“Because I deflowered Lily,” he said wearily. “It was the main reason we got caught. We stopped in York, and we made love in the inn. We were damned lucky our fathers didn’t catch us in the act, or I daresay one of the fathers would have killed me. It’s a tossupwhich one.” When she gaped at him, he said, “All right, so my father probably wouldn’t have killed me, but at the time, it felt like he did, him with his machinations.”
“Did you tell your father that you had already bedded Lily?”
He eyed her askance. “And have him be even more disappointed in me? Hell, no. Besides, I was a gentleman. I could not risk telling Father and having him use it against her.”
“I suppose I can understand that.” She put her hands on her hips. “But I am not a sixteen-year-old girl—I do not require you to marry me out of some sense of responsibility. I agreed to share your bed, and I did not do it to compel you to marry me, either. I did it because I wanted to. And … because I was tired of being alone. So, there is no need for you to sacrifice your freedom for me.”
She found her slippers and sat down to put them on, but he sat down beside her to stay her hands. “Ma chérie,it is no sacrifice. I like having your companionship, and I wish to marry you. Don’t tell me you don’t enjoy our friendship, at the very least. We could make a good marriage.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps you would tire of your French wife and her strange ways eventually, of worrying that her own past would come back to haunt you and your children. I-I do not want the responsibility of being an English countess. It would be like trying to ‘make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,’ to use one of your countrymen’s colorful sayings.”
“Damn it, Giselle,” he said as he squeezed her hand, “you are already a silk purse. You might have to learn some things here and there, but you are a lady through and through. And, to be perfectly honest, I don’t want an English countess. I want my half-French wife. I wantyou.”
Yet he said nothing of love. And she was beginning to realize that love was important to her, since she was already half in love with the rascal herself.
Snatching her hand free, she put her shoes on and stood, unable to look him in the face for fear he would see her feelings writ large there. “I must return to my room in case Maman wakes up and goes in search of me. It would not do to have her raise an alarm over my disappearance.”
He stood, too. “At least think about it.”
Swallowing hard, she nodded. “I must go.”
“We’re still heading into Bath with the boys tomorrow, aren’t we?”
She forced a smile for his benefit. “Of course. I shall look forward to it.”
Then she fled. But long after she reached her room, relieved to find that her mother had not entered it at all, she could not fall asleep. Because the thing she could not tell him,darednot tell him, was she would give anything to be his wife.
But only if she could have his love, too.
Chapter 18
Heathbrook was vastly relieved when Giselle turned up at breakfast, accompanied by her mother, as she had for every morning previously. Her mother wore concern about her like a cloak. God only knew how Giselle had convinced her to unpack and stay.
But Giselle was her usual self, speaking with the boys about the ball the night before, asking them whom they’d danced with and in general making small talk admirably. He wished he could take her aside and ask if she had made a decision about marrying him, but he knew she wasn’t the sort to be hurried along. He would have to be patient.
Unfortunately, patience was not his virtue.
“You seem to be feeling much better this morning, Giselle,” Evan ventured.
Although Heathbrook tensed, Giselle merely smiled and said, “I am, thank you. I had a good night’s sleep, and I’m looking forward to our jaunt into town today.”
“We’re all going,” Zack piped up. “Do they still have Peter’s Pie Shop near the green?”
“They do,” Heathbrook said. “I stop there when I can.”
“Maman and I always get the pork pies,” Giselle said. “They are quite tasty.”
“That’s my favorite, too,” Kit said. “We should go there.”
“And you have to see the Sydney Gardens Tunnels,” Giselle added. “They’re wonderful. We can drive over the bridges in the carriage, can we not, Heath? And then walk under the bridges through the tunnels?”
Heathbrook chuckled. “If you wish. Not sure why you’d want to do both, but we can indeed.”
By the time they headed off on their “adventure,” as the boys were calling it, the lads could scarcely contain their excitement. Even Evan, who’d chosen to ride on the coachman’s perch again, was infected, especially since the weather was fine enough that they had put the hoods down on the landau to ride in style into town.
“Another thing you lads may not have seen yet,” Heathbrook said, “since it, along with the tunnels, was built while you were in Broadstairs, is the Cascade. It’s a clockwork village with flowing water. I’m not sure where it is in there, but we can look for it.”
“It is in the Labyrinth,” Giselle’s mother shocked them all by saying, in English, no less.