Chapter 16
Wearing her nightgown and wrapper, with her hair stuffed up into a nightcap, Giselle marched about in her bedchamber at Longmead after Maman had left to go pack in her own bedchamber across the hall.
Giselle folded things into trunks and cursed herself for being ten kinds of a fool.
She had known he was keeping secrets. She had been sure that all was not as she had hoped—that Heath was merely skittish about marriage after all the turmoil in his life.
But she had not guessed this.
You’d think you would at least make time for your “one true love.”
Her stomach roiled. The bloody Englishman had lied to her, of course. He had told her he had no mistress. He had even pretended that the woman Giselle had seen him staring after was nobody, when she clearly was far more than that to him.
“Mon dieu, c’est un canaille menteur!” Giselle thrust a pair of stockings into a silk bag. Yes, Heath was definitely a lying scoundrel. She remembered only too well what he had said when she asked who the woman was: Someone who shouldn’t be here.
Although she supposed that was true. Women like his pretty friend were supposed to hide in the shadows, waiting for their lovers to come away from the women they had married for money or respectability . . . or to gain custody of their brothers.
She plopped down on the bed. No, at least he had never done that. He had made it clear he could not marry her, and this woman had to be the reason.
A knock came at the door, and she jumped up. It was Maman’s third time to come ask her some inconsequential question about the packing.
As if any of that mattered!
“I thought you were going to bed, Ma—” she said as she swung the door open.
But it was Heath. Anger surged in her so powerfully, she tried to slam the door shut, but he put his foot in the doorway to block it.
“Giselle, please let me in,” he said in a low tone. “I have to talk to you.”
“Go talk to your mistress,” she snapped.
“Lily is not my mistress, damn it. Let me in, so I can explain.”
“I will break your foot, I swear!”
“Lily is the reason I left for France twelve years ago!”
The words resounded in the hall. They would soon bring Maman or some servant who would—
What he’d said finally sank in. Slowly, she opened the door all the way to glare at him. “You lie. You went to France with your father on a business trip.”
“I did. But only because he made me go to get me away from Lily Faircloth.”
The peculiarity of his claim intrigued her more than it should. And he and his father had been at odds most of the time in Verdun. She did remember that.
He pushed his way into the room and closed the door behind him. “I hadn’t seen her again until tonight. I had hoped never to see her again, but she sneaked into the ball. She was not invited.”
Feeling suddenly very exposed in her nightgown and wrapper, she crossed her arms over her breasts. “She wanted to see you.”
“To talk to me, she said.”
“About what?” Giselle asked, curious in spite of herself.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “She didn’t say. I told her she should return tomorrow evening, and I would discuss whatever the hell nonsense she wanted to discuss. But only if she left immediately tonight. So, she did. Or at least I didn’t see her again.”
She dragged in a heavy breath, unsure whether to believe him. “So, she is not your mistress.”
“No.” He gazed into her eyes. “I told the truth when I said I had no mistress.”
There had to be more to it than that, and she meant to hear all of it. She cocked her head. “Why did your father want to get you away from her?”
With a sigh, he walked over to the bed. Then he apparently noticed the trunk on the floor. “Are you packing?” he asked with a scowl.
“Yes. I figured that with the ball done, and everyone knowing I am your fiancée, Maman and I could move to Bath for the remainder of our visit.”
“You can’t do that! What about Jones? I haven’t worried since you’ve been going in my carriage with two of my most stalwart footmen, but if you’re going to stay there . . .”
Bon Dieu, she had forgotten about Jones. She suppressed a shudder. “He is not interested in Maman and me. Clearly, he merely wants us to lead him to Beasley. Since we will not do that—”
“You would risk your mother on the off chance that his following you really has nothing to do with the two of you?”
Annoyed by the logic of his words, she sighed. “No, of course not.”
He seized her hand. “Don’t leave, Giselle. I’ll keep my distance, I swear. Just don’t go stay in Bath. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you there.”
The words softened her for half a moment until she realized that she always let his tempting words change her mind.
She scowled at him. “You are avoiding the subject of your Lily.”
“She is not my Lily,” he snapped, eyes blazing. “Not anymore. Not since we were both sixteen.”
“Why not?” She slipped her hand from his. “Was she really your ‘one true love’?”
A muscle worked in his jaw as he dropped onto her bed. “Yes. Or I once thought she was, anyway.” He avoided her gaze. “But that was twelve years ago.”
“Before you went to France.”
He nodded.
Pulling her wrapper more tightly about her, she sat down beside him. “If you want me to stay, you must tell me everything.”
“Oh, God,” he groaned.
“I mean it, Heath.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Lily is the daughter of one of our tenant farmers. Back then I fancied her quite a lot. Over twelve years ago, we spent my summer holiday from Eton—unbeknownst to my parents and hers—in each other’s company on the estate.”
Giselle swallowed her jealousy with some difficulty. “She is very pretty.”
He flashed her a faint smile. “Not nearly as pretty as you.” When she remained impassive to that compliment, he sighed and went on with his tale. “My father and I were at odds as usual, but I was feeling my oats, so I escaped him and rebelled as much as possible.”
“Many boys do at sixteen, from what I hear,” she ventured.
He conceded the point with a nod. “As the time for me to return to Eton approached, when I knew we would be separated, I concocted a plan for us to elope. I figured if we could get married in Scotland, my parents would have to accept the marriage.”
“Why would they? You were both under the age to marry, were you not?”
“We were, but in Scotland one can marry much younger,” he said wearily.
“However, Scotland was a long way from home. I thought I had tricked both sets of parents by making it seem as if we were traveling by ship to Scotland, but her parents were no fools. They knew Lily easily got seasick, something I never knew, so they swiftly guessed we were on the Great North Road instead. And they told my father.”
“I am surprised to hear it,” Giselle said, nervously twisting the ends to the ties of her wrapper. “Would not a marriage to you have been advantageous to their daughter?”
“Oh, yes. But not so advantageous to them. If they had allowed Lily to make a runaway marriage with their landlord’s heir, they knew they would be evicted through any legal means my father could find.
So, after her father found Lily’s note, which she’d been foolish enough to leave behind, the two fathers dogged us all the way up north. ”
He snorted. “We’d assumed that since we’d gone as far as York without being discovered, we were safe, so we took a room there at an inn I knew from travels with my family.
Of course, my father knew it, too. Our fathers caught up with us there, a couple of hours after our arrival.
Her father brought her back home, and my father took me to London where he arranged for him and me to travel directly to France. ”
She arched an eyebrow at him, now fully engrossed in his tale. “That is a long way to go to save his son from an unwise marriage.”
“Father had already been planning to go to France, since we had property in nearby Normandy.” He uttered a bitter laugh.
“As with many Englishmen, he thought the Treaty of Amiens made it safe to return to France at last, so he merely moved up his trip. Then he kept me prisoner until we were on our way.”
“He forced you to go?” she said, eyes widening.
“Yes. I never got to say goodbye to Lily or my brothers or even my mother. Mother died thinking I was a reckless idiot. Which I suppose I was, to be honest.”
He released a ragged breath. “I told Father I was in love. He told me I was a fool—that Lily merely wanted me for the wealth I could bring her. I denied it, I raged against him . . . I even tried to jump overboard once we were on the ship and headed down the Thames toward the Channel.”
The image of him attempting to jump off a ship to return to his “true love” made her laugh. When he scowled at her, she mumbled, “Sorry. It’s just that I never dreamed you were such a . . . er . . . dramatic young man.”
“Overwrought, more like.” He flashed her a rueful smile.
“I was nearly seventeen and full of myself.” He shook his head.
“I could no more have swum across the Thames than I could have flown to the moon, but you wouldn’t have convinced me of it.
Father had to lock me in a cabin to make me stay put.
Looking back, it’s hard to believe I was once as young and stupid as Kit can sometimes be now. ”
Suddenly, his aggressive reaction to Kit’s announcement that he was “betrothed” made perfect sense. “You were a sensitive and feeling young man,” she said softly. “I know the sort.”
“You certainly do. Kit and Zack definitely qualify. I’m not so sure about Evan.
” He shook his head. “But they come by it honestly. Perhaps we got that from our mother, since we certainly never got it from Father.” He sighed.
“I used to write poetry and such, you know. Tonight, Lily was quoting one of my poems where I called her ‘my one true love.’ But she was being sarcastic.” He muttered a curse under his breath.
“What a little dupe I was. I was thoroughly taken in by her.”