Chapter Seventeen #2
“Madame?” Clothilde hovered. “Would you like me to put the little one to bed?”
When Marcus explained, Tessa shook her head. “No thank you, Clothilde. I’d prefer to do that myself.” Her first night with her new daughter. She was going to savor every moment.
“Merci, Clothilde,” Marcus said in clear dismissal.
Clothilde turned toward the door, hesitated, and turned back, twisting her hands in her apron. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it, half turned away, then, with a determined expression, turned back to face them.
Tessa nudged Marcus.
“Is there something else?” he asked the girl.
She swallowed. “Monsieur, you said you had lost all the baby’s clothes. Did you lose her nursemaid as well?”
He glanced at Tessa, made a quick translation, then said to the maid, “Why do you ask?”
“Because if you did lose her, then . . . what about me?”
“You mean hire you as our nursemaid?”
She nodded eagerly. “I would work hard for you and madame, m’sieur. And as you saw, I am good with little ones.”
“What about your aunt? What would she say to such an arrangement?”
“Tante Jeanne is not really my aunt. She was my mother’s friend and after Maman died, she took me in.
Papa and both my brothers had perished in the wars and I was young and alone.
” Marcus hesitated and she added eagerly, “Tante Jeanne will probably be glad of one less mouth to feed. We don’t get many guests here.
It is hard to make a living, and she has other children to help her—her own children. ”
Marcus explained it to Tessa, who had been listening, frustrated at not understanding. “Does she realize we will be living in England?” Tessa said in a low voice.
Marcus turned to the girl. “We’re going back to England. What would you do then?”
“Go with you, of course.”
His brows rose. “Even though your country has been at war with England for years?”
She snorted. “War does not belong to women, m’sieur. Men make war. Women are left to pick up the pieces, care for the children and try to go on.” She added with a mischievous look. “I might even marry an Englishman one day. Enemy or not, under their uniforms men are all the same.”
Marcus explained to Tessa, who hid a smile. They would need a nursemaid to help with Flora, and this girl had already proved herself capable and willing. And had initiative. Besides, Tessa liked her.
“You don’t speak English,” Marcus said. “How will you manage?”
Clothilde shrugged. “I learn fast.” She twisted her apron into a tight coil and eyed them anxiously. “So m’sieur, madame, will you give me a chance?”
Tessa might not speak the language, but she understood the question. She nodded, smiling. “Yes, of course. Oui, Clothilde.”
“As long as your aunt agrees,” Marcus added.
“Oh, she will, I know,” the girl answered excitedly. “Merci, madame, m’sieur. Merci.” She bobbed a hasty curtsy and almost skipped out.
#
brEAKFAST NEXT MORNING was porridge all round, thick and hearty, with creamy milk. But first Flora needed to be introduced to a chamber pot. Tessa sat her on it. Flora tried to get off it.
“Non,” Tessa said firmly and put her back, holding her gently with a firm hand. The little girl looked confused.
“Pipi.” Tessa said. “Pipi.”
After a moment a small trickle of liquid was heard.
“Good girl,” Tessa told her warmly. “Very good girl.” And from the expression on Flora’s face, she was starting to understand what that meant.
But when Clothilde then washed her bottom and went to tie a fresh napkin on her, it was a different matter. “Non!” she said indignantly.
“Oui,” Tessa and Marcus and Clothilde all said at once, and with a mutinous expression the little girl reluctantly allowed the hateful thing to be fastened on her.
“Good girl,” Tessa said warmly. The child then turned to Marcus.
“Yes, good girl,” he said and she looked reluctantly satisfied.
They left for Genappe after breakfast. He should have made arrangements to meet Tomas and the carriage back in Brussels, Marcus thought, but at the time he thought they would be making their way to Paris.
But now, with the child, Paris might not be convenient. Ah well, he would see what Tessa thought once they were in Genappe.
Once Tessa was mounted, he handed Flora up to her, but as soon as he was in the saddle, she held her little arms out to him in a clear demand to ride with him. She was warmly clothed now, so there was no reason for her to want to ride with him, other than she wanted to.
He tried not to feel pleased.
The landlady’s oldest son, Léon, the boy who’d cared for their horses the previous night, had borrowed a mule from one of the neighbors, and he and Clothilde, along with her small bundle of belongings were to ride it. Léon would bring the mule back. It was not very far to Genappe.
The little cavalcade set off, Tante Jeanne with tears and hugs and many words of advice to Clothilde and her son, while her other children and several neighbors waved them off.
They ambled along the quiet country road.
Now warmly clothed and no longer traveling in his coat, Marcus’s little passenger sat up brightly watching everything they passed. From time to time she would point at something, and Marcus would nod gravely and make some kind of comment.
Tessa was enjoying his interaction with the little mite, one-sided conversation though it was. After a short time he started teaching her English. “That’s a tree. Yes, so is that one. And more than one tree is trees—trees. Can you say trees?”
But though she seemed to understand, she never repeated the word.
His deep voice continued, “Mind now, you are not to go climbing trees like a little hoyden, do you understand? Though if you are anything like your mama you will. And knowing her, she will probably join you. She was a terror for climbing trees when she was a little girl.”
Tears welled up in Tessa’s eyes. Your mama. He really did mean it when he’d told her all that time ago that he didn’t care about an heir, that his brothers were already his heirs. Her barrenness didn’t seem to bother him at all.
After a while he produced an apple from his pocket and proceeded to cut slices for the little girl to eat.
When all that was left was the core, he was ready to feed it to Tessa’s horse, when Flora said “Non!” and grabbed it from him.
She ate it, seeds and all, until only the stem was left.
She inspected it gravely, decided she had no use for it and gave it to him.
“Thank you,” he said in all seriousness. She frowned up at him in puzzlement. “Good girl,” he said, nodding, and her brow cleared.
On the way, they passed the stark stone skeleton of a ruined abbey. “Is that the abbey the landlady mentioned? The one the smith said he would take Flora to?
“No,” Marcus said. “We passed the turnoff to Nivelles a while back. This is . . ” With some difficulty he pulled his pamphlet from a pocket and consulted it. “According to this, that one is—or was—the Abbaye de Villers. I suppose it was destroyed in the revolution as well.”
They rode on in a somber frame of mind. The destruction of war and revolution was all around them.
#
THE ACCOMMODATION TOMAS had found for them in Genappe was clean and comfortable and, after a good meal, they’d all settled in for an early night. Clothilde and little Flora were housed together in a separate small room, as was Tomas, who was sharing with young Léon.
It was the first time Tessa had been entirely alone with Marcus since Brussels, and he had wasted no time taking her to bed and making love with her. It was blissful.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to Paris?” Marcus asked Tessa some time later. “The Army of Occupation left France several years ago, but it’s perfectly safe. I’m told the French are relieved to have the war behind them and are anxious to rebuild their country.”
She stretched luxuriantly and ran her hand down his chest. It was still hard for her to believe that the activity she had endured in her previous marriages had such potential for .
. . bliss. She could never get enough of the feeling of his skin against hers.
“I don’t really care about Paris, but of course, if you want to go there—”
“I don’t.” He smoothed her hair back and kissed her. “I just wanted to check with you. Women are usually keen to shop in Paris.”
She laughed. “I’m happy to do any shopping I need in London, thank you. You forget, for most of my life, I’ve never been allowed to go shopping at all.”
Looking back, it was almost as if her previous two marriages were just one long, unpleasant dream.
For all her initial reluctance to accept Marcus’s proposal, and despite his very lukewarm declaration when he made it—we need to marry.
. . I haven’t a romantic bone in my body .
. . I’ve never wanted a love match . . .
Our marriage will be a practical solution—this marriage was turning out wonderfully well.
He wasn’t the cold, repressed, proud man so many people thought him. Underneath that reserved, hard-to-read exterior he was kind, and thoughtful, and he had a wonderfully dry sense of humor.
And she didn’t just feel listened to, she felt seen. Respected, as if she were an equal partner in their marriage.
And when they made love, she felt . . . cherished.
#
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Marcus made the arrangements to begin the journey back to England. First he had to hire a carriage and driver.
“But we already have Tomas and a carriage,” Tessa said when he told her.
“I’ve decided to send Tomas and the carriage back with young Léon,” he said brusquely, and before she could ask why, he added in a gruff voice, “Léon is only ten. I won’t send a child of his age on the journey back to his village—not alone, for all that he considers himself the man of the family.
He and the mule would be targets for any passing villains. Tomas will look after them.”