Chapter 4 #2
When he chose a more suitable wife, that is, one who would not expect him to hand over his heart, which Giselle would undoubtedly do.
He helped her mother into the carriage, then took Giselle’s hand, but paused before helping her in to say in English, “I am meeting someone on Rotten Row in Hyde Park tomorrow whom I’d like to introduce you to.” Time to put Yates on notice about the engagement.
“Oh!” she said. “So, that is why you wish to ride tomorrow.”
“Exactly.” Perhaps he should tell her who it was. Then again, she might not appreciate his using their new betrothal so blatantly. And he might not even encounter Yates and the boys anyway. “Wear your best day gown. This is someone I am eager to . . . impress.”
She frowned. “I should think I know how to dress for an outing, my lord.”
He tried to look solemn and failed. “Forgive me. I did not mean to insult you.” Then, clearly taking her by surprise, he lifted her gloved hand in his. “I will be counting the moments.”
She rolled her eyes at him and whispered, “Again, you joke.”
He turned her hand to expose the inside of her wrist, which he bent to kiss, exulting when he felt her pulse quicken under his lips.
“Not entirely, ma chérie.” Then, while she was still blushing, he helped her into the carriage, very much enjoying the sight of her nicely shaped derriere as she bent to enter.
Damn. He would have to watch himself around her. She had too potent an appeal to a man who’d been without a woman for some time.
With his blood still pounding—from a mere kiss to her wrist, no less!—he waved them off. His phaeton pulled up, so he climbed into it, tucking the papers and the sketch she’d given him into a pouch below the seat.
He might as well go see Beasley now, not only because she would plague him about it if he didn’t, but also because his concern about Nash had been renewed.
It made him uneasy to think of some stranger threatening Giselle.
If Beasley could shed light on who the arse was, it would help ease his mind about this fellow’s true purpose.
Not for a moment did Heathbrook think it was just about the Bernard ladies’ false documents.
When he arrived at Beasley’s, with the sun already starting to set, it was to see Beasley’s only daughter, Sarah, in the side garden, looking as if she were taking her farewell of a suitor.
The young man stole a kiss and strutted out the garden gate as Sarah blushed and smiled to herself.
The girl was what, eighteen now? He wondered if Beasley knew the boy who had her in his sights.
Their kiss reminded Heathbrook of kissing Giselle earlier.
She’d responded as if ten years had melted away, and they were still standing in the cellar of the house they’d all lived in, furtively exploring each other’s mouths.
It had been like a second chance at love had presented itself.
Until Morris had come to him later and spoiled everything.
At the time, Heathbrook had been angry at the old man for interfering. But now he understood. After years of experience with women, he knew what a rare woman she was, and the fact that Morris had proved to be her father only reinforced it.
But this time . . . ah, what a kiss. She’d had the sweetest mouth he’d ever tasted. And the way she’d responded, as if she, too, were caught up in it . . .
No, he couldn’t have read that right. Afterward, she’d seemed much more determined to preserve her virtue than she’d been ten years ago.
Thank God. Because keeping his hands off of Giselle these next few weeks would take every ounce of his self-control.
But he had to do it. Making her angry—or alarming her mother— was the surest way of losing her help, and he needed that to bring his brothers back to Longmead and keep them there.
“Good evening, Miss Beasley,” he said after tying off his phaeton and retrieving the pouch of Giselle’s papers. “Is your father home?”
The blond chit blushed again and curtsied. “He is, Lord Heathbrook.” She cast a worried look down the street to her beau. “You didn’t happen to see me with—”
He chuckled. “I did, but your secret is safe with me. I won’t stand in the way of young love.” Or even mere infatuation. After all, I’m not my father. Or Morris.
Her face cleared. “Oh, thank you, my lord! Papa gets very cross about the gentlemen coming round here.”
“I’m sure he does.” Poor Beasley. Thank God Heathbrook’s own mother and father hadn’t had any daughters. The last thing Heathbrook needed was to try to manage custody of a young sister with lots of “gentlemen coming round here.”
She led him into the house and down to her father’s study. “Papa has been working on a set of engravings for two days and barely comes up to eat. I’m sure he’ll welcome a visit.”
Apparently, she was right, because the minute Beasley spotted Heathbrook, he stopped what he was doing, his face full of smiles.
“How good to see you, my lord! Come, come, take a look at the new Rowlandson and tell me what you think.” He turned to his daughter.
“Sarah, child, go see that your mother sends tea down to me and his lordship. And some of those fine lemon biscuits, too, if you will.”
“I don’t know which I’m more pleased at the prospect of, Beasley,” Heathbrook said as Sarah hurried off. “Seeing a new Rowlandson or having one of your wife’s delicious lemon biscuits.”
Beasley laughed. “Now, don’t go coveting my wife, sir, merely because you haven’t found one of your own.”
Did everyone think him an unrepentant rakehell? Good God. “Interesting that you should mention wives, Beasley. As it happens, I have recently become betrothed to Miss Bernard.”
That seemed to bring Beasley up short. “Mademoiselle Giselle Bernard?”
“The very one.”
He rubbed his scruffy chin. “Does . . . er . . . the duke know? Because I was under the impression that his sister had set her cap for you.”
That again. “Lady Chloe has set her cap for no one, least of all me. And no, the duke doesn’t know yet. He’s up north. So is Lady Chloe, actually.”
“Oh, yes, that’s right.” Beasley frowned. “And Miss Bernard has accepted you?”
Of course she’s accepted me. I’m a bloody earl, for God’s sake.
No, he could hardly say that. She had been surprisingly reticent.
“Yes, she’s accepted me.” If one could call it that. “In any case, as my fiancée, she has brought a matter to my attention that I promised to discuss with you.”
He tugged the sheaf of papers out of the pouch he’d brought in, and Beasley’s eyes went wide. “My lord, I should probably warn you—”
“No need. Jon and I had already guessed that you undoubtedly provided them to the Bernard ladies. It’s fine. We would never reveal what we know to anyone. We owe you too much for that.”
Mr. Beasley reddened. “You and the others don’t owe me anything. I was happy to help. And it’s not as if you ever got to use the passports.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” Heathbrook said. “But that’s why I’m here.” Swiftly, he explained about Lewis Nash and what had alarmed Giselle. Then he drew out the sketch she’d done and handed it to Beasley as the man’s daughter entered and came toward them with the tray.
“This is the fellow,” Heathbrook said. “Do you know him? Or why he’d be asking about your handiwork?”
The tray clattered on the floor next to him, scattering lemon biscuits, breaking crockery, and splashing tea on them both. Beasley’s daughter stood there, ashen faced, staring at the sketch.
“Sarah, what the devil?” Beasley cried. Then he followed her gaze to the sketch and groaned.
“Aye, my lord. We know the fellow. And his name isn’t Lewis Nash.
It’s Vaughan Jones, who was Sarah’s beau in Verdun a little more than three years ago.
Until I found out he wanted to marry her right away, and I sent him packing. ”
Sarah knelt to start picking up the broken crockery and tossing it onto the tray, along with the lemon biscuits.
“I thought he was a nice man at first. But when Papa told him he had to wait until I was at least seventeen to marry me, he went into a rage and made all manner of accusations against my father. It frightened me something sore.” She rose with the tray full of broken bits in her hands.
“After that, I refused to see him anymore.”
“Very wise of you,” Heathbrook said gently. He might have had a fierce temper himself in the past, but he had never loosed it on women.
Her father set down the sketch. “Sarah, my sweet, go on upstairs now. I need to speak to his lordship privately a moment. Close the door behind you when you leave.”
“Yes, Papa,” she said, and did as he bade.
Only when the door was firmly closed did Beasley speak again. “When I refused to let Jones see Sarah, the arse tried to report me to the commandant for doing those woodcuts that mocked Napoleon.”
“The ones that were handed about town? I remember those. We all laughed ourselves silly over them. But I never heard that you were involved.”
After fetching a broom by the door, Beasley swept up the shards Sarah hadn’t seen and pushed them over to a grate. “Fortunately, when Courcelles sent the gendarmerie to search my rooms, a French friend of mine warned me in time for me to hide the wood blocks.”
“So, it was indeed you who did the woodcuts,” Heathbrook said.
A small smile graced his lips. “With the help of Sarah, who sketched the designs I carved into the blocks. Jones must have seen one of her sketches when he was with Sarah and recognized the style of art in the woodcut.”
That gave Heathbrook pause. He lowered his voice. “Could Jones have been the one who reported me and the others to Courcelles? Could he have guessed you had forged our papers?”
Beasley frowned. “It’s possible, I suppose. But why wouldn’t he just have turned me in for that? Why drag you four into it?”