“Ah.” He led her down to his phaeton and helped her in before climbing up beside her and taking the reins his tiger handed up to him. “‘A mother always sees what her child most tries to hide.’ Or so my own mother used to say.”
After his tiger took a seat on the footboard in back, Heath paused a moment to settle a blanket over their laps before he got the horses going. Itwasrather cold out today, so she appreciated being able to keep her hands warm.
Once they were clopping along at a brisk pace, she said, “You never talk about your mother. What was she like?”
“Rather like yours, I would imagine. Something of a stern taskmaster, and fiercely protective of her children, even when her children wanted her not to be.”
Giselle suspected there was more to it than he was saying, but this was probably not the time for discussing it. Especially since shehad more important things to ask. “Were you able to see Beasley? Or any government officials?”
“I did see Beasley. It turns out that the man you encountered is named Vaughan Jones, not Lewis Nash.”
Giselle caught her breath. No wonder neither of them had remembered Lewis Nash. “Though I do not think I ever met him at Verdun, the name Vaughan Jones does sound familiar.” She frowned. “Did not Jones try to convince Sarah to run away with him?”
“Yes, he wanted her to marry—Wait, what do you mean, ‘run away with him’? Where the devil could they have run awayto? 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 … “Doyouhave any natural children?”
He blinked at her. “God, I hope not!”
“So, itdoesmatter 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. “Thatdoes. 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. “Doyouhave 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?”