Chapter Seven #2
“Hawkins, my lord.”
The two men nodded and went on with their lifting and sorting of all goods between Inès and her desire.
“Mama?” Halsey did not turn, but addressed a woman who appeared to the left of Inès.
“Yes, dear?” She smiled at Inès.
“May I introduce to you Mademoiselle Inès Bechard? My mother, Lady Halsey.”
“How do you do, my dear?” The lady was a tall, vigorous creature with dancing purple eyes and brown hair shot with red lights. She spoke to her in French.
“Tres bien, madam.”
“And Mademoiselle Inès Bechard?” Halsey continued his help to her butler, while addressing Inès and the two other young ladies who’d come to flank the Countess of Halsey. “I introduce to you my third younger sister, Jessica, Lady Ranelagh, and our youngest sister, Lady Felicia Mannerly.”
Lady Ranelagh was shorter than her mother or sister. But she stood out because her hair was the richest blend of chocolate and brandy. She extended her hand. “Delightful to meet you, mademoiselle. I am Jessica to one and all.”
“It is an honor to meet you…Jessica.”
The young woman to the other side of the countess was a youthful replica of the stately lady, with an elegant figure. Her eyes too were sharp and the same color as her mother’s and brother’s. A vivid violet.
“Good afternoon, mademoiselle.” She was open and buoyant, a woman many would welcome as friend. “I am Fee, and I am delighted to meet you. I understand you are to attend our little gathering Friday evening.”
Halsey was still pulling out this and that in front of the cello. “Little? Not by my measure, Fee.”
“He is sensitive,” the younger lady said with wide eyes and a teasing scowl at her brother.
“My sister, mademoiselle,” he said over his shoulder, “has misplaced her humor.”
“As long as, dear brother, you do not misplace yours or you don’t—”
“Oh, ouch!” He winced, a hand to his lower back.
His sister gave a rueful chuckle. “—or you don’t cripple yourself before you lead me out Friday night.” She leaned over to Inès in a conspiratorial manner. “He is getting older, you see, and needs to take care.”
To which he turned toward his sister with feigned menace.
Their mother gave one big laugh and raised her palm. “Please! No more! Allow your brother to help Mademoiselle Bechard’s servant without your needling him.”
“Thank you, Mama,” Halsey said as he helped Hawkins drag toward Inès the three-foot-tall, once-golden, now gray with grime, cello. Finished, he nodded his thanks at Hawkins, dusted off his hands, and looked down at Inès. “What do you think? Are you still interested in it?”
Even if she wasn’t—she would never after all that fuss—say so.
“Oui, certainment!” she exclaimed, and nailed her true identity for the shopkeeper. “What is your price?”
The old woman saw a good thing when she ran her eyes over the stylish attire of her prospective customers.
Halsey was dressed, despite a line of gray dust along his greatcoat sleeve, in a heavy—nearly black—green wool.
His top hat, which he’d given to his sister to hold for him, revealed that glorious head of chocolate-brown curls, one of which dipped over his brow.
Admiring Halsey, Inès had missed the woman’s price.
But he, with his eyes smiling deeply into Inès’s, spoke up. “No. That will not do.”
“What?” Inès was curious. “Please repeat that.”
The lady did.
Inès could not believe the price.
Halsey had a palm up as he shook his head. “My friend,” he said, curling his fabulous lips and showing her those two dimples she could not forget, “will not pay that.”
Inès opened her mouth.
“I won’t allow you to do it,” he said to her. Then, to the merchant, he said, “The lady offers half that.”
I do? She was shocked at his offer, but followed his lead. “S’il vous pla?t. I must know the provenance of the instrument.”
“Provenance?” The shopkeeper shrugged. “No papers for it, I tell ye.”
“I see. Well, then, tell me your price again, madam.”
Halsey crossed his arms and braced his two feet as if he were a prize fighter.
His sister Jessica hummed deep in her throat.
Is that a sign of trouble?
The mother said to her son, “Surely, my darling, you are joking. That piece was once a lady’s pride and joy.”
“That was so long ago, Mama. Now it is fit only to hang my hat on.”
Jessica snorted.
Fee hooted.
Their mother shot her daughters quelling gazes. “Sweethearts, we do not make such sounds in public.”
Fee looked as though she would have replied, but her mother gave one shake of her head and the girl was clearly finished objecting.
Inès cleared her throat. “Please tell me your best price, madam.”
“Nine pounds.”
Clearly the shopkeeper had no idea what value she had in the piece that should sell for twice as much. “Sold.”
Halsey narrowed his gaze on Inès in such a fiendish way that she thought he intended to turn her over his knee.
“Wonderful,” said the shopkeeper. “Do you pay now, or…”
“Now,” Inès confirmed with a defiant smirk at Halsey.
The clerk trundled off to the front of her shop. “If ye’ve got the right amount.”
“I do.”
“Oh. Good. And if ye give me yer address, I’ll ’ave me boys bring it to you tomorrow.”
“No need.” Halsey came up right behind Inès. If she flowed backward, even an iota, she would be flush to his warmth. Through her layers of clothing she felt his heat now. Oh, to have a man to stand with her on all occasions. Even this man…
No, no, no. She brushed away the yearning and turned to face him. Near as she was, she had to put her hands to his chest or be guilty of touching his thighs. “I will have it delivered, sir, to my newly rented house before my first salon—”
“We will take it home in my carriage.”
“What? Monsieur le Comte, there is no need.”
“Yes, there is! It needs restringing. Obviously, too, it is a precious thing. I saw how you looked at it.” His gaze grew so fierce, Inès believed he really wanted to discuss just how she had looked at the cello.
“Mama,” he said, but did not look away from Inès, “do you mind if you and Jessica and Fee go home first, then send the carriage back here? I would like to see Mademoiselle Bechard and her man home with this piece in a timely and safe manner.”
“Of course, my dear. Lovely to meet you, Mademoiselle Bechard. I hope you will invite us all to your first salon. Now that we have dug out your cello from the depths, I feel we must see its rebirth, eh?”
Inès was used to powerful men and women who pushed their way into her life and her plans.
But this episode, this afternoon, had a new quality to it and she was off her norm in reacting to it.
To Halsey and his firm direction of her every wish, she was thrilled and terrified she’d be obligated to him.
“Say yes, mademoiselle,” Halsey urged in a tone that brooked no argument.
She smiled at his mother and two sisters. “Yes, I would be delighted, my lady, to invite all of you for the event.” She truly did want them to come. It would improve her status to be known to have them in her home.
But she also knew she had been handled by the one man whom she should never allow to enchant her—and from whom she did not wish to stay away.
#
“We should take it in through the kitchen door in the alley, don’t you think?” Halsey asked as he settled in the seat beside her in his carriage.
“It’s much too dirty to take through the Ashleys’ front door,” she agreed, though she questioned if she should allow him such autonomy. Ba! He was too helpful and she could not scold him.
But across from her in the opposite seat, Hawkins bobbed his head in quick agreement. “We’ll carry it through to the workroom behind the scullery. That’s the best place to clean it up. There is a workroom near the scullery,” he said to Halsey.
“Wonderful.” Halsey was acting as if he were her best friend. Her best male friend. And she did not want Hawkins to get any ideas that she was interested in entertaining male callers. Especially not this male.
The trip home was brief, and Hawkins left the carriage as soon as Halsey’s coachman pulled up next to the kitchen door. “I’ll notify Lord Ashley’s butler of our need to bring this in. I shall prepare the way and return.”
Halsey sat beside her, his gloved hands folded, serene as a large jungle cat. “I look forward to hearing you play.”
“You won’t,” she bit off, and rearranged her pelisse to cover her gown over her knees. She must stop fidgeting!
“I am not invited?” His question was part insult and part surprise.
Exasperated, she took a breath and turned her face toward him. “I apologize. I do not play the cello.”
“Yet you had to have it. Why?”
She would be forthright. “My father played. It was the most vibrant music in the world. I cannot forget.” She swallowed old memories, irrelevant in this chaotic world. “I do apologize to you. I am not myself lately.”
“You have had a wonderful time, so I understand from Lord Ashley and his wife, renting a house. I presume the cello, like much else, is to bring the house up to your standards. So why are you not yourself?” He was curious, but his words implied he was concerned.
She could not blurt out that he disturbed her. That he appealed to her so strongly, his magnificent height and shoulders, his cologne, his regard of her and, oui, even and most especially his savoir faire. “The stress to furnish the house and make it a showplace.”
“Must it be grand?”
“I want it so. Oui. Oui, I do. My mother was a renowned hostess. At our chateau, she had noteworthy receptions inside and out to celebrate the harvesting of the grapes. Christmas approaches,” she said, closing her eyes, wishing to forget and yet dying to remember each tiny detail of her parents’ festivities.
“She celebrated Christmas Day by inviting all our tenants and the local distributor and his family. The mayor came, and the town’s shopkeepers.
We had wine, of course, a whole pig roasting on a spit, and dozens of roast chickens.
New bread. Potatoes with leeks and pie. Oh, you have never tasted such pastry.
Mama made it herself, always. It was a delicate slice of heaven, crisp and full of air, a hint of sugar. ”
She inhaled, realizing she rambled on and on. “Excuse me. I can live too much in the past.”
“It is wise to live there and remember all that we have enjoyed.”
“And all that is gone. All that we hated when the devils took it all away.”
His gloved hand took hers to his thigh. “Those moments, good and bad, define who we are, what we value, what we strive for.”
“What we will not abide,” she added, picturing in her mind’s eye Vaillancourt, the man she hated the most. His devilishly handsome face, his sharp, blue, accusing eyes and his fabulous mouth that uttered lies and threats of torture and death.
“What will you not abide, Inès?” Halsey had put two fingers to her chin to persuade her to regard him. His words were mellow invitations to share parts of herself.
As if he reached inside her, he touched those regions of her that ached for her lost loved ones, all her family. She could not stop herself from saying, “Anyone who seeks to take from me that which I adore.”
His purple gaze darkened to a compassionate desire. The allure of him was too much, too strong, too intimate to refuse—and she stiffened, refusing to sway toward him. “Does someone do that now?” he whispered, while his thumb did that old caress to outline her lower lip.
Oh, to crawl into this man’s embrace and let him chase away Vaillancourt and all like him who made her life a living hell.
She tried to cover her delight in him and plastered on a look of whimsy. “Is there not always someone who robs you of peace?”
“Who robs you, my darling? Tell me. I will banish him to hell.”
“Oh, that you could,” she said in a broken voice.
Of a sudden, that which she had wished for was hers. He had her in his arms, flush to his magnificent heat, one hand at her nape, his fingers delving into her coiffure.
“Let me,” he whispered, and she knew not if he meant to allow him a kiss or to permit him to banish all her villains to the ends of the earth.
She opened her mouth, eager for his lips.
Someone cleared his throat.
Halsey stilled, his hands where they were, keeping her close. His eyes searched hers and mourned, with rueful regret, the interruption.
“Mademoiselle? My lord?” Hawkins sounded as if he did not know what to do.
Inès sank backward to her place on the carriage seat.
Hawkins cast his eyes anywhere but on either of them, his cheeks red with embarrassment.
With her body aching for the kiss she did not receive, Inès dared not look at Halsey. “We’re coming, Hawkins.”
Halsey gave her a nod, his lips firm as if he fought anger. But he released his hold of her wrist and proceeded to leave the carriage.
Outside, he turned and extended his hand to her to lead her down.
She clasped his fingers, knowing the strength and warmth through their numerous gloved layers was all she’d have of him today—and all she should allow herself to have of him.
She faced him, her smile easy to grant. “I cannot thank you enough for your assistance today, my lord.”
“I am Evan to you,” he told her because they were alone. Hawkins, wise man, had gone inside.
“Evan.” She tried his name on her tongue. “I like the name.”
He rolled her fingers into her palms and brought both her hands to his chest. “It is yours. Use it. Come for me if ever you are in need of a champion to fight off a villain who robs you of your peace.”
At his invitation, she swallowed a gulp filled with irony and despair. Little did he know that she had already been destroyed and he could not save her any peace. “You are most kind.”
“I think,” he said with a worried brow, “I am most necessary. Let me be the man you call to help you. Any time. Anywhere.”
Tears welled and her vision fragmented.
He lifted her fingers to his lips, straightened each one, and kissed the tip of each, then gave her hands back to her. “Go in.” He glanced quickly inside the open door. “Your man stands at your service, ready to protect you.”
As do you.
“As do I. Any time. Anywhere.”