Jerome tried to take Pierre’s hands off his collar, sweat beading on his brow. “Pierre, I--”
Pierre released his hands and threw him toward the wall. Jerome stumbled backwards, tripping over a chair and falling into it.
“The only thing I want to hear from you, Jerome, is what you said to Josephine.”
Jerome stood up and pulled on the bottom of his satin vest, his chin thrust out. “I did what was best for you--and for her. I told her that Mr. Bernard would never believe that she was a French lady, and that if she didn’t tell him, I would. It was best for you, Pierre. For the plantation.”
It was all Pierre could do not to swing at Jerome, and he held his hands behind his back so that he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. He was his cousin, after all, and while he had no intention of having anything further to do with him, bodily harm might not be in his best interest.
“And you arranged for a carriage. On my behalf.” He raked his hand through his hair, his other hand on his hip as he paced.
“Well, yes, I thought it was the most expedient thing to do. Pierre, you’ll get over this. She was no good for you, anyway. Your future is here, on the plantation.”
Pierre crossed over to the ledgers lying on the bed and picked one up, flipping through it once more.
“What else did you tell her?”
“Nothing. I--”
Pierre lurched toward Jerome, his hands fisted. Jerome held his hands up and took a step backward.
“I only told her that you didn’t love her--couldn’t love her, and there was absolutely no point in her staying. Which is true, after all. You don’t. And besides, your father will never accept this ruse.”
Fury enveloped Pierre and he could feel the blood coursing through his veins. As he moved toward Jerome, he heard his father’s voice behind him.
“Pierre, what is he talking about? What ruse?” His father entered the room, his brows furrowed as he looked from Pierre to Jerome.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Uncle. Pierre has something he’d like to tell you.”
Pierre wished he could remove the smug smile from Jerome’s lips with his fists, but he turned to his father.
“Father, I have something I need to tell you.”
“Yes, please do,” Jerome added, folding his arms over his chest.
Pierre squinted his eyes at Jerome and turned back to his father. “Father, it’s about Josephine. I am so happy that you enjoyed her company. She really is a wonderful and charming young woman and--”
“But she’s not French,” Jerome said, cocking his head to one side.
Pierre glared at him.
“Is this true, Pierre?” his father asked, his brows furrowed.
Pierre took a deep breath. If it was going to come out eventually--and eventually appeared to be now--he may as well tell his father the real truth.
“Yes, Father, it’s true. Josephine has learned the ways of a French lady, but she is not French. She is from Lawrence, Massachusetts, near Boston.
His father hung his head, shaking it from side to side as he put his thumbs in his vest pocket and said, “I’m sorry to hear that, Pierre. Your mother’s stipulations were very clear. I truly do like Josephine, and I’m sorry that she had such a harrowing experience today, but she will not meet the expectations of the will as your mother wrote it.”
Pierre looked up at Jerome, his stomach roiling at the satisfied expression on his face.
“And if she doesn’t stay and you don’t get your inheritance, you’ll lose the plantation.”
He walked toward his father and straightened his coat. His head still reeling at what he’d learned from Jerome, and what his father had said, he looked at the ledgers on the bed, clearly understanding that Jerome was not on his side, and for some reason had altered the books.
He looked up at his father, also understanding that he was trying to protect his mother’s wishes as well as her memory.
“I suppose that’s all true. But what I know to be true also is that I love Josephine. And if being with her costs the plantation and the inheritance, then so be it.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As he left Jerome’s room, both Jerome’s and his father’s mouths wide open, he felt the weight of the world lift from his shoulders. He loved the plantation--and had never lived anywhere else. He’d love to continue to run it, smelling the dew on the leaves, feeling the softness of the cotton--but not without Josephine by his side.
He wasn’t quite sure when or how it had happened, but she’d melted the ice around his heart which he hadn’t even known was there. Thinking back, it had started forming when his mother died, and he spent all of his energy--emotionally and physically--on the plantation. As the years passed, it became all he knew.
His steps quickened as he ran down the stairs and across the foyer. He passed Bernadette and grabbed her shoulders, kissing her on her cheek. “Can I see her? I must.”
Bernadette smiled and reached her hand to where he’d kissed her. “I’m sure she’d love that, Pierre, but don’t tell her I told you so.”
He bounded up the steps two at a time, racing down the hall only to stop short in front of her door. What if she really didn’t want him? What if he told her he’d given up everything and she still wanted to go?
No. That couldn’t be. He’d looked in her eyes and felt her lips on his.
He grabbed the latch on the door and pushed it open, striding over to her bed where she sat looking out the window.
“Josephine? Josephine, I need to talk to you.”
She turned slowly, her eyes red. “Pierre, there is nothing to talk about. It is best that I go.”
He sighed and reached for her hand. She tried to pull away but he held tighter, his eyes holding hers.
“Josephine, I know. I know everything. I talked to Jerome.”
Her eyes grew wide as she looked up at him, panic etched on her face.
“How...what did he say?”
“Please, listen to me. He told me what he’d said to you and I need to make some things clear.”
She looked away. “He made things very, very clear, Pierre. There was no misunderstanding.”
Pierre laughed. “There was a misunderstanding. He wasn’t telling you the truth.”
She looked quickly back toward him, the color returning to her face. “Do you mean--”
“I mean that I don’t want you to leave. I want you to stay. I’ve told my father that I don’t care about the inheritance or the plantation. All I care about is you.”
“But what about--”
“Yes, I found false ledgers in his room. He clearly had been embezzling. I still don’t know why, but he’d created two sets of books, showing me one and not the other.”
Josephine sat up straighter and took Pierre’s hand. He thought she’d be happy, but she seemed even more miserable than before he’d explained.
“Even if your father didn’t mind my staying, I still couldn’t. Your daughter needs you, and I would never want to stand in the way.”
Pierre jumped from the bed and took a step backward, stunned. “My daughter? What are you talking about?”
“Jerome told me about her--Harriet, and your daughter Rebecca.” She cast her eyes down to her hands.
His heart leapt as he threw his head back and laughed. “He really had it in for me, didn’t he? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
Josephine folded her arms over her chest. “Pierre, I’ve had a chance to think about it. She looks very much like you.”
Pierre ran his hands through his hair and paced back and forth. He’d never thought about it but Josephine was right--Rebecca had his blue eyes and black, wavy hair, different from her mother’s. He knew he couldn’t be the father of Rebecca and it hadn’t occurred to him before, but he thought he might know why Harriet would never tell him who is Rebecca’s father.
He groaned, hoping that he was wrong. It would just be too much to accept all at once. He turned to the door and op
ened it, poking his head out. Harriet stood by the door and he reached for her wrist, pulling her inside.
Josephine gasped at the sight, her hand to her chest. Pierre held up his hands to both women and shook his head.
“Harriet, I know I’ve asked you many times who Rebecca’s father is and you’ve declined to tell me. I’ve respected that and included you as a member of the plantation and it’s been wonderful to get to know you and Rebecca. But Josephine believes that I am Rebecca’s father and I need you to tell her that it’s not the truth.”
Pierre folded his arms over his chest, hoping against hope that now would be the time Harriet would choose to divulge Rebecca’s paternity. He looked over at Josephine, her cheeks crimson as she watched.
Harriet’s eyes grew wide and she moved to sit down beside Josephine.
“Please, Mademoiselle, you must know the truth that Pierre is not Rebecca’s father. I don’t know who would think such a thing,” Harriet said as she reached for Josephine’s hand.
“She does look very much like him, Harriet. I’m so sorry to have put you in this position. Jerome was so adamant that it was true, and I thought it best that I leave.”
Harriet stood, anger radiating from her as she took a step back. “Jerome? He did this? He told you Pierre was Rebecca’s father?”
Pierre nodded as he sat beside Josephine.
Harriet’s fists clenched at her sides. “Josephine, you say that Rebecca looks like Pierre. But someone else on the plantation looks much like Pierre--enough to be his brother, don’t you think? No, Pierre is not the father, and I’m through protecting the man who is.”
She turned and pulled open the door, slamming it shut behind her. Josephine blinked at the sound and turned to Pierre.
“Do you mean that Jerome lied all along? Everything he said to me wasn’t true?”
Pierre took her hand in his and ran his fingers across her smooth, damp cheek. “I get the sense that Jerome’s been dishonest about lots of things, not just the things he told you.”
Josephine looked up at him and his heart swelled as her brown eyes sparkled and she smiled for the first time in a while. He pulled her toward him and she rested her head on his shoulder.
She sighed and sat up. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to you--didn’t ask--but this has been so confusing. All of it. I haven’t known what to think.”
Pierre laughed. “I can imagine. But Josephine, you’re presence at The Willows has helped us feel how much love was lost when my mother died. I hadn’t realized--but now, with you here, I can’t imagine ever going back to the way it was.”
He lifted her chin and held her gaze. “I need you, Josephine. Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife? A real one?”
Josephine closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. “If you don’t make me eat anything French, I’ll consider it,” she said, her eyes twinkling as she smiled.
Pierre’s heart swelled as he smiled and lowered his lips to the warm ones of the woman he loved. That was a promise he could make.
Epilogue
Josephine was almost dizzy, she’d spun around the dance floor so many times after the ceremony was over and she and Pierre were pronounced man and wife. She sat at the table with the wedding cake--all five tiers of it--and caught the sparkle of the large diamond on her hand and shook her head.
She waved at Pierre as he waltzed around the floor with Bernadette, her cheeks crimson and her pretty red gown swirling behind her. Josephine had never seen her friend so happy, even in the months since Jerome had left and they’d planned the wedding together.
Jerome. She shook her head and waved at Harriet, her green velvet dress matching the one Rebecca wore--a perfect vision of mother and daughter. Harriet bent down and whispered in Rebecca’s ear and she ran over to the food table as Harriet came over and sat down beside Josephine.
“Miss Josephine, I’ve wanted to apologize to you for any problems Rebecca and I caused for you and Pierre,” she said as she gazed down in her lap. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Josephine reached for her hand and squeezed it. “I can only imagine what a difficult position you were in, Harriet. Jerome was a horrible person, and you must have been quite frightened.”
“I was. He’d promised me we’d be married, and that he’d take me to France. And when he left one day without me--and I realized I was with child--I didn’t know what to do. I was just lucky that Pierre is such a kind man or I don’t know what would have become of us.”
Harriet looked fondly at her daughter as she licked chocolate from her finger and waved at her mother.
“I certainly understand your decision, Harriet. You weren’t the only one fooled by Jerome. We all were.”
“That’s certainly the truth,” Pierre said as he walked up with Bernadette on his arm, her face flushed and glowing.
He pulled out a chair for Bernadette who had now pulled out a fan and was fanning herself at full speed.
Harriet nodded at Josephine and excused herself, walking over and taking Rebecca by the hand.
Bernadette shook her head as Harriet walked away. “Who would have ever thought that Jerome would do such a thing? Any of it?”
Josephine remembered the first time she’d met Jerome and how uncomfortable she’d felt when he took her hand. She wished she’d known more back then and maybe she could have stopped him from trying to steal the plantation.
“Fortunately you walked in on him changing all the figures,” Bernadette said. “I still don’t understand why he did it, but I’ve been busy in the kitchen getting ready for this grand event.” She smiled and patted Josephine’s shoulder.
Pierre sat down beside Josephine, reaching for her hand. “He’d lost all of his money in Paris at the gaming tables, apparently. Father made some inquiries and he was heavily in debt.”
“But how would his changing the books and ruining your chances at your inheritance help him?” Bernadette asked, her brows furrowed as she fanned herself.
“It wasn’t a very good plan at all, actually. He thought if he had Josephine come and she failed to convince father to release the inheritance, and he made it appear that the plantation was failing, I would choose to sell,” Pierre said.
Josephine squeezed his hand. “Yes, to a company that was backing him to steal it, paying him only pennies on the dollar, actually. He must have been pretty desperate.”
Bernadette gasped and looked up at the plantation house, shaking her head. “I don’t know how he could do such a thing. He grew up here, too.”
Mr. Bernard walked up and cleared his throat. “There’s no explaining pure greed, Bernadette.” He smiled and nodded at Josephine. “And if it hadn’t been for this young lady--and the commotion she caused--we may have never found out before it was too late.”
Josephine blushed and smiled at Mr. Bernard.
Bernadette stood, her hands on her hips. “There was also the other issue--the French issue,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Mr. Bernard.
His eyebrows shot up and he placed his thumbs in the pockets of his vest. “Now, Bernadette, you know as well as I do that I was doing what I thought Vivienne wanted.”
Bernadette’s eyes softened. “Yes, I know that. It’s a good thing Josephine found that letter she’d written to me all those years ago or we’d still be having problems.”
“What letter?” Josephine asked, her eyes wide.
Bernadette laughed. “The one sitting on your nightstand, under the lamp. I’d never have seen it if you hadn’t gotten stuck in the rain. It was from Vivienne. Found after all these years.”
“Oh!” Josephine cried, her hand on her chest. “I forgot all about that. I’d meant to give it to you, honestly, but things happened so fast.”
Pierre laughed and looked at his father. “It turned out all right after all.”
“What did the letter say? I wondered why suddenly it was all right that I stay--that I was good enough.”
Pierre wrapped his arm around her wai
st as she looked from him to his father. He raised his eyebrows and nodded at Mr. Bernard, who cleared his throat.
“Pierre’s mother wrote a letter in her last days, explaining what she’d really meant by the clause in her will. That she’d only thought that Pierre needed a French lady of status because she thought it would make him happy. But on second thought, she realized that love was all that mattered, and as she prepared to leave this world, she wrote the note to Bernadette explaining that.”
Bernadette pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “It was lovely, and changed everything.”
“Yes, it did,” Mr. Bernard said as he pulled something from his coat pocket and held it out to Josephine. “It explained the true meaning of a lady--French or otherwise--and you are all of those things, my dear.”
Josephine reached out and took what her new father-in-law held out to her, her heart full as she opened the lovely, very old fan and spread it wide.
“Oh, I’ve seen that before,” Pierre said, a puzzled expression crossing his face.
“Of course you have, son. It was your mother’s--her favorite. I gave it to her on our wedding day and I’d like it to belong to Josephine. A true lady,” he said as he bowed in Josephine’s direction.
“I...I don’t know what to say.” It was the most beautiful, ornate fan Josephine had ever seen and she’d cherish it always. “Even though my father was French and I learned everything I could, I truly feel now that I am one of you. For better or worse,” she said as Pierre and Mr. Bernard laughed.
“You certainly are, my dear. After all, we truly all are American, first and foremost. And now, daughter of mine, may I have this dance? If it’s all right with your husband, of course,” he said, winking at Pierre.
Her husband nodded and Josephine did her best to waltz in a manner fitting a lady, laughing as Mr. Bernard stepped on her feet once or twice, his face crimson.
She fanned herself as they returned to Pierre and she sat down beside him, resting her head on his shoulder, certain that there was nowhere else she’d rather be.
Josephine: Bride of Louisiana (American Mail-Order Bride 18) Page 12