He flashed her a faint smile. “Not nearly as pretty as you.” When she remained impassive to that compliment, he sighed and went on with his tale. “My father and I were at odds as usual, but I was feeling my oats, so I escaped him and rebelled as much as possible.”
“Many boys do at sixteen, from what I hear,” she ventured.
He conceded the point with a nod. “As the time for me to return to Eton approached, when I knew we would be separated, I concocted a plan for us to elope. I figured if we could get married in Scotland, my parents would have to accept the marriage.”
“Why would they? You were both under the age to marry, were you not?”
“We were, but in Scotland one can marry much younger,” he said wearily. “However, Scotland was a long way from home. I thought I had tricked both sets of parents by making it seem as if we were traveling by ship to Scotland, but her parents were no fools. They knew Lily easily got seasick, something I never knew, so they swiftly guessed we were on the Great North Road instead. And they told my father.”
“I am surprised to hear it,” Giselle said, nervously twisting the ends to the ties of her wrapper. “Would not a marriage to you have been advantageous to their daughter?”
“Oh, yes. But not so advantageous tothem. If they had allowed Lily to make a runaway marriage with their landlord’s heir, they knew they would be evicted through any legal means my father could find. So, after her father found Lily’s note, which she’d been foolish enough to leave behind, the two fathers dogged us all the way up north.”
He snorted. “We’d assumed that since we’d gone as far as York without being discovered, we were safe, so we took a room there at an inn I knew from travels with my family. Of course, my father knew it, too. Our fathers caught up with us there, a couple of hours after our arrival. Her father brought her back home, and my father took me to London where he arranged for him and me to travel directly to France.”
She arched an eyebrow at him, now fully engrossed in his tale. “That is a long way to go to save his son from an unwise marriage.”
“Father had already been planning to go to France, since we had property in nearby Normandy.” He uttered a bitter laugh. “As with many Englishmen, he thought the Treaty of Amiens made it safe to return to France at last, so he merely moved up his trip. Then he kept me prisoner until we were on our way.”
“He forced you to go?” she said, eyes widening.
“Yes. I never got to say goodbye to Lily or my brothers or even my mother. Mother died thinking I was a reckless idiot. Which I suppose I was, to be honest.”
He released a ragged breath. “I told Father I was in love. He toldmeI was a fool—that Lily merely wanted me for the wealth I could bring her. I denied it, I raged against him … I even tried to jump overboard once we were on the ship and headed down the Thames toward the Channel.”
The image of him attempting to jump off a ship to return to his “true love” made her laugh. When he scowled at her, she mumbled, “Sorry. It’s just that I never dreamed you were such a … er … dramatic young man.”
“Overwrought, more like.” He flashed her a rueful smile. “I was nearly seventeen and full of myself.” He shook his head. “I could no more have swum across the Thames than I could have flown to the moon, but you wouldn’t have convinced me of it. Father hadto lock me in a cabin to make me stay put. Looking back, it’s hard to believe I was once as young and stupid as Kit can sometimes be now.”
Suddenly, his aggressive reaction to Kit’s announcement that he was “betrothed” made perfect sense. “You were a sensitive and feeling young man,” she said softly. “I know the sort.”
“You certainly do. Kit and Zack definitely qualify. I’m not so sure about Evan.” He shook his head. “But they come by it honestly. Perhaps we got that from our mother, since we certainly never got it from Father.” He sighed. “I used to write poetry and such, you know. Tonight, Lily was quoting one of my poems where I called her ‘my one true love.’ But she was being sarcastic.” He muttered a curse under his breath. “What a little dupe I was. I was thoroughly taken in by her.”
“How so?” Giselle asked. “Surely she was once in love, too, or she would not have defied her parents for you.”
“Oh, Lily was in love, all right,” he said acidly. “She was in love with my money, rank, and consequence, the usual things women of her kind are in love with.”
She caught her breath, praying he did not seeherthat way, too. “How do you know that about her? Because your father said so?”
“Hardly. At the time, I wouldn’t have believed a word he told me concerning her.” He thrust his fingers through his beautiful hair. “No, I found out when she wrote to say she was soon to be married.”
She wasmarried,this former love of his? “Oh, dear. That must have been difficult for you. How long after you left England did she tell you?”
He shrugged. “Only four months, even before Father and I were sent to Verdun. A letter from her came to our lodgings in Paris, saying that she regretted to inform me, but she had found a new love, a man named Samuel Pritchard.”
“The merchant?” Giselle asked.
“You’ve met him?”
“No, but his name is everywhere in Bath. He owns many mercantile shops, does he not?”
Heath narrowed his gaze on her. “I can’t believe you know that.”
“I do like to shop occasionally, Heath,” she said primly. “Not very often, grant you, but once in a while. And what else am I to do while Maman is soaking in the baths?” She made a face. “I do not like the waters there. They have a smell.”
“True,” he said with a faint smile. “Anyway, I had known Samuel Pritchard was courting her, but she hadn’t seemed to take him seriously. Suddenly, they’re in love? Suffice it to say, he was wealthy and consequential enough even then to gain her interest.”
“But he must have been far older than she,” Giselle mused aloud, starting to feel a little sorry for this woman. A very little, anyway.