CHAPTER TWELVE #2
“I have not the remotest notion what you mean, Mrs Jones.”
The woman gave a soulful sigh. “I’d stick to that, if I were you, Miss Grace. Though I dare say it won’t be no manner o’ use, folks knowing what they know. Only when I heard as he was a count, I said to myself as it just won’t do. Not that we who knows you don’t value you, but —”
“If you’re done, Mrs Jones,” came pointedly from Jemima, appearing at the parlour door, “I’ll see you out.”
Grace bit her tongue on the protests that rose within her as she watched the rout of the blacksmith’s wife by her ever more redoubtable maid.
How little anyone knew of Henri! As if he would spurn her on the score of her lowlier status.
The intimation she had been on the catch for him was as nothing to the insult to his character.
Of all things, Henri Rousselle was a man unmarked by that sort of snobbery.
Though he had worked against the revolution from within, his compassion had been stirred by the lot of the ordinary people with whom he came in contact.
Moreover, as far as Grace knew, he had been merely a distant relation of the previous Comte, gaining the title only through those many deaths amongst a breed he had sought to protect.
No, Henri would not reject her on the score of his aristocracy.
Indeed, she was almost certain he would not reject her at all.
Only it was two days now, and he had not made contact.
Try as she would, Grace could not prevent a burgeoning resentment.
No matter how many times she told herself that if Sir James had taken it into his head to show Henri off around the county he had no time to come calling, she could not help a sneaking suspicion he was putting off the moment.
Small wonder, when it had been forced upon him.
More than ever, Grace determined to carry through her resolve.
She made an attempt to resume her former life, setting to upon the pile of waiting work.
But the house felt lonelier than ever, and all too full of memories.
No matter where she went — so small a space as she occupied — there were images of Henri to haunt her imagination.
She avoided the spare bedchamber, but the parlour was no better, for it was there at the table he had kissed her that first time.
For comfort, though the memory tortured her almost as much as the remembrance of their lovemaking.
As for her bureau, she could not sit there but her eye was drawn to the shelf concealing the hidden cache.
Empty of its secrets now, as barren as her heart.
Sighing, she made to rise, hearing Jemima’s step as she crossed from the front door to the back as she locked up for the night. Abruptly, the effort became too much. Grace slumped back down, dropping her elbows on to the open top of the bureau, and sinking her face into her hands.
Lord, how she missed him! Was it for this she had saved a man from dying? Could he not have been a lesser mortal, one that wielded no power to fan the flames of love in her heart? Henri, Henri, why did you invade my life?
“Grace?”
Yes, that voice! Speaking her name with an inflexion of accent, turning the sound into a murmured caress. She was ugly, but Henri had made her beautiful. How had he done that?
“Do you weep, ma chère?”
Grace slid her hands to her ears, and pressed them tight to shut it out. Unbearable to hear him! Not that endearment … not those words. Making her believe. The plea escaped her unregarded.
“Go away! Go away from me!”
An eerie quality in the ensuing silence penetrated her self-absorption. Grace let her hands fall, and turned her head. In the dimly shadowed doorway a figure stood. Her heart leaped with shock and she let out a gasp. If her eyes and heart did not deceive her, it was Henri.
Hesitant, he eyed her, the wan features lit by the candles to a pallid glow.
There was fierceness in her stare, and Henri wondered briefly if he had imagined the drooping figure of a moment before.
She had looked altogether woebegone, unutterably weary.
But now, as the shock of his entrance was passing, Grace appeared a stranger.
Not at all the welcoming creature he had expected.
Was she angry he had not arrived earlier?
“Grace, it has been impossible to come to you before tonight.” She made a motion he took to be negative.
“Ah, you understand, ma chère. This Sir James he has done that which I most wished to avoid. It is why I have hidden that paper, enfin. Now I am to be always the Comte de Rousselle, which is a role I prefer to forget.”
He gave a tentative smile and moved a little into the room. She seemed to draw back into herself, and he halted again, beset by the first stirrings of alarm.
“Grace, what is it with you? Did you not expect me? Is it possible that I have not a welcome here?”
That produced change. She started up, but she did not rise. “Always! How could you think otherwise?”
Henri did not approach her. The words were belied by her attitude.
Confused, he shifted instead to the parlour table, touching it with his left arm, which was no longer protected with a sling, as if to reassure himself it was real, that this was the place he had come to think of as home.
Behind him, a footfall and a cheery voice announced the entrance of the maid.
“I’ve brought you some wine, Mister Henry.” She bustled over to the table and set down the tray. “Reuben brought it over when he come. Oh, and he said to tell you as he’s ready to serve you any time you need him. You’ve only to give the word.”
At once Henri felt an easing of the apprehension that had begun to invade him.
If Jemima accepted his arrival, then the withdrawal was in Grace.
He had not mistaken his position, only rediscovered those barriers he had before encountered with her.
He trusted they would not prove insurmountable.
He smiled at the maid, who was pouring the wine.
“You have thought most intelligently, Jemima. I am much in need of wine.” He looked across to where Grace was seated at the bureau. “Ma chère, will you not drink with me?”
Grace’s emotions were in disarray, betrayed by the blood in her veins at the very sight of Henri. But he? Had he been so confident, so sure of her? Well, why would he not be, after all that had passed? She summoned what little calm she possessed, hoping her voice would not shake.
“Certainly I will drink with you.”
Pushing hard upon the wooden arms of her chair, she thrust to her feet. Her knees felt a trifle weak, but her limp covered any new awkwardness as she crossed to take the glass he was holding out. Jemima had pulled out a chair at the table and Grace sank gratefully into it.
The maid gave her a look, brimful of significance. “I’ll be off to bed then, Miss Grace. Ain’t no need to go making up the bed in the spare chamber, I reckon, but I’ll do it if you wish for it.”
Warmth flushed uncomfortably into Grace’s bosom, and the blood rushed up into her cheeks. Reaction threw her tongue into unwise speech.
“Mister Henry is not staying!”
The silence became charged. Biting down on the words too late, Grace glanced from Jemima’s shocked expression to Henri’s face. The bewildered hurt in his eyes was unbearable. She looked quickly to the glass in her hand, staring at it as if she had forgotten what it was or how it had got there.
Movement caught her eye. Henri was setting down his glass, turning, walking away towards the door. Grace’s heart twisted.
“No, Henri, wait! Don’t go!”
Jemima was before her, running ahead of him to bar the door, both hands held out to grasp the jambs, her young face alive with excitement.
“Don’t you heed her, Mister Henry! She don’t mean it.
You ain’t seen her these last days, but I can tell you it’s dead miserable she’s been without you.
I don’t know what’s got into her, sir, but I know she cares for you something terrible! ”
“So I thought, Jemima,” began Henri heavily, “mais —”
Grace could utter no word as she watched Jemima grasp his arm, uttering what Grace would not have dreamed of saying, despite the promptings of her heart.
“I’m telling you, Mister Henry, you got to stay!
I don’t know what argy-bargy Miss Grace has got in her head agin’ you, but it ain’t nowise nothing but a pack o’ nonsense, and you hadn’t ought to give it no heed.
” Releasing him, Jemima leaned towards him, dropping her voice to a confidential murmur so that Grace had to strain to hear her.
“If Miss Grace weren’t so worn down, aye, and in a good deal o’ pain already, if I know her, I’d say as you ought to shake some sense into her, Mister Henry, that I would! ”
Henri laughed out, but this was too much for Grace. Setting down her glass, she got up hastily, swinging out into the room with her lumbering gait. “That will do, Jemima! Go to bed at once!”
But the maid threw her a saucy look, tapped Henri encouragingly on his good arm, and disappeared into the hall. Grace was left to confront Henri, who turned an amused countenance upon her.
“Do not look thus disturbed, ma chère. This is not advice which recommends itself to me.”
Grace wanted to burst into overwrought tears. But that would only force Henri to comfort her, an intimacy she needed to avoid. It had become imperative to speak, to try to make him understand.
“I am not disturbed by that, Henri. But I am disturbed. Thus far Jemima is in the right of it.” She drew a breath and faced the gathering perplexity in his features. “You mean to offer me marriage, don’t you? After — after what happened between us, I know you must. But —”
“What has happened between us, Grace, has been more than that I have taken you in my bed. This is what you mean, no?”