Lady of Shame

The duke raised his head. ‘Aye. For the nonce. She’s to marry Giles in the summer.’

Now that was a surprise. ‘I didn’t think they liked each other.’

The duke’s eyes began to glaze as if the topic wearied him. Dash it, she had one more thing to ask. ‘I was wondering if Jane and I could stay here at Castonbury.’

‘Stay? Yes, stay. What else did you think? No females here at the moment, I’m afraid. No one to act as chaperone. Phaedra is off somewhere with her aunt Wilhelmina. Ask Smithins where they went. He’ll know.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Kate married, you know.’ He leaned closer. ‘An American.’

He made it sound as if she’d married a criminal. She’d seen the notice in the papers and had dithered about sending congratulations. She wasn’t even sure Kate would remember her. And Phaedra had been so young when she left.

The lost years saddened her. ‘I’m a widow. I don’t need a chaperone, but if I am to meet these men, I will need to entertain a little.’

‘That’s the ticket. Catch yourself a husband.’ He nodded as if they hadn’t just discussed the matter in detail. ‘I’ll have that steward of mine give you some pin money. We can’t have you looking like a crow. You are a Montague.’

Tears scalded the back of her throat. ‘You really are too kind, Crispin.’

‘Should have run the bugger through. That would have been kind. I was as hotheaded as you, I suppose. I wanted you to learn your lesson.’

She bowed her head. ‘I did. You don’t know how often I regretted what I did.’

He glared at Jane, who had wandered back to stand at Claire’s side. ‘Learn from your mother, girl. Do what your family expects.’

Jane visibly wilted.

Crispin turned his head to stare into the fire. ‘We need Jamie. That’s who we need. He would have known what to do.’

Smithins appeared as silent as a wraith at Claire’s elbow. ‘Best leave now, Mrs Holte. I will issue his instructions.’ He gestured to the door.

Claire rose and took Jane’s hand.

‘Why, he has fallen asleep,’ Jane said, looking at her uncle, bending over to peer right up into his face. ‘Uncle Duke?’

Smithins smothered a giggle. ‘He’ll rest now until lunch. It’s the laudanum, you know. It keeps the pain at bay.’

‘Come, Jane,’ Claire said. ‘Let us leave your uncle Rothermere to his nap.’ She led the child outside.

The smell of illness lingered in her nostrils.

‘Why don’t we go for a walk?’ she said to Jane.

The little girl gave a skip. ‘Can we make a snowman?’

‘I don’t see why not.’ Fresh air would help her come to grips with this new development. Find a husband? She almost laughed hysterically. Seemingly she had stepped from the frying pan into the fire.

Her stomach gave a sickening lurch.

Chapter Four

‘No eggs?’ André growled.

Becca shrugged.

‘Sacrebleu. How am I supposed to provide dinner without eggs?’

The girl looked at him with a considering gaze. André half expected her to tell him. The girl was as nervous as a cat most of the time, but when they were alone in the kitchen, she sometimes displayed a hidden courage. He tried to encourage it.

‘What flea’s biting you this morning, monsieur?’ she asked instead.

‘I beg your pardon? I do not have fleas.’

‘You’ve been as bad tempered as a dog with fleas since you got in here this morning. Which one bit you?’

Ah, the English vernacular. It always caught him out.

Yes, he had been out of temper. Not screaming and yelling as some chefs did when angry, but edgy and perhaps a little too sharp. It was his unexpected response to the Englishwoman that had unsettled him. His urge to help, when she had been quite clear she needed nothing from him. Such concern for a highborn woman wasn’t like him. And it certainly wasn’t Becca’s fault that there were no eggs in the pantry. ‘I beg your pardon, mademoiselle.’

She stifled a giggle behind a red work-roughened hand. She always did that when he called her mademoiselle. It made him smile back.

‘The boy didn’t bring no eggs yesterday afternoon,’ she said, bending to grab another potato. ‘I wondered why you didn’t ask him.’

She could have said something. He was lucky they’d had enough for breakfast. Merde, he’d been so incensed about Mrs Holte eating none of his sandwiches, so keen on making something to tempt her at dinner, he hadn’t noticed.

She’d made him forget what he was about, with her pale face and the crescents of lavender beneath sad grey eyes. And led him to go where he was not welcome. Her dismissal still irked.

He let go a sigh. There was no one to blame but himself and therefore he must solve the problem. He would go to the Dower House and see if the cook there had any eggs to spare. If not he would be walking to the village. In either case a walk would do him good. Clear his head of visions of the mousy Englishwoman who intruded upon his thoughts when he least expected.

He didn’t like skinny women. He liked them plump and curvaceous, with hearty appetites at the table and in bed. Women who did not cling or need cosseting. Women who enjoyed and moved on as he did. It was better that way.

Mrs Holte looked as if she needed a strong arm at her waist, or she would blow away in one of the infernal winds that swept down from the foothills they called Peaks. No, Mrs Holte was not his style at all.

So why could he not get her out of his mind?

He tossed his hat on the desk in his tiny office where he kept his papers and accounts and hung up his apron. He grabbed his coat from the hook behind the door. ‘I will not be more than an hour or two. Finish the potatoes and the root vegetables. They should keep you employed until I return. Agnes can help you when Madame Stratton has finished with them. Tell Charlie to bring in more wood, and coal too.’

Tonight there would be no untried dishes.

He stepped out into a grey day. Clouds obscured the hills he scorned and had left a fresh layer of white over the ground. Barely enough to cover the toes of his boots. He turned up his coat collar and headed for the path that wandered across the grounds to the small house set aside for the widow of the heir.

As he left the courtyard the wind hit him full force, tugging at his coat and making him grab for his hat. But it wasn’t the wind that took his breath away; it was the sight of the woman and the child in the middle of the lawn scooping snow into a pile.

Building un bonhomme de neige. How many years was it since he had entered into such a childish game? A long time. If ever. He shook his head. Once, he recalled, the soldiers in his company had flung snowballs around. Then they’d created a man of snow and topped it with a shako, calling it their captain’s name and telling him what they thought of him. They’d all been very drunk, but they had laughed until they fell down. They were lucky not to have been flogged for such foolishness.

He’d been fifteen.

He stood watching them, mother and daughter. He heard their laughter carried on the wind. It made him want to smile. He liked children. He liked their innocence. Their lack of guile. He especially liked that Madame Claire would spend time with her child, instead of leaving her to a nursemaid. She was a woman to be admired.

He narrowed his eyes. They were making a very poor job of the man of snow.

He found himself walking closer. The child saw him first. ‘Have you come to help?’ she asked in a high piping voice. Her cheeks were rosy from the wind, her eyes bright, her smile welcoming.