Lady of Shame

by Ann Lethbridge

‘Every girl needs a governess,’ she pronounced over the top of her embroidery frame.

  ‘All in good time.’ Claire smiled sweetly and drove her needle through the handkerchief she was hemming. ‘When she feels comfortable here, I will employ a governess.’

  ‘Spoiled,’ Aunt Wilhelmina said. ‘You were spoiled. Look where it got you.’

  Claire took a couple of deep breaths. ‘I am sure you didn’t mean to be rude, Aunt Wilhelmina.’

  The older lady looked up surprised. Then visibly wilted. ‘I apologise,’ she said gruffly. ‘I am too used to speaking my mind. I will ring for the tea tray.’ She set her frame aside.

  Claire jumped to her feet. ‘Let me.’

  ‘I thought Phaedra would have joined us by now.’

  ‘She is giving Jane a lesson, I believe.’

  ‘She should be here, plying her needle.’

  ‘It is no good wanting Phaedra to be different, Aunt Wilhelmina. She is as she is. And she will join us when she is ready.’

  Wilhelmina sniffed, but said no more as Lumsden wheeled the tea tray before her. ‘The post, madam. It finally arrived,’ he intoned.

  There were quite a number of letters on the tray. The older lady shuffled through them. She frowned. ‘There is one for you, Claire.’ She turned the note this way and that as if the outside would reveal the contents. ‘Not like you to receive mail.’

  No, it wasn’t. Claire’s stomach dipped. No one apart from the family and the locals knew she was here at Castonbury. Her pulse started to race. She held out her hand for the letter.

  The seal was plain and she didn’t know the bold black handwriting, yet she had an odd feeling of recognition.

  She split the seal with her thumbnail and heard Wilhelmina give a tsk of disapproval.

  As she unfolded the note a dog-eared stained slip of paper fell out into her lap. The note was blank. Was it some sort of horrid jest? She picked up the piece of paper and gasped.

  IOU E. Pratt the sum of three thousand pounds—George Harrowgane Holte

  Diagonally across it were printed the words Paid in full. E. Pratt.

  Blankly she stared at George’s vowels. Returned by whom? Pratt? It hardly seemed likely. Did this really mean he was paid?

  Only one person knew about this debt. But surely he could not have paid off such a large sum?

  ‘Is it bad news?’ Aunt Wilhelmina asked. ‘You’ve gone as white as the cup in your hand.’

  ‘No,’ she said, feeling giddy. ‘Not bad news at all.’ She glanced at the note again, her heart filling with joy. ‘It is the freedom to choose.’

  Aunt Wilhelmina’s jaw dropped open. ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘Excuse me, I must speak with Giles right away. I must seek him out.’

  ‘You gels, always dashing about on some mad start or other. It wouldn’t have done in my day. You need to send him a note by way of Lumsden. Wait for him to invite you to his office.’

  Claire picked up both pieces of paper and rose to her feet. ‘I think Giles needs to hear about this right away.’ She fled for the study.

  Freedom. The word buzzed around in her brain like a trapped bee behind the curtains on a summer day. Before she dare let it out, she had to be sure she had read it right.

  * * *

  ‘For a man reduced to chopping onions for a living, you seem remarkably cheerful,’ Jeremy said, his hands on his hips grinning at André. ‘Though I must say Grillons is lucky to have you back.’

  ‘Thank you, mon ami,’ André said, chopping at full speed. The sooner he was done, the sooner the tears would stop. The heavy weight on his chest, however, would remain. Yet he wasn’t sorry for what he’d done.

  A few bouts in Jackson’s saloon and he would soon feel like his old self. He really wished he believed that.

  ‘So what happened to all your big plans of a hotel and a restaurant?’

  ‘A question of money.’

  ‘Investors let you down?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I would be willing to join you. If you would care for a partner. I’ve a bit put away.’

  Rely on yourself. Trust no one. Don’t get involved. It was the creed he’d lived by since he was ten. A creed he’d already broken. And yet he felt more content with himself than he’d felt for years. Not happy, but a sense of knowing he’d done the right thing. ‘We will discuss it over a bottle when we are finished here.’

  Jeremy grinned. ‘I’d like that.’

  The rest of the night passed in a blur of orders from the maître d’. Finally they found themselves back in the room they shared on the top floor of the hotel. It was no different to the room he’d had at Castonbury, except it had two beds instead of one. A stark reminder of his reduced status.

  Weary, but elated at the compliments he and Jeremy had received throughout the evening, André pulled a bottle of vin ordinaire from under his cot.

  He opened the bottle and poured two glasses. ‘Thank you for putting in a good word for me with the head chef.’

  ‘Thank you for the holiday at Castonbury,’ Jeremy said. ‘And for filling in here in my absence. Sorry I had to come and take my old job back.’

  ‘I thought they might keep you at Castonbury.’

  ‘They would have. It was just too flaming quiet. Not one dinner party in two weeks.’

  ‘But Mrs Holte remains in residence.’

  ‘She does. And Lord Giles and Lady Phaedra arrived a day or two after you left.’

  ‘Did you see Mademoiselle Jane?’

  He pulled out his pipe. ‘A couple of times. Looking for you.’

  André felt impossibly sad. ‘She liked coming to the kitchen.’

  ‘Ah, but Lady Phaedra is giving her riding lessons, I’m told.’

  The right thing for the niece of a duke to learn. The child would soon forget him. She was female, wasn’t she? Somehow the realisation made him feel worse. ‘The lady will need to keep an eye on that young miss—she will wander where she is not supposed to go.’ Perhaps the new husband would keep her in order. As long as he wasn’t harsh. The child was bright, it would be a shame to squash her spirit. And Claire. How would she feel about a man interfering in her child’s upbringing?

  He didn’t want to think about it.

  Jeremy chuckled. ‘She went missing the day before I left.’

  André felt his heart beat a little harder against his ribs. Anxiety. ‘But she was found, of course.’

  ‘Up a tree. Trying to see into a bird’s nest.’

  André laughed at the image.

  ‘They needed a ladder to get her down.’

  ‘I expect her mother was frantic.’

  ‘Apparently not. She was laughing so hard she had to ask Joe Coyle to climb up the ladder in her stead.’

  André felt a glow of pride. It seemed Claire had been able to put her fears to rest. ‘Is she engaged yet?’ he asked casually. Too casually, apparently, because Jeremy raised a brow.

  Sacrebleu, why had he asked? He did not want to know.

  ‘If so I never heard anything of it.’

  Time to change the subject. ‘And the other servants. Mademoiselle Becca?’

  ‘All still the same.’

  They subsided into the silence of old friends.

  ‘I see you’ve been through the mill a couple of times recently.’ Jeremy jerked his chin at André’s face and then gave his knuckles a pointed glance.

  ‘A little argument with a bully.’ Who had wanted to keep him from seeing an ugly customer named Pratt. ‘It is nothing.’ It had felt good to teach Pratt and his man a lesson they would not forget. Once he’d paid them their money.

  ‘So what about this partnership, then?’ Jeremy asked.

  André grimaced apologetically. ‘It will be a good while before I have enough money, but if you would care to wait?’ He shrugged.

  Jeremy sucked on his empty pipe and put it down with a glower of disgust. ‘You didn’t gamble it away, did you? I don’t hold with gambling. It takes a
man down too far and too fast.’

  ‘I had a friend who needed help.’

  ‘Will he pay you back?’

  ‘No.’ He didn’t want repayment. Being able to do something, one small thing for Claire, had eased some of the pain he’d felt at leaving.

  ‘So how long will it take, do you think?’

  ‘Two, three years, if I work hard. I will find a good position with one of the political hostesses perhaps. Find a patron.’

  ‘All right. I’m in.’ Jeremy stuck out his hand.

  André shook it and poured them both another glass of wine, which they downed in one swallow. A gentleman’s agreement, they called it in England.

  ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to have a puff of me pipe out in the alley before I turns into bed. I know you don’t like the smoke so I will take it outside.’

  ‘I appreciate your thoughtfulness, mon ami.’

  Jeremy put on his coat, wound a scarf around his neck and left. André looked at the half-drunk bottle. When he was busy, he didn’t feel so bad, but when he was alone, the pain of loss returned. What had she said? Love is a selfless thing? Did he love her? He wasn’t sure he could love anyone, but he did know he couldn’t have felt happier than when he paid off that villain Pratt with money and his fists.

  And if Claire was laughing at her daughter’s antics, then it seemed he’d made a good choice, whatever it was called.

  And for some reason he was happy about deciding to take Jeremy on as a partner when he had never wanted any permanent attachments in his life. Perhaps it was the dark void inside him he was trying to fill.

  Perhaps he’d filled a corner.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Giles glanced up and down the alley at the back of Grillons Hotel, and kept a firm hold on Claire’s elbow. ‘This is no place for a lady. Let me go in and bring him down to you. You can meet in the carriage.’

  As sorry as she felt for putting Giles in this uncomfortable position she was not going to let him change her mind. ‘Your presence will make things difficult. He will feel constrained. Perhaps even obliged. I don’t want that.’

  He muttered something unflattering under his breath. ‘I think I am a damned fool. I will give you five minutes, then I will come up and find you.’

  ‘Ten.’ If she could not get her business done in ten minutes it would not get done at all. ‘You’ve done your part, Giles. You settled things with His Grace, and you found Monsieur Deval. This is my part to play.’

  ‘It was little enough. I simply looked where I found him in the first place.’ He rubbed at the back of his head, knocking his hat askew in his concern. ‘You always were a stubborn woman, Claire. I can only hope you are not making another mistake.’

  She hoped so too. She pulled her arm free.

  The back door to the hotel opened to discharge a huge man, who huddled against an alley wall to light a pipe.

  ‘Chef Jeremy,’ Claire called out, recognising his face in the glow of the tobacco.

  The big man turned towards them, his body tense. ‘Who is there?’

  ‘Lord Giles Montague,’ Giles announced, stepping between Claire and the taut Jeremy. Protective. He just couldn’t help himself.

  Claire stepped around Giles’s bulk. ‘It is Mrs Holte. Can you tell me where I can find Monsieur Deval?’

  Jeremy came closer, eyeing her warily. ‘Good evening, madam. A bit late to come calling, isn’t it? Is aught amiss?’

  ‘I simply wish to have words with him.’

  Chef Jeremy looked at her, then at Giles still bristling defensively at her side. ‘I’ll fetch him down, then, shall I?’

  ‘No.’ She spoke too sharply for he recoiled. ‘Tell me where to find him and I will go up. Alone.’

  The man’s jaw dropped, folding his many chins in creases. ‘No women allowed in the men’s rooms.’

  ‘I told you,’ Giles said.

  ‘I won’t be but a moment. Tell me where to find him.’

  The fat man’s face split in a grin. ‘It won’t be the first time a woman found her way up to the men’s quarters.’ He winked at Giles, who glowered. ‘Third floor, first door on the left.’

  Finally. She had begun to think she would have to send Giles up for him, after all. ‘Ten minutes,’ she said to Giles, and passed through the door Chef Jeremy held open and climbed the stairs.

  * * *

  André stoppered the wine bottle with a regretful sigh. Oblivion tonight, headache tomorrow. He needed all his wits about him if he was to move up through the ranks again. He would have to work hard to recoup enough funds to move on, even with a partner.

  Once the pain of missing Claire left him, everything would go as planned. And wine wasn’t going to help with that.

  He knelt to slide the bottle under the bed. The door opened behind him. ‘That was fast, mon ami. The wind is too cold, non?’

  ‘André?’

  He spun around on his knees, not sure he believed what he was hearing. He did believe his eyes. ‘Claire?’

  She stood in the doorway, lovely, doubtful, unsure. ‘Oh, my word, what happened to your face?’

  ‘Qu’est-ce que c’est?’ He shook his head at his foolish tongue. ‘What is wrong? Is it Jane?’’

  She clasped her hands behind her back, looking small and vulnerable and as if she had not slept well. ‘Jane is fine. I wanted to thank you. For what you did. It is such a weight off my shoulders.’

  He rose slowly to his feet. He had not anticipated her seeking him out. He had not thought he would have to say goodbye to her again. He did not want this. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

  ‘The money.’

  He shook his head. ‘I beg your pardon, I do not understand. Please go. You should not be here.’

  Her lovely grey eyes darkened like storm clouds over the peaks. ‘I am not a fool, André. You spoke of buying a hotel, of owning your own restaurant, yet here you are back working for someone else, while I am debt-free.’

  He’d been right. She was a tiger and right now she had her claws out. He fought for control. ‘Your family would not approve of your coming here.’

  ‘They know where I am.’

  ‘And Jane?’

  ‘She is at Castonbury with her cousin, Lady Phaedra.’ A small smile tugged at her lips. ‘I didn’t dare tell her I planned to see you. She would have insisted on coming with me. She misses you.’

  Something hard and hot squeezed up behind his nose and made his eyes want to water. He turned away from her, staring at the stark white wall above the head of his cot. ‘So, now you have thanked me you can go.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked softly. ‘Why did you give up all your grand plans to help me?’

  How did one put the emotion that had urged him on into words. I felt sorry for you? That would make her angry. And it really wasn’t true and she would know. ‘You deserved it,’ he said finally. ‘It was what you said. Your unselfish love for your child deserved its reward.’

  ‘And you? Don’t you deserve your reward?’

  A jolt when through his body at the thought of the form such a reward might take. He tamped it down. This wasn’t about sex. It had gone far beyond that. Too far for him to feel comfortable.

  ‘I don’t need a reward.’

  ‘Not if the reward was me?’

  Another searing jolt. He turned to face her with a frown.

  She shook her head. ‘That did not come out the way I meant. André, you gave me the freedom to choose for myself. What if I choose you?’

  He stared at her, dumbfounded, then laughed, to hide his shock and the leap of longing in his heart. The thoughts of a home and a family. The old fear twisted in his chest. The fear that it wouldn’t last. The painful landing was almost too much to endure, yet he somehow managed to raise a brow. ‘Now who is mad?’ he said, not surprised to find his voice raw and hoarse. ‘I am a chef. I would not put you in the position of sinking so low, or going against your family.’

  ‘And if they a
pprove?’

  It was like being a fish caught on a line twisting and turning, trying to break free. Only a very clever fish could do that. ‘They wouldn’t.’

  ‘They would approve if you were a hotelier, with prospects. I could help you. I am not afraid of hard work.’

  Help him? When all he had wanted was the privilege of helping her? How could he allow her to stoop so low? ‘There is no hotel.’ He gestured around the bare room, fought to gain control of the longing that interfered with his thoughts and his reason. ‘And I am quite content with this. I have women aplenty and no ties or responsibilities. As long as I have my knives, I can take my skills anywhere I wish, because I have no one to hold me back. I do not want a wife. I have never wanted a wife. We had a liaison. It was very nice. It is over.’

  He turned away from the hurt in her eyes. Fought to control the shaking in his body. Tried to find the anger in his heart that had always shielded him from such powerful emotions when it came to people. She’d carved her way through the barrier to the stupid softness inside. The part that had cried when his mother left him. The part he thought he had eradicated.

  This past week he’d made a good job of repairing the walls, he could not let her break them down again.

  ‘What are you so afraid of, André?’

  The whispered question drove the breath from his body. An accusation of cowardice. A sly blow from his blind side. She was wrong. He was afraid of nothing. It was not possible to be afraid when you lived by your wits. And living by his wits was what he did best.

  ‘Tell me, André. Surely I deserve to know?’

  A vision of his mother riding away to screams of a mob out for blood filled his vision. He’d needed someone once, desperately. He’d called out. She’d heard him, but never glanced back, and then she’d spurred her horse onwards. His mother had abandoned him to strangers when he’d needed her most.

  She hadn’t cared if he lived or died.

  Later, when he had recovered from the shock, from the betrayal, he’d understood she’d been afraid too. She’d feared for her life and had done what she felt she needed to do. The curé who whisked him away in the dark had said almost those very words. She did what she must. He never forgot them or the lesson he’d learned.