Chapter 5 #2
“Yes, he wanted her to marry— Wait, what do you mean, ‘run away with him’? Where the devil could they have run away to? They were both détenus.”
“I think he had some notion they could escape the camp easily because they were so young and both spoke a little French.”
“If even my friends and I couldn’t escape, I doubt some green lad and his young miss would have been able to.” He flashed her a look. “And how did you know about Sarah and Jones, anyway?”
“She told me, of course. She wanted advice from someone closer to her own age than her parents, and she knew I had run away from home to go to Verdun and be with my father. So . . .”
“You ran away from home to be with Morris? I never knew that.”
“Jon did not tell you?”
“No. He told us little beyond the fact that you were Morris’s daughter.”
“By-blow, you mean,” she said testily. “Or as we say in French, l’enfant naturel.”
“No one knows you’re a natural child, and it certainly doesn’t matter to me.”
She was not sure she believed him. It would matter if he were planning on marrying her. Unless he really did mean it because he . . . “Do you have any natural children?”
He blinked at her. “God, I hope not!”
“So, it does matter to you,” she said triumphantly, although his intense reaction was also reassuring, because she did not think he would have said it that way if he actually had one. Or two. Or a hundred.
He flushed a bit. “That does. If I ever had a by-blow . . . I mean, natural child—one I didn’t know about—I would have wanted to make provisions for them, so they didn’t suffer financially. And claim them, too, so they didn’t suffer the slings of ignorant people.”
“So . . . no natural children.”
“That I know of.” He slowed the horses now that they were entering Piccadilly, which was far more congested than the smaller streets of her neighborhood.
“Considering the number of my . . . er . . . paramours who were married, I probably wouldn’t know, honestly.
Besides, as long as the children were born in a legitimate marriage—which you were, by the way—they are considered legitimate.
I know that’s the case in England, and I think it is in France. ”
“It is. But now you have roused another question. Do you have any present paramours I need worry about?” The very thought of it made her ache inside.
“No. Actually, not for some years now.” He arched an eyebrow. “Do you have any paramours I should worry about?”
“Of course not!” she cried. “What sort of lady do you think I am?”
He grinned. “One that had half the men in Verdun longing for you, as I recall.”
“That is not true,” she said, trying not to be pleased by the compliment, ridiculous though it might be. “To them, I was a servant, practically invisible.”
He shook his head. “You have never been invisible a day in your life, chérie. And you were hardly a servant. Our landlady said she relied upon you to do her books and figure her rents and all manner of things that spoke more to your being her clerk than her servant.”
So, he had noticed, had he? “She had no husband and no son, so she needed help. And I always helped Papa at the hotel with such things.”
“Did you call Monsieur Bernard Papa?”
“Of course. I did not know he was not my papa until Monsieur Morris came to visit Maman after Papa died.” She gazed out at the crowds of people traversing Piccadilly.
“Monsieur Morris asked me when my birthday was, and I told him. Then he figured out that I was his daughter. And . . . Maman admitted it.”
“In front of you?”
“I made her tell me. Before Monsieur Morris left, he told me where his hotel was, so I could come visit him if I wished.”
He glanced at her. “And that’s when you ran away from home?”
“Not then, no. Not until after Maman invited her brother, my uncle, to live with us. He tried to arrange a marriage for me, and Maman was eager for it.” She scowled.
“The man he wanted me to marry was a rich baker who owned many bakeries. But he was arrogant and insufferable. I could not marry him.”
“So, you ran away.”
She looked out at the shops they were passing. “Monsieur Morris and I had visited a few times in Paris before Napoleon sent everyone to Verdun. Maman had even written a letter to her third cousin in Verdun suggesting that she should rent to Monsieur Morris and Jon.”
“Our landlady, Mrs. Dubois?”
She nodded. “So, yes, I ran away, but I liked mother’s cousin, and I thought she might take me in.” She shot him a smile. “And she did.”
“Did she know about Morris?”
“I do not think so. I never told her. I told her he was teaching me English. Because he was.”
Heath stared ahead at the road. “How did my friends and I manage never to know any of this about you?”
“Why would you?” she said with a shrug. “It was a big lodging house. You had your own troubles. Mother’s cousin and I had not met before I went there, so we might as well have been strangers. My real papa had a family by then, so we did not want anyone to know I was his natural child.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“As matters worsened for the détenus in Verdun, Mrs. Dubois began to worry about not being paid, and all of you worried about not having money to pay her, and the commandant was becoming more vicious . . . How would you notice me and my life? My father cared, and that is all that mattered to me.”
Heath swerved to avoid a dog in the road. Once he’d regained control of the phaeton, he said, “Speaking of Morris, there’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you. I suppose you know that Jon, Scovell, Morris, and I always suspected that someone betrayed our plans to Courcelles.”
She gazed out at the buildings, trying to hide her hurt. “It was not me.”
He blinked. “Of course it wasn’t.”
“Oh.” Did he mean it? “So . . . why do you wish to discuss it?”
“I thought you should know we’re trying to find out who the fellow is.”
“It could be a woman,” she said, then added as an afterthought, “just not me.”
“For God’s sake, I’ve never once thought it was you.”
“Never?”
“Never,” he said quite firmly.
That certainly cheered her. “You cannot blame me for believing that you did think it. Jon thought I was Morris’s mistress, for the love of God.”
“I know. That’s precisely why he actually did suspect you might . . . er . . . Damn.”
When he said no more, she asked, “Might what?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled. “Forget I said anything.”
“Too late. What did Jon suspect?” She thought a moment. “Wait! Are you saying he did suspect I might have betrayed all of you?”
He got that look gentlemen always had when confronted with their mistakes. “I mean . . .”
“You do not have to say it,” she snapped. “I am sure he did. I swear, when he and Tory return, I shall box his ears.”
Heath gaped at her, then laughed heartily. “I was going to ask that you please not tell him I revealed it, but the idea of you boxing the Duke of Falconridge’s ears is too tempting. That is something I have to see.”
She clenched her hands into fists under the blanket, only slightly mollified. “So, you said that you wish to discuss—”
“Right. Jon proposed that we each do certain tasks in our efforts to find out who betrayed us. I . . . er . . . volunteered to ask you about Morris.” Before she could protest that it wasn’t her father, either, he added, “You know that he left journals and letters for Tory.”
She nodded. “He had me bring them to her.”
“Exactly. Tory and Jon are going through them, looking for possible hints of who it might be. But my job was to ask you if you noticed anyone hanging about him. Anyone whom he might have told about our plans or who might even have overheard them.”
“Hmm. I shall have to think about that. I really am not sure. There were many servants in the lodging house, you know, and he tutored other French people in English and détenus in French. The list might be long. And he did not tell me about all of them.” She sighed. “He kept many things to himself.”
“I noticed.” He shot her a veiled look. “Did it bother you that he didn’t claim you as his daughter publicly?”
She eyed him askance. “Not one bit. It would have upset his wife and daughter, ruined his reputation, ruined my mother, and ruined me.” Gazing down at the blanket covering their laps, she sighed.
“Sometimes I do wish Maman had chosen to marry him while he was still unattached, rather than Monsieur Bernard.”
“Why didn’t she?”
She stared at the horses. “Maman has never said why, but I suspect she considered him a mere love affair, her last time of fun before she married the very rich Monsieur Bernard two months later.” She shrugged.
“And Monsieur Morris was English and a poor professor, besides. Knowing Maman, she wanted what you English call ‘to have her cake and eat it, too.’ ”
“Ah. I used to know a woman like that.”
The words made her wonder, but she did not want to know about any of his women. “I suppose I want the same, to have had Monsieur Morris as my papa from the beginning but also to have met Tory and Jon and Chloe and . . .”
“Me.”
She merely nodded, not wanting to admit aloud how much she would have missed by not meeting him.
They traveled a way in silence before he spoke again. “You were very brave to leave Paris on your own and travel to Verdun. Having made that trip myself, I know it is not an easy journey.”
“True. But it was summer, so I . . . er . . . stole a cart and horse from the hotel and traveled the whole way pretending to be a peasant and sleeping in the cart at night.”
“Good God, the things that might have happened to you on the way, a woman alone.” He glanced at her. “It chills my soul to think of it.”
Suddenly, the turn into Hyde Park came up, and his gaze shot back to the road. He took the turn a bit too fast, throwing her against him. Instinctively, she grabbed his thigh under the blanket for balance.
Once everything righted itself and they were inside the park, she started to remove her hand, but he covered it with his. “Don’t,” he rasped. “Your hand will stay warmer there.”
A laugh escaped her. “And my other hand?”
He smiled. “It would stay warmer, too, but then everyone could tell where it was.”
“Heath . . .” she said, wanting to protest.
But he caressed her hand beneath the blanket, and the words died in her throat. She could feel his touch even through her gloves, making her wonder what it would be like to touch him skin to skin.
Even after he took his hand away to grasp the reins with both hands again, she kept her hand on his leg. His thigh, as firm as iron but warm, flexed under her fingers. She ran her hand along it, then glanced over to see his reaction. His jaw was rigid, and he swallowed hard.
“Enough,” he said hoarsely, removing her hand from his thigh. “Any more, and I’ll do something we’ll both regret.”
Her heart pounded and her cheeks heated. What was she doing? This was not what she wanted. He seemed to desire her, but he would never marry her, so she was playing with fire.
Still, as long as she did not throw herself into the flames, she’d be fine. Adequate. She had to content herself with that.