Chapter 8
Sometime later, he found Fleur in the steward’s cottage kitchen heating water for tea; a fresh pot, it seemed as Haskell was seated at the plain deal table drinking a cup, his gaze following Fleur’s every move.
Outrage rose again in him, the same anger that had roared to life when he thought Haskell was chasing her.
When he stepped into the room, both Haskell and Fleur turned his way. He exchanged nods with Haskell and glared at Fleur.
She shouldn’t be alone with this rough fellow.
“Doctor Wagner is with him,” she said in a distant, flat voice. “You’ve informed Mr. Sherington?”
Theyd found Chigwell conscious and breathing, but too weak to walk. While Gareth fetched the doctor, the men loaded the steward into Fleur’s cart and moved him home.
“Yes,” Gareth said. “He came back with me. He’s just gone up to the bedchamber.”
The kitchen was surprisingly modern, fitted out with a Rumsford stove. In fact, the cottage was larger than what he’d expected, with a hectare of land for a large garden and grazing.
It would indeed be a good situation for a man such as himself. If only Cheshire had the climate for grapes.
Fleur’s arm wobbled hefting the steaming pot. “Let me.” Haskell jumped from his chair and touched her arm, nudging her away from the stove.
It ought to have been him helping her, not this fellow. He himself had hefted many a pot around a campfire or in the mess, whereas Fleur... French, English, what did it matter? She was a lady.
Eyes blazing, her gaze met his. He pulled out a chair and settled in for a cup of hot tea. Let her be angry. He wasn’t leaving.
* * *
“And this woman,she will be at this fête?”
Marceau stood preening at the mirror in his inn room and applying a noxious scent. Having fallen in with the right crowd, his negotiations in London had gone well and he was thinking of himself as very much the bon vivant.
On the other hand, his journey to the English countryside by public coach had not been so pleasant, and when he arrived late that afternoon in Reabridge, the innkeeper at the Book and Bell had looked askance at renting a room to a Frenchman. But a bottle of decent champagne and Gareth’s appearance in his regimentals to vouch for him had moved the man.
“Will she be there?” Marceau repeated.
He hoped so. He hadn’t seen her since Chigwell’s spell on Friday. The Sherington steward had succumbed to exhaustion, but with Haskell and Gareth supplying information, Mr. Sherington was able to tally up his year’s harvest, and it had been a good one.
On Saturday, Gareth encountered the doctor coming from Bicton Grange and stopped him for news. Mrs. Bicton-Morledge was having pains; the baby might come tomorrow, or it might be several more days of misery.
Fleur might not attend the festival if she was needed at home. “If Miss Hardouin doesn’t appear,” Gareth said, “We shall go to her. She has agreed to meet you.”
“And to marry me?” Marceau asked, watching himself in the mirror as he adjusted his neckcloth.
Irritating, pompous, jackanapes frog. “You want me to do your wooing for you?” Gareth asked.
Marceau turned abruptly from the mirror, his dark eyes flashing. “Is that what you’ve been doing? Why you didn’t write when you first discovered her? Do not tell me you got to her first.”
Gareth tossed the other man’s hat, hitting him squarely in the chest, wishing it had been his fist. “She is a lady, and you will speak of her with respect.”
The Frenchman shrugged.
“And while we’re discussing respect, Marceau, you must be on your best behavior.” They’d been speaking in French, and Gareth switched to English. “You’re a Frenchman, visiting a village filled with veterans of Waterloo and all the battles that came before, and many villagers whose sons will never come home.”
“Bah, oui, Anglais. You are right. Eh, the coach ride, it was all evil eyes.” His lips firmed and his eyes narrowed. “And here, you, you will… will guard me as I guarded you. You have a debt to me, n’est pas, and to the Veuve.” He wrinkled his nose. “Tell me at least, is she pretty?”
Too pretty for you. He walked out of the room and headed for the brisk air of the innyard, scented as it was with horses and the smoke from the landlord’s kitchen fire, smells he preferred over Etienne’s eau de cologne.
Gareth wasn’tthe only man sporting a uniform this day. There were men decked out in the blue coats of the Cheshire militia, some in the green tunics of the Rifles, and others in the red with varying colors of sashes. Reabridge and environs had stood stoutly for king and country. Marceau had best mind his Ps and Qs this day.
He saw the housekeeper from Bicton Grange bending over the wares in a stall laden with colorful beads. Telling Marceau to wait, Gareth stalked over to speak to her.
“Ma’am.” He lifted his hat. “Is Miss Hardouin here today?”
“She’s gone to the dressing tent to help mend a costume.” She pointed to a closed pavilion on the edge of the green. “If you go that way, tell her I’ll be right along. We’ve got to get back to Bicton Grange and relieve Cora. Her ma insists Cora will have some fun tonight at the ball.”
“Fleur won’t be there?”
The housekeeper shook her head. “Lady Ixton will chaperone Cora. With her time this close, we won’t leave the mistress with just the maids.”
Gareth had best hurry then. Excusing himself, he walked that way, beckoning Marceau.
He ducked his head under the turned-up flap and stifled an oath.
Costumes cluttered one table, and another held threads and sewing implements. Fleur’s back was turned, and she was not alone.
Haskell saw him first. The ass was decked out in a crown woven from barley and a mantle embroidered with tufts of various grains. In his hand, he held a scythe swathed in ribbons.
“Hold still.” Fleur tied off a thread and snipped it. “There. Your wheat will stay in place, your majesty.”
In the far corner, a woman giggled. She held a baby and was doing up the ties on her gown, as if she’d just taken it off the tit.
“Don’t let it go to your head, Bevan Haskell,” the woman said.
Gareth cleared his throat and Fleur whipped around. A work smock covered her plain lavender gown, but lovely golden tendrils had escaped her bonnet, kissing her forehead and cheeks. Her gaze shifted ever so slightly to the man appearing next to him, and the color that had pinkened her cheeks drained away.
Her stillness, her stoic mask, tore at his guts. But they must go on.
Gareth nodded to the Lord of the Harvest and the woman. “Haskell,” he said, “a moment with Miss Hardouin if you please?”
Fleur nodded.
“I’ll be right outside.” Haskell’s proprietary glance raised Gareth’s hackles. Lord of the Harvest or not, the upstart had no claim on Fleur.
“You remember my sister, Sadie?” Haskell said.
He’d had a moment’s thought that this was Haskell’s woman and child, but his cringing sister? Gareth inclined his head as they passed, exchanging parting glares with Haskell.
When he turned back to Fleur, she’d frozen, a pair of scissors poised like a weapon.
“Shall I take those?” She surrendered them without resistance, and the chill of her hands made him want to grasp them and warm them. Instead, he set his hand to the small of her stiff back. “Miss Hardouin,” he said. “May I introduce to you Etienne Marceau?”
As he watched, her lips sealed together in a tight line. Still, he must soldier on.
“Etienne Marceau,” Gareth said, “Miss Fleur Hardouin.”
To his credit, Marceau gave a courtly bow. Fleur inclined her head a fraction like a duchess meeting the lowliest of courtiers.
Her color was coming back, and his heart lifted. Whether she married Marceau or not, the Frenchman was part of her family. At least Gareth had managed to give her that.
“My dear cousin.” Marceau moved closer, and Fleur’s eyebrows rose a fraction. “We have found you after so many years. Captain Ardleigh didn’t tell me how beautiful you are.”
Marceau did look stunned. If he was feigning interest, he was doing an admirable job of it.
“I must speak to you about a delicate matter. Perhaps in private?”
She raised one shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know you. Captain Ardleigh will stay.”
Irritation flashed across the younger man’s face. “But of course. We don’t know each other. But I have traveled all the way from France to bring you this news that your family wishes you to return. It is your grandmother’s most fervent, er, desire that you and I, we join our families more closely together.”
He paused for a breath. Fleur blinked.
“I am of the family Marceau and you of the Hardouins, and together, Hardouin-Marceau, we are makers of the finest sparkling wine in all of Champagne. I am to bring you to France to meet the Veuve Hardouin, and there, my dear, we will be married.”
After his pause for breath, Marceau had switched to French.
“Marceau,” Gareth said, gently, in English, “Miss Hardouin, doesn’t speak French.”
Marceau’s eyes widened. “A Frenchwoman who does not speak French?”
“I am not French,” Fleur said. “I am English. It is my most fervent desire to stay in England.”
“I like England,” Marceau said, nodding. “London, to be precise. And it is my hope to spend much time here about the business. I shall arrange a house for us there.”
“Arrange a house for yourself then. I will not marry you, sir.”
* * *
Fleur held her breath,watching the play of emotions across young Etienne Marceau’s handsome face. He was indeed young, and though his coat was a sober blue, and his buckskin trousers were fashionably tight, his waistcoat sported bright red flowers with curling vines on a primrose field, and his starched white neckcloth had been tied up to his ears in an intricate knot and pierced with a red-jeweled stickpin. His dark good looks would turn heads among the ladies of Reabridge.
Not her head though. The younger man paled next to Gareth Ardleigh who was a picture of virile masculinity. Selfish, scheming, virile masculinity, perhaps, but the arrogance had been tempered by something special in him.
Had always been.
“But you must marry me,” the young Frenchman said. He turned to Gareth. “Tell her she must. It is all arranged,” he said in French. “Why did you not write me? Are you sure this is the right woman? Why, her mother’s grandfather was a chevalier, and look at her, a colorless drab; why, even the modistes of London dress better.”
Fleur’s hands curled into fists and her pulse pounded in her ears as the words rolled over and through her and overwhelmed her.
She didn’t, couldn’t speak French, but she’d understood all of that.
“That’s enough,” Gareth growled.
Still, the Frenchman’s tantrum raged on. “No polite greeting, no smiles, no femininity.” He paced and pounded a table sending the needles, spools, and scissors jumping. His eyes bulged and a vein throbbed in his forehead. “Mon Dieu.” His fingers launched his carefully arranged curls in all directions. He was much like the youngest Bicton-Morledge girl when she was in a nursery room snit.
Fleur smothered a chuckle with her hand and backed away.
“You,” the Frenchman said, poking his finger in Gareth’s chest. “You deceived me, me, who saved your life. You present me with this, this drab, this milkmaid, this?—”
Gareth’s fist flew with a powerful crack and the Frenchman lurched backward knocking over a chair. “You will cease insulting Fleur, here and now,” he shouted.
The Frenchman bounced up, and punches flew back and forth, some landing with sickening thuds. Blood trickled from the Frenchman’s nose and the corner of Gareth’s mouth.
Haskell appeared at the tent’s entrance, a Morris man poking in next to him. Fleur skirted the fight, edging toward the exit.
“Fleur is beautiful.” Gareth punched. “Kind.” He struck again. “And wise.”
The younger man blocked the next punch and landed a blow that struck Gareth’s shoulder, sending him staggering back, gasping.
His shoulder. Was that where he’d been wounded? If so, it was a low blow by a man who would have known of the wound. Fleur took a step closer and stopped.
Eyes wide, the Frenchman advanced. “I’m…I’m sorry,” he said. “But—stop hitting me, Ardleigh.”
Fleur touched Gareth’s elbow. “Your shoulder?”
He glanced at her, dazed.
“Will you want the constable?” the Morris man asked.
“Don’t be daft. It’s a gentlemen’s dispute.” Haskell nudged the other man out of the tent.
Gareth nodded, and something passed between Haskell and Gareth.
“All settled?” Gareth quirked a bleeding eyebrow at the Frenchman. “Yes?”
“Oui.” He nodded. “Yes. A thousand pardons, Miss Hardouin. It is a relief that you didn’t understand.”
Gareth turned and looked down at her. “Oh, but you did understand, didn’t you, Fleur?”
Heart pounding, insides shaking, she struggled for a breath to speak. No one else but Dulcinea knew her so well.
“You’re bleeding,” she finally managed to say. She lifted a corner of her shawl, but he covered her hand with his.
“Wait.” He reached into a pocket and dug out a large square of cloth. “Use this.”
It was no more than a rag, sporting stains and holes here and there. And a border of yellow flowers, some of them partially unraveled.
“My lady’s colors,” he said. “My lucky talisman.”
That summer’s day flashed in her memory, and she saw the young Gareth, laughing at her pathetic attempt at needlework. Since then she’d improved, imagining she was just as skilled as her mother had been.
Thoughts of her mother brought more memories: a doll with stitched gray eyes, flaxen silk hair, and a gown embroidered with flowers and bees. Lost, somewhere, in a dark place.
The stitching blurred. The beautiful man before her blurred. She crumpled the cloth in her hand, and her breath came in short, panicked gasps and she backed to the door.
“Miss Hardouin.” Mrs. Knollwood was at her elbow. “The dancing starts soon. Miss Cora?—”
“Yes, yes.” She had duties.
She dabbed at her eyes with the cloth, and then handed it back to Gareth. “Use this for the blood. I must go. Helena needs me. Cora must go to the ball.”
* * *
Gareth heldthe cloth still damp from her tears and swiped at a drip of blood. Wide-eyed and vulnerable, Fleur looked stunned behind a misting of tears. Fleur was crying. His Fleur.
Haskell hovered nearby. Oh yes, Cora must come and dance with the King of the Harvest.
To hell with that.
She slipped off her smock and handed it to the housekeeper.
“Fleur, wait.” Gareth grabbed her free elbow. “Not yet. Don’t leave yet.”
She shook her head. Tears glistened on her cheeks.
“I…” The words stuck. He cleared his dry throat, swallowed, and tried again. “I love you, Petal.”
Astonishment lit her face, and his confidence rose.
“Marry me,” he said.
Her labored breath sent her chest rising and falling and he remembered the swell of her breasts in the yellow gown she’d worn to dinner at Sherington Manor, and the taste of the lips she was biting.
Her eyes fluttered closed a moment, and she shook her head. “Not now. I must go.”
“Wait, Fleur.”
But she was already gone, and Haskell had left with her.
He hurried out of the tent, prepared to chase her, but a hand gripping his arm tugged him back, wrenching his sore shoulder again.
Gareth turned in anger.
“Sorry,” Marceau said, holding up his hands. “Sorry. But don’t run after her, my friend. Not yet.”
Some minutes later,Gareth found himself in the tap room of the Book and Bell. Too numb to fight more, he’d allowed himself to be dragged off by the impertinent Frenchman, who’d pushed him onto a bench and set a pint and a bottle before him. Having noticed the curious looks from other patrons, Marceau kept his voice low and spoke carefully in English.
“I would have brought champagne with me to your village,” he said, “had I known we would both be made fools of by that chit of a woman.”
Gareth glared at the Frenchman and started to rise. “No, no,” Marceau said. “You’ve beat on me enough today. I apologize again. She’s not a chit—whatever that word means. She’s… cold; stubborn, and, and… hard. She reminds me of the Veuve.”
Gareth tossed back his brandy and poured some more. Had he not made that comparison himself before?
But Marceau was wrong. Fleur wasn’t cold. One only had to look at her determination to take care of Lady Ixworth and the Bicton-Morledge females.
“You don’t know anything,” he said.
“No?” Marceau shrugged. “I made an offer of marriage and was refused. My pride, it was crushed. I’ve never offered marriage before, though Marie has hinted at it often enough.”
Rightly so. She’d borne his child, and Marceau in his own selfish way, cared for the girl. Gareth didn’t hold with the notion of men keeping more than one household.
“But then I see her tell you no, and me, I feel better,” Marceau said.
“Shut up,” Gareth said.
“I say to myself, ha, not only a marriage offer, but a declaration of love. And the girl, she cries. She loves you too.”
“She doesn’t love me.”
“No? What was that rag you handed her? Her heart, it was in her eyes when she saw it.”
Was it? All he remembered was her tears. Tears. From his Petal. What was he to do?
“I had no notion you were so… so… I say to myself, c’est un véritable romantique. I should have known, eh bien, the way you... you whipped the Veuve around your small finger. You’ve done the same to the granddaughter.”
Gareth drained his glass again, letting Marceau babble on.
“Tonight, my friend, you get drunk. Tomorrow, we shall go visit my cousin again.”
Gareth reached for the bottle, but Marceau pulled it away from him. “But first, before you are too… too… How do you say it, bosky? First, we must make a plan for how you will win the hand of your lady and whip the Veuve again around all of your fingers and your whole hand.”