Evan shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. “We were just talking, and we think perhaps we should just go home after we get Madame Bernard. Giselle is still very shaken up. She shouldn’t have to wait around for pork pies.”
Giselle glanced at the other two boys, who would not meet her eyes. Clearly, they were not as keen to skip the pork pies as Evan made it sound. “How about this?” she said softly. “We stop on our way out of town to buy them, and then we eat them in the carriage. Yes?”
Zack bobbed his head, and Kit said, “Whatever you prefer.”
She smiled at Kit. “I prefer not to let some scoundrel keep me and Maman from our pork pies.”
“Then it’s settled,” Heath said. “Madame Bernard first, constable’s office second, and pork pies last.”
As they left the Sydney Gardens, she told the boys, “We really must come back sometime to explore the tunnels.”
“After the wedding,” Heath said, with a quick glance at her.
“Of course.” It was getting harder and harder to resist him, and he knew it. But she couldn’t chide him for it just now.
Much later, when they were on their way back to Longmead with their pork pies, she wondered how it had gone in the constable’s office. But they could not discuss it with the boys around.
Once they reached the manor house, she got her mother settled in her room for a nap—since Maman was always exhausted after a day in the baths—and then went to her own room to decide what she would wear for dinner. A knock came at the door and she hurried to open it, hoping it was Heath.
But it was only a servant. “Begging your pardon, Miss Bernard,”she said with a curtsy, “but there’s a lady named Pritchard here to call on you.”
LilyPritchard? Had Heath not said she was barred from the estate?
Oh, but he had also said he had promised to speak to Lily this evening. Very well, if the woman wanted to confront Heath’s fiancée instead, Giselle would be more than happy to oblige. “Ask the lady to wait, if you do not mind. It will take me a few moments to dress. Oh, and please send my maid up.”
Because if Giselle was to meet her nemesis in close combat, she wanted to be dressed for the part.
She took her time choosing her most flattering dinner gown, a jade-green silk sheath with a lovely sheer muslin overlay that had embroidered scallops lining the bodice and emphasizing her breasts. It was lower-cut than Maman liked, but under the circumstances, Giselle thought it appropriate.
For luck she added a locket that her half sister had given her. It contained a copy of a miniature Tory had once painted of their father. Opening it up, Giselle kissed the miniature. “Wish me luck, Father. I am going into battle with a witch, and I mean to win. Just do not look at the bodice.” Closing the locket, she went down to meet Lily Faircloth Pritchard.
She found the woman waiting for her in the drawing room, staring at a painting of Heath when he was young. Gritting her teeth, she entered and closed the door rather forcefully behind her.
Lily whirled to face her. The two of them assessed each other a moment. Lily’s gown was a sumptuous confection of pink satin and white lace, unsurprising since her husband was a wealthy merchant, but it would have flattered her better if her pretty face had not been set in such a haughty expression. “So,” she said coldly, “you are Ingram’s French fiancée.”
“I amLord Heathbrook’sfiancée, yes. And you are the woman who threw him over for another man, leaving the field wide open for me.”
That seemed to make Lily uncomfortable. Taking a seat on one of the gilded chairs with its damask upholstery, she smoothed her skirts. “Still, you haven’t known him nearly as long as I have.”
“True.” Giselle sat down on the settee. “I have only known himten years, although I might point out that I spent seven of those years seeing him daily. As opposed to you, who spent seven months, if that, in his presence?”
Lily blinked, clearly unaware of Giselle’s long connection with Heath.
“But that is of no matter,” Giselle went on with what she hoped was an elegant flip of her hand. “Perhaps before we continue much further in this conversation, you should tell me why you wished to speak to me rather than to yourformeracquaintance?”
“Former fiancé,” Lily snapped.
“His parents were unaware of any formal arrangement. So, I gather, were your parents. Thus, I hardly think you could consider yourself betrothed.”
To Giselle’s surprise, Lily’s face fell. “Lord Heathbrook told you everything that happened, then.”
“Yes.Myfiancé tells me everything.”
Shame altered the woman’s features. “Then I need to know if you will keep our secret.”
Giselle blinked. “Which secret?”
“That Zachary is our son, of course.”