. ‘It is her countrymen’s actions which could almost induce me to leave this vile charnel house that calls itself a civilised city and return to London, where the most violent emotion I am likely to suffer is acute boredom.’

‘But it was boredom you came to Paris to escape from!’

He let the inaccuracy of that remark pass. Staying in London, with his crippled half-brother, had simply become intolerable. Seeking refuge down at Wycke had not been a viable alternative, either. There was no respite from what ailed him there. The very opulence of the vast estate only served as a painful reminder of the injustice that had been perpetrated so that he could inherit it all.

Paris had seemed like the perfect solution. Since Bonaparte had abdicated, it had become extremely fashionable to hop across the Channel to see the sights.

Leaning one arm on the mantelpiece, he remarked, with an eloquent shudder, ‘I will never complain of that particular malady again, I do assure you.’

‘What is it?’ Conningsby asked. ‘What else has happened?’

‘Another murder.’

‘Du Mauriac again, I take it?’ Conningsby’s face was grim. The French officer was gaining a reputation for provoking hot-headed young Englishmen to duel with him, and dispatching them with a ruthless efficiency gleaned from his years of active service. And then celebrating his kill by breakfasting on broiled kidneys at Tortoni’s. ‘Who was it this morning? Not anybody we know, I hope?’

‘On the contrary. The poor fellow he slaughtered before breakfast today was a subaltern by the name of Lennox.’ At Conningsby’s frown, Charles explained, ‘Oh, there is no reason why you should know him. He was typical of all the others who have fallen by that butcher’s sword. An obscure young man with no powerful connections.’

‘Then how …?’

‘He served in the same regiment as my unfortunate half-brother. He was one of those young men who constantly paraded through my London house, attempting to rouse him to some semblance of normality.’ Sometimes it seemed as if an entire regiment must have marched through his hall at one time or another, to visit the poor wreck of a man who had once been a valiant soldier. Though few of them paid a second visit after encountering his blistering rejection. Captain Fawley did not want to be an object of pity.

Pity! If only he knew! If he, the ninth Earl, had been injured so badly, there would be not one well-wisher hastening to his bedside in an attempt to cheer him. On the contrary, it would be vultures who would begin to hover, eager to see who among them would gain his title, his wealth …

‘At least he was a soldier, then.’

‘He never stood a chance against a man of Du Mauriac’s stamp, and the blackguard knew it! He sat there laughing about the fact that the boy did not look as though he needed to shave more than once a week! And sneered at his milk-white countenance as he faced him … God, the boy must have been sick with fright.’

Charles smote one fist into his palm. ‘If only Lennox had asked me to be his second, I would have found a way to stop it!’

Conningsby eyed him with surprise. The only thing he had known about the Earl before his arrival in Paris was that, upon coming of age, he had caused a ripple through society by ousting his guardians from his ancestral home and subsequently severing all connections with that branch of his family. He had not known of a single man who dared claim friendship with the chillingly insular young lord. In Conningsby’s capacity as a junior aide at the English embassy, he had dutifully helped him to find these lodgings in the Rue de Richelieu, and generally smoothed his entry into the social scene. It had been quite a surprise, the previous night, when the Earl had reacted as any man might on discovering the beautiful Parisienne to whom he had just proposed had run off with her lover. He had gone straight home to drown his sorrows. Though his head had proved stronger than Conningsby’s.

‘Couldn’t have backed down, though, could he?’ he ventured sympathetically. ‘Wouldn’t have wanted to live with an accusation of cowardice hanging round his neck.’

‘Somebody should have found some way to save Lennox,’ the Earl persisted. ‘If only …’

He was prevented from saying anything further when the butler opened the door. ‘There is a visitor for you, my lord.’

‘I am not receiving,’ Charles growled.

Giddings cleared his throat, and eyed Conningsby warily, before saying diffidently, ‘The young person insists you would wish to see her.’ He stepped forward and, in a voice intended only for his master, said, ‘She says her name is Mademoiselle Bergeron.’

Charles felt as though he had been punched in the stomach.

While he struggled to draw breath, Conningsby, who had remarkably acute hearing, rose gingerly to his feet. ‘She has in all probability come to beg your forgiveness …’

‘She shall not have it!’ Charles turned to grasp the mantelpiece with both hands, his shoulders hunched. ‘I shall not take her back. If she prefers some artist to me, then she may go to him and welcome!’

‘But there may have been some dreadful mistake. Let’s face it, my lord, the Bergeron household last night was in such a state of turmoil, who knows what may have been going on?’

They had gone to escort Felice to a ball, where the engagement was to have been announced. They had found Monsieur Bergeron slumped in his chair, as though all the stuffing had been knocked out of him, and Madame Bergeron suffering from a noisy bout of hysterics upon the sofa. The only clear piece of information either of them had been able to glean was that she had turned off the wicked maidservant who had aided and abetted her ungrateful daughter to elope with a nobody when she could have married an English earl.

The Earl was breathing rather rapidly. ‘I am not safe to see her.’ He turned back to face the room, his entire face leached of colour. ‘I may well attempt to strangle her.’

‘Not you,’ Conningsby assured him.

The Earl looked at him sharply, then straightened up. ‘No,’ he said, his face freezing into a chillingly aloof mask. ‘Not I.’ He went to one of the fireside chairs, sat down, and crossed one leg nonchalantly over the other. ‘You may show Mademoiselle Bergeron in, Giddings,’ he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the door.

Conningsby got the peculiar impression he had just become invisible. And, though he could tell the Earl would not care one way or another, he had no intention of becoming a witness to the impending confrontation. It was one thing helping a man to drown his sorrows in a companionable way. Hell, what man hadn’t been in a similar predicament at one time or another? But becoming embroiled with some hysterical Frenchwoman, with his head in its present delicate state, was asking too much! He looked wildly round the room for some other means of escape than the door through which Mademoiselle Bergeron would shortly appear. The only other exit appeared to be through the windows.

It took but a second to vault over the sofa on which he’d spent the night and dive through the heavy velvet curtains.

‘Mademoiselle Bergeron,’ he heard Giddings intone, as he fumbled open the shutter bolts.

Charles experienced a spurt of satisfaction when she paused on the threshold, her gloved hand fluttering to the heavy veil draped from her bonnet.

Instead of rising to his feet, he deliberately leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, eyeing her with unremitting coldness. She squared her shoulders, taking one faltering step forward. Then, to his complete astonishment, she broke into a run, flying across the room and landing upon her knees at his feet. Seizing his hand, she pulled it to her face, kissing it through the veil.

Impatiently, he snatched it back. Whatever she had been up to last night, he was not prepared to unbend towards her without a really good explanation. And probably not even then. To feel such strong emotions that they could reduce you to the state of mind where not even copious quantities of alcohol could anaesthetise them was something he did not care to experience again. He was just about to tell her so when she knelt back, lifting the veil from her face.

‘Oh, thank you, milord! Thank you for letting me in. I was so afraid! You have no idea how unpleasant it is to walk the streets unescorted with feelings running so high …’

Charles reeled back in his seat. ‘You are not … not …’

‘Felice? No.’ The young woman who knelt before him returned his look rather defiantly. ‘I regret the deception, but I did not think you would agree to see anyone but her today. And so I led your butler to believe I was she. And, indeed, the deception was not so very great. You were expecting Mademoiselle Bergeron, and I am Mademoiselle Bergeron …’

‘You are entirely the wrong Mademoiselle Bergeron,’ he snapped. How could he have mistaken the much shorter and utterly plain Heloise for her beautiful, glamorous, and entirely captivating younger sister? He couldn’t blame the bonnet, though the peak of it did protrude from her face by over a foot, nor the heavy veil that was suspended from it, though it had concealed her features. He had wanted to see Felice, he acknowledged painfully. He had clung to the faint hope that there had been some dreadful mistake, and that she had come to tell him that she wanted no other man but him. And so he had seen what he wanted to see. What kind of fool did that make him?

Heloise swallowed nervously. She had been expecting a little antagonism, but the reality of facing a man whose heart had been broken was altogether more daunting than she had supposed it would be.

‘No,’ she persisted. ‘I do not think you will find that I am when you hear what I have to propose …’

‘I cannot imagine what you hope to accomplish by coming here and prostrating yourself in this manner,’ he began angrily.

‘Oh, no—how could you, when I have not yet explained? But you only need to listen for a very few minutes and I will tell you!’ Suddenly very conscious that she was still kneeling like a supplicant at his feet, she glanced about the room.

‘May I sit upon one of these so comfortable-looking chairs, my lord? This floor it is most hard, and really I do not see that you can take me at all seriously if I do not make some effort to look more rational. Only I did not know what was to become of me if you did not let me in. I was followed all the way from the Tuileries gardens by a contingent of the National Guard of the most vile manners. They refused to believe at all that I am a respectable female, merely visiting a friend of the family who also happens to be an English milord, and that they would be entirely sorry for accusing me of the things they did—for why should I not be entirely innocent? Just because you are English, that does not make me a bad person, or unpatriotic at all, even if I am not wearing either the white lily or the violet. If they are going to arrest anyone, it should have been the crowd who were brawling in the gardens, not someone who does not care at all that the emperor has gone, and that a Bourbon sits on the throne. Not but that they got the chance, because your so kind butler permitted me to enter the hall the moment he saw how things were, and even if you would not see me, he said there was a door to the back through the kitchens from which I could return home, after I had drunk a little something to restore my nerves …’

The Earl found he had no defence against the torrent of words that washed over him. She didn’t even seem to pause for breath until Giddings returned, bearing a tray upon which was a bottle of Madeira and two glasses.

She’d risen to her feet, removed her bonnet and gloves, and perched on the edge of the chair facing him, twittering all the while like some little brown bird, hopping about and fluffing its plumage before finally roosting for the night.

She smiled and thanked Giddings as she took the proffered drink, but her hand shook so much that she spilled several drops down the front of her coat.

‘I am sorry that you have been offered insults,’ he heard himself saying as she dabbed ineffectually at the droplets soaking into the cloth. ‘But you should have known better than to come to my house alone.’ Far from being the haven for tourists that he had been led to believe, many Parisians were showing a marked hostility to the English. It had started, so he had been reliably informed, when trade embargoes had been lifted and cheap English goods had come on sale again. But tensions were rising between die-hard Bonapartists and supporters of the new Bourbon regime as well. If factions were now brawling in the Tuileries gardens, then Mademoiselle Bergeron might well not be safe to venture out alone. ‘I will have you escorted home …’

‘Oh, not yet!’ she exclaimed, a look of dismay on her face. ‘For you have not heard what I came to say!’

‘I am waiting to hear it,’ he replied dryly. ‘I have been waiting since you walked through the door.’

Heloise drained the contents of her glass and set it down smartly upon the table that Giddings had placed thoughtfully at her elbow.

‘Forgive me. I am so nervous, you see. I tend to babble when I am nervous. Well, I was only nervous when I set out. But then, after the incident in the Tuileries, I became quite scared, and then—’

‘Mademoiselle Bergeron!’ He slapped the arm of his chair with decided irritation. ‘Will you please come to the point?’

‘Oh.’ She gulped, her face growing hot. It was not at all easy to come to the point with a man as icily furious as the Earl of Walton. In fact, if she wasn’t quite so desperate, she would wish she hadn’t come here at all. Looking into those chips of ice that he had for eyes, and feeling their contempt for her chilling her to the marrow, Heloise felt what little courage she had left ebb away. Sitting on a chair instead of staying prostrate at his feet had not redressed their positions at all. She still had to look up to meet his forbidding features, for the Earl was quite a tall man. And she had nothing with which to combat his hostility but strength of will. Not beauty, or grace, or cleverness. She had the misfortune to have taken after her mother in looks. While Felice had inherited her father’s even features and long-limbed grace, she had got the Corbiere nose, diminutive size, and nondescript colouring. Her only weapon was an idea. But what an idea! If he would only hear her out, it would solve all their difficulties at a stroke!

‘It is quite simple, after all,’ she declared. ‘It is that I think you should marry me instead of Felice.’

She cocked her head to one side as she waited for his response, reminding him of a street sparrow begging for crumbs. Before he could gather his wits, she had taken another breath and set off again.

‘I know you must think that this is preposterous just at first. But only think of the advantages!’

‘Advantages for whom?’ he sneered. He had never thought of little Heloise as a scheming gold-digger before. But then nor had he thought her capable of such fluent speech. Whenever she had played chaperon for himself and her sister she had been so quiet he had tended to forget she was there at all. He had been quite unguarded, he now recalled with mounting irritation, assuming, after a few half-hearted attempts to draw her out, that she could not speak English very well.

Though the look he sent her was one that had frozen the blood in the veins of full-grown men, Heloise was determined to have her say.

‘Why, for you, of course! Unless … Your engagement to Felice has not been announced in England yet, has it? She told me you had not sent any notice to the London papers. And of course in Paris, though everyone thinks they know that you wished to marry Felice, you have only to say, when they see me on your arm instead of my sister, “You will find you are mistaken,” in that tone you use for giving an encroaching person a set-down, if anyone should dare to question you, and that will be that!’

‘But why, pray, should I wish to say any such thing?’

‘So that nobody will know she broke your heart, of course!’ Her words, coupled with her look of genuine sympathy, touched a place buried so deep inside him that for years he had been denying its very existence.

‘I know how her actions must have bruised your pride, too,’ she ploughed on, astonishing him with the accuracy of her observations. Even Conningsby claimed he had not guessed how deep his feelings ran until the night before, when, in his cups, he’d poured out the whole sorry tale. But this girl, of whom he had never taken much notice, had read him like an open book.

‘But this way nobody will ever guess! You are so good at keeping your face frozen, so that nobody can tell what you are truly feeling. You can easily convince everyone that it was my family that wished for the match, and that they put Felice forward, but all the time it was me in whom you were interested, for I am the eldest, or—oh, I am sure you can come up with some convincing reason. For of course they would not believe that you could truly be attracted to me. I know that well! And if any rumours about a Mademoiselle Bergeron have reached as far as London—well, I have already shown you how one Mademoiselle Bergeron may enter a room as another. Nobody else need know it was quite another Mademoiselle Bergeron you had set your sights on. If you marry me, you may walk round Paris with your head held high, and return home with your pride intact!’

‘You are talking nonsense. Arrant nonsense!’ He sprang from his chair, and paced moodily towards the sideboard. He had ridden out malicious gossip before. He could do so again. ‘The connection with your family is severed,’ he snapped, grasping the decanter, then slamming it back onto the tray on discovering it was still empty. He was not going to be driven from Paris because a few tattle-mongers had nothing better to talk about than a failed love affair. Nor would anything induce him to betray his hurt by so much as a flicker of an eyelid. ‘I see no need to restore it!’

He turned to see her little face crumple. Her shoulders sagged. He braced himself for a further outpouring as he saw her eyes fill with tears. But she surprised him yet again. Rising to her feet with shaky dignity, she said, ‘Then I apologise for intruding on you this morning. I will go now.’

She had reached the door and was fumbling her hands into her gloves when he cried out, ‘Wait!’ His quarrel was not with her. She had never given him a moment’s trouble during the entire time he had been courting Felice. She had never voiced any protest, no matter where they had dragged her, though at times he had been able to tell she had been uncomfortable. All she had done on those occasions was withdraw into the shadows, as though she wished to efface herself from the scene completely. That was more her nature, he realised with a flash of insight. To have come here this morning and voiced that ridiculous proposition must have been the hardest thing for her to do. It had not been only the brush with the National Guard that had made her shake with fright.

He had no right to vent his anger on her. Besides, to let her out alone and unprotected onto the streets was not the act of a gentleman.

‘Mademoiselle,’ he said stiffly, ‘I told you I would ensure you returned to your house safely. Please, won’t you sit down again, while I get Giddings to summon a cabriolet?’

‘Thank you,’ she sighed, leaning back against the door. ‘It was not at all pleasant getting here. I had no idea! To think I was glad Maman had turned off Joanne, so that it was an easy matter for me to sneak out without anyone noticing.’ She shook her head ruefully. ‘It is true what Papa says. I am a complete imbecile. When I had to pass that crowd in the Tuileries, I knew how stupid I had been. Then to walk right up to the door of an Englishman, on my own, as though I was a woman of no virtue …’

Seeing her tense white face, Charles felt impelled to check the direction of her thoughts.

‘Please, sit down on the sofa while you are waiting.’

She did so, noting with a start that her bonnet still lay amongst its cushions. As she picked it up, turning it over in her hands as though it was an object she had never seen before, he continued, ‘Whatever prompted you to take such drastic steps to come to my house, mademoiselle? I cannot believe you are so concerned about my wounded pride, or my—’ He checked himself before alluding to his allegedly broken heart.

She turned crimson, suddenly becoming very busy untangling the ribbons of her bonnet. Her discomfort brought a sudden suspicion leaping to his mind.

‘Never tell me you are in love with me!’ The notion that this plain young woman had been harbouring a secret passion for him, while he had been making love to her sister under her very nose, gave him a very uncomfortable feeling. ‘I had no idea! I did not think you even liked me!’

Her head flew up, an arrested expression on her face when she detected the tiniest grain of sympathy in the tone of his voice. ‘Would you marry me, then, if I said I loved you?’ she breathed, her eyes filled with hope. But as he returned her gaze steadily she began to look uncomfortable. Worrying at her lower lip with her teeth, she hung her head.

‘It is no good,’ she sighed. ‘I cannot tell you a lie.’ She sank back against the cushions, her whole attitude one of despondency. ‘I’m not clever enough to make you believe it. And apart from that,’ she continued, as Charles settled into his favourite fireside chair with a profound feeling of relief, ‘I confess I did dislike you when you first came calling on Felice and she encouraged your attentions. Even though Maman said I was letting the family down by making my disapproval plain, and Felice insisted I was being a baby. But I couldn’t help feeling as I did.’ She frowned. ‘Although, really, it was not you at all I did not like, so much as the idea of you. You see?’

He had just opened his mouth to reply that he did not see at all, when she continued, ‘and then, when I got to know you better, and saw how much you truly felt for Felice, even though you hid it so well, I couldn’t dislike you at all. Indeed, I felt most sorry for you, because I knew she never cared for you in the least.’

When she saw a flash of surprise flicker across his face, she explained.

‘Well, how could she, when she had been in love with Jean-Claude for ever? Even though Maman and Papa had forbidden the match, because he has no money at all. I really hated the way you dazzled them all with your wealth and elegance and seemed to make Felice forget Jean-Claude.’ Her face brightened perceptibly. ‘But of course you hadn’t at all. She merely used your visits as a smokescreen to fool Maman into thinking she was obeying her orders, which gave Jean-Claude time to make plans for their escape. Which is all as it should be.’ She sighed dreamily. ‘She was not false to her true love.’ She sat up straight suddenly, looking at him with an expression of chagrin. ‘Though she was very cruel to you when you did not deserve it at all. Even if you are an Englishman.’

Charles found himself suddenly conscious of a desire to laugh. ‘So, you wish to marry me to make up for your sister’s cruel treatment of me? In fact because you feel sorry for me—is that it?’

She looked at him hopefully for a few seconds, before once more lowering her eyes and shaking her head.

‘No, it is not that. Not only that. Although I should like to make things right for you. Of course I should. Because of my sister you have suffered a grievous hurt. I know you can never feel for me what you felt for her, but at least your pride could be restored by keeping the nature of her betrayal a secret. It is not too late. If you acted today, if you made Papa give his consent today, we could attend a function together this evening and stop the gossip before it starts.’ She looked up at him with eyes blazing with intensity. ‘Together, we could sort out the mess she has left behind. For it is truly terrible at home.’ She shook her head mournfully. ‘Maman has taken to her bed. Papa is threatening to shoot himself, because now there is not to be the connection with you he can see no other way out.’ She twined one of the bonnet ribbons round her index finger as she looked at him imploringly. ‘You would only have to stroll in and say, “Never mind about Felice. I will take the other one,” in that off-hand way you have, as though you don’t care about anything at all, and he would grovel at your feet in gratitude. Then nobody would suspect she broke your heart! Even if they really believe you wanted to marry her, when they hear of the insouciance with which you took me they will have to admit they were mistaken!’

‘I see,’ he said slowly. ‘You wish to save your family from some sort of disgrace which my marrying Felice would have averted. That is admirable, but—’

The look of guilt on her face stopped him in his tracks. He could see yet another denial rising to her lips.

‘Not family honour?’ he ventured.

She shook her head mournfully. ‘No.’ Her voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘All I have told you is part of it. All those good things would result if only you would marry me, and I will be glad to achieve all of them, but—’ She hung her head, burying her hands completely in the by now rather mangled bonnet. ‘My prime reason is a completely selfish one. You see, if only I can persuade you to marry me, then Papa would be so relieved that you are still to pull him out of the suds that he will forget all about compelling me to marry the man he has chosen for me.’

‘In short,’ said Charles, ‘I am easier to swallow than this other fellow?’

‘Yes—much!’ she cried, looking up at him with pleading eyes. ‘You cannot imagine how much I hate him. If you will only say yes, I will be such a good wife! I shall not be in the least trouble to you, I promise! I will live in a cottage in the country and keep hens, and you need never even see me if you don’t want. I shan’t interfere with you, or stop you from enjoying yourself however you wish. I will never complain—no, not even if you beat me!’ she declared dramatically, her eyes growing luminous with unshed tears.

‘Why,’ said Charles, somewhat taken aback by her vehemence, ‘would you suspect me of wishing to beat you?’

‘Because I am such a tiresome creature!’

If it hadn’t been for the fact Heloise was clearly on the verge of tears, Charles would have found it hard not to laugh.

‘Papa is always saying so. So did Gaspard.’

‘Gaspard?’

‘My brother. He said any man fool enough to marry me would soon be driven to beat me. But I feel sure …’ her lower lip quivered ominously ‘… that you would only beat me when I really deserved it. You are not a cruel man. You are not cold, either, in spite of what they all say about you. You are a good person underneath your haughty manner. I know because I have watched you. I have had much opportunity, because you never took the least notice of me when Felice was in the same room. And I would not be afraid to go away with you, because you would not ever wish to beat a woman for sport like he would …’

‘Come now,’ Charles remonstrated, as the first tears began to trickle down her heated cheeks. ‘I cannot believe your papa would force you to marry a man who would be as cruel as that …’

‘Oh, but you English know nothing!’ She leapt to her feet. ‘He would very easily sacrifice me to such a man for the sake of preserving the rest of the family!’ She was quivering from head to toe with quite another emotion than fear now. He could see that. Indignation had brought a decidedly militant gleam to her eye. She was incapable of standing still. Taking brisk little paces between the sofa and the fireplace, she did not notice that she was systematically trampling the bonnet, which had fallen to the floor when she had leapt to her feet. It occurred to him, when she stepped on it for the third time, that her sister would never have been so careless of her apparel. Not that she would have been seen dead in such an unflattering item in the first place.

‘And, besides being so cruel, he is quite old!’ She shuddered.

‘I am thirty-five, you know,’ he pointed out.

She paused mid-stride, running her eyes over him assessingly. The Earl’s light blue eyes twinkled with amusement from a face that was devoid of lines of care. Elegant clothes covered a healthily muscled physique. His tawny hair was a little disarrayed this morning, to be sure, but it was neither receding nor showing any hint of grey. ‘I did not know you were as old as that,’ she eventually admitted with candour.

Once again, Charles was hard put to it not to burst out laughing at the absurdity of this little creature who had invaded the darkness of his lair like some cheeky little song bird hopping about between a lion’s paws, pecking for crumbs, confident she was too insignificant to rate the energy required to swat her.

‘Come, child, admit it. You are too young to marry anyone!’

‘Well, yes!’ she readily admitted. ‘But Felice was younger, and you still wanted to marry her. And in time, of course, I will grow older. And by then you might have got used to me. You might even be able to teach me how to behave better!’ she said brightly. Then, just as quickly, her face fell. Although I very much doubt it.’

She subsided into the chair opposite his own, leaning her elbows on her knees. ‘I suppose I always knew I could not be any sort of wife to you.’ She gazed up at him mournfully. ‘But I know I would have been better off with you. For even if you are as old as you say, you don’t …’ Her forehead wrinkled, as though it was hard for her to find the words she wanted. ‘You don’t smell like him.’

Finding it increasingly hard to keep his face straight, he said, ‘Perhaps you could encourage your suitor to bathe …’

Her eyes snapped with anger. Taking a deep breath, she flung at him, ‘Oh, it is easy for you to laugh at me. You think I am a foolish little woman of no consequence. But this is no laughing matter to me. Whenever he comes close I want to run to a window and open it and breathe clean air. It is like when you go into a room that has been shut up too long, and you know something has decayed in it. And before you make the joke about bathing again, I must tell you that it is in my head that I smell this feeling. In my heart!’ She smote her breast. ‘He is steeped in so much blood!’

However absurdly she was behaving, however quaint her way of expressing herself, there was no doubt that she really felt repelled by the man her father thought she ought to marry. It was a shame that such a sensitive little creature should be forced into a marriage that was so distasteful to her. Though he could never contemplate marrying her himself, he did feel a pang of sympathy. And, in that spirit, he asked, ‘Do I take it this man is a soldier, then?’

A hero of France,’ she replied gloomily. ‘It is an honour for our family that such a man should wish for an alliance. An astonishment to my papa that any man should really want to take on a little mouse like me. You wonder how I came to his notice, perhaps?’ When Charles nodded, humouring her whilst privately wondering why on earth it was taking Giddings so long to procure a cab to send her home in, she went on, ‘He commanded Gaspard’s regiment in Spain. He was …’ An expression of anguish crossed her face. ‘I was not supposed to hear. But people sometimes do talk when I am there, assuming that I am not paying attention—for I very often don’t, you know. My brother sometimes talked about the Spanish campaign. The things his officers commanded him to do! Such barbarity!’ She shuddered. ‘I am not so stupid that I would willingly surrender to a man who has treated other women and children like cattle in a butcher’s shop. And forced decent Frenchmen to descend to his level. And how is it,’ she continued, her fists clenching, ‘that while my brother died of hunger outside what you call the lines of Torres Vedras, Du Mauriac came home looking as fit as a flea?’

‘Du Mauriac?’ Charles echoed. ‘The man your father wishes you to marry is Du Mauriac?’

Heloise nodded. As commander of Gaspard’s regiment, he was often in our home when my brother was still alive. He used to insist it was I who sat beside him. From my hand that he wished to be served.’ She shuddered. ‘Then, after Gaspard died, he kept right on visiting. Papa says I am stupid to persist in refusing his proposals. He says I should feel honoured that a man so distinguished persists in courting me when I have not even beauty to recommend me. But he does not see that it is mainly my reluctance that Du Mauriac likes. He revels in the knowledge that, though he repels me, my parents will somehow contrive to force me to surrender to him!’

Heloise ground to a halt, her revulsion at the prospect of what marriage to Du Mauriac would entail finally overwhelming her. Bowing forward, she buried her face in her hands until she had herself under control. And then, alerted by the frozen silence which filled the room, she looked up at the Earl of Walton. Up until that moment she would have said he had been experiencing little more than mild amusement at her expense. But now his eyes had returned to that glacial state which had so intimidated her when first she had walked into the room. Except … now his anger was not directed at her. Indeed, it was as if he had frozen her out of his consciousness altogether.

‘Go home, mademoiselle,’ he said brusquely, rising to his feet and tugging at the bell pull. ‘This interview is at an end.’

He meant it this time. With a sinking heart, Heloise turned and stumbled to the door. She had offended him somehow, by being so open about her feelings of revulsion for the man her father had decided she should marry. She had staked everything on being honest with the Earl of Walton.

But she had lost.

Chapter Two

It came as something of a shock, once the door had closed on Heloise’s dejected little figure, when Conningsby stepped in over the windowsill.

‘My God,’ the man blustered. ‘If I had known this room overlooked the street, and I was to have spent the entire interview wedged onto a balcony when I fully expected to be able to escape through your gardens …’

‘And the curtains were no impediment to your hearing every single word, I shouldn’t wonder?’ The Earl sighed. ‘Dare I hope you will respect the confidentiality of that conversation?’

‘I work for the diplomatic service!’ Conningsby bristled. ‘Besides which, no man of sense would wish to repeat one word of that absurd woman’s proposition!’

Although Charles himself thought Heloise absurd, for some reason he did not like hearing anyone else voice that opinion. ‘I think it was remarkably brave of her to come here to try to save her family from ruin.’

‘Yes, my lord. If you say so,’ the other man conceded dubiously.

‘I do say so,’ said the Earl. ‘I will not have any man disparage my fiancée.’

‘You aren’t really going to accept that outrageous proposal?’ Conningsby gasped.

Charles studied the tips of his fingers intently.

‘You cannot deny that her solution to my … uh … predicament, will certainly afford me a great deal of solace.’

‘Well,’ said Conningsby hesitantly, loath to offend a man of Lord Walton’s reputation, ‘I suppose she is quite a captivating little thing, in her way. Jolly amusing. She certainly has a gift for mimicry that almost had me giving myself away! Had to stuff a handkerchief in my mouth to choke down the laughter when she aped your voice!’

The Earl stared at him. Captivating? Until this morning he had barely looked at her. Like a little wren, she hid in the background as much as she could. And when he had looked he had seen nothing to recommend her. She had a beak of a nose, set above lips that were too thin for their width, and a sharp little chin. Her hair was a mid-brown, without a hint of a curl to render it interesting. Her eyes, though …

Before this morning she had kept them demurely lowered whenever he glanced in her direction. But today he had seen a vibrancy burning in their dark depths that had tugged a grudging response from him.

‘What she may or may not be is largely irrelevant,’ he said coldly. ‘What just might prompt me to take her to wife is that in so doing I shall put Du Mauriac’s nose out of joint.’

Conningsby laughed nervously. ‘Surely you can’t wish to marry a woman just so that some other fellow cannot have her?’

The Earl returned his look with a coldness of purpose that chilled him. ‘She does not expect me to like her very much. You heard what she said. She will not even be surprised if I come to detest her so heartily that I beat her. All she wants is the opportunity to escape from an intolerable position. Don’t you think I should oblige her?’

‘Well, I …’ Conningsby ran his finger round his collar, his face growing red.

‘Come, now, you cannot expect me to stand by and permit her father to marry her off to that butcher, can you? She does not deserve such a fate.’

No, Conningsby thought, she does not. But then, would marriage to a man who only wanted revenge on her former suitor, a man without an ounce of fondness for her, be any less painful to her in the long run?

Heloise gripped her charcoal and bent her head over her sketchpad, blotting out the noise of her mother’s sobs as she focussed on her drawing. She had achieved nothing. Nothing. She had braved the streets, and the insults of those soldiers, then endured the Earl’s mockery, for nothing. Oh, why, she thought resentfully, had she ever thought she might be able to influence the intractable Earl one way or another? And how could she ever have felt sorry for him? Her fingers worked furiously, making angry slashes across the page. He had coaxed her most secret thoughts from her, let her hope he was feeling some shred of sympathy, and then spurned her. The only good thing about this morning’s excursion was that nobody had noticed she had taken it, she reflected, finding some satisfaction in creating a most unflattering caricature of the Earl of Walton in the guise of a sleekly cruel tabby cat. She could not have borne it if anyone had found out where she had been. It had been bad enough when her maman had laid the blame for Felice’s elopement at her door—as though she had ever had the least influence with her headstrong and pampered little sister!

With a few deft strokes Heloise added a timorous little mouse below the grinning mouth of the tabby cat, then set to work fashioning a pair of large paws. Folly—sheer folly! To walk into that man’s lair and prostrate herself as she had!

There was a knock on the front door.

Madame Bergeron blew her nose before wailing, ‘We are not receiving visitors today. I cannot endure any more. They will all come, you mark my words, to mock at us …’

Heloise rose to her feet to relay the information to their manservant before he had a chance to open the door. Since her seat was by the window, where she could get the most light for her sketching, she had a clear view of their front step.

‘It is the Earl!’ she gasped, her charcoal slipping from her suddenly nerveless fingers.

‘It cannot be!’ Her papa sprang from the chair in which he had been slumped, his head in his hands. ‘What can he want with us, now?’ he muttered darkly, peering through the window. ‘I might have known a man of his station would not sit back and take an insult such as Felice has dealt him. He will sue us for breach of promise at the very least,’ he prophesied, as Heloise sank to the floor to retrieve her pencil. ‘Well, I will shoot myself first, and that will show him!’ he cried wildly, while she regained her seat, bending her head over her sketchbook as much to counteract a sudden wave of faintness as to hide the hopeful expression she was sure must be showing on her face.

‘Noo!’ From the sofa, her maman began to weep again. ‘You cannot abandon me now! How can you threaten to leave me after all we have been through?’

Instantly contrite, Monsieur Bergeron flung himself to his knees beside the sofa, seizing his wife’s hand and pressing it to his lips. ‘Forgive me, my precious.’

Heloise admired her parents for being so devoted to each other, but sometimes she wished they were not quite so demonstrative. Or that they didn’t assume, because she had her sketchpad open, that they could behave as though she was not there.

‘You know I will always worship you, my angel.’ He slobbered over her hand, before clasping her briefly to his bosom. ‘You are much too good for me.’

Now, that was something Heloise had long disputed. It was true that her mother should have been far beyond her father’s matrimonial aspirations, since she was a younger daughter of the seigneur in whose district he had been a lowly but ambitious clerk. And that it might have been reprehensible of him to induce an aristocrat to elope with him. But it turned out to have been the most sensible thing her mother had ever done. Marriage to him had saved her from the fate many others of her class had suffered.

The affecting scene was cut short when the manservant announced the Earl of Walton. Raising himself tragically to his full height, Monsieur Bergeron declared, ‘To spare you pain, my angel, I will receive him in my study alone.’

But before he had even reached the door Charles himself strolled in, his gloves clasped negligently in one hand. Bowing punctiliously to Madame Bergeron, who was struggling to rise from a mound of crushed cushions, he drawled, ‘Good morning, madame, monsieur.’

Blocking his pathway further into the room, Monsieur Bergeron replied, with a somewhat martyred air, ‘I suppose you wish to speak with me, my lord? Shall we retire to my study and leave the ladies in peace?’

Charles raised one eyebrow, as though astonished by this suggestion. ‘Why, if you wish, of course I will wait with you while mademoiselle makes herself ready. Or had you forgot that I had arranged to take your daughter out driving this morning? Mademoiselle—’ he addressed Heloise directly, his expression bland ‘—I hope it will not take you long to dress appropriately? I do not like to keep my horses standing.’

Until their eyes met she had hardly dared to let herself hope. But now she was sure. He was going to go through with it!

‘B … but it was Felice,’ Monsieur Bergeron blustered. ‘You had arranged to take Felice out driving. M … my lord, she is not here! I was sure you were aware that last night she …’

‘I am engaged to take your daughter out driving this morning,’ he continued implacably, ‘and take your daughter I shall. I see no reason to alter my schedule for the day. In the absence of Felice, Heloise must bear me company.’

For a moment the room pulsed with silence, while everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

Then Madame Bergeron sprang from the sofa, darted across the room, and seized Heloise by the wrist. ‘She will not keep you waiting above ten minutes, my lord.’ Then, to her husband, ‘What are you thinking of, not offering his lordship a seat? And wine—he must have a glass of wine while he is waiting!’ She pushed Heloise through the door, then paused to specify, ‘The Chamber-tin!’

While Monsieur Bergeron stood gaping at him, Charles strolled over to the table at which Heloise had been sitting and began to idly flick through her sketchbook. It seemed to contain nothing but pictures of animals. Quite strange-looking animals, some of them, in most unrealistic poses. Though one, of a bird in a cage, caught his attention. The bedraggled specimen was chained to its perch. He could feel its misery flowing off the page. He was just wondering what species of bird it was supposed to represent, when something about the tilt of its head, the anguish burning in its black eyes, put him forcibly in mind of Heloise, as she had appeared earlier that day. His eyes followed the chain that bound the miserable-looking creature to its perch, and saw that it culminated in what looked like a golden wedding ring.

His blood running cold, he flicked back a page, to a scene he had first supposed represented a fanciful scene from a circus. He could now perceive that the creature that was just recognisable as a lion, lying on its back with a besotted grin on its face, was meant to represent himself. The woman who was standing with her foot upon his chest, smiling with smug cruelty, was definitely Felice. He snapped the book shut and turned on Monsieur Bergeron.

‘I trust you have not made the nature of my interest in your elder daughter public?’

‘Alas, my lord,’ he shrugged, spreading his hands wide, ‘but I did give assurances in certain quarters that a match was imminent.’

‘To your creditors, no doubt?’

‘Debt? Pah—it is nothing!’ Monsieur Bergeron spat. ‘A man may recover from debt!’

When Charles raised one disbelieving eyebrow, he explained, ‘You English, you do not understand how one must live in France. When power changes hands, those who support the fallen regime must always suffer from the next. To survive, a man must court friends in all camps. He must be sensitive to what is in the wind, and know the precise moment to jump …’

In short the man was, like Talleyrand, ‘un homme girouette’, who was prepared, like a weather vane, to swing in whichever direction the wind blew.

Somewhat red in the face, Monsieur Bergeron sank onto the sofa which his wife had recently vacated.

‘So,’ Charles said slowly, ‘promoting an alliance with an English noble, at a time when many Parisians are openly declaring hostility to the English, was an attempt to …?’ He quirked an inquisitive eyebrow at the man, encouraging him to explain.

‘To get one of my daughters safely out of the country! The days are coming,’ he said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and mopping at his brow, ‘when any man or woman might go to the guillotine for the most paltry excuse. I can feel it in the air. Say what you like about Bonaparte, but during the last few years I managed to hold down a responsible government post and make steady advancements, entirely through hard work and capability. But now the Bourbons are back in power, clearly bent on taking revenge on all who have opposed them, that will count for nothing!’ he finished resentfully.

Charles eyed him thoughtfully. Monsieur Bergeron feared he was teetering on the verge of ruin. So he had spread his safety net wide. He had encouraged his pretty daughter to entrap an English earl, who would provide a safe bolthole in a foreign land should things become too hot for his family in France. And he had encouraged the attentions of his plain daughter’s only suitor though he was an ardent Bonapartist. Every day Du Mauriac openly drank the health of his exiled emperor in cafés such as the Tabagie de la Comete, with other ex-officers of the Grand Armée. Much as he disliked the man, there was no denying he would make both a powerful ally and a dangerous enemy.

Finding himself somewhat less out of charity with his prospective father-in-law, Charles settled himself in a chair and stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankles.

‘Let me put a proposition to you.’

Monsieur Bergeron eyed him warily.

‘I have my own reasons for not wanting my … er … disappointment to be made public. I wish, in fact, to carry on as though nothing untoward has occurred.’

‘But … Felice has run off. That is not news we can keep quiet indefinitely. It may take some time to find her, if you insist you still wish to marry her …’

He made an impatient gesture with his hand. ‘I am finished with Felice. But nobody knows for certain that it was her I intended to marry. Do they?’

‘Well, no …’

‘Then the sooner I am seen about in public with your other daughter, the sooner we can begin to persuade people that they were entirely mistaken to suppose it was Felice to whom I became engaged.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? Since Felice is out of the picture, I will marry your other daughter instead.’

‘But—but …’

‘You can have no objections, surely? She is not contracted to anyone else, is she?’ He held his breath while he watched the cogs whirring in Monsieur Bergeron’s head. Heloise had spoken of proposals to which she had not agreed, but if her father and Du Mauriac had drawn up any form of legal agreement things might be about to get complicated.

‘No, my lord,’ Monsieur Bergeron said, having clearly made up his mind to ditch the potential alliance with the man whose star was in the descendant. ‘She is free to marry you. Only …’ He slumped back against the cushions, closing his eyes and shaking his head. ‘It will not be a simple matter of substituting one girl for the other. Heloise has so little sense. What if she won’t agree? Ah!’ he moaned, crumpling the handkerchief in his fist. ‘That our fortunes should all rest in the hands of such a little fool!’

Charles found himself rather indignant on Heloise’s behalf. It seemed to him that it was Felice who had plunged her family into this mess, but not a word was being said against her. And, far from being a fool, Heloise had been the one to come up with this coldly rational plan which would wipe out, at a stroke, all the unpleasantness her sister had created.

‘I beg your pardon?’ he said coldly.

‘Of course our family owes it to you to redress the insult my younger daughter has offered you. But I pray you won’t be offended if I cannot make Heloise see reason.’

His brief feelings of charity towards the older man evaporated. He had no compunction about forcing his daughter into any marriage, no matter how distasteful it might be to her, so long as he stood to gain by it. If Charles hadn’t already known that Heloise was all for it, he would have turned away at that point and left the entire Bergeron family to sink in their own mire.

‘I am sure she will do the right thing,’ he said, in as even a tone as he could muster.

‘That’s because you don’t know her,’ her father bit out glumly. ‘There is no telling what the silly creature will take it into her head to do. Or to say. She is nowhere near as clever as her sister.’

Charles eyed Monsieur Bergeron coldly. He had encouraged Felice to ensnare him when she’d never had the slightest intention of marrying him. Heloise, for being, as she put it, too stupid to tell a lie, was castigated as being useless. On the whole, he found he preferred Heloise’s brand of stupidity to Felice’s sort of cleverness.

‘A man does not look for a great deal of intellect in his wife,’ he bit out. ‘I am sure we shall deal well together. Ah,’ he said, as the door opened and Heloise and her mother returned to the room. ‘Here she is now, and looking quite charming.’ Walking to her side, he bowed over her hand.

‘Pray, don’t overdo it,’ she whispered, her eyes sparking with alarm.

Tucking her hand under his arm, and patting her gloved hand reassuringly, he smiled at her mother, who had also hastily donned her coat and bonnet. ‘I am sure you will agree there is no need for you to act as chaperon, madame, since the news of my engagement to Heloise will soon be common knowledge.’

Her jaw dropped open as she reeled back. ‘You wish to marry Heloise?’ she gasped.

‘Why not?’ he retorted. ‘I have already settled the matter with your papa,’ he turned to inform Heloise. ‘He thinks your family should make recompense to me for the insult your younger sister offered me. Since I have rather got used to the idea of returning to England with a bride, it might as well be you. And, before you raise any foolish objections, let me inform you that I expect your full cooperation.’ He bent a rather stern eye on her. ‘I have no wish to appear as an object for vulgar gossip. I do not want anyone to know your sister jilted me. You will explain, if you please,’ he said, turning once more to Madame Bergeron, ‘that naturally you are upset by Felice’s running off with a totally unsuitable man, but that it has no bearing on the relationship which already existed between me and her older, better-behaved sister.’

The woman plumped down onto the sofa next to her husband.

‘People have grown used to seeing the three of us about together over the last few weeks. And while Felice was always the more flamboyant of the two, if we but stick to our story we can easily persuade people that it was Heloise all along who was the object of my interest. She is much better suited to becoming my countess, since her manner is modest and discreet. What man of breeding would want to take an outrageous flirt to wife?’

‘Heloise,’ her father now put in, rather sternly. ‘I hope you are paying attention to what his lordship is saying. As a dutiful daughter you must do all you can to protect the honour of this family. I expect you to submit to me in this, young woman! You will keep your mouth shut about how far things went between Felice and his lordship, and you will marry him.’

Meekly bowing her head, Heloise replied, ‘Whatever you say, Papa.’

Not wishing to linger any longer with that pair of opportunists, Charles ushered Heloise to the door.

She stayed silent, her head bowed to conceal her jubilant expression from her parents, until they were outside. Her eyes ran over the smart two-wheeled carrick Charles had procured for the occasion with approval. She had recognised the vehicle the moment it had drawn up outside. He had borrowed it once before, from another English noble who had brought it over to Paris for the express purpose of cutting a dash in the Bois de Boulogne. When Charles had taken Felice out in it, he had hired two liveried and mounted servants to ride behind, ensuring that everyone knew he was someone, even if he had picked up his passenger from a modest little dwelling on the Quai Voltaire.

Borrowing this conveyance, which he could drive himself, giving them the requisite privacy to plan their strategy whilst contriving to look as though they were merely being fashionable, was a stroke of genius.

He tossed a coin to the street urchin who was holding the horses’ heads, and handed her up onto the narrow bench seat.

‘You were magnificent!’ she breathed, turning to him with unfeigned admiration as he urged the perfectly matched pair of bays out into the light traffic. ‘Oh, if only we were not driving down a public street I could kiss you. I really could!’

‘We are already attracting enough notice, mademoiselle, by driving about without a chaperon of any sort, without the necessity of giving way to vulgar displays of emotion.’

‘Oh!’ Heloise turned to face front, her back ramrod-straight, her face glowing red with chagrin. How could she have presumed to speak in such a familiar fashion? Never mind harbour such an inappropriate impulse?

‘You may place one hand upon my sleeve, if you must.’

His clipped tones indicated that this was quite a concession on his part. Gingerly, she laid her hand upon his forearm.

‘I have decided upon the tale we shall tell,’ he said, ‘and it is this. Our alliance has withstood the scandal of Felice’s elopement with an unsuitable young man. I am not ashamed to continue my connection with your family. After all, your mother came from an ancient and noble house. That your sister has lamentably been infected by revolutionary tendencies and run off with a nobody has nothing to do with us.’

The feeling of happiness which his put-down had momentarily quelled swelled up all over again. She had known that if anyone could rescue her it was the Earl of Walton! He had grasped the importance of acting swiftly, then taken her rather vague plan and furnished it with convincing detail. She had always suspected he was quite intelligent, even though he had been prone to utter the most specious drivel to Felice. What was more, he would never let her down by making a slip in a moment of carelessness, like some men might. He was always fully in control of himself, regarding men who got drunk and made an exhibition of themselves in public with disdain.

Oh, yes, he was the perfect man to carry her scheme through successfully!

‘I was planning to announce my engagement officially at Lady Dalrymple Hamilton’s ball last evening.’

‘I know,’ she replied. It had been his decision to make that announcement which had finally driven Felice to take off so precipitously. She had hoped to keep him dangling for another week at the very least. Heloise worried at her lower lip. She hoped Felice had managed to reach Jean-Claude safely. Although he had gone ahead to Switzerland, and secured a job with a printing firm, he had planned to return and escort Felice across France personally.

‘No need to look so crestfallen. I do not expect you to shine in society as your sister did. I will steer you through the social shoals.’

‘It is not that!’ she replied indignantly. She might not ‘shine’, as he put it, but she had mingled freely with some of the highest in the land. Why, she had once even been introduced to Wellington! Though, she admitted to herself with chagrin, he had looked right through her.

He glanced down at the rim of her bonnet, which was all he could see of her now that she had turned her head away.

How shy she was. How hard she would find it to take her place in society! Well, he would do all he could to smooth her passage. It was her idea, after all, that was going to enable him to salvage his pride. He would never have thought of something so outrageous. He owed her for that. And to start with he was going to have to smarten her up. He was not going to expose her to ridicule for her lack of dress sense.

‘Deuce take it,’ he swore. ‘I’m going to have to buy you some more flattering headgear. That bonnet is the ugliest thing I think I’ve ever seen.’ He leant a little closer. ‘Is it the same unfortunate article you trampled so ruthlessly in my drawing room this morning?’

She looked up at him then, suddenly cripplingly conscious of how far short of the Earl’s standard she fell. ‘It is practical,’ she protested. ‘It can withstand any amount of abuse and still look—’

‘Disreputable,’ he finished for her. ‘And that reminds me. While we are shopping, I shall have to get you a ring.’

His eyes narrowed as a look of guilt flickered across her mobile little features. No wonder she did not attempt to tell lies, he reflected. Her face was so expressive every thought was written clearly there.

‘What is it?’ he sighed.

‘First, I have to tell you that I do not wish you at all to take me shopping!’ she declared defiantly.

‘You are unique amongst your sex, then,’ he replied dryly. And what is second?’

And second,’ she gulped, the expression of guilt returning in force, ‘is that you do not need to buy me a ring.’ Holding up her hand to prevent his retort, she hastened to explain, ‘I already have a ring.’

He stiffened. ‘Our engagement may not have been my idea, mademoiselle, but it is my place to provide the ring.’

‘But you already have. That is—’ She blushed. ‘The ring I have is the one you gave Felice. The very one that made her run away. She gave it to me.’

‘The ring … made her run away?’ He had chosen it with such care. The great emerald that gleamed in its cluster of diamonds was the exact shade of Felice’s bewitching eyes. He had thought he was past being hurt, but the thought that she found his taste so deficient she had run to another man …

‘Yes, for until that moment it had not been at all real to her,’ he heard Heloise say. ‘She thought you were merely amusing yourself with a little flirtation. Though I warned her over and over again, she never believed that she could hurt you. She said that nobody could touch your heart—if you had one, which she did not believe—and so you made the perfect smokescreen.’

‘Is that estimation of my character supposed to be making me feel better?’ he growled.

‘Perhaps not. But at least it may help you to forgive her. It was not until you gave her that ring that she understood you really had feelings for her. So then of course she had to run away, before things progressed beyond hope.’

‘In short, she would have kept me dangling on a string indefinitely if I hadn’t proposed marriage?’

‘Well, no. For she always meant to go to Jean-Claude. But she did not mean to hurt you. Truly. She just thought—’

‘That I had no heart,’ he finished, in clipped tones.

Inadvertently he jerked on the reins, giving the horses the impression that he wished them to break into a trot. Since they were approaching a corner, there were a few moments where it took all his concentration to ensure they were not involved in an accident.

‘Oh, dear.’ Heloise was gripping onto his sleeve with both hands now, her face puckered with concern. ‘Now I have made you angry again, which is precisely what I wished not to do. For I have to inform you that when we are married, if you forbid me to contact her, knowing that I must obey I will do so—but until then I fully intend to write to her. Even if she has wronged you, she is still my sister!’

The moment of danger being past, the horses having been successfully brought back to a brisk walk, she folded her arms, and turned away from him, as though she had suddenly become interested in the pair of dogs with frills round their necks which were dancing for the amusement of those strolling along the boulevard.

‘Ah, yes,’ he replied, reaching over to take her hand and place it back upon his own arm. ‘You fully intend to bow to my every whim, don’t you, once we are married?’

‘Of course! For you had no thought of marrying me until I put the notion in your head, so the least I can do is be the best wife you would wish for. I will do everything I can,’ she declared earnestly. ‘Whatever you ask, I will do with alacrity!’ Pulling herself up short, she suddenly frowned at him suspiciously. ‘And, by the way, why did you suddenly change your mind about me? When you made me leave, you seemed so set against it!’

‘Well, your proposal was so sudden,’ he teased her. ‘It took me by surprise. Naturally I had to consider …’

She shook her head. ‘No, I may have surprised you, but you had made up your mind it was an absurd idea.’

‘So absurd, in fact,’ he countered, ‘that nobody would credit it. Nobody would believe I would take one Mademoiselle Bergeron merely to save face at being embarrassed by the other Mademoiselle Bergeron. And therefore they will have to believe that you were the object of my interest all along.’

When she continued to look less than convinced by his complete about-face, he decided it was high time he regained control of the conversation.

‘Now, getting back to the ring. May I enquire, although I somehow feel I am about to regret doing so, why your sister left it with you? The normal practice, I should remind you, when an engagement is terminated, is for the lady to return the ring to the man who gave it to her.’

‘I had it with me when I came to visit you this morning,’ she declared. ‘I was going to return it to you for her if you should not agree to my suggestion.’

‘Indeed?’ His voice was laced with scepticism. ‘And yet somehow it remains in your possession. How did that come about, I wonder?’

‘Well, because you were so beastly to me, if you must know! I told you the deepest secret of my heart and you laughed at me. For the moment I quite lost my temper, and decided I should do with it exactly as Felice said I ought to do! For you are so wealthy it is not as if you needed to have it back, whereas for me …’

She let go of his arm again, folding her own across her chest with a mutinous little pout which, for the first time in their acquaintance, made Charles wonder what it would be like to silence one of her tirades with a kiss. It would probably be the only way to stop her once she had built up a head of steam. Something in the pit of his stomach stirred at the thought of mastering her militant spirit in such a manner. He shook his head. It was not like him to regard sexual encounters as contests of will. But then, he frowned, when had he ever had to do more than crook his finger for a woman to fall obediently in line with his every whim?

‘I take it you meant to sell it, then?’

Heloise eyed his lowered brows contritely.

‘Yes,’ she confessed. ‘Because I needed the money to get to Dieppe.’

‘Dieppe?’ He shook himself out of his reverie. ‘What is at Dieppe?’

‘Not what, but who. And that is Jeannine!’

‘Jeannine?’ he echoed, becoming fascinated in spite of himself. ‘What part does she play in this farce, I wonder?’

‘She was Maman’s nurse, until she eloped with Papa.’

‘There seems to have been a great deal of eloping going on in your family.’

‘But in my parents’ case it was a good thing, don’t you think? Because even if they were terribly poor for the first few years they were married, since my grandpapa cut her off entirely, she was the only one to survive the Terror because her family were all so abominably cruel to the menu peuple—the common people, that is. Jeannine was cast out, but she married a fermier, and I know she would take me in. I would have to learn how to milk a cow, to be sure, and make butter and cheese, but how hard could that be?’

‘I thought it was hens,’ he reflected.

‘Hens?’

‘Yes, you said when you married me you would live in a cottage so that you could keep hens. Now I find that in reality you would rather milk cows and make cheese.’ He sighed. ‘I do wish you would make up your mind.’

Heloise blinked. Though the abstracted frown remained between his brows, she was almost sure he was teasing her. ‘I do not wish to milk cows at all,’ she finally admitted.

‘Good. Because I warn you right now that no wife of mine will ever do anything so plebeian. You must abandon all these fantasies about living on a farm and tending to livestock of any sort. When we return to England you will move in the first circles and behave with the decorum commensurate with your station in life. You are not to go anywhere near any livestock of any description. Is that clear?’

For a moment Heloise regarded the mock sternness of his features with her head tilted to one side. She had never been on the receiving end of one of these teasing scolds before. Whenever he had been playful like this, she had never been able to understand how Felice could remain impervious to his charm.

‘Not even a horse?’ she asked, taking her courage in both hands and deciding to play along, just once. ‘I am quite near a horse already, sitting up here in your carriage.’

‘Horses, yes,’ he conceded. ‘You may ride with me, or a suitable companion in the park. A horse is not a farm animal.’

‘Some horses are,’ she persisted.

‘Not my carriage horses,’ he growled, though she could tell he was not really the least bit cross.

The ride in the fresh air seemed to be doing him good. He was far less tense than he had been when they set out. Oh, it was not to be expected that he would get over Felice all at once, but if she could make him laugh now and again, or even put that twinkle in his eye that she could see when he bent his head in her direction to give her this mock scold, she would be happy.

‘What about dogs, then? What if I should go into some drawing room and a lady should have a little dog. Must I not go into the room? Or should I just stay away from it? By, say, five feet? Or six?’

‘Pets, yes—of course you will come across pets from time to time. That is not what I meant at all, you little minx!’

Pretending exasperation he did not feel, to disguise the fact he was on the verge of laughter, he said, ‘No wonder your brother said I should end up beating you. You would drive a saint to distraction!’

‘I was only,’ she declared with an impish grin, ‘trying to establish exactly what you expected of me. I promised to behave exactly as you would wish, so I need to know exactly what you want!’

He laughed aloud then. ‘You, mademoiselle, were doing nothing of the kind.’ Why had he never noticed her mischievous sense of humour before now? Why had he never noticed what an entertaining companion she could be when she put her mind to it? The truth was, he decided with a sinking feeling, that whenever Felice had been in the room he’d had eyes for nobody else. With her sultry beauty and her vivacious nature she had utterly bewitched him.

Flicking the reins in renewed irritation, he turned the curricle for home.

Chapter Three

His eyes, which a moment ago had been twinkling with amusement, had gone dull and lifeless. It was as though he had retreated into a dark and lonely room, slamming the shutters against her.

She was positively relieved to get home, where her maman greeted her with enthusiasm.

‘I never thought to have secured such a brilliant match for my plain daughter!’ she beamed. ‘But we must do something about your attire,’ she said as Heloise untied the ribbons of the one bonnet she possessed. ‘He cannot want people thinking he is marrying a dowd.’

Hustling her up the newly carpeted stairs to the room she had shared with Felice, her mother grumbled, ‘We do not have time to cut down one of Felice’s gowns before tonight. If only I had known,’ she complained, flinging open the doors to the armoire, ‘that you would be the one to marry into the nobility, we could have laid out a little capital on your wardrobe.’

Nearly all the dresses hanging there belonged to Felice. From the day the allies had marched into Paris the previous summer, what money her parents had been able to spare had been spent on dressing her sister. She had, after all, been the Bergeron family’s secret weapon. She had flirted and charmed her way through the ranks of the occupying forces, playing the coquette to the hilt, whilst adroitly managing to hang onto her virtue, catapulting the family to the very heart of the new society which had rapidly formed to replace Napoleon’s court.

‘Nobody could have foreseen such an unlikely event,’ Heloise replied rather dispiritedly, hitching her hip onto her bed.

She worried at her lower lip. What was her sister going to do now? She had left carrying only a modest bundle of possessions, and her young husband would not have the means to provide either the kind of dress allowance she had enjoyed for so long, nor the stimulating company of the upper echelons of society.

Heloise sighed. ‘What about the lilac muslin?’ she suggested. It was quite her favourite dress. She always felt that it made her look almost girlishly attractive, though the underskirt, which went with the full, shorter overdress, was embroidered about the hem with violets. Surely she could not be taken for a supporter of Bonaparte if she appeared in public on the arm of an Englishman?

‘Where is His Lordship taking you tonight?’ her maman enquired sharply.

‘To the theatre first, and then on to Tortoni’s for ices.’

Her mother clicked her tongue. ‘Muslin to the theatre? I should think not!’ she snapped, entirely overlooking the political symbolism of the violets, Bonaparte’s emblem. ‘When Felice went to the theatre with him she wore the gold satin!’

‘I cannot compete with Felice, Maman,’ Heloise remonstrated. ‘Nor do I think it would be wise to try to be like her. Do you not think he might find it in poor taste if I did?’

‘I had no idea,’ her mother remarked sarcastically, ‘that you had such a grasp of what is in men’s hearts.’ Flinging a bundle of Felice’s discarded gowns to the bare boards, she gripped the iron foot-rail of the wide bed the girls had shared. ‘Don’t, I beg of you, do anything to make him change his mind about marrying you.’

‘He has only taken me to save face,’ Heloise pointed out. ‘I know he still loves Felice. Nothing I do will matter to him.’

Her mother regarded the bleak look that washed over her daughter’s features with concern.

‘But you are going to be his wife, you foolish creature!’ Coming round the side of the bed, her mother took her hand, chafing it to emphasise her point. ‘Listen to me! And listen well! You will be going away to live in a foreign country, amongst strangers. You will be utterly dependent on your husband’s goodwill. So you must make an effort to please him. Of course he will never fall in love with you—’ she made a dismissive gesture with her hand ‘—the sister of the woman who betrayed him. Not even if you were half so beautiful or clever as she. But at least you can try not to antagonise him. You must learn to behave in a manner worthy of the title he is going to bestow on you. He will expect you to dress well and behave well, as a reflection of his taste. You must never embarrass him by displaying any emotion in public’

He had only just informed her that displaying emotion in public was vulgar. So her mother’s next words took on a greater power.

‘Above all, you must never clamour for his attention if he does not wish to give it. You must let him go to his mistresses when he is bored with you, and pretend not to notice or to mind.’

A great lump formed in her throat. He would, of course, be unfaithful. She was the one who had instigated this marriage, and though he was disposed to go through with it, she knew only too well that it was not because he found her attractive.

How could he? Even her mother, who loved her as well as she was able, referred to her as her plain daughter.

‘Mistresses?’ she whispered, a sickening vision of a lifetime of humiliation unfolding before her.

‘Of course,’ her mother replied, stroking her hand soothingly. ‘You are not blind. You know that is what men do. All men,’ she said grimly, her thin lips compressing until they were almost white. ‘Just as soon as they can afford it.’

Heloise’s stomach turned over at the implication of her mother’s words. Even her papa, who behaved as though he was deeply in love with her mother, must have strayed.

‘If he is very considerate of your feelings he will conduct his affairs discreetly. But I warn you, if you make any protest, or even show that you care, he will be most annoyed! If you wish him to treat you well, you must not place any restrictions on his little divertissements.’

‘I have already informed him that I will not interfere with his pleasures,’ Heloise replied dully. And when she had told him that she had meant it. But now the idea that he could hasten to the arms of some other woman, when he could barely bring himself to allow her to lay her hand upon his sleeve, was unbelievably painful. Rising to her feet swiftly, she went to the open armoire. ‘What about the grey shot silk?’ she said, keeping her face carefully averted from her mother. ‘I have not worn that for some time. I don’t think His Lordship has ever seen me in it.’

Heloise did not particularly like the dress, for it had bad associations. The first time Du Mauriac had asked her father if he might pay his addresses to his oldest daughter, he had been so proud that she had captured the interest of a hero of France that he had sent her to the dressmaker with the instruction to buy something pretty to wear when her suitor came calling. She had been torn. Oh, how pleasant it had been, to be able to go and choose a gown with no expense spared! And yet the reason for the treat had almost robbed her of all joy in the purchase. In the end she had not been able to resist the lure of silk, but had chosen a sombre shade of grey, in a very demure style, hoping that Du Mauriac would not think she was trying to dress for his pleasure.

‘It is not at all the sort of thing Felice would have worn,’ her mother remarked, shaking her head. ‘But it will do for you. I shall get it sponged down and pressed.’ She bustled away with Heloise’s best gown over her arm, leaving her to her solitary and rather depressing reflections.

He had never seen her dressed so well, Charles thought with approval, when he came to collect her that evening. The exquisitely cut silk put him in mind of moonbeams playing over water. If only her eyes did not look so haunted. He frowned, pulling up short on the verge of paying her a compliment.

For the first time it hit him that she did not really wish to marry him any more than he wished to marry her. And she looked so small and vulnerable, hovering in the doorway, gazing up at him with those darkly anxious eyes.

She needed solid reassurance, not empty flattery.

Taking her hand in his, he led her to the sofa.

‘May I have a few moments alone with your daughter before we go out?’ he enquired of her parents. They left the room with such alacrity he was not sure whether to feel amused at their determination to pander to his every whim, or irritated at their lack of concern for their daughter’s evident discomfort.

Heloise sank onto the sofa next to him, her hand resting limply in his own, and gazed up into his handsome face. Of course he would have mistresses. He was a most virile man. She would just somehow have to deal with this crushing sense of rejection the awareness of his infidelity caused her. She must learn not to mind that he frowned when he saw her, and stifle the memories of how his eyes had lit with pleasure whenever Felice had walked into a room.

‘Heloise!’ he said, so sharply that she collected he must have been speaking to her for quite some time, while she had not heard one word he had said.

Blushing guiltily, she tried to pay attention.

‘I said, do you have the ring?’

Now he must think she was stupid, as well as unattractive. Her shoulders drooping, she held out her left hand obediently.

‘Hell and damnation!’ he swore. ‘It’s too big!’

‘Well, you bought it for Felice,’ she pointed out.

‘Yes, and I would have bought you one that did fit if only you’d told me this one didn’t! Why in God’s name didn’t you tell me, when I raised the subject this afternoon, that this ring was not going to be any good?’

‘Because I didn’t know it wouldn’t fit. Although of course I should have known,’ she ended despondently. Felice had long, strong, capable fingers, unlike her own, which were too slender for anything more strenuous than plying a needle or wielding a pencil.

‘Do you mean to tell me that you had an emerald of this value in your possession and you were never tempted to try it on? Not once?’

‘Oh, is it very valuable, then?’ She looked with renewed interest at the jewel which hung from her ring finger. In order not to lose it, she knew she was going to have to keep her hand balled into a fist throughout the evening. ‘I was not at all convinced it would get me all the way to Dieppe. Even if I’d managed to find a jeweller who would not try to cheat me, I fully expected to end up stranded halfway there.’

Her reference to her alternative plan of escaping Du Mauriac turned his momentary irritation instantly to alarm. He would do well to remember that he held no personal interest for her for his own sake at all. He was only providing the means, one way or another, for her to escape from an intolerable match with another man.

‘Well, you won’t be running off to Dieppe now, so you can put that notion right out of your head,’ he seethed. Damn, but he hoped her distress was not an indication she was seriously considering fleeing from him!

Though he could see she was scared as hell of him right now. And no wonder. She had entrusted him with her entire future, and all he could do was berate her over the trifling matter of the fit of a ring!

‘Come, now,’ he said in a rallying tone. ‘We struck an honest bargain this morning. It is in both our interests to stick with it.’ He took her hands between his own and gave them what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. ‘We are in this together.’

Yes. She sighed. And so was Felice. He would never be able to keep from comparing her, and unfavourably. Just look at the way he was coaxing her out of the sulks in that patronising tone, as though she were a petulant child.

‘It is easier for you,’ she began. He was used to disguising his feelings behind that glacial mask he wore in public. But she had never been any good at dissembling.

‘Why do you suppose that?’ he said harshly.

‘Because I won’t know what to say to people!’ she snapped. Had he forgotten already that she had told him she was hopeless at telling lies?

‘Oh, come,’ he scoffed. ‘You ran on like a rattle in my drawing room this morning!’

‘That was entirely different,’ she protested. ‘It does not matter what you think.’ They were co-conspirators. She had no need to convince him she was anything other than herself.

Charles swiftly repressed the sharp stab of hurt these words inflicted. Why should he be bothered if she did not care what he thought of her? It was not as if she meant anything to him, either. He must just accept that playing the role of his fiancée was not going to be easy for her.

‘Very well,’ he nodded, ‘you need not attempt to speak. I will do all the talking for us both. Providing—’ he fixed her with a stern eye ‘—you make an attempt to look as though you are enjoying yourself tonight.’

‘Oh, I am sure I shall—in my own way,’ she assured him.

She loved studying how people behaved in social situations. Their posturing and jostling both amused and inspired her with ideas that went straight into her sketchbook the minute she got home.

A vague recollection of her sitting alone at a table littered with empty glasses, a rapt expression on her face as she observed the boisterous crowd at the guingette that Felice had dared him to take her to, sprang to Charles’ mind. He began to feel a little calmer. The theatre was the best place he could have chosen for their first outing together à deux. She would be content to sit quietly and watch the performance.

Then she alarmed him all over again by saying mournfully, ‘It was a stupid idea. I wish I had never mentioned it. Nobody looking at the two of us together will ever believe you wish at all to marry me.’

‘Well, they will not if you carry on like this!’ It was bad enough that Felice had jilted him; now Heloise was exhibiting clear signs of wanting to hedge off. What was wrong with the Bergeron sisters? He knew of half a dozen women who would give their eye teeth to be in their position. Why, he had been fending off females who wished to become his countess since his first foray into society!

‘You came up with this plan, not I. And I expect you to play your part now you have wheedled me into it!’

‘Wheedled?’ she gasped, desperately hurt. She had not wheedled. She had put her proposition rationally and calmly … well, perhaps not calmly, for she had been very nervous. But he was making it sound as though she had put unfair pressure on him in some way.

‘If that is what you think—’ she began, sliding the ring from her finger.

His hand grabbed hers, thrusting the ring back down her finger.

‘No, mademoiselle,’ he said sternly, holding her hands captive between his own, his steely fingers keeping the ring firmly in place.

She took a breath, her brow furrowing in preparation for another round of argument.

There was only one sure way to silence her. And Charles took it.

She flinched when his lips met hers, rousing Charles’ anger to new heights.

What was the woman doing proposing marriage if she could not even bear the thought of kissing him? Leaving go of her hands, he grasped her by the nape of the neck, holding her still, while he demonstrated his inalienable right, as her betrothed, to kiss her as thoroughly as he pleased!

Charles had taken her completely by surprise. She didn’t know what to do. No man had ever kissed her before. Du Mauriac had tried, once or twice, but she had been expecting it from him, and had always managed to take evasive action.

But she didn’t want to evade Charles, she discovered after only a fleeting moment of shock. What she really wanted, she acknowledged, relaxing into his hold, was to put her arms about him and kiss him back. If only she knew how !

Well, she might not know anything about kissing, but there was nothing to stop her from putting her arms about his neck. Uttering a little whimper of pleasure, she raised shaky hands from her lap and tentatively reached out for him.

‘My God,’ he panted, breaking free. ‘I never meant to do that!’

Leaping to his feet, he strode to the very far side of the room. Hearing her little cry of protest, feeling her hands fluttering against his chest in an attempt to push him away, had brought him to his senses.

‘I can only offer my sincere apologies,’ he ground out between clenched teeth. He could not think what had come over him. What kind of blackguard chose that particular way to silence a woman?

He had accepted intellectually that one day he would have to get his heirs by Heloise. But judging from her shocked recoil it had been the furthest thing from her mind.

The fierce surge of desire that even now was having a visible effect on his anatomy was an unexpected bonus. When the time was right, he was going to enjoy teaching his wife all there was to know about loving.

Until then he must exercise great restraint. He would have to get her used to the idea of him before broaching the subject of heirs. He already knew how shy she was, and had realised she would need to feel she could rely on him. How could she do that if she was worried he was going to pounce on her at any moment?

‘You need not fear that I shall importune you in that way again,’ he grated, his back still turned to her while he desperately fought to regain mastery over his unruly body.

Heloise pressed her hand to her bruised lips, her heart sinking as swiftly as it had soared when he had seized and kissed her so excitingly. Why had he done it if he was now adamant he would not be doing it again? Had it only been some sort of experiment? To see if he could stomach touching her as a man should want to touch his wife? If so, it was evident he regretted giving in to the impulse.

It was a while before he could bear to so much as turn round and look at her! But at least it gave her the time to wipe away the few tears that she had been unable to prevent from trickling down her cheeks. For she would never let him see how humiliated his rejection made her feel. If he did not wish to kiss her, then she would not beg for his kisses. Never!

She got to her feet, determination stiffening her carriage. She would never let him suspect—not by one lingering look, one plaintive sigh—that she … She faltered, her hand flying to her breast.

No, this was too appalling! She could not be in love with him. She must not be in love with him. She was certain she had not lied when she had denied being in love with him that morning. Her feelings could not have changed so swiftly during the course of one day. Just because he had strolled into the drawing room and swept all her problems away with his marvellously insouciant declaration of intent to marry her. Not because she had felt a momentary rapport with him while they had gently teased each other during their carriage ride.

And yet she could not deny that since her maman had broached the subject of his infidelity she had been eaten up by jealousy.

No, that was not love! It was wounded pride that made her eyes smart so. It had to be.

Her abstracted air, coupled with the Earl’s barely tamped down lust, created quite a stir when they entered the theatre arm in arm.

As soon as they were seated, Charles tore off a corner of the programme and wedged it under her ring. ‘That should hold it in place for now.’

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, keeping her face averted. It was stupid to feel resentful because he was being so practical about everything. She sighed.

‘Mademoiselle,’ he murmured, ‘I am about to put my arm along the back of your chair, and I do not want you to flinch when I do it.’

A shiver slid all the way down her spine to her toes at the warmth of his arm behind her shoulders. With him so close, every breath she took filled her nostrils with his clean, spicy scent. Though his arm was not quite touching her, she remembered the strength of it, holding her captive while he ravaged her mouth. She felt weak, and flustered, and utterly feminine.

‘I promise I shall not do anything you will not like. Only I must sometimes seem to be … how shall I put it? … lover-like when we appear in public. I shall not go beyond the bounds of what is proper, I assure you.’

No, she reflected with annoyance. For he’d found kissing her such an unpleasant experience he had vowed never to do it again! This show of being ‘lover-like’, as he put it, was as much of a performance as what was going on upon the stage. But then, she reflected bleakly, she had known from the outset that all he wanted from her was the means to salvage his pride.

‘Y … you may do what you like,’ she conceded, feeling utterly wretched. ‘I understand how important this show is to you.’ Turning towards him, so that their faces were only a few scant inches apart, she declared, ‘It was for this reason that you agreed to marry me, was it not? So that nobody would suspect you had been hurt. I think the worst thing you could endure is to have someone mock you.’ Raising one hand, she laid it against his cheek. ‘I trust you,’ she said, resolving that, come what may, she would never be sorry to have given him this one source of consolation. ‘However you decide to behave tonight, I will go along with it.’

Charles found it hard not to display his hurt. Go along with it, indeed! She could not conceal how nervous he made her. She was drawing on every ounce of courage she possessed to conceal her disquiet at his proximity. She had shuddered when he put his arm round her, tensed up when he had whispered in her ear.

Was it possible, he wondered, his heart skipping a beat, that she found him as repellent as Du Mauriac?

Regarding her nervously averted eyes, he refused to entertain that notion. She had come to him, after all. He had not put any pressure on her. She was just shy, that was all. He doubted many men had so much as flirted with her, let alone kissed her. She was as innocent as her sister had been experienced.

His expression bland, he murmured, ‘We should take advantage of our relative privacy to organise the practical details of our wedding, don’t you think?’

The sooner he secured her, the sooner he could stop worrying that she might run away.

By the end of the first act, by dint of keeping their heads close together and keeping their voices low, they had managed to agree upon a simple civic wedding. Conningsby, upon whose discretion he relied, would serve as his witness, and her parents would support Heloise. It would take next to no time to arrange it.

They had also managed to create the very impression Charles had sought. The audience, agog with curiosity, spent as much time training their opera glasses upon the unchaperoned young couple who appeared so intent on each other as they did upon the stage.

Heloise ordered a lemon ice once they finally managed to secure a table at Tortoni’s. But she did not appear to be enjoying it much. She was still ill at ease in his company. The truth was that much of the behaviour upon which she had to judge him might well have given her a false impression of his character.

He shuddered, recalling that excursion beyond the city boundaries to the guingette, where ordinary working people went to spend their wages on food, drink and dancing. Felice had made it seem like such fun, and in its way it had been. But Heloise, he suddenly realised, watching as she daintily licked the confection from her spoon, had not only refused to join in the hurly-burly, but would never have cajoled him to attend such a venue. He would have to reassure her that he would never so browbeat her again.

‘Since I have been in Paris,’ he began, frowning, ‘I have done things I would never consider for a minute in London. Things that are breaches of good ton.’

Heloise tried not to display her hurt that he should regard marrying her as a breach of ton. She already knew she was not at all the sort of wife an English earl ought to marry. His infatuation with Felice would have been much easier for society to forgive, given that she was so very enchanting. But nobody would be able to understand why he had picked up a plain little bourgeoise like her, and elevated her to the position of Countess.

‘Allow me to be the first to congratulate you,’ a voice purred. Dropping her spoon with a clatter on the table, she looked up to see Mrs Austell hovering over their table, her beady eyes fixed on Felice’s emerald ring. ‘Though I had heard …’ She paused to smile like a cat that had got at the cream, and Heloise braced herself to hear whatever gossip had been noised abroad concerning the Earl and her sister. ‘I had heard that you were going to make an announcement at the Dalrymple Hamilton ball.’

‘Circumstances made it impossible for us to attend,’ Charles replied blandly.

‘Ah, yes, I hear there was some unpleasantness in your family, mademoiselle?’

Laying his hand firmly over hers, Charles prevented her from needing to answer. ‘Mademoiselle Bergeron does not wish to speak of it.’

‘Oh, but I am the soul of discretion! Is there nothing to be done for your poor sister? Too late to prevent her ruination, I suppose?’

‘Oh, you have the matter quite out. The affair is not of that nature. The young man fully intends to marry my fiancée’s sister. Has done for some considerable time. It is only parental opposition that has forced the silly children to feel they needed to run off together in that manner.’

Heloise marvelled that he could appear so unconcerned as he related the tale. Deep down, she knew he was still smarting. But it was this very sang-froid she had factored as being of paramount importance to her scheme. Why should she be surprised, she chastised herself, when he played the part she had written for him so perfectly?

‘A little embarrassing for me to have an escapade of that nature in the family,’ he shrugged, ‘to be sure. But it is of no great import in the long run.’ With a smile that would have convinced the most cynical onlooker, Lord Walton carried Heloise’s hand to his lips and kissed it.

‘Of course I never held to the prevalent opinion that you would make the younger Mademoiselle Bergeron your wife,’ Mrs Austell declared. ‘A man of your station! Of course you would prefer the more refined Mademoiselle Bergeron to her flighty little sister. Though I must warn you—’ she turned to Heloise, a malicious gleam in her eye ‘—that you ought not to make your dislike of Wellington so apparent when you get to London. They idolise him there, you know. If anyone were to catch a glimpse of that scurrilous drawing you made of him …’ She went off into a peal of laughter. ‘Though it was highly entertaining. And as for the one you showed me of Madame de Stael, as a pouter pigeon!’

‘I collect you have had sight of my betrothed’s sketchbook?’

‘Felice handed it round one afternoon,’ Heloise put in, in her defence. ‘When a few ladies connected with the embassy paid us a visit.’

‘Oh, yes! Such a delight to see us all there in her menagerie, in one form or another. Of course, since the one of myself was quite flattering, I suppose I had more freedom to find the thing amusing than others, to whom mademoiselle had clearly taken a dislike.’

At his enquiring look, Heloise, somewhat red-faced, admitted, ‘I portrayed Mrs Austell as one of the birds in an aviary.’

With a completely straight face, Charles suggested, ‘With beautiful plumage, no doubt, since she always dresses so well?’

‘Yes, that’s it,’ she agreed, though she could tell he had guessed, even without seeing the picture, that all the birds portrayed on that particular page had been singing their heads off. If there was one thing Mrs Austell’s set could do, it was make a lot of noise about nothing.

And dare I ask how you portrayed Wellington?’

But it was Mrs Austell who answered, her face alight with glee. As a giraffe, if you please, with a great long neck, loping down the Champs-Elysées, looking down with such a supercilious air on the herd of fat little donkeys waddling along behind!’

‘For I see him as being head and shoulders above his contemporaries,’ Heloise pleaded.

‘Oh, I see!’ Mrs Austell said. ‘Well, that explains it. Have you seen your own likeness among your talented little betrothed’s pages, my lord?’ she simpered.

‘Why, yes,’ he admitted, feeling Heloise tense beneath his grasp. ‘I feature as a lion in a circus, if you please.’

‘Oh, of course. The king of the beasts!’ she trilled. ‘Well, I must not take up any more of your time. I am sure you two lovebirds—’ she paused to laugh at her own witticism ‘—would much rather be alone.’

As soon as you have finished your ice,’ Charles said, once Mrs Austell had departed, ‘I shall take you home. Our “news” will be all over Paris by the morning. Mrs Austell will convince everyone how it was without us having to perjure ourselves.’

He was quiet during the short carriage ride home. But as he was handing her out onto the pavement he said, ‘I trust you will destroy your sketchbook before it does any more damage?’

‘Damage?’ Heloise echoed, bemused. ‘I think it served its purpose very well.’

‘There are pictures in there that in the wrong hands could cause me acute embarrassment,’ he grated. He had no wish to see himself portrayed as a besotted fool, completely under the heel of a designing female. ‘Can I trust you to burn the thing yourself, or must I come into your parents’ house and take it from you?’

Heloise gasped. She had only one skill of which she was proud, and that was drawing. It was unfair of him to ask her to destroy all her work! It was not as if she had made her assessment of her subjects obvious. Only someone who knew the character of her subject well would know what she was saying about them by portraying them as one type of animal or another.

It had been really careless of her to leave that sketchbook lying on the table when she had gone up to change. She had not been gone many minutes, but he had clearly found the picture she had drawn of him prostrate at her sister’s feet, while she prepared to walk all over him. And been intelligent enough to recognise himself, and proud enough to resent her portrayal of him in a position of weakness.

He was not a man to forgive slights. Look how quickly he had written Felice out of his life, and he had loved her! Swallowing nervously, she acknowledged that all the power in their relationship lay with him. If she displeased him, she had no doubt he could make her future as his wife quite uncomfortable. Besides, had she not promised to obey his slightest whim? If she argued with him over this, the first real demand he had made of her, she would feel as though she were breaking the terms of their agreement.

‘I will burn it,’ she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I promised you, did I not, that I would do my best to be a good wife, and never cause you a moment’s trouble? I will do whatever you ask of me.’ However it hurt her to destroy that which she had spent hours creating, the one thing in her life she felt proud to have achieved, her word of honour meant far more.

‘Heloise, no—dammit!’ he cried, reaching out his hand. That had been tactless of him. He should have requested to examine the book, and then decided whether to destroy the one or two sketches which might have caused him some discomfort. Or he should have been more subtle still. He should have asked if he could keep the whole thing, and then ensured it was kept locked away where nobody could see it. Not demand her obedience in that positively medieval way!

But it was too late. She had fled up the steps to her house, the sound of her sobs sending a chill down his spine.

How had the evening gone so wrong? He had decided she needed reassurance, and what had he done? Bullied and frightened her, and sent her home in floods of tears.

If he carried on like this she might still decide to run away to her farm in Dieppe. And where would that leave him?

Chapter Four

Heloise gazed wide-eyed around the mirror-lined interior of the most expensive and therefore the most exclusive restaurant in Paris.

‘Most people come to Very Frères to sample the truffles,’ Charles had informed her when they had taken their places at a granite-topped table in one of the brilliantly lit salons.

That seemed inordinately foolish, considering the menu contained such a staggering variety of dishes. ‘I will have the poulet à la Marengo.’ She leaned forward and confided, ‘Although it is much cheaper in the Trois Frères Provencaux.’

‘You do not need to consider the expense,’ he pointed out. ‘I am a very wealthy man.’

Heloise shifted uncomfortably as his gaze seemed to settle critically upon her rather worn lilac muslin. ‘I am not marrying you for that.’

‘I know,’ he acknowledged. ‘But you must admit having a wealthy husband will make your lot more tolerable.’

‘Will it?’ she replied in a forlorn little voice. She really could not see that it mattered how wealthy her husband was when he was in love with someone else. Someone he could not have. And when she would only ever be a poor second best.

‘Of course,’ he replied briskly. He had decided to make amends for his overbearing attitude the previous evening by spoiling her a little. And demonstrating that he was prepared to consider her feelings. ‘I appreciate that you may find certain aspects of marrying me more uncomfortable than I had at first assumed.’ If he didn’t want her bolting to Dieppe, he would have to persuade her that marriage to him would be nothing like the picture she had painted of being chained down by Du Mauriac.

‘I shall not forbid you from pursuing your own pleasures.’ He did not want her worrying he would be forever breathing down her neck. ‘Nor shall I expect you to hang on my arm.’ He would not force her to any event that she would rather not attend. He knew that her rather retiring nature might make it hard for her to hold her own with some of the people with whom he routinely crossed swords during the course of his public life. However, he did not want her to feel he saw her shyness as a failing. ‘It is not done for a man to be seen about too much with his wife,’ he explained. And though we must live in the same house, there is no reason we may not live virtually separate lives.’

Her heart fluttered in panic. It sounded as if he meant to deposit her in some house in a foreign country, where she knew nobody, and leave her to fend for herself.

‘D … don’t you want people to think we have a true marriage?’

He felt touched that she could still think of his image, when she must have so many reservations about the new life she was about to embark upon.

‘We must be seen about together occasionally, yes,’ he acknowledged. ‘Just once every se’en night or so should be sufficient.’

She bit her lip. She could hardly complain if he could not face wasting more than one evening a week on her. Hadn’t she rashly declared she would go and live in a cottage and keep hens if he did not wish to be burdened with her company?

‘Do you have a house in the country, my lord?’ she asked. The hens were seeming increasingly attractive.

‘That is far too formal a way to address me now we are to be married,’ he countered, puzzled by her abrupt change of subject. He had done what he could to put her at ease. Now it was time to take things to a more intimate level. ‘You had best call me Walton. Or Charles.’

‘Ch … Charles,’ she stammered, the familiarity of his name catching on her tongue.

‘And may I call you Heloise?’

She nodded, rendered speechless at the warmth of the smile he turned on her for acceding to this small request.

‘I hope you will like Wycke.’

‘Wycke?’

‘Although I have a house in London, where I reside whilst Parliament is in session, Wycke is my principal seat, and it is where …’ Where the heirs are traditionally born, he refrained from finishing. Regarding her upturned, wary little face, he wondered with a pang if there would ever come a time when he would be able to tackle such a delicate subject with her.

Though, legally, he already had an heir.

‘There is one rather serious matter I must broach with you,’ he said firmly. It was no good trying to shield her from everything. There were some things she would just have to accept. ‘I have someone … residing with me in Walton House—that is, my London home.’

Heloise attacked the tender breast of chicken the waiter had set before her with unnecessary savagery. She had wondered just how long it would be before he raised the topic of his mistress. Of course she would not voice any objections to him visiting such a woman. But if he expected her to let his mistress carry on living with him, then he was very much mistaken!

‘Indeed?’ she said frostily.

‘He is not going to be easy to get along with, and on reflection I recommend you had better not try.’

He? Oh, thank goodness—not a mistress.

Then why should she not try to get along with this guest? Heat flared in her cheeks. Of course—she was not good ton, and this person was clearly someone whose opinion he valued.

‘Whatever you say,’ she replied dully, taking a sip of the meursault that had somehow appeared in her glass when she had not been attending.

‘And, while we are on the topic, I must inform you there are several other persons that I do not wish you to associate with.’

‘Really?’ she said bleakly. She was not good enough to mix with his friends. How much more humiliation did he intend to heap on her? ‘Perhaps you had better provide me with a list?’

‘That might be a good idea,’ he replied in an abstracted manner. In marrying him, Heloise would become a target through which his enemies might try to strike at him. It would be unfair to leave her exposed when, with a little forethought, he could protect her. Some people would take great pleasure in making her as uncomfortable as possible simply because she was French. Others would be livid that she had thwarted their matrimonial ambitions towards him. ‘Those you need to be wariest of are certain members of my family.’

She knew it! He was downright ashamed of her! What further proof did she need than to hear him warn her that his own family would be her bitterest enemies?

‘You see, I have severed all connection with certain of them—’

Catching the appalled expression on her face, he pulled up short.

‘Beware, Heloise,’ he mocked. ‘Your husband is a man notorious for being so lacking in familial feeling that even my closest relatives are not safe from my cold, vengeful nature.’

She was so relieved to hear that his forbidding her to mix with these people was not because he was ashamed of her that she could easily dismiss the challenge aimed at her with those bitter words. Whatever had happened in the past was nothing to do with her! It was her future conduct that mattered to him.

‘Of course I would not have anything to do with people who would say such things about you,’ she declared, with a vehemence that shook him.

‘Your loyalty is … touching,’ he said cynically.

‘I will be your wife,’ she pointed out with an expressive shrug, as though matrimonial loyalty went without saying. Her declaration effectively stunned him into silence.

‘Shall we stroll awhile?’ he eventually recovered enough to say, when they had finished their meal.

Heloise nodded. At this hour of the evening, the brightly lit central quadrangle of the Palais Royale would be crowded with Parisians and tourists looking for entertainment of all sorts. From the restaurants in the basements and the shops beneath the colonnade, to the casinos and brothels on the upper floors, there was something in the arcades to cater for all tastes. Strolling amongst the pleasure-seeking crowds would be one way of demonstrating that he was not in the least broken-hearted.

They had barely stepped outside when she heard an angry and all too familiar voice crying, ‘Hey, Heloise—stop!’

Looking across the square, in the direction from which the voice hailed, she saw Du Mauriac bearing down on them like an avenging whirlwind.

To her consternation, rather than retreating into the relative safety of the restaurant, Charles continued to stroll nonchalantly towards the most dangerous man in Paris.

‘Didn’t you hear me calling you?’ he snarled, coming to a halt directly in front of them. His black moustache bristled in a face that was mottled red from wine and anger. Heloise tried to detach her hand from Charles’ arm. The waiters would not deign to help, but many of the diners in Very Frères were Englishmen, who would be bound to come to their aid if she could only get to them.

But Charles would not relax his grip.

Eyeing the lean figure of her former suitor with cool disdain, he drawled, ‘My fiancée does not answer to strangers shouting in the street.’

‘Fiancée!’ Ignoring Lord Walton, Du Mauriac turned the full force of his fury on the slender form cringing at his side.

‘Y … yes,’ she stuttered.

‘Do not let this fellow unsettle you, my sweet. I will deal with him.’

‘Your sweet?’ The Earl’s endearment drew Du Mauriac’s fire down upon himself. ‘She is not your sweet. Everyone knows you are in love with her sister! Not her! What could a man like you want with a little mouse like her?’

‘Since you speak of her in such a derogatory manner,’ he replied stiffly, ‘it is clear you care little for her either. So what exactly is your problem?’

‘You have no notion of what I feel for Heloise. Before you came to France, with your money and your title, she was going to be my wife! Mine! And if she had an ounce of loyalty she would be mine still. But it is the same with so many of her sort. They can wear the violet on their gowns, but their heart is filled only with greed and ambition.’

The confrontation between a slender officer in his shabby uniform and an obviously wealthy Englishman, in the doorway of such an exclusive restaurant, was beginning to attract the attention of passers-by.

‘I collect from your agitation,’ Charles said, finally relinquishing his vice-like grip on her hand, so that he could interpose his own body between her and Du Mauriac, ‘that you were once an aspirant to Mademoiselle Bergeron’s hand?’

Heloise was too shocked by these words to think of running for help. Charles knew exactly how things had stood between them. So why was he pretending differently? Oh, she thought, her hands flying to her cheeks. To conceal her part in the plot! He was shielding her from Du Mauriac’s wrath. Her heart thudded in her chest. It was wonderful to know Charles was intent on protecting her, but did he not know Du Mauriac would calmly put a bullet through a man on far flimsier quarrel than that of stealing his woman?

‘I fully understand,’ Charles said in an almost bored tone, ‘if the harsh words you level at this lady stem from thwarted affection. Being aware that you French are apt to be somewhat excitable, I also forgive you your appalling lapse of manners. Though naturally were you an Englishman it would be quite another matter.’

Du Mauriac laughed mockingly. ‘I insult your woman and you stand there and let me do it, like the coward you are. What must I do to make you take the honourable course? Slap your face?’

The Earl looked thoughtful. ‘You could do so, of course, if it would help to relieve your feelings. But then I would be obliged to have you arrested on a charge of assault.’

‘In short, you are such a coward that nothing would induce you to meet me!’

Heloise gasped. No gentleman could allow another to call him a coward to his face. Especially not in such a public place.

But Charles merely looked puzzled. ‘Surely you are not suggesting I would wish to fight a duel with you?’ He shook his head, a pitying smile on his face. ‘Quite apart from the fact I do not accept there is any reason for us to quarrel, I understand your father was a fisherman of some sort? I hate to have to be the one to break it to you, but duelling is a gentleman’s solution to a quarrel.’

‘I am an officer of the French army!’ Du Mauriac shouted.

‘Well, that’s as may be,’ Charles replied. ‘Plenty of upstarts are masquerading as gentlemen in France these days. I,’ he said, drawing himself up a little, ‘do not share such republican ideals. A man is a gentleman by birth and manners—and frankly, sir, you have neither.’

Du Mauriac, now completely beside himself, took a step forward, his hand raised to strike the blow that would have made a duel inevitable. And met the full force of the Earl’s left fist. Before he knew what had hit him, the Earl followed through with a swift right, leaving the notorious duellist lying stretched, insensible, on the gravel path.

‘I am so sorry you had to witness that, Heloise,’ the Earl said, flexing his knuckles with a satisfied smile. ‘But it is well past time somebody knocked him down.’

Heloise was torn by a mixture of emotions. It had been quite wonderful to see Du Mauriac floored with such precision. And yet she knew he was not a man to take such a public insult lying down. At least, she thought somewhat hysterically, only while he was unconscious. As soon as he came to he would be hell-bent on revenge. If he could not take it legitimately, by murdering the Earl under the guise of duelling with him, then he would do it by stealthy means. It would be a knife in the ribs as he mounted the steps to the theatre, or a shot fired from a balcony as they rode along the boulevard in the borrowed carrick. She could see the Earl’s blood soaking into the dust of some Parisian street as she held his dying body in her arms.

She burst into tears.

Putting one arm around her, Lord Walton pushed a way through the excited crowd that was milling round Du Mauriac’s prone form.

It had been a tactical error, he acknowledged as he bundled her into a cab, to deal with Du Mauriac while she was watching. Gentlemen did not brawl in front of ladies. Displays of masculine aggression were abhorrent to them. But it had seemed too good an opportunity to pass up! Wellington had forbidden officers of the occupying forces to engage in fisticuffs in public places. He had stipulated that the sword was the weapon of gentlemen, and Du Mauriac had taken advantage of that order to murder one young Englishman after another. Only a man like Walton, who was exempt from Wellington’s orders, was free to mete out the humiliating form of punishment that such a scoundrel deserved.

But witnessing what an aggressive brute she was about to marry had clearly devastated Heloise. By the time they reached the Quai Voltaire she had worked herself into such a pitch he had no option but to carry her into the house and hand her over to the care of her mother, while he went in search of some brandy.

‘He will kill him, Maman,’ Heloise sobbed into her mother’s bosom. ‘And then he will take his revenge on me. Whatever shall I do?’

‘We will bring the wedding forward to tomorrow,’ her mother said, comforting Heloise immensely by not decrying her fears as groundless. ‘And you will leave Paris immediately after the ceremony.’

‘What if he should pursue us?’ Heloise hiccupped, sitting up and blowing her nose.

‘You leave that to me,’ her mother said with a decisive nod. ‘He has plenty of enemies who want only a little push to move against him, and we can keep him tied up long enough for you to escape France.’

‘But I thought you wanted me to marry him!’

And so I did, my dear.’ Her mother absently stroked a lock of hair from her daughter’s heated forehead. ‘When I thought you could get no other suitor, and when I thought Bonaparte’s ambition would keep him away from Paris, fighting for ten months of the year. But I would never have permitted you to go on campaign with him. Besides,’ she concluded pragmatically, ‘Bonaparte is finished now. Of what use is a man like Du Mauriac when he has no emperor to fight for?’

The moment Charles heard Madame Bergeron suggest that, due to Heloise’s state of nerves, it might be better to bring the wedding forward, he completely forgot his determination that nothing would induce him to leave Paris before the lease on his apartment had run its course. Nothing mattered except making sure of Heloise.

‘I will go and order the removal of my own household,’ he said, rising from his chair and pulling his gloves on over his bruised knuckles. It would take some time to pack up the house and arrange transport for his staff. But he could leave all that in Giddings’ capable hands. He could most certainly leave immediately after the wedding ceremony. It only required his valet to pack an overnight case.

At first he assumed that once she had spoken her vows, and signed all the necessary documents, he would feel easier in his mind. But it was not so. Every time he glanced at the tense set of her pale face he wondered if she still considered the dairy farm at Dieppe a preferable option to being leg-shackled to a man of whom she was growing increasingly afraid. He was not being fanciful. She had admitted almost as soon as they had set out that she had left her one decent dress behind because it brought back bad memories.

It was the one she had been wearing the night he had forced that kiss on her.

Before long, he realised he was not going to be able to relax until he had her on board ship and out into the Channel. While they were in France there were innumerable ways for her to wriggle out of his grasp.

It was a great relief when, about ten miles out of Paris, her head began to droop. She couldn’t have slept a wink the night before to be sleeping so soundly in the jolting carriage. She must have been scared stiff of leaving her family and her country behind, and going to live amongst strangers. She made no demur when he tucked her wilting form against his shoulder, and once he was certain she was fully asleep he took the liberty of putting his arm round her, and settling her into a more comfortable position. She was so tiny, tucked against his heart. So frail a creature.

Surely there must be some way he could get her to see he was not a monster? Just a man who wanted to be her friend and protector. But how? When so far all he had done was bully and frighten her?

She did not wake until well into the afternoon.

‘Where are we?’ she yawned, pushing herself upright.

‘Abbeville. Since you were sleeping so soundly, I took the opportunity to press on. We have been able to cover far more ground than if we had needed to keep stopping to see to your comfort.’

His matter-of-fact tone brought her sharply to her senses. For a blissful moment, as she had come awake within the cradle of his powerful arms, she had mistaken the fact that he had allowed her to use his broad chest for her pillow as a mark of tenderness.

‘You will have your own suite of rooms tonight,’ he said, plunging her deeper into gloom. Of course he would not want any real intimacy with her. Their marriage was only for public show.

She was not very much surprised when a meal was brought to her own little parlour, or when she ate it alone. He had barely spoken a handful of words to her all day. On seeing the meagre amount of luggage she had packed, instead of appreciating her ability to travel light he had made a sarcastic comment about having to arrange credit at various smart outfitters once they arrived in London. After that Charles had turned from her and gazed fixedly out of the window.

The hotel was naturally first class, and the maid provided to help her prepare for bed was both efficient and friendly. But Heloise knew she would not sleep a wink, no matter how soft the feather mattress was. She had dozed in her husband’s arms nearly all day, and now she was wide awake—and as troubled as she had been the night before.

She had nobody but herself to blame for her predicament. She had approached Charles and offered to be the means by which he could salve his wounded pride. She should not feel offended that he cared so little for her that he would not even fight a duel when she was insulted in a public square. Besides, she had not wanted him to fight a duel. She could not bear to think of him being injured or, worse, killed on her account.

She would not be able to rest properly until he was safely in England, where Du Mauriac would not dare follow, she reflected, chewing at a fingernail.

Anyway, she had worked out, during the long sleepless hours of the previous night, that the quarrel in the Palais Royale had not been about her at all, no matter what words the men had used. Charles had clearly known far more about Du Mauriac than she had told him, else how would he have been able to sneer at his parentage? And another thing—it had only been when she had told him Du Mauriac was the suitor she wished to escape that he had shown any inclination to take her proposition seriously.

She shivered at the cold, calculating way Charles had behaved. He must have studied Du Mauriac closely to have taken the very course which would hurt him most. He had stolen his woman, refused to acknowledge him as a social equal, then knocked him down in a public place, rendering him an object of ridicule.

She drew the coverlet up to her chin, the cold seeping into her very soul. Felice had said he had no heart. He had warned her himself that his nature was so cold and vengeful he could sever the ties to his own family without a qualm.

No. She shook her head. Felice had been wrong. And when Charles himself had informed her of his nature there had been something in his eyes—almost as though he was taunting her with the description she had heard applied to him so often.

His treatment of Du Mauriac had been cold and vengeful, that was true. But Du Mauriac was a vile man who fully deserved all that Charles had done to him. And as for that business about cutting ties with the family who had raised him … well, yes, that did sound bad. But, knowing what she did of Charles, she would not be a bit surprised to learn that it was they who had done something dreadful, and that rather than expose them he’d let the gossip-mongers make what they would of it all.

She was startled out of her reverie when someone pushed her bedroom door open. This might be a first-class inn, but clearly some people lodging here had no manners. She was just opening her mouth to scream her objection at having her room invaded when she realised it was only Charles, entering not from the corridor but from a connecting door to another bedroom.

‘I am not a monster, Heloise,’ he sighed, stalking towards her. ‘You do not need to clutch the sheet up to your chin as though you fear I mean to ravish you. I can assure you, nothing is further from my mind.’

Relief that it was not some stranger about to assault her had her sagging into the pillows. Though his words rankled. Did he think she was a complete fool? She knew all too well that when he wanted a woman he would go to one of his mistresses.

‘I only came to inform you of the fact that I will not be making demands of that nature upon you. I said from the start that you are far too young to be married at all, leave alone face motherhood.’ He bent over her and placed a perfunctory kiss on her forehead. ‘Goodnight, Lady Walton,’ he said.

‘Goodnight, Charles,’ she replied, betraying by only the very slightest quiver in her lower lip her feeling of humiliated rejection.

She would not cry until he had left the room. He detested any display of emotion. She could only imagine how disgusted her complete breakdown the night before must have made him. But it probably accounted for his distant behaviour with her today. She must not make the mistake of showing such lack of breeding again. Even if he never came to care all that much for her, she would do her utmost to be the kind of wife he wanted—compliant and undemonstrative.

To prove that she could do this, she tried a shaky smile. To tell the truth, she did feel a measure of relief. She was totally unprepared for a wedding night with a husband who regarded her as a necessary evil. Or to endure the ordeal of being deflowered by a man who would regard it as a duty to be performed in the cold-blooded way he seemed to live the rest of his life.

Lord Walton ripped off his cravat the moment he entered his room, and flung it aside to land he knew not where. He felt as though he could not breathe. God, how scared of him she had looked! And how relieved when he had told her he had no intentions of claiming his husbandly rights! He strode to the side table and poured a measure of brandy into a tumbler. Then slumped into a chair, staring into its amber depths. He would find no solace there, he reflected, swirling the liquid round and round, warming it to release its fragrant fumes. The one time he had attempted to use alcohol as an anaesthetic it had failed him miserably. All it had done was make him feel sorry for himself. He had spouted the most maudlin nonsense to a virtual stranger, and woken with a thick head in the morning. He would need a clear head the next morning. If they could make an early enough start they would reach Calais and be sailing for home on the evening tide.

Providing Heloise did not fly from him during the night. Starting to his feet, he crossed to the chamber door. And paused with his hand on the latch.

Perhaps the gentlemanly thing to do would be to let her go.

Heloise deserved a man who could love and nurture her, not scare and bully her.

Dammit, why was it so impossible to behave rationally around her? He ran a hand over his brow.

Seeing her sitting in that bed, chewing her nails like a frightened, lonely child, had made him want to take her in his arms and comfort her. But he knew it would not have worked. He was the last person she would want to seek comfort from. He was the worst of her problems. Besides, the feel of her slight body, snuggled trustingly against his in the coach, had filled him with most unchivalrous longings. Right this moment he wanted her with a ferocity that made him disgusted with himself.

God, what had he done? What was he to do?

Determined to prove she was capable of behaving correctly, Heloise sat bolt upright in the carriage all the way to Calais. In spite of the fact she had spent most of the night crying into her pillow, she was not going to repeat the mistake of yielding to exhaustion and falling asleep on a husband who seemed to regard any form of touching as an intrusion on his personal dignity.

She had served her purpose—giving him the opportunity to take revenge on Du Mauriac and concealing the chink in his armour that was his love for Felice. And now he did not know quite what to do with her.

He was avoiding her as much as he could. When they got to Calais, he left her in the carriage while he arranged their passage, then installed her in a private parlour to await the sailing while he went off for a walk. On the few occasions when he had deigned to speak to her, he had done so with such icy civility she just knew he regretted giving in to the rash impulse to marry her.

And who could blame him? No one was more unsuitable to be the wife of such a man than she!

By the time he came to inform her it was time to embark, she was trembling so badly she had to cling to his arm for support.

Just as they reached the companionway, a messenger dashed up to them. ‘Countess of Walton? Formerly Mademoiselle Bergeron?’ he panted.

When she nodded, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter. ‘Thank heaven I reached you in time.’ He grinned. ‘Urgent, the sender said it was, that I got this to you before you left France.’ His mission complete, the man melted back into the crowd that thronged the quayside.

‘You had better open it at once,’ she heard Charles say, and he pulled her slightly to one side, so that they did not impede other passengers from boarding.

‘It is from my mother,’ she said, after swiftly scanning the few lines of hastily scrawled script. ‘Du Mauriac is dead.’

Translating for Charles, she read, “‘… the Royalist officials sent to arrest him employed such zeal that many Bonapartists rushed to his aid. In the ensuing brawl, somebody stabbed him. Nobody knows yet who it was …’”

She clutched the letter to her bosom, her eyes closing in relief. Charles was safe.

‘What violent times we live in,’ Charles remarked, wondering why it felt as though the dock had lurched beneath his feet.

Heloise had only married him to escape Du Mauriac’s clutches. What a pointless gesture she had made. If only she had waited a few days, and not panicked, she would not have had to make that ultimate sacrifice.

‘Dear me,’ he observed. ‘You need not have married me after all.’

Chapter Five

Oh, poor Charles! He was already smarting from taking on a wife he did not really want, and now he had learned that at least part of his reason for doing so had ceased to exist.

But, instead of betraying his annoyance, he held out his arm and said in an icily polite voice, ‘Will you come aboard now, madam?’

Oh, dear. She gulped. How he must wish he could just leave her on the quayside and go back to England alone. But he was too honourable even to suggest such a thing. Laying her hand upon his sleeve, she followed him up the gangplank, her heart so leaden in her chest she wondered it could keep beating.

He showed her to the cabin he had procured for the voyage, then informed her that he was going on deck. His face was frozen, his posture rigid, and she ached for his misery. It hurt all the more to know she was the cause of it!

Charles hardly dared breathe until the last rope was cast off and the ship began to slide out of the harbour. She had not made a last desperate bid for freedom. Even when the coast of France was no more than a smudge on the horizon, she remained resolutely belowdecks.

Avoiding him.

He paced restlessly, heedless of the spray which repeatedly scoured the decks.

His conscience was clear. After a night spent wrestling with it, he had deliberately given her several opportunities to give him the slip during the day. Why had she not taken them? She was not staying with him because she was avaricious, nor was she all that impressed by his title.

The only thing that might explain her resolute determination to stick to their bargain was the fact she had given her word. Did it mean so much to her? He pictured her eyes, burning with zeal when she had promised to be the best wife she knew how to be, and accepted that it must.

It was a novel concept, to link a woman with integrity. But then Heloise, he was beginning to see, was not like any woman he had ever known.

Below decks, Heloise groaned, wishing she could die. Then he would be sorry. She whimpered, reaching for the conveniently positioned bucket yet again. Or would he? No, he would probably just shrug one shoulder and declare that it was a great pity, but after all he could always marry someone else. It was not as though he cared for her—no, not one jot. How could he, to leave her to endure such suffering alone?

Not that she wanted him to see her in such a demeaning state, she amended, heaving into the bucket for what seemed like the hundredth time.

Oh, when would this nightmare be over? How long before she could leave this foul-smelling cupboard and breathe fresh air again?

Never, she realised, after an eternity had rolled and pitched relentlessly past. Though she could hear the sounds of the hull grating against the dock, of officers shouting commands and sailors running to obey, she was too weak to so much as lift her head from the coarse cotton pillow.

‘Come, now, my lady,’ she heard her husband’s voice say, none too patiently. ‘We have docked. It is high time to disembark—Good God!’

The evidence of Heloise’s violent seasickness finally caught his eyes.

‘Go away,’ she managed resentfully when he approached the bunk, stern purpose in his eyes. He was a brute to insist she get up and move. Later, once the ship had remained steady for several hours, she might regain the strength to crawl. ‘Leave me here to die,’ she moaned.

‘Nobody has ever yet died of seasickness,’ he said briskly, swinging her into his arms. It was amazing how cheerful he felt to discover it was seasickness which had kept her belowdecks, when he had been imagining her lying there weeping for her lost freedom. ‘I know it must have been unpleasant for you, but you will be right as a trivet once you get upon dry land.’

‘Unpleasant?’ she protested. ‘I have never suffered anything so horrid. How could you be so cruel as to force me to go to sea in a storm? I think—’ she hiccupped down a sob ‘—that I hate you.’

‘I am sure you don’t mean that,’ he reproved her mildly. Although he wasn’t at all convinced. ‘Besides, the sea was scarcely more than a bit choppy.’ He consoled himself with the reflection that, even if she did hate him, nothing but the direst distress would ever induce her to endure another sea voyage.

He had planned to push on to London straight away, but he could not force Heloise to travel in her weakened state. He told the coachman to stop at the first hotel that could offer a suite of rooms.

He left her to herself for as long as he could. But when night fell concern for her had him knocking on her door and marching in before she had time to deny him admittance.

She was sitting up in bed, looking much better. Indeed, the nearer he got to the bed, the rosier her cheeks grew …

He checked in the middle of the room, biting down on a feeling of irritation. Did she think he was crass enough to insist on his marital rights, after she had been so ill? But before he could begin to defend himself Heloise blurted out, ‘Oh, I am so sorry, Charles, about what I said.’

‘What exactly that you said are you apologising for?’ He frowned, drawing a chair to her bedside and settling himself on it.

‘For saying that I hate you! I thought you meant to force me to walk off that ship and try to behave like a lady, when all I wished to do was die. I never guessed you were going to pick me up and carry me. And I had spent the entire voyage cursing you, so it was hard to get myself out of thinking that everything was entirely your fault. Indeed, at that precise moment I think I did hate you. But of course now I have calmed down I fully accept it is not your fault that I have seasickness. And you weren’t at all cruel to force me to go on that ship. It would only have been cruel if you had known how ill I would be—and how could you, when I never knew myself? For I have never been on a ship before!’

‘Nor will you ever set foot on one again,’ he said with determination.

She shuddered. ‘Indeed not.’

He paused. ‘You know, of course, that means you can never return to France.’

They eyed each other warily as the import of his remark sank in, each convinced the other must regret this truth, and each equally determined to conceal their hurts.

It was Charles who ended the impasse, by leaning back, crossing one leg over the other, and declaring, ‘Since you do not hate me at this precise moment, perhaps this would be a good time to discuss our mode of life together?’

Recalling the way he had indicated he wished her to keep herself amused, and not interfere with his no doubt hectic social life, Heloise forced herself to nod, waiting to hear what further layers of humiliation he meant to heap on her.

‘I don’t wish to raise any speculation about my marriage by appearing to pack you off to the country as though I did not like you.’ She would have to live with him in London, just to begin with, to prevent any speculation regarding their union. Not that he cared what people said about him. But he did not want her exposed to the sort of malicious gossip that was bound to hurt her. ‘The season has not yet properly begun, but that will give you time to procure a suitable wardrobe and settle into your new role. I expect it will take you some time to find your feet, socially speaking, but until you have acquired your own circle of acquaintance I will ensure you always have a trustworthy escort to any event you may wish to attend.

‘Naturally, I do not expect you to understand the British political system. All I expect from you is to be charming to those I introduce as my political allies, and reserved towards my opponents. Even though you may not like them, I shall expect you to be hospitable to the more important party members to whom I shall make you known, and their wives, when I have occasion to invite them to any of my homes. Do not worry, however, that I shall expect much of you as a hostess. I have excellent staff running all my properties, and a sterling secretary to whom you may apply, should you find yourself floundering in the political shoals.’

Heloise listened to that patronising little speech with growing indignation. If it would not give rise to the very speculation he wished to avoid, he would as soon pack her off to one of his country houses. Her poor little brain was no match for the intricacies of the English political system. She was not to interfere in the management of any of his households, which were all running exactly as he wished. And if she had any questions, he wished her to apply to his secretary rather than bother him!

‘Heloise?’ he prompted, when she had been sitting in simmering silence for several minutes. He sighed. She clearly felt overwhelmed by the idea of being a leading figure in society. ‘You must tell me if there are any gaps in your education which may cause you difficulties.’ He had no intention of throwing her in at the deep end and letting her sink or swim as best she could.

‘G … gaps?’ she gasped, flashing him a look so indignant even he could not misinterpret it.

‘Don’t fly into the boughs with me,’ he retorted, annoyed that she should cling to her hostility when he was doing all in his power to smooth her entry into society. ‘If you cannot dance then I need to know, so that I may engage a dancing master for you. If you cannot ride then there is no point in me acquiring a horse for you to show off its paces in the park. I would instead purchase a barouche, or landaulet, and employ extra grooms to take you about.’

Her cheeks flushing, she hung her head. ‘I beg your pardon, my lord,’ she said, as humbly as she could. She had to admit he was trying to make the best of a bad job. He was prepared to employ as many staff as it would take to ensure she would be able to carry off the role he expected her to play. Just so long as he didn’t have to be personally involved.

‘I have learned to dance,’ she flashed at him. ‘Though you probably never saw me stand up whenever we went to balls in Paris. For not many men have ever asked me to dance, and when I was with you it was in the role of chaperon, so it was not at all appropriate. As for the horse, it is true that I cannot ride.’

‘Should you like to learn?’

‘Do you wish me to?’

‘I should never object to any activity which would give you pleasure, Heloise,’ he said wearily. It was clear that he was not going to win his wife’s trust overnight. And her mention of how he had neglected her, whilst showering attentions on her sister, reminded him she had a deep well of resentment from which to draw. ‘I bid you goodnight.’

He placed a chaste kiss on her forehead and retreated before things deteriorated any further. She might declare she did not hate him, but she had withdrawn sufficiently to start calling him ‘my lord’ again.

All he could do was keep sufficient distance for her to forget to regard him as a tyrant, whilst maintaining a watchful eye on her. She would learn, eventually, that she could trust him.

Wouldn’t she?

London was not at all like Paris. The streets and squares through which their carriage passed were so clean and orderly, giving an overall air of prosperity. She frowned. Although perhaps it was just that her husband inhabited one of the better areas. This, she surmised as the carriage drew to a halt outside an imposing mansion, whose doorway was flanked by two massive pillars supporting a portico, was probably the equivalent of the ‘court’ end of Paris. There were probably overcrowded and dirty alleys somewhere. It was just that as an English countess she would never set foot in them.

A footman dressed in blue and silver livery handed her from the coach, and she entered her new home on her husband’s arm. Oblivious to the interested stares of the servants who had gathered to greet their new mistress, Heloise gazed in awe at the lofty dimensions of the hall. A marble staircase swept upwards, branching at a half-landing to serve the two wings of the first storey, then continued up by several more flights, as far as she could see. Light flooded in through a domed skylight at the very top. Walton House reminded her of one of the better hotels in Paris, though it was shocking to think one man lived here alone. In Paris, a house like this would be divided into several apartments, which would be leased to tourists to provide an income for the impoverished nobles who clung to the upper floors.

An upper servant approached, bowing. ‘Begging your pardon, my lord, but Captain Fawley has requested the honour of making the acquaintance of your Countess.’

‘Has he, indeed?’ Handing over his gloves and hat, Charles wondered what new start this might be. ‘How does the Captain fare today?’

‘Restless, my lord,’ the footman replied, wooden-faced.

‘My lady,’ Charles said to Heloise, placing his hand under her elbow. A word in private, if you please?’

Drawing her into a little ante-room, he shut the door to ensure total privacy. ‘I have little time to explain, but I would request a further favour of you. I had planned on sparing you the worst of Captain Fawley’s temper, but on this one occasion I would ask that you bear me company and back me up in whatever I say. Can you do that for me?’

‘This Captain Fawley … he is the man you wished me not to meet, who lives here with you?’

‘I have no time to explain it all, but the salient facts are these: Captain Fawley is my brother. He hates me. He hates the fact that since he was invalided out of the army he has been forced to depend on me. I fear he will use your presence in my life as an excuse to try to strike out on his own. He must not do so, Heloise.’ He took her by the shoulders, his eyes burning with an intensity she had never seen before. ‘He must stay in Walton House!’

‘Of course I will do whatever it takes to prevent him from leaving, if that is your wish,’ she replied, though it all seemed very strange to her. Whatever could have gone wrong between them? Was this to do with the rift Charles had referred to before, with certain of his family?

‘Robert—that is Captain Fawley—occupies a suite of rooms at the rear of the house, on the ground floor,’ he explained as he steered her out of the little ante-room and across the hall. ‘His condition when I first brought him back from the Peninsula made it imperative that he not have to attempt stairs. Also, I had hoped that installing him in these particular rooms would encourage him to make free of the place. They have a private entrance, leading to the mews, which would have made it easy for him to come and go as he pleased.’

They reached a set of panelled doors, upon which Charles knocked. To her surprise, he did not simply enter, but waited until the door was opened by a stocky servant, dressed in a plain black coat and stuff breeches.

‘Ah, Linney,’ Charles said, ‘I believe Captain Fawley has expressed an interest in meeting my bride?’

‘Indeed he has, m’lord,’ the stocky man replied, his own face as impassive as her husband’s. Why, then, did she get the impression that both of them saw this as a momentous occasion?

It took Heloise’s eyes a moment or two to acclimatise to the gloom that pervaded the room she walked into. Lit only by the flames of a roaring fire, it was clearly the domain of a man who did not care what his visitors might think. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of stale sweat, unwashed linen and general neglect that hung in the overheated room. Unfortunately, it was the exact moment her eyes came to rest on a figure sprawled on a scuffed leather sofa, to one side of the soot-blackened fireplace.

For a second her heart seemed to stop beating. The man who regarded her with piercingly hostile black eyes was so very like Gaspard that she uttered a little cry and ran to him, her hands outstretched.

Leaning on his shoulders, she planted a kiss on each cheek, before sitting down next to him. When he flinched, she said, ‘Oh, dear—should I not have done that? I have embarrassed you. It is just that you are so like my own dear brother.’ In spite of herself, her eyes filled with tears. ‘Who I will never see again. But now I find my husband has a brother, so I have a brother again, too.’

Somewhat overcome, she reached into her reticule for a handkerchief. While she was busy blowing her nose, she heard Charles cross to the fireplace.

‘You haven’t embarrassed me as much as I fear you have embarrassed yourself,’ Captain Fawley snarled. ‘Linney, perhaps you would be so good as to draw back the curtains?’

In silence, the manservant did as he was bade. Sunlight streamed in, illuminating the livid burns down one side of the Captain’s face, head and neck, which the length of his unkempt hair did little to conceal. The left sleeve of his threadbare jacket was empty; the lower part of his left leg was also missing.

Perplexed, Heloise said, ‘Why will drawing the curtains make me embarrassed?’

Captain Fawley laughed—a harsh noise that sounded as though it was torn from his throat. ‘You have just kissed a cripple! Don’t you feel sick? Most pretty women would recoil if they saw me, not want to kiss this!’ He indicated his scarred face with an angry sweep of his right hand.

But, ‘Oh!’ said Heloise, her face lighting up. ‘Do you really think I am pretty? How much more I like you already.’

The stunned look on Captain Fawley’s face was as nothing compared to what Charles felt. Her face alight with pleasure, Heloise really did look remarkably pretty. He could not think why he had never noticed it before. Her eyes sparkled with intelligence, she had remarkably thick, lustrous hair, and a dainty little figure. She did not have the obvious attractions of her sister, but she was far from the plain, dull little creature he had written off while his eyes had been full of Felice. ‘Captivating’, Conningsby had said of her. Aye, she was. And she would be a credit to him once he had her properly dressed.

There was a certain dressmaker in Bond Street whose designs would suit her to a tee …

‘You cannot mean that!’ Robert began to curse.

A few minutes of such Turkish treatment was all he would permit Heloise to endure, then he would escort her to the safety of her rooms.

‘Why not?’ Unfazed, Heloise untied the ribbons of her bonnet and placed the shapeless article on her lap. Charles had a vision of wresting it from her hands, throwing it off a bridge into the Thames, and replacing it with a neat little crimson velvet creation, trimmed with swansdown.

‘Well, because I am disfigured,’ Captain Fawley said. ‘I am only half a man.’

She cocked her head to examine him, in the way that always put the Earl in mind of a cheeky little sparrow. She missed nothing—from the toe of Robert’s right boot to the puckered eyelid that drooped into the horrible scarring that truly did disfigure the left side of his face.

‘You have only lost a bit of one leg and a bit of one arm,’ she said. ‘Not even a tenth of you has gone. You may think of yourself as nine-tenths of a man, I suppose, if you must, but not less than that. Besides—’ she shrugged ‘—many others did not survive the war at all. Gaspard did not. I tell you now, I would still have been glad to have him back, and nothing would have prevented me from embracing him, no matter how many limbs he might have lost!’

‘But you must want me to leave this house,’ he blustered. ‘And once an heir is on the way—’ he rounded on Charles ‘—you can have no more excuses to keep me imprisoned here!’

Before he could draw breath to reply, Heloise said, rather stiffly, ‘Is it because I am French?’

‘Wh … what?’

‘You reject my friendship because I am French. In effect, all this nonsense about being disfigured is the flimflam. You don’t want me for your sister.’

Faced with an indignant woman, Captain Fawley could do nothing but retreat from his stance, muttering apologies. ‘It is not your fault you are French. You can’t help that. Or being married to my half-brother, I dare say. I know how ruthless he can be when he wants his own way.’ He glared up at Charles.

‘Then you will help me?’ Again, her face lit up with hope. ‘Because Charles, he says it is not at all fashionable for a husband to hang on his wife’s arm all the time. I have heard in Paris all about the season in London, with the masquerades, and the picnics, and the fireworks, which he will not at all want to take me to, even if I was not his wife, because such things are all very frivolous and not good ton. But I would like to see them all. And he said I may, if I could find a suitable escort. And who would be more proper to go about with me than my own brother? And then, you know, he says I must learn to ride …’

‘Well, I can’t teach you to ride! Haven’t you noticed? I’ve only got one leg!’

Heloise regarded his left leg with a thoughtful air. ‘You have only lost a little bit of the lower part of one leg. You still have your thigh, and that, I believe, is what is important for staying in the saddle. Do I have that correct? You men grip with your knees, is that not so? Whereas I—’ she pulled a face ‘—must learn to ride side-saddle. I will have to hang on with my hands to the reins, and keep my balance while the creature is bouncing along …’

‘Well, there you have it!’ Captain Fawley pointed out. ‘You have both hands. I have only one, and—’

‘Oh, don’t tell me you are afraid of falling off!’ she mocked.

Charles suddenly felt conscious of holding his breath. For weeks before he had gone to Paris he had known Robert had regained most of his health and strength. There had been nothing preventing him from getting out and resuming a normal life but his own black mood. Had they all failed him by tiptoeing round his sensibilities?

‘A brave soldier like you?’ Heloise continued relentlessly. ‘You are full of … of … Well, it is not polite to mention what you are full of!’

Captain Fawley turned for support to his brother. ‘Tell her, Charles. Tell her that I just can’t—’

Charles cut him off with a peremptory wave of his hand. ‘You had as well give in graciously. Once she has the bit between her teeth, there is no stopping her. You cannot argue with her logic because it is of that singularly female variety which always completely confounds we mere males.’ So saying, he swept her a mocking bow.

Robert sank back into the cushions, looking as though he had been hit by a whirlwind. Heloise was still watching him, her head tilted to one side, a hopeful expression on her face. And all of a sudden the dour cripple let out a bark of genuine laughter.

‘I quite see why you married her, Walton.’

‘Indeed, she left me no choice.’

‘Very well, madam. I will come with you when you start your riding lessons,’ he conceded. Then he frowned. ‘Since I expect we will both fall off with monotonous regularity, I recommend we take our lessons early in the mornings, when nobody will be about to see us.’

She clapped her hands, her face lighting up with joy. Something twisted painfully inside Charles. Nothing he had ever done or said to her had managed to please her half so well.

‘I dare say,’ he said brusquely, ‘you would like to see your rooms now, madam wife, and freshen up a little?’

Heloise pulled a face at Robert. ‘What he means, no doubt, is that I look a mess, and that also he wishes to take me aside to give me a lecture about my appalling manners.’

‘No, I am sure not,’ Robert replied, regarding the stiff set of Walton’s shoulders with a perplexed frown. ‘Your manners are delightfully refreshing.’

Heloise laughed at that, but once they had quit Captain Fawley’s suite she turned anxious eyes on her husband.

He made no comment until he had taken her to the suite of rooms he’d had his staff prepare for his bride. On sight of them, Heloise gasped aloud. She had her own sitting room, with a pale blue Aubusson carpet upon which various comfortable sofas and chairs were arranged. Her bedroom, too, was carpeted almost to the wainscot. With a smile, Heloise imagined getting up in the morning and setting her bare feet on that, rather than the rough boards of the little room she had shared with her sister. No shutters on any of the windows, she noted, only heavy dark blue velvet curtains, held back with self-coloured cords.

‘I hope you like it—though of course if there are any alterations you wish to make, you have only to say.’

Heloise spread her hands, shrugging her utter bewilderment at such opulence. ‘How could I not like this?’ she managed to say, when it became apparent that her husband was waiting for her to say something.

It seemed to have been the right thing to say, for some of the tension left his stance. ‘I will ring and ask for refreshments to be served up here in your sitting room,’ he said, crossing to the bell-pull beside the chimney breast. ‘You may rest assured I shall not intrude upon your privacy. This is your domain. Just as the rooms downstairs are Robert’s. The only time I shall enter, save at your express invitation, will be to bid you goodnight. Every night,’ he finished sternly.

So that the servants would believe they were a normal husband and wife, she assumed. She sighed as a group of them came in and laid out the tea things. She supposed she should be grateful he wanted things to look right. At least she would get to see him once each day. Otherwise, the place being so vast, they might not bump into each other from one end of the week to the other.

Once the servants had retreated, Charles said, ‘Come, Heloise, I can see you are bursting with questions. I have a little time to spare to indulge your curiosity before I must be about other business.’

There was no point in questioning their living arrangements. She had promised not to be a nuisance. But she would like to know what on earth had happened between the two Fawley brothers for them to come to this.

‘Why does your brother accuse you of imprisoning him here? Is this something to do with the rift in your family you spoke of to me?’

‘You do not need to have tea served if you do not like it,’ he remarked, noticing the grimace of distaste with which she had set down her teacup after taking only one sip. ‘The kitchen can provide anything you wish for.’

‘Don’t you wish to tell me? Is that why you talk about tea? If you do not want me to know about your family secrets then you only need to say, and I will not pry any further!’

‘That is not the issue!’ This was not a topic he found it easy to discuss. She would have to make do with a succinct account of the facts. ‘Robert’s mother was my father’s second wife,’ he bit out. ‘In their zeal to protect me from her influence, when my father died the people he had nominated my guardians sent her back to her own family—with a modest annuity and penalties attached should she try to inveigle herself back into my life.’

‘What was she, then, Robert’s mother?’ Heloise asked, fascinated. ‘Something scandalous? An actress, perhaps, or a woman of easy morals?’

Charles smiled grimly. ‘Worse than that, in the opinion of my stiff-rumped maternal relatives. She was a doctor’s daughter.’

At Heloise’s complete bafflement, he continued, ‘She was, with her middle-class values, the kind of person who might have influenced me into thinking less of my consequence than they thought I should. They reminded me that my real mother was the Duke of Bray’s granddaughter, and set about instilling me with pride in my true lineage. Rigorously.’

Heloise shook her head. What a miserable little boy he must have been. But worse was to come.

‘I did not even know that I had a brother until, when I came of age, I began to go through all the family papers with my lawyers, instead of just ratifying them as my guardians assumed I would. I discovered that Robert had been born some five months after my father’s death. Instead of having him raised with me, and acknowledged as second in line to my inheritance, they consigned him to the care of his mother’s family. By the time he was sixteen, so vehemently did he hate my mother’s relations that he began to refuse even the meagre allowance they had arranged for him. Instead he requested they purchase him a commission, so that he could make his own way in the world without having any need for further contact with relatives who had made no secret of the fact they wished he had not been born. Which they did—hoping, no doubt, that his career would be short and bloody. It was not long after that when I discovered his existence. And by then he was beyond my reach. He neither wanted nor needed anything from the brother he had grown up hating.’

‘Oh, Charles,’ she said, her eyes wide with horror. ‘How awful. What did you do?’

He looked at her with eyes that had grown cold. ‘I did as I was trained to do. I acted without emotion. I severed all connection with those who had systematically robbed me, my stepmother and my brother of each other.’

‘And what,’ she asked, ‘happened to Robert’s mother?’

‘She scarcely survived his birth. The story he had from his family was that she died from a broken heart, at the treatment meted out to her whilst she was still in shock at being widowed.’

No wonder Charles appeared so hard and cold. The one person who might have taught him to embrace the softer emotions had been ruthlessly excised from his orbit. Then his relatives had taught him, the hard way, that there was nobody upon whom he could rely.

No wonder he had been able to shrug off the loss of a fiancée with such panache. Her betrayal was nothing compared to what he had already experienced.

And yet, in spite of all that, he had never stopped reaching out to the brother who repaid all his overtures with bristling hostility.

‘Oh, Charles,’ she cried, longing to take him in her arms and hold him. Tell him he was not alone any more. She was there.

She had begun to stretch out her hands towards him before recalling what a futile gesture it was. She could not be of any comfort to him, for he was only tolerating her presence in his life. Besides, he had already expressed his dislike of her propensity for being demonstrative.

‘I am so sorry,’ she said, swallowing back the tears she knew he would disparage, and folding her hands in her lap with a feeling of resignation. He had only confided in her so that she might understand the situation, and not create further difficulties with his brother.

He made that very clear by turning on his heel and stalking from the room.

What further proof, thought Charles, seeking the solitude of his own bedchamber, did he need that she now considered him more repulsive than Du Mauriac? Even though her heart had been moved by his tale, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to so much as touch his arm through his coat sleeve. But she had run to Robert and managed to kiss him. On both cheeks.

Chapter Six

‘I have brought my bride to you for dressing,’ the Earl informed Madame Pichot, upon entering her establishment the following morning. ‘She needs everything.’

Madame Pichot’s eyes lit up. ‘Walking dresses, day dresses, ballgowns, nightrail?’ She swallowed. ‘A court dress?’

‘Naturally.’ By the time such a grand toilette was complete, and Heloise had practised walking in the hoops, he would have found someone to present her in Queen Caroline’s drawing room. It was not so great a hurdle as obtaining vouchers for Almacks. If she offended one of the six patronesses of that exclusive club, or if they decided her background failed to meet their exacting standards for membership, she would never be truly a part of the haut ton.

Noting Heloise’s rather worn coat and battered bonnet, Madame Pichot ventured, ‘I could have one or two items delivered later today, or possibly first thing tomorrow. Just to tide milady over, of course …’

The Earl nodded acquiescence. Heloise would find it easier to think of herself as an English countess once she shucked off the serviceable clothing of a French bureaucrat’s daughter.

‘In future, should we require your services, you will present yourself at Walton House at my wife’s convenience.’

‘Of course, my lord,’ replied the dressmaker, somewhat startled by the statement Heloise knew had been made primarily for her benefit. Whatever had been her habit formerly, a countess did not deign to visit a dressmaker’s. She sent for such people to wait on her in the privacy of her own home.

‘My wife will wear pastel colours. Rose and powder-blue—and, yes, this primrose satin would suit my wife’s colouring.’ He fingered one of the swatches an assistant had brought for his inspection.

‘Oh, but with madame’s dark hair and eyes, she could wear striking colours. This crimson would look ravishing.’

‘I don’t want her going about looking like a demirep,’ he curtly informed the somewhat abashed modiste.

Heloise had just taken a breath to object and say that she was quite capable of selecting her own gowns, thank you very much, when her mother’s warning rang loud in her memory. He would want her to look the part she had persuaded him she could play. That he had no confidence in her dress sense might be somewhat insulting, but then, he was the one picking up the bills. Feeling like a child’s dress-up doll, she meekly tried on the few gowns that were already made up, and had never been collected by other clients, while Charles and the modiste between them decided which could be altered to fit, and which did nothing for her.

A trip to a milliner followed, and then to the bootmakers, where she had her feet measured for a last.

‘You must be growing tired,’ Charles eventually declared, when all his efforts to spoil his wife had met with supreme indifference.

Felice would have been in ecstasy to have had so much money spent on a wardrobe of such magnificence, not to mention his undivided attention in selecting it. But Heloise, he was coming to realise, cared as little for such fripperies as she did for him. He was not going to reach her by showering her with the kind of gifts that would win most women over.

‘I have other business to attend to for the rest of the day,’ he told her. ‘But I shall be in for dinner this evening. Will you dine with me?’

Heloise blinked in surprise. He had spent hours with her today already. She had assumed he would have something better to do with his evening. But he had actually asked her to dine with him!

Struggling to conceal her elation, she had just taken a breath to form a suitably controlled reply when he added, ‘Or would you rather remain in your room?’

Was that a veiled way of telling her that was what he wished her to do? Did he hope she would take the hint?

Well, she was blowed if she was going to take all her meals in her rooms as if … as if she were a naughty child!

‘I will dine with you,’ she said, with a militant lift to her chin.

As though she were about to face a firing squad, he thought, hurt by her response to a simple invitation.

‘Until tonight, then.’ He bowed, then stalked away.

The evening was not a success. Charles made polite enquiries about how she had spent the rest of her day, while they sat sipping sherry in an oppressively immaculate anteroom. He looked relieved when the footman came to inform them dinner was ready. She soon realised this was because they would no longer be alone. A troupe of footmen served a staggering variety of dishes, whisked away empty plates, poured wine, and effectively robbed the event of any hint of intimacy.

Her heart did begin to pound when Charles leaned forward, beckoning to her, indicating that he wished to whisper something to her. Only to plunge at his words.

‘At this point it is the custom for ladies to withdraw. I shall join you in the drawing room when I have taken some port.’

Feeling humiliated that he’d had to remind her of this English custom, Heloise followed one of the younger footmen to a vast room that was so chilly her arms broke out in goose pimples the moment she stepped over the threshold. She sat huddled over the lacklustre fire for what seemed like an eternity before Charles joined her.

‘Should you like to play cards?’ he suggested. ‘Some people find it helps to pass the time until the tea tray is brought in.’

He could not have made it clearer that this was the last way he wished to spend his evening.

‘I enjoy cards as little as I care to pour that vile drink, which is fit only for an invalid, down my throat,’ she replied rather petulantly.

‘Most husbands,’ he replied frostily, ‘take themselves off to their clubs, where they find companionship and amusements they cannot find at home, leaving their wives free of their burdensome presence.’

As Heloise stormed up the stairs, she decided never to set foot in that horrible drawing room again. If Charles would rather go off to his club, then let him go! She did not care, she vowed, slamming her sitting room door behind her, almost knocking over one of the silly little tables dotted about the floor as she stormed across the room to fling herself onto the sofa.

She glared at it, and the collection of ornaments it held with resentment. She hated clutter. She would have to get a footman to move it against the wall, out of the way. After all, Charles had said she could do as she pleased up here.

A militant gleam came to her eye and she sat up straight. He had meant she could decorate as she pleased. But she could do much more than that. She dared not ask him for a proper drawing table, knowing how much he disapproved of her sketches, but if, under the pretext of reorganising her rooms, she had that one large desk moved to a spot between the two windows, to catch the maximum daylight …

Her spirits began to lift. Drawing was more than just a hobby to her. She could lose herself for hours in the fantasy world she created on paper. It had been a solace to her in Paris, where she had been such a disappointment to her parents. How much more would it comfort her here in London, as an unwanted bride?

Her fingers were already itching to draw Madame Pichot, with her peculiar accent that would only pass for French in England. She reminded her of a drawing she had seen in the Louvre, of a creature whose eyes stood out on stalks and which was said to change colour to match whatever type of background it walked across.

Though how she was to locate a really good shop where she could buy pencils, paper and brushes without Charles finding out, leave alone how she would pay for her materials, would pose quite a problem.

It was very late when Charles came up to bid her goodnight, as he had warned her he would do.

‘Do you have everything you need?’ he enquired politely.

‘Yes, thank you,’ she replied in an equally polite tone, her fingers plucking listlessly at the quilt.

‘Then I will bid you goodnight,’ he said, barely brushing his lips across her forehead.

Heloise glared at his back as he left, barely suppressing the urge to fling some pillows at it. She was not a child for him to come and kiss goodnight in that insufferably condescending manner! She was surprised he did not tuck her in and pat her on the head while he was about it!

But the sad truth was she was as inexperienced as a child. She had no idea how to encourage her husband to regard her as a woman rather than a girl. And there was no female to advise her. Her worst fear was that if she did try to breach his reserve she might only succeed in alienating him completely. She heaved a sigh as she sank down under the covers. At least he appeared content with the present situation.

Several evenings passed in an equally unsatisfactory manner before Heloise discovered a chink in Charles’ armour.

When they met before dinner, and he enquired, as he always did, how she had spent her day, she told him that several outfits had arrived, and she had spent the afternoon trying them on.

‘Was the riding habit among them?’

‘Yes, and it is …’ She bit her tongue. The pale blue gown with its silver frogging had instantly put her in mind of his servants’ livery, and had made her crushingly aware that he only regarded her as just one more of his chattels. ‘It is very pretty,’ she finished in a subdued tone.

‘If you are still determined to learn to ride, I could arrange for you to begin lessons with Robert tomorrow morning.’ He frowned into his sherry glass for a few seconds, before saying softly, ‘I bought him a lovely bay mare, very soft about the mouth, for Christmas. He has never even been to look her over. I shall be for ever in your debt—’ he flicked her a glance ‘—if you could goad him into taking some form of exercise.’

‘Of course!’ she cried, immensely flattered that he had entrusted her with such an important mission. ‘He must not stay in those dark rooms and moulder away.’

The rigid formality of the dining room was completely unable to dampen her spirits that night. For now she had a plan.

If she could be the means to help poor Robert get out of his rooms, Charles would be pleased with her. Riding lessons would only be the start. He could take her shopping for art supplies. And, though he might be sensitive about his scars, surely she could get him to take her to Vauxhall Gardens to watch the fireworks one evening? Buoyed up by the prospect, she received her husband’s goodnight kiss with complaisance. Even though he was dressed in his evening clothes, and clearly on his way out.

One day, she vowed, snuggling down beneath the covers, he would take her with him on one of these forays into London’s night life from which he had so far excluded her. If all went well with Robert in the morning, it might be quite soon!

The sound of the outer door slamming, not once, but twice, roused Charles from the pile of invitations he had been poring over in his study early the next morning. As the season got under way, more and more people were expressing an interest in meeting his bride. But he had no intention of exposing her to this collection of rakes, cynics, and bitches, he vowed, tossing a handful of gilt-edged invitations into the fire. It said something about his social circle that he thought it unlikely he would ever find a house into which he could take his vulnerable young bride without risk of having her confidence ripped to shreds.

‘Stop right there!’ he heard Robert bellow, just as he emerged from the study. Heloise, the back of her powder-blue riding habit liberally stained with mud, was fleeing up the stairs.

She did not even pause, but ran along the corridor to her rooms, from whence echoed the sound of yet another slamming door.

Robert, red-faced, had stopped at the foot of the staircase, clutching the newel post.

‘Problems?’ Charles drawled softly.

Robert spun round so swiftly the heel of his false leg slipped on the marble floor and he nearly lost his balance.

‘Go on, then—order me to leave your house!’ he panted.

Charles leaned against the doorjamb, folding his arms across his chest. ‘Why do you suppose I should wish to do that?’

‘Because I have insulted your bride,’ Robert flung at him. ‘I swore at her. Comprehensively and at length! You must have seen that she was crying when she fled up the stairs!’

Frowning, Charles pushed himself from the doorframe and advanced on his brother. ‘If you have insulted her, it is for you to put right. This is your home. I shall not evict you from it.’

Glowering, Robert spat, ‘And just how do you propose I make the apology? Crawl up all those stairs?’

Charles regarded the false leg his brother had, for the first time to his knowledge, strapped onto his mangled knee joint. Heloise was amazing. She had only been here a matter of days, and already she’d cajoled Robert out of his rooms, into his false leg, and onto the back of a horse.

‘No,’ he mused. ‘Until she calms down, I dare say all that will happen is that she will inform you she hates you. Far better to wait until she has had time to reflect on her own part in your quarrel. I suggest you join us for dinner tonight, and make your apologies then.’

‘Dinner?’ Robert blustered. ‘I had as well crawl to her suite now as to attempt ascending to any other rooms on the upper floors!’

‘Then I will order dinner for the three of us in the little salon,’ he replied, indicating a room across the hall. His heart beating with uncomfortable rapidity, he waited for Robert to protest that nothing would make him sit down and eat with the man who had been instrumental in causing his mother’s death. Instead, he only glared mutinously before hobbling back to his own rooms and slamming the door behind him.

Upstairs, Heloise was blowing her nose vigorously. It was no good feeling sorry for herself. That her first riding lesson had been such a fiasco was not what upset her the most, though that had been bad enough. What really hurt was her failure to gain any ground with Robert at all. Charles would be so disappointed with her.

Startled by a tap on the door, she blew her nose again, annoyed to find her eyes were watering afresh.

‘May I come in?’

Charles stood in the doorway, ruefully regarding his wife’s crestfallen appearance. ‘Was it the horse, or my brother?’

Waving admittance to the footman who hovered behind him, bearing a tray of what looked like His Lordship’s finest brandy, Charles advanced into the room.

‘I thought you might feel in need of a little restorative,’ he explained, as the young man placed the silver salver on an elegant little table beside the sofa she had flung herself on when first she had come to her room. ‘And, since I know of your aversion to tea, I thought I would supply something more to your liking.’

‘You are m … most k … kind,’ Heloise half sobbed, as Charles stooped to pick her riding hat up from the floor, where she had flung it not five minutes before. The feather that adorned the crown had snapped. He ran his fingers over it with a frown.

‘Why is your hat on the floor? Is your dresser not in attendance?’

‘I have not rung for her. I don’t want her!’ she snapped. Since he was already disappointed in her, she had nothing to lose by admitting she could not live up to his exacting standards. ‘If I wish to throw my hat on the floor and … and stamp on it, then I have no wish to have her tutting at me as though I am a naughty child. It is my hat, after all, and I can do with it as I see fit!’

Instead of reprimanding her for her childish outburst, he merely smiled and remarked, ‘I’ll buy you another one,’ tossing the crumpled headgear to the footman as he exited the rooms.

‘I don’t want another one,’ Heloise said, perversely irritated by his magnanimity in the face of her tantrum. ‘I am never getting on another horse again as long as I live.’

‘I thought you scoffed at people who disliked falling from horses. I seem to remember you saying—’

‘Yes, I remember very well what I said. If the horse had been trotting, or even walking, it might not have been so humiliating. But the horrid creature was standing perfectly still when I fell off. If I can fall off a stationary horse, which is being held at the head by a groom, I cannot think how much worse it will be should the brute try to move.’

‘Are you badly hurt?’ Charles frowned, suddenly wondering whether her tears and her evident discomfort might stem from more than wounded pride. ‘Should I send for a doctor?’

So, after a perfunctory check, he was going to palm her off on another person? If they had the relationship a husband and wife ought to have, he would be running his hands over her bruises right now, assuring himself that nothing important was damaged. Instead of which he had handed her a drink, with a mocking smile twisting his lips.

‘I don’t need a doctor.’ She sighed. I need a husband. A husband who would put his arms round me and tell me everything is all right, that he is not ashamed of his stupid little wife, or disappointed in her failure to help poor Robert.

Mutinously, she went to the bellrope and tugged on it viciously. ‘I wish to change out of these clothes now,’ she informed him. And take a bath. Unless there is anything else you wish to say to me?’

Charles bowed politely, remarking, ‘Only that I hope, when your temper has cooled a little, you will endeavour to mend fences with Robert. I have invited him to dine with us this evening. It is the first time that he has agreed to do so. I would not wish it to be his last.’

Heloise glared at the door through which he departed. Not a word of thanks for her efforts, abortive though they had been. Only a stern warning to watch her behaviour at dinner this evening, so as not to offend his precious brother any further. He had not even bothered to find out what the boor had said to upset her!

Nothing she ever did would please him.

Very well, then, she would start pleasing herself. She tore at the silver buttons of her riding habit with trembling fingers. She would dismiss the horrible dresser who looked down her nose at her. As a pair of housemaids came in, carrying towels and cans of hot water, she eyed them speculatively. Her husband seemed to employ dozens of staff. If she could not find one amongst them with whom she could strike up a tolerable relationship, then she would advertise for an experienced lady’s maid and begin to conduct interviews. If nothing else, it would give her something to fill the endless monotony of her days.

And as for tonight … Oh, Lord! She sank into the steaming fragrant water of her bath and bowed her head over her raised knees. Charles would be watching her like a hawk. Robert would resent her for being the catalyst that had forced the two men to eat at the same table. She would be like a raw steak being fought over by two butcher’s dogs.

By the time she entered the little salon Robert and Charles were already there, sitting on either side of the fireplace, sipping their drinks in a silence fraught with tension. Both, to her surprise, looked relieved to see her.

‘I believe I owe you an apology,’ Robert said, struggling to his feet.

She merely raised one eyebrow as she perched on the edge of the third chair which had been set before the hearth.

All right, dash it! I know I owe you an apology. I should never have used such language to a female …’

‘Not even a French female?’ she replied archly, accepting the drink the footman handed to her. ‘Who is not even of noble birth, is an enemy of your country, and most probably a spy to boot?’

Flushing darkly, Robert muttered, ‘If I said any of those things to you this morning …’

‘If?’

‘All right. I admit I said a lot more besides the swearing I have reason to apologise for! But don’t you think it is pretty disgusting behaviour to laugh at a cripple?’

‘Oh, I was not laughing at you, Robert.’ Heloise reached a hand towards him impulsively, her eyes filling with tears. ‘No wonder you got so cross, if that was what you thought. It would indeed have been the most unforgivable behaviour if that was so!’

‘But you were laughing …’

‘It was the horse! When you went to climb onto him from the right side it looked so surprised. I have never seen such an expression on an animal’s face before.’ A smile twitched her lips at the memory. And it turned to stare at you, and it tried to turn round to place you on what it thought was the correct side, and the groom was dodging about under its head, and you were clutching onto the saddle to stop from falling off the mounting block …’

‘I suppose it must have looked pretty funny from where you were sitting,’ Robert grudgingly admitted. ‘Only you have no idea how I felt—too damned clumsy to mount a slug like that, when I’ve always been accounted a natural in the saddle.’

‘I’m sorry, Robert. But you have to admit I received just punishment for my thoughtlessness.’

He barked out a harsh laugh. Aye. You should have seen her, Walton. Laughed herself right out of the saddle. Lost her balance and landed on the cobbles at my feet …’

‘With you swearing down at me while I was struggling to untangle all those yards of riding habit from my legs …’

And the grooms not knowing where to look, or how to keep their faces straight …’

‘It sounds better than the pantomime,’ Charles put in dryly. ‘Ah, Giddings, it is good to see you back with us. I take it your presence indicates that our dinner is ready?’

Charles had tactfully arranged for the meal to be brought to a small round table set in the alcove formed by the bay windows, so that Robert had very little walking to do.

Linney took a position behind Robert’s chair. When Charles’ footman approached him with a tureen of soup, the man took it from him, ladling a portion into a bowl for his master himself. For the first time it occurred to Heloise just how difficult it must be to eat a meal with only one arm, and how demeaning it must be for a man in his prime to have to rely on someone else to cut up his food for him. How he must hate having others watching the proof of his disability.

Desperate to introduce some topic of conversation—anything to break the strained silence which reigned at the table—she asked Giddings, ‘Did I not meet you in Paris?’

Although he was somewhat surprised to be addressed, the butler regally inclined his head in the affirmative.

‘How was your trip back to England? I hope your crossing was smooth?’

‘Indeed, once I was at sea I felt heartily relieved, my lady,’ he unbent enough to admit.

‘Did you dislike France so much?’

The butler looked to his lordship for a cue as to how he should answer. Instead, Charles answered for him.

‘You have evidently not heard the news, my lady. Bonaparte has escaped from Elba. On the very eve of our marriage, he landed at Cannes with a thousand men and began his march on Paris.’

‘Damn the fellow!’ Robert put in. ‘Has there been much fighting? King Louis must have sent troops to intercept him?’

Charles again gestured to Giddings, which the butler interpreted correctly as permission to tell his tale himself.

‘The last I heard, every regiment sent for the purpose of arresting him joined him the minute they saw him in person.’

‘It is no surprise, that,’ Heloise said darkly. ‘He has a way with the soldiers that makes them worship him.’

‘By the time I reached Calais,’ Giddings continued, ‘fugitives from Paris were catching up with me, telling tales of the desperate measures they had taken to get themselves out of the city before he arrived. The price of any sort of conveyance had gone through the roof.’

‘Thank heavens we married when we did,’ Charles remarked. ‘Else we might have been caught up in that undignified scramble.’

‘Is all you can think of your precious dignity?’ Robert retorted. ‘And how can you—’ he rounded on Heloise ‘—be so bacon-brained as to worship that Corsican tyrant?’

‘I did not say I worship him!’ Heloise snapped. First Charles had made light of the convenience of their marriage, and now Robert had jumped to a completely false conclusion about her. ‘Do you think I want to see my country back in a state of war? Do you think any woman in France is ready to see her brothers and sweethearts sacrificed to Bonaparte’s ambition? It is only men who think it is a fine thing to go about shooting each other!’

‘Now, steady on, there,’ Robert said, completely taken aback by the vehemence of her reply, and the tears that had sprung to Heloise’s eyes. ‘There’s no need to fly into such a pucker …’

‘Not at the dining table,’ put in Charles.

‘Oh, you!’ She flung her napkin down as she leapt to her feet. ‘All you care about is manners and appearances. Men in Paris might be fighting and dying, but all you can do is frown because I speak to a servant as if he is a real person, and say what I really think to your so rude beast of a brother!’

‘This is neither the time nor place—’

‘When will it ever be the time or the place with you, Charles?’ she cried. Then, seeing all hope torn from her—not only for her marriage, but also for her country—she burst into sobs and left the room.

For a few moments the brothers sat in an uneasy silence.

‘Dammit, Walton,’ Robert said at last, flinging his spoon down with a clatter. ‘I didn’t mean to upset her so.’

‘I dare say she is anxious over the safety of her parents,’ Charles replied abstractedly. Did she really think he was so shallow all he cared about was good manners? ‘Giddings, give Her Ladyship an hour to calm down, then take a tray up to her room. As for you—’ he turned to Robert with a cool look. ‘—I suggest you finish your meal while you consider ways to make amends for insulting my wife and making her cry for the second time in one day.’

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