“I do not wish to avoid all the people,” she said in English, too. “I know so few people here in England that to have a chance of seeing those I knew in Verdun would be delightful. And some of the détenus took French wives, too, so I might even encounter some of my fellow countrywomen.” She gave a happy sigh. “You are right. Thiswillbe fun.”
“You see?” he said in that rough voice of his that never failed to set her heart thumping. “I told you there would be benefits to being my fiancée.”
Feeling heat rise in her cheeks, she glanced at her mother, who was listening avidly. Not that Maman could probably make out much, but she had definitely become interested when she had heard the French wordfiancée.
Ah, well. Let Maman enjoy Giselle’s engagement while it lasted. Lord knows Giselle meant to do so.
Chapter 8
Heath sat next to Madame Bernard on a settee in Thanet Hall, drinking tea, eating baked eggs on toast, and watching as Giselle spoke with great animation to a Frenchwoman she’d just met. Leave it to the amiable Giselle to make a new friend within ten minutes of arriving.
“Would you like anything else?” Heath asked Madame Bernard in French as she set down her pear half-eaten.
“We are to eat after the procession, no?”
“Yes. This is merely breakfast to hold us over until it starts.”
“Then I shall wait.” She leaned over to him and lowered her voice. “Do you know that woman speaking to my daughter? Was she in Verdun, too?”
“I have no idea. Then again, I didn’t know everyone in the town.”
“My cousin told me Verdun was a small place.”
“Perhaps once upon a time. But when we arrived, there were at least four hundred détenus, some of them women and children. And that wasn’t counting the actual prisoners of war—naval officers, midshipmen, paymasters, sailors, and such—at one point, over eleven hundred men. There were even a handful ofarmy prisoners of war. All crammed within the confines of a walled town already full of French men and women.”
He nodded to Giselle’s French companion. “Some of those Frenchwomen married détenus or prisoners who brought them back to England after Napoleon abdicated. That lady is possibly one.”
They fell silent. He found himself wondering what Giselle was saying to her new friend so animatedly.
God, she looked happy. And damned gorgeous. Her dark brown hair was piled seemingly haphazardly upon her head, giving the illusion that removing one pin would bring the whole mess of it cascading down her silk-adorned back to float easily about her undoubtedly tight bottom. A bottom he would dearly love to cup in his hands.
Impossible, of course. So was his other fancy, of loosening the ties of her bodice so he could kiss his way inside to her creamy bosom, before taking one of her undoubtedly plump nipples in his mouth …
He swore under his breath as his cock started to harden. She was driving him to distraction, his fascinating French goddess. In the past week, he had ached for the closeness he and she had found before he’d introduced her to Yates so clumsily. He liked the interesting way she had of examining the English ways he took for granted. He enjoyed her enthusiasm for gardens … hell, her enthusiasm for everything new and different. He loved the way she’d sympathized with Kit.
As every day passed, it took more and more of his control not to sweep her into some corner on one of their jaunts and swive her senseless, if only to gain a reaction other than polite smiles and wary distance.
Fortunately, he hadn’t, but no matter how much he told himself it was for the best, he still yearned—
“You truly love her, don’t you?” Madame Bernard asked.
Fool that he was, he nearly voiced the denial before he remembered he wassupposedto love Giselle. Swallowing hard, he lied. “Of course.”If love means I wish to take her to bed.That was all he felt. Wasn’t it?
“I can see it in how you look at her,” her mother said.
Well, at least he had deluded Madame Bernard successfully. That thought brought his cock under control, thank God.
“I suppose you know about Giselle’s father?” her mother went on.
“Which one?” he asked, wondering if Madame Bernard realized how much Giselle had told him.
The woman scowled. “I see my daughter revealed to you all about my foolish behavior before I married.”
He forced a sympathetic smile. “It wasn’t ‘foolish behavior’ for a woman who was about to become the wife of a man she didn’t love.”
How she answered would tell him much about her feelings for Giselle’s stepfather. But Madame Bernard searched his face instead. “Do you care that Giselle was Monsieur Morris’s natural child?”
“No,” he said firmly. “I only care that she is happy.” Married to someone else, preferably, but happy.