The French Count's Pregnant Bride

“The youngest is a sister, and just as well, according to Henri’s father. Gérard always said that if the seventh baby had been another boy, he’d have been kicked out of the house and made to spend the rest of his days with the cows in the barn. Not that anyone believed the story. He and his wife were devoted to each other, and to their sons. But from what I understand, there’s no doubt that Jeanne was special. Their whole family adored her.”

“Does she have children, too?”

“No,” he said coolly. “Tell me, Diana, why are we talking about people who can’t possibly be of interest to you, when we could be spending the time getting to know one another better?”

Back off! the voice of caution advised. You’re betraying too much interest in the Molyneux family and arousing his suspicion! But increasingly convinced she was finally onto something, Diana ignored the warning and leaned forward urgently. “I don’t agree. Even the lives of strangers are interesting, so please go on.”

“Go on?” The chill in his voice was more pronounced than ever. “Go on with what, exactly?”

She needed to stop. To dismiss the subject with a laugh, and turn the conversation to something light and inconsequential. And she would have, if it hadn’t been that so much of what he told her fit the profile of her birth mother. Henri was almost sixty and the eldest of seven. He had only one sister, the baby of the family, and the woman Diana had traveled halfway around the world to find was forty-five. Mental arithmetic might never have been her strong point, but even she could do the math on this one.

“With what you were telling me about Henri’s family,” she said, hard-pressed not to reach across the table and literally shake the words out of him. “The whole idea of seven children in one family fascinates me.”

“Really,” he said, with marked skepticism.

“Yes, really!”

He regarded her steadfastly over the rim of his glass, and took a slow sip of his wine. “Then I’m sorry to disappoint you but there’s nothing else to tell. The Molyneux’s are good people, and that’s about it.”

He was wrong. One ambiguity remained, and terrified though she was of what she might learn if she questioned it, the prospect of remaining in ignorance terrified her even more. She’d lived with enough uncertainty to last her a lifetime. She wouldn’t allow it to derail her now. So, clearing her throat, she plunged ahead. “But I notice you speak of Henri’s sister in the past tense. Is that because she died?”

Oh, how horribly blunt the words sounded, and Anton must have thought so, too, because he almost choked on his bouillabaisse. “Mon dieu, non!” he exclaimed. “Why would you think such a thing?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, fumbling for a plausible reply. “It was just the way you spoke of her, that’s all. It made me feel…sad.”

“But why? You don’t even know these people. Why do you care about them?”

“I don’t,” she whispered, blinking furiously to stem the sudden rush of tears welling in her eyes.

But he was too observant to be so easily fooled. “That simply isn’t true. Clearly you care very much—indeed, far more than the occasion warrants. Did my speaking of the Molyneux’s somehow revive unhappy memories of your own family?”

The candle flame bloomed into a multihued disc, perforated at its rim with pinpricks of brilliance. She blinked to clear her vision and a tear rolled down her face. “In a way. Hearing you talk about families and marriage brought home to me that I don’t have either anymore.”

“Your parents—?”

“Died within six months of each other, two years ago.”

“And you were an only child?”

I don’t know for sure, she cried inwardly. That’s what I’m trying to find out. “Yes.”

“Then we have even more in common than I first supposed,” he said, with more kindness and compassion than Harvey had ever shown, “because I, too, was an only child. My parents died in a train derailment when I was seven, and I was left in the care of my two aunts who live with me still.”

“Oh, Anton!” she cried, mortified. “You must think I’m incredibly self-absorbed, to be wailing on about my own woes, when you had a much tougher time of it.”

“Not at all. My aunts are exceptional people and came as close as anyone could to taking the place of my mother and father. Of course, I grieved, but I never felt alone or abandoned, because those two women, who never married or bore children of their own, stepped into the role of parents as naturally and wholeheartedly as if they’d been preparing for it their entire lives. They loved me unconditionally, gave me the gift of laughter, instilled in me a respect for others, taught me the meaning of integrity and never once lied to me.”

He paused a moment, seeming lost in thought, then suddenly lifted his gaze and stared at Diana. The absolute candor in his eyes, the utter integrity shining through, struck her with such force that, with a sudden sense of shock, she found herself wishing he’d been the man she’d married.

Yes, he was a stranger, and yes, he made her uneasy with his probing gaze, but she knew instinctively that he’d never have cheated on her. Never have lied so cruelly.

“At the end of the day, they’re the qualities that define us as human beings. Without them, we’re not worth very much at all,” he finished soberly. “Don’t you agree?”

Shame flooded through her. How was she supposed to reply, knowing as she did that she was deliberately misleading him about herself and her reason for being there? Yet he was too astute not to notice if she tried to evade his question.

“In principle, yes,” she finally allowed, steering as clear of outright deceit as possible. “Unfortunately no one’s perfect, and even the best of us sometimes fall short.”

He continued his close observation a few unnerving seconds longer, then dropped his gaze to her hands, playing nervously with the stem of her wineglass. “I appear to have a talent for making you uncomfortable, ma chère.”

“Whatever makes you think that?”

“You keep fidgeting with your glass.”

“Well, if you must know,” she said, somehow managing to meet his unwavering gaze without flinching, “I think I might like a little more wine, after all.”

“As you wish.” He poured an inch into the bowl of her glass. “This is a Syrah and something of an experiment for us. Take a decent taste, this time, and save your dainty sipping for afternoon tea with English royalty.”

Add “insufferably arrogant” to his list of qualities, she told herself, bristling at his tone, and just to let him know she wasn’t a complete ignoramus, she took her time going through the ritual of sniffing, swirling and tasting the wine.

“Well?” he demanded imperiously. “Will it do?”

Still playing for time, she let the mouthful she’d taken linger on her tongue a moment longer, swallowed, then closed her eyes and did that weird little trick of exhaling down the back of her throat to catch a final bouquet—the mark of a true oenophile, according to Harvey, who’d always made an exorbitantly big deal of conferring approval on the wine, when they entertained or dined out.

“Delightfully complex, with a remarkable nose,” she conceded.

Harvey would have been tickled pink by her performance. Anton, on the other hand, didn’t seem at all impressed. He simply poured more wine into both their glasses and returned to a subject she’d hoped he’d forgotten about. “You mentioned earlier that you came here looking for a little peace.”

“That’s right.”

“I’ve always seen peace as a state of mind, not a place on the map.”

“Normally I’d agree with you, but I needed a change of scene, as well.”

“Why is that?”

“Because running into my ex-husband all the time wasn’t helping me recover from the breakup of my marriage.”

“You live in a small town where that sort of thing happened often, do you?”

“No. I live in Seattle.”

“Ah, the Space Needle city.” He raised his elegant eyebrows derisively. “Large enough, I’d have thought, that you could easily avoid one another, unless, of course, you work together.”

“Hardly! He’s a surgeon.”

“And what are you, Diana?” he inquired, imbuing the question with unspoken skepticism.

“Nothing,” she said, rattled as much by his questions as the cool disbelief with which he received her answers. “I was his wife, and now I’m nothing. Why are you giving me the third degree like this?”