The Earl's Untouched Bride

Charles reeled back in his seat. ‘You are not…not…’

‘Felice? No.’ The young woman who knelt before him returned his look rather defiantly. ‘I regret the deception, but I did not think you would agree to see anyone but her today. And so I led your butler to believe I was she. And, indeed, the deception was not so very great. You were expecting Mademoiselle Bergeron, and I am Mademoiselle Bergeron…’

‘You are entirely the wrong Mademoiselle Bergeron,’ he snapped. How could he have mistaken the much shorter and utterly plain Heloise for her beautiful, glamorous, and entirely captivating younger sister? He couldn’t blame the bonnet, though the peak of it did protrude from her face by over a foot, nor the heavy veil that was suspended from it, though it had concealed her features. He had wanted to see Felice, he acknowledged painfully. He had clung to the faint hope that there had been some dreadful mistake, and that she had come to tell him that she wanted no other man but him. And so he had seen what he wanted to see. What kind of fool did that make him?

Heloise swallowed nervously. She had been expecting a little antagonism, but the reality of facing a man whose heart had been broken was altogether more daunting than she had supposed it would be.

‘No,’ she persisted. ‘I do not think you will find that I am when you hear what I have to propose…’

‘I cannot imagine what you hope to accomplish by coming here and prostrating yourself in this manner,’ he began angrily.

‘Oh, no—how could you, when I have not yet explained? But you only need to listen for a very few minutes and I will tell you!’ Suddenly very conscious that she was still kneeling like a supplicant at his feet, she glanced about the room.

‘May I sit upon one of these so comfortable-looking chairs, my lord? This floor it is most hard, and really I do not see that you can take me at all seriously if I do not make some effort to look more rational. Only I did not know what was to become of me if you did not let me in. I was followed all the way from the Tuileries gardens by a contingent of the National Guard of the most vile manners. They refused to believe at all that I am a respectable female, merely visiting a friend of the family who also happens to be an English milord, and that they would be entirely sorry for accusing me of the things they did—for why should I not be entirely innocent? Just because you are English, that does not make me a bad person, or unpatriotic at all, even if I am not wearing either the white lily or the violet. If they are going to arrest anyone, it should have been the crowd who were brawling in the gardens, not someone who does not care at all that the emperor has gone, and that a Bourbon sits on the throne. Not but that they got the chance, because your so kind butler permitted me to enter the hall the moment he saw how things were, and even if you would not see me, he said there was a door to the back through the kitchens from which I could return home, after I had drunk a little something to restore my nerves…’

The Earl found he had no defence against the torrent of words that washed over him. She didn’t even seem to pause for breath until Giddings returned, bearing a tray upon which was a bottle of Madeira and two glasses.

She’d risen to her feet, removed her bonnet and gloves, and perched on the edge of the chair facing him, twittering all the while like some little brown bird, hopping about and fluffing its plumage before finally roosting for the night.

She smiled and thanked Giddings as she took the proffered drink, but her hand shook so much that she spilled several drops down the front of her coat.

‘I am sorry that you have been offered insults,’ he heard himself saying as she dabbed ineffectually at the droplets soaking into the cloth. ‘But you should have known better than to come to my house alone.’ Far from being the haven for tourists that he had been led to believe, many Parisians were showing a marked hostility to the English. It had started, so he had been reliably informed, when trade embargoes had been lifted and cheap English goods had come on sale again. But tensions were rising between die-hard Bonapartists and supporters of the new Bourbon regime as well. If factions were now brawling in the Tuileries gardens, then Mademoiselle Bergeron might well not be safe to venture out alone. ‘I will have you escorted home…’

‘Oh, not yet!’ she exclaimed, a look of dismay on her face. ‘For you have not heard what I came to say!’

‘I am waiting to hear it,’ he replied dryly. ‘I have been waiting since you walked through the door.’

Heloise drained the contents of her glass and set it down smartly upon the table that Giddings had placed thoughtfully at her elbow.

‘Forgive me. I am so nervous, you see. I tend to babble when I am nervous. Well, I was only nervous when I set out. But then, after the incident in the Tuileries, I became quite scared, and then—’

‘Mademoiselle Bergeron!’ He slapped the arm of his chair with decided irritation. ‘Will you please come to the point?’

‘Oh.’ She gulped, her face growing hot. It was not at all easy to come to the point with a man as icily furious as the Earl of Walton. In fact, if she wasn’t quite so desperate, she would wish she hadn’t come here at all. Looking into those chips of ice that he had for eyes, and feeling their contempt for her chilling her to the marrow, Heloise felt what little courage she had left ebb away. Sitting on a chair instead of staying prostrate at his feet had not redressed their positions at all. She still had to look up to meet his forbidding features, for the Earl was quite a tall man. And she had nothing with which to combat his hostility but strength of will. Not beauty, or grace, or cleverness. She had the misfortune to have taken after her mother in looks. While Felice had inherited her father’s even features and long-limbed grace, she had got the Corbiere nose, diminutive size, and nondescript colouring. Her only weapon was an idea. But what an idea! If he would only hear her out, it would solve all their difficulties at a stroke!

‘It is quite simple, after all,’ she declared. ‘It is that I think you should marry me instead of Felice.’

She cocked her head to one side as she waited for his response, reminding him of a street sparrow begging for crumbs. Before he could gather his wits, she had taken another breath and set off again.

‘I know you must think that this is preposterous just at first. But only think of the advantages!’

‘Advantages for whom?’ he sneered. He had never thought of little Heloise as a scheming gold-digger before. But then nor had he thought her capable of such fluent speech. Whenever she had played chaperon for himself and her sister she had been so quiet he had tended to forget she was there at all. He had been quite unguarded, he now recalled with mounting irritation, assuming, after a few half-hearted attempts to draw her out, that she could not speak English very well.

Though the look he sent her was one that had frozen the blood in the veins of full-grown men, Heloise was determined to have her say.

‘Why, for you, of course! Unless…Your engagement to Felice has not been announced in England yet, has it? She told me you had not sent any notice to the London papers. And of course in Paris, though everyone thinks they know that you wished to marry Felice, you have only to say, when they see me on your arm instead of my sister, “You will find you are mistaken,” in that tone you use for giving an encroaching person a set-down, if anyone should dare to question you, and that will be that!’

‘But why, pray, should I wish to say any such thing?’

‘So that nobody will know she broke your heart, of course!’ Her words, coupled with her look of genuine sympathy, touched a place buried so deep inside him that for years he had been denying its very existence.

‘I know how her actions must have bruised your pride, too,’ she ploughed on, astonishing him with the accuracy of her observations. Even Conningsby claimed he had not guessed how deep his feelings ran until the night before, when, in his cups, he’d poured out the whole sorry tale. But this girl, of whom he had never taken much notice, had read him like an open book.

‘But this way nobody will ever guess! You are so good at keeping your face frozen, so that nobody can tell what you are truly feeling. You can easily convince everyone that it was my family that wished for the match, and that they put Felice forward, but all the time it was me in whom you were interested, for I am the eldest, or—oh, I am sure you can come up with some convincing reason. For of course they would not believe that you could truly be attracted to me. I know that well! And if any rumours about a Mademoiselle Bergeron have reached as far as London—well, I have already shown you how one Mademoiselle Bergeron may enter a room as another. Nobody else need know it was quite another Mademoiselle Bergeron you had set your sights on. If you marry me, you may walk round Paris with your head held high, and return home with your pride intact!’

‘You are talking nonsense. Arrant nonsense!’ He sprang from his chair, and paced moodily towards the sideboard. He had ridden out malicious gossip before. He could do so again. ‘The connection with your family is severed,’ he snapped, grasping the decanter, then slamming it back onto the tray on discovering it was still empty. He was not going to be driven from Paris because a few tattle-mongers had nothing better to talk about than a failed love affair. Nor would anything induce him to betray his hurt by so much as a flicker of an eyelid. ‘I see no need to restore it!’

He turned to see her little face crumple. Her shoulders sagged. He braced himself for a further outpouring as he saw her eyes fill with tears. But she surprised him yet again. Rising to her feet with shaky dignity, she said, ‘Then I apologise for intruding on you this morning. I will go now.’

She had reached the door and was fumbling her hands into her gloves when he cried out, ‘Wait!’ His quarrel was not with her. She had never given him a moment’s trouble during the entire time he had been courting Felice. She had never voiced any protest, no matter where they had dragged her, though at times he had been able to tell she had been uncomfortable. All she had done on those occasions was withdraw into the shadows, as though she wished to efface herself from the scene completely. That was more her nature, he realised with a flash of insight. To have come here this morning and voiced that ridiculous proposition must have been the hardest thing for her to do. It had not been only the brush with the National Guard that had made her shake with fright.

He had no right to vent his anger on her. Besides, to let her out alone and unprotected onto the streets was not the act of a gentleman.

‘Mademoiselle,’ he said stiffly, ‘I told you I would ensure you returned to your house safely. Please, won’t you sit down again, while I get Giddings to summon a cabriolet?’

‘Thank you,’ she sighed, leaning back against the door. ‘It was not at all pleasant getting here. I had no idea! To think I was glad Maman had turned off Joanne, so that it was an easy matter for me to sneak out without anyone noticing.’ She shook her head ruefully. ‘It is true what Papa says. I am a complete imbecile. When I had to pass that crowd in the Tuileries, I knew how stupid I had been. Then to walk right up to the door of an Englishman, on my own, as though I was a woman of no virtue…’

Seeing her tense white face, Charles felt impelled to check the direction of her thoughts.

‘Please, sit down on the sofa while you are waiting.’

She did so, noting with a start that her bonnet still lay amongst its cushions. As she picked it up, turning it over in her hands as though it was an object she had never seen before, he continued, ‘Whatever prompted you to take such drastic steps to come to my house, mademoiselle? I cannot believe you are so concerned about my wounded pride, or my—’ He checked himself before alluding to his allegedly broken heart.

She turned crimson, suddenly becoming very busy untangling the ribbons of her bonnet. Her discomfort brought a sudden suspicion leaping to his mind.

‘Never tell me you are in love with me!’ The notion that this plain young woman had been harbouring a secret passion for him, while he had been making love to her sister under her very nose, gave him a very uncomfortable feeling. ‘I had no idea! I did not think you even liked me!’

Her head flew up, an arrested expression on her face when she detected the tiniest grain of sympathy in the tone of his voice. ‘Would you marry me, then, if I said I loved you?’ she breathed, her eyes filled with hope. But as he returned her gaze steadily she began to look uncomfortable. Worrying at her lower lip with her teeth, she hung her head.

‘It is no good,’ she sighed. ‘I cannot tell you a lie.’ She sank back against the cushions, her whole attitude one of despondency. ‘I’m not clever enough to make you believe it. And apart from that,’ she continued, as Charles settled into his favourite fireside chair with a profound feeling of relief, ‘I confess I did dislike you when you first came calling on Felice and she encouraged your attentions. Even though Maman said I was letting the family down by making my disapproval plain, and Felice insisted I was being a baby. But I couldn’t help feeling as I did.’ She frowned. ‘Although, really, it was not you at all I did not like, so much as the idea of you. You see?’

He had just opened his mouth to reply that he did not see at all, when she continued, ‘and then, when I got to know you better, and saw how much you truly felt for Felice, even though you hid it so well, I couldn’t dislike you at all. Indeed, I felt most sorry for you, because I knew she never cared for you in the least.’

When she saw a flash of surprise flicker across his face, she explained.

‘Well, how could she, when she had been in love with Jean-Claude for ever? Even though Maman and Papa had forbidden the match, because he has no money at all. I really hated the way you dazzled them all with your wealth and elegance and seemed to make Felice forget Jean-Claude.’ Her face brightened perceptibly. ‘But of course you hadn’t at all. She merely used your visits as a smokescreen to fool Maman into thinking she was obeying her orders, which gave Jean-Claude time to make plans for their escape. Which is all as it should be.’ She sighed dreamily. ‘She was not false to her true love.’ She sat up straight suddenly, looking at him with an expression of chagrin. ‘Though she was very cruel to you when you did not deserve it at all. Even if you are an Englishman.’

Charles found himself suddenly conscious of a desire to laugh. ‘So, you wish to marry me to make up for your sister’s cruel treatment of me? In fact because you feel sorry for me—is that it?’

She looked at him hopefully for a few seconds, before once more lowering her eyes and shaking her head.

‘No, it is not that. Not only that. Although I should like to make things right for you. Of course I should. Because of my sister you have suffered a grievous hurt. I know you can never feel for me what you felt for her, but at least your pride could be restored by keeping the nature of her betrayal a secret. It is not too late. If you acted today, if you made Papa give his consent today, we could attend a function together this evening and stop the gossip before it starts.’ She looked up at him with eyes blazing with intensity. ‘Together, we could sort out the mess she has left behind. For it is truly terrible at home.’ She shook her head mournfully. ‘Maman has taken to her bed. Papa is threatening to shoot himself, because now there is not to be the connection with you he can see no other way out.’ She twined one of the bonnet ribbons round her index finger as she looked at him imploringly. ‘You would only have to stroll in and say, “Never mind about Felice. I will take the other one,” in that off-hand way you have, as though you don’t care about anything at all, and he would grovel at your feet in gratitude. Then nobody would suspect she broke your heart! Even if they really believe you wanted to marry her, when they hear of the insouciance with which you took me they will have to admit they were mistaken!’

‘I see,’ he said slowly. ‘You wish to save your family from some sort of disgrace which my marrying Felice would have averted. That is admirable, but—’

The look of guilt on her face stopped him in his tracks. He could see yet another denial rising to her lips.

‘Not family honour?’ he ventured.