“No one knows about us, Ing—Lord Heathbrook. Nor do Iwishfor anyone to know. But you left me no choice. You refused to see me.”
“Obviously, with good reason.” He sketched a bow. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
He made no answer to that, just strode back up to the terrace and into the ballroom. He scanned the hall but didn’t see Giselle. Damn it, where had she gone?
Kit marched over to him, followed closely by Evan. “What did you do to Giselle?”
God, not this again. How had Giselle managed to get his brothers on her side so damned effortlessly? “I didn’t do anything to her. I want to talk to her. Do you know where she went?”
Looking a bit uncomfortable, Kit stared at the floor. “She said she wasn’t feeling well. That she ate something earlier that didn’t agree with her. Her mother was with her and asked me to make her excuses to you and tell you Miss Bernard will see you in the morning.”
“The hell she will,” he muttered under his breath, and started to head for the hallway.
Evan blocked his way. “Not yet, Heath. If you go now, everyone will think something is wrong between the two of you. At least stay around long enough to make your excuses for her. You can—I don’t know—explain to people that she is feeling unwell after something she ate. Then when you say you’re going upstairs to make sure she’s all right, they’ll expect it.”
His every impulse was to say to hell with the ball and run upstairs so he could impress upon her that she was wrong about his relationship with Lily. But he’d followed his impulses over a decade ago and they hadn’t served him well.
Perhaps it was time to let cooler heads prevail. Odd that the cooler head should happen to be his younger brother’s, but Evan was right. The best thing to do—the thing that would hurt her the least—was for him to act as if this were just an unfortunate occurrence that he meant to explain to his guests before hurrying off to see to his ill fiancée.
Yes, he could do that. He could wait a few minutes more to tell Giselle everything. But he had no choice now. He had to reveal the truth.
Chapter 16
Wearing her nightgown and wrapper, with her hair stuffed up into a nightcap, Giselle marched about in her bedchamber at Longmead after Maman had left to go pack in her own bedchamber across the hall. Giselle folded things into trunks and cursed herself for being ten kinds of a fool. She had known he was keeping secrets. She had been sure that all was not as she had hoped—that Heath was merely skittish about marriage after all the turmoil in his life.
But she had not guessed this.
You’d think you would at least make time for your “one true love.”
Her stomach roiled. The bloody Englishman had lied to her, of course. He had told her he had no mistress. He had even pretended that the woman Giselle had seen him staring after was nobody, when she clearly wasfarmore than that to him.
“Mon dieu, c’est un canaille menteur!” Giselle thrust a pair of stockings into a silk bag. Yes, Heath was definitely a lying scoundrel. She remembered only too well what he had said when she asked who the woman was:Someone who shouldn’t be here.
Although she supposed that was true. Women like his pretty friend were supposed to hide in the shadows, waiting for theirlovers to come away from the women they had married for money or respectability … or to gain custody of their brothers.
She plopped down on the bed. No, at least he had never done that. He had made it clear he could not marry her, and this woman had to be the reason.
A knock came at the door, and she jumped up. It was Maman’s third time to come ask her some inconsequential question about the packing.
As if any of that mattered!
“I thought you were going to bed, Ma—” she said as she swung the door open.
But it was Heath. Anger surged in her so powerfully, she tried to slam the door shut, but he put his foot in the doorway to block it.
“Giselle, please let me in,” he said in a low tone. “I have to talk to you.”
“Go talk to your mistress,” she snapped.
“Lily is not my mistress, damn it. Let me in, so I can explain.”
“I will break your foot, I swear!”
“Lily is the reason I left for France twelve years ago!”
The words resounded in the hall. They would soon bring Maman or some servant who would—