Lady of Shame (4 page)

She gasped. The beautiful face of the chef flashed into her mind, leaving her aghast at the wayward turn of her thoughts. ‘It is the last thing I need.’

He shook his head. ‘Every gel needs a husband. You are young. You are still in your child-bearing years. A duke’s sister is quite a catch, you should do very nicely on the marriage mart.’

She didn’t want another husband. She did not want to be at another man’s beck and call, subject to his temper and foibles. She’d wanted to come home to Castonbury and hide. ‘Who would want to marry me, after all the scandal I caused?’

‘There are still plenty willing to ally themselves with this family, aye and pay for the privilege. If you want my help with these debts, you will be guided by me.’

The snare pulled tighter around her. ‘Crispin, please, I have my daughter to think of.’

‘Then think of her, not yourself. There are a few good men in this county who would see marrying my sister as a step up, and who are deep in the pockets too.’

She hesitated, panicked, not sure how to answer. She had not expected this.

‘I can’t force you to marry anyone, Claire.’ He cracked a laugh and put a hand to his chest as if it hurt. ‘I learned that lesson, but perhaps you would trust my judgement this time? You would be helping the family.’

The anxiety in his voice made her nervous. ‘How?’

‘As I said, there are some who would pay handsomely to claim kinship to a duke. And for the influence they’d gain. The estate could use an infusion of money.’

Money for the dukedom. He wanted to sell her to the highest bidder in return for welcoming her back into the family. Heart pounding, her gaze sought her child, now seated on the floor with the statue, making him march along the patterned edge of the carpet. Jane needed security and safety. This would provide it.

And this time Crispin would choose. Wisely. A choice made of reason and logic. ‘Do you have someone in mind?’

He looked pleased. ‘I’ll make up a list of possibilities. Then I advise you talk to Seagrove. Get a sense of the men. He knows people’s hearts.’

‘Seagrove?’

‘Bloody parson. You remember him. Plays chess.’

So she was to consult with the vicar about a suitable husband. It seemed a little embarrassing to say the least. ‘How is Lily Seagrove? Does she still live at home?’

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

‘N
o 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.

‘Good morning,
madame
,
mademoiselle
.’ André looked at her mother, who regarded him warily. Her grey eyes reminded him of clouds full of rain. Her smiles for her child hid fear and sadness. He had a terrible urge to offer his help, not with the snowman, but with the deeper troubles reflected in her gaze. It wasn’t his place to offer anything.

He glanced down at the heap of snow at his feet and back at the child. ‘I do not wish to intrude, but if you take a handful of snow like this—’ he bent, picked up a handful of snow and formed a ball in his gloved palms, squeezing it until it was round ‘—and then you roll it like so…’ He rolled the ball and it gathered all the snow in its path until it grew three times its size. He looked up at the child. ‘Then you will soon have his body.’

He stood up.

‘Mama, look, isn’t he clever?’

‘Very,’ the woman said, but she did not smile. She no doubt found him impertinent. And he was. It was in his nature. Dictated by his heritage, he presumed. It had got him into all sorts of trouble in his youth. But he did not need trouble now, not when he was so close to achieving his dream.

He bowed. ‘I wish you both a good day.’ He headed for the path.

‘Don’t go,’ the child called. ‘Stay and help.’

He hesitated, then turned back.

‘I am sure Monsieur André has better things to do than play at making snowmen with us,’ her mother said. She had a nice voice. Light yet musical. She spoke his name beautifully, like a Frenchwoman.

‘I have time to build
un bonhomme
.’ The words were out of his mouth before he thought about them and the little girl was looking at her mother for agreement.

The woman raised her hands from her sides in defeat. ‘Then I am sure Jane and I will appreciate the help.’

In short order the three of them were pushing a very large and very heavy ball of snow around the lawn. Twice his hand touched that of the English
madame
. He felt the shock of it all the way from his fingers to his chest. And then lower down. Deep in the pit of his belly. The rise of desire.

She moved her hand away so quickly he had the sense she had felt the tingles too. After the second time it happened, she was careful to keep the child between them.

Finally they could barely push the uneven-shaped ball it was so heavy.

‘I think it is quite big enough,’ Mrs Holte said, laughing and panting.

‘I want him to be the biggest snowman ever,’ Jane said.

‘He is,’ André said. ‘Now we need a head. Make a ball the way I did and we will start again.’

Jane pressed snow together in her hands, then raced around in larger and larger circles gathering snow on her ball, the green grass being revealed in an increasingly wide track behind her.

Breathing hard, Madame Holte watched her daughter with a smile on her lips. She was really pretty when she smiled. Not pretty. Striking. Because it was so unexpected, and so full of joy.

A joy he’d made possible.

Insanity. He’d simply stopped to help the child. He’d wanted to see the little girl happy, that was all. Children deserved to be happy.

Did they not? His childhood, the parts he allowed himself to remember, must have had some happy moments. He tried to recapture the feeling he saw in Jane’s bright eyes and flushed cheeks. The delight and the innocence ringing in her laughter. He couldn’t do it. Yet he had the sense of memories buried deep inside.

What would it be like, having his own child? A family. During the war, he had always avoided thoughts of family, children, ties. Life was too dangerous. And since then he had been working too hard to establish himself.

Watching this child at play today had created a longing that had nothing to do with lust for the mother. It was far too much like a need of the soul. It cut the ground from under his feet in a way he did not like, yet could not seem to resist.

For some reason he felt as if he stood at the brink of an abyss.

He turned away from the sight, turned to speak to the mother. ‘She is having a good time,
non
?’ He was shocked at how husky his voice sounded. How unsure.

Her face tipped up to meet his gaze. The love in her smile held him entranced. ‘She is. Thank you for your help.’

The smile was not for him. It was for the child. And still it burned a path through his chest. Not all smiles were honest. Bitter experience had taught him not to believe them. He waved a dismissive hand. ‘
De rien
. We will build the head and then I must go.’

‘Of course. Thank you.’ She gazed at him, at his face, as if seeing the man, him, André, not the servant. His breath caught as warmth changed her eyes to silver, sparkling with female interest, disguised, but there nonetheless. It fired his blood and stirred his body to life.

Breaking contact with that considering gaze and the promise it held cost him a good deal of effort.

Bad idea, André,
mon ami. Très mal.

He strode to the child, helped her finish the head and carried it back to the body all the while refusing to think about the watching woman. Refusing to think about his body’s urges.

He was a man, not a beast, after all. He’d become used to denying those urges when the only women available were those who wanted more than he had to offer, more than mere dalliance with no strings attached.

Because he’d learned early, there were no guarantees. Women were as frail in their promises as men. It was far better to trust only in oneself.

So why did this woman stir his blood to the point he could not keep these important lessons at the forefront of his mind? Was it her vulnerability feeding an urge to protect those weaker than himself? After all, he’d been fed a diet of chivalry as a very small child. Until he’d learned better. Had learned if he didn’t take care of himself, no one else would. Bitter experience had made it second nature.

And yet here he was playing in the snow with a child, to please this woman.

Whatever it was that drew him to her, it was not something he could or would do anything about.

Tomorrow was his day off. He would go to town and be rid of his excess energy in the boxing ring. And afterwards, if he still felt the need, he would find a willing woman. Then this little brown mouse would have no more effect on him after that. None at all. He wished he believed it.

‘There,’ he said to Jane, forming the shoulders. ‘Scoop some grooves to make his arms and then go to the kitchen and tell Mademoiselle Becca you are to have some coal for eyes and a carrot for a nose.’ He glanced at her mother, who was smiling admiringly. ‘Perhaps one of the other servants has an old hat he would be willing to donate.’

Mrs Holte nodded. ‘I expect we can find something.’

‘Then I bid you good day,
madame
,
mademoiselle
.’ His bow was jerky, as if his body wanted to refuse the instruction from his mind.

He strode away, angry at himself for wanting more than life permitted.

A man’s prick could land him in all sorts of trouble. He’d seen it time and again. He had no intention of losing everything he’d worked for in the hope of making a quiet woman smile.

He groaned out loud as he felt a surge of warmth in his veins at the memory of her smile. A soft tender warmth that made no sense. The woman was of the nobility. Not for him, a servant, even if he could ever be interested. Which he could not. He knew that kind of woman and did not like them at all.

He smiled ruefully. He had his life. His passion. He didn’t need a woman to complete him. He didn’t need anyone.

What he needed was eggs.

* * *

Buxton was the same thriving market town Claire remembered from her youth. It had not taken her long, after descending from the duke’s carriage, to remember her way around. Now Joe had an armful of parcels and she had depleted most of the money Mr Everett, the Castonbury steward, had given her from the duke’s strongbox.

She’d done well with her money. A couple of ready-made gowns for her and Jane to be going on with until the seamstress came by to measure her for gowns in the lovely material she’d picked up from Ripley and Hall in Castonbury village. She’d bargained well for her items as she’d learned to do over the past years and now she was exhausted. And cold. Her toes were numb in her worn boots where the slush on the pavement had seeped in, dampening her stockings.

Opposite her was the Bricklayer’s Arms. A coaching house boasting a coffee room, a taproom and private parlours for gentry, but it would not do for her to be seen there. Hard up against the inn was a gymnasium through whose portals men were to be seen coming and going singly and in groups.

But there was one place she could go to warm up without embarrassment. She turned back to Joe. ‘Take those to the carriage and wait for me there. I am going into the lending library.’

She pointed to the building opposite the market cross. She couldn’t remember the last time she had borrowed a book. Goodness, she couldn’t remember the last time she had read one.

A bell jingled as she walked through the library door and a clerk at the counter looked up with a smile. She nodded as only the daughter of a duke could do.

‘Can I help you, madam?’ the clerk asked.

‘What do you have that is new?’