by Anna Small
****
Aunt Adele’s sister, a widow who had spent the last several years abroad, lived in an old chateau hardly deserving of the name. Mossy and overgrown, the gardens had seen better days, and Georgiana hid her disappointment as she stepped from the carriage. This was not the picturesque haven she’d envisioned. Her trepidation eased as Jack fussed over Aunt Adele, helping her from the carriage with the concern of a son.
Their journey from the harbor to Bolbec seemed too short. Every passing mile brought the moment of Jack’s departure closer. As relieved as she was to reach their destination, she was reluctant to say goodbye. He, on the other hand, seemed eager to be off, to an estate a few miles away his grandfather kept for such visits.
“We cannot thank you enough.” Aunt Adele took his hand and pulled him toward the house as her sister emerged. “I do not know what we would have done without you.” She turned to Lady Priscilla, who resembled her down to the wobbling chin and graying curls beneath her cap. “Sister, Mr. Waverley was a godsend. I don’t know how we would have borne the journey without him.”
The two women fussed over him for a few moments, and Georgiana hid a smile at his discomfited expression. But he wiggled his eyebrows at her when the others weren’t looking.
“It was my pleasure to have been of service to you and Miss Lockewood. I will call on you as soon as my work permits. If not, I will see you in three months, when we return to merry old England.”
“You must have some tea and rest after your journey.” Lady Priscilla took his other arm.
Georgiana stifled a laugh as they tugged his arms at the same time while he remained in place.
“Alas, I have business that cannot wait.” He pulled free and swept into a courtly bow.
Georgiana blocked his path to the carriage. “You are going to take me around, are you not? I do so wish to see some of the countryside. And Paris, too, of course.”
She bit the inside of her cheek at the petulant whine in her voice but couldn’t help her peevishness. He was almost desperate in his attempt to be rid of them. She recalled Jonathan’s warning that Jack was a man with many diverse appetites, and would probably not wish to associate with her once they were in France. At the time, she hadn’t cared either way, until she realized the voyage and the carriage ride were all the time they’d have together. Three months without his wit and conversation would be an eternity.
A blush seared her cheeks. Wit and conversation? Was that all she was going to miss?
His steel gray eyes fastened on her, and she glanced away, embarrassed as if he’d caught her doing something naughty. He gave her a replica of his earlier bow. “I will call on you, Miss Lockewood, by this time next week. I thought two days in my company was enough to last you a lifetime.”
“Oh, my goodness, no, Mr. Waverley!” Aunt Adele shook her head. “It is rare to find such a likeable young man. You must come again.”
“I accept the invitation, dear ladies. I must be on my way now.”
“Then we will say goodbye, sir. Please come and see us soon.” Aunt Adele kissed him on the cheek and walked inside with her sister.
Georgiana met Jack’s expectant gaze. She’d never been at a loss for words in his presence, but her voice seemed frozen. Bidding him goodbye with a joke would sound immature. A formal adieu, too matronly. She stooped to pick a wilted rose from the tangled bushes lining the path.
“You’re not going to behead all these roses, are you?”
She straightened. “My brother and you have remarkable memories, sir, in that you recall my childhood exploits at every opportune moment.”
“I remember your howls when your nurse scolded you after you destroyed your mother’s garden.”
She tucked the rose into his buttonhole. She didn’t remember her sobs so much as she remembered who had comforted her. Not Jonathan, who’d agreed with the nurse in her punishment. Jack had tossed her onto his shoulders and galloped around the corridors until her sobs turned to laughter. She stood back to admire her handiwork and plucked a drooping petal.
“I hope you’ll come and visit us.” She tried to keep a jolly air, but her voice caught. The excitement she’d felt at the outset of the journey paled at the reality of their separation.
“I will, but only if you assure me you will not be too busy with all the excitement around here.” A sweep of his arm took in the empty road and the quiet countryside. A bird chirped in the branches overhead.
“I promise to tear myself away from it somehow.” She held out her hand uncertainly. How did one take leave of a gentleman who was neither relative nor admirer?
Jack solved her dilemma. “Are you not going to kiss me goodbye? I understand it is the custom in France.”
“So is eating frogs and snails. If you like, I’ll go into the garden and hunt them for your tea.” As if the slimy creatures dwelled within her middle, her stomach quivered and jumped. Her chest rose and fell too rapidly as he closed the last bit of space separating them.
“Save them for me. I must dash.”
Before she could speak or think, he placed his hands on her shoulders and dipped his head. He brushed a light kiss across each of her cheeks, and she wondered if he’d felt the heat of her blush on his lips.
“Goodbye, Georgie. Look for me at week’s end, and we shall have a grand time.” He bowed quickly and climbed into the carriage. The driver urged the horses forward. She returned Jack’s wave until the carriage vanished behind the hedgerows.
She must have walked inside to where Aunt Adele and Lady Priscilla were, and she must have drunk a little tea and eaten a bite or two of an apricot tart, but she could not remember a thing except Jack Waverley had kissed her.
Chapter Five
Nothing at the vignoble had changed since Jack’s visit a year ago. He strode through the rows and rows of fragrant barrels while his grandfather’s foreman, Gaston Gironde, droned in heavily accented English about the shipping schedules and a particularly bad harvest the year before.
Jack walked beside him, hands clasped behind his back, nodding now and then as he listened with half an ear. Georgiana’s softly floral scent still clung to his collar when he’d leaned in close for a mocking kiss goodbye. The remembered pressure of her downy cheek against his lips distracted him to the point where he nodded affirmatively to a question Gaston asked. Apparently, he gave the wrong response.
Gaston’s thick eyebrows rose on his forehead. “But surely, Monsieur Waverley, you cannot mean to throw eighty barrels away! We usually turn it into a cheaper wine we sell locally. That is how we have always done things here.”
Shaking his head to dispel the image of Georgiana’s wide blue eyes staring up into his, Jack observed the motion did little to force her out of his thoughts. “Do as you wish, man. I do not intend to make any changes. We both know my presence is so my grandfather can pay me in the guise of noble employment.”
Gaston nodded briskly. “Wine it shall be.” He motioned toward the offices in the back of the building. “I will show you the books, Monsieur Waverley, and have your signature.”
“Lead on,” Jack murmured, stifling a yawn. He’d always wondered how his grandfather could be involved in the mundane business world but now realized it was easy when he could send his grandson in his stead.
At the office, Jack sat in the heavy carved chair at his grandfather’s desk. Long ago, his grandfather had taken frequent jaunts to oversee the vignoble, run in partnership with his friend, Gaston. When an old war wound prohibited him from taking the trip, Jack’s father had stepped in. After he died, Gaston managed the daily operations. Now, the job had fallen to Jack.
He glanced around the office as Gaston mentioned the latest problems with transportation and increasing port charges. His gaze drew upward to the portrait taking prominence on the wall. His mother’s painted blue eyes gazed down at him.
She was posed in a rose garden fabricated by the artist, since roses had never grown so lushly at Stoughton Park. Her slender whit
e arms and neck, as well as her sweeping chestnut curls, had not emerged from the artist’s imagination. If he stared at the painting, he could almost hear her voice or see the sparkle in her eyes.
When he was high enough to reach his father’s knee, she’d abandoned them. The lingering memories were vague blurs. Were it not for the sole remaining portrait, he didn’t know if he would have forgotten how she looked. Grandfather had all the other portraits and her possessions burned the terrible morning they discovered her betrayal. This painting had escaped his tirade, having been transported across the Channel a few years before. It was one of the reasons Jack didn’t mind coming to the vignoble.
“You’ve kept it after all these years.” Jack motioned toward the portrait.
Gaston shrugged. “I see no reason to take it down. Your father told me this was the only place he could visit her.”
He averted his eyes, and Jack realized it was because his own face must have displayed all the stifled agony her disappearance had caused. Grandfather had forbidden mourning his daughter-in-law, and once when Jack had asked where Mamma had gone, he’d received a sound slap.
He’d managed, as children can, to fill his life with games and friends, but his father had taken her absence hard. He’d turned to drinking at all hours of the day and was found in a field a few months later. The official word was that his horse had thrown him, but Jack knew his mother’s abandonment had caused it. A sudden pain gripped his chest, and he ground his teeth, waiting for it to dissipate.
“Monsieur?”
Jack gave his shoulders a little shake. “Yes, yes. What do I need to sign?”
Gaston set a leather-bound book before him, and Jack dipped his pen in the inkwell, signing where Gaston pointed. He could have been signing away state secrets to some French upstart for all he knew. When he was done, Gaston handed him a stack of letters. One particular letter on buff-colored thick paper caught his eye.
“What’s all this?”
He recognized the owner of the handwriting the moment he took the packet. The Comtesse de Mirville was expecting him. Staring at the letters brought back a flood of memories, which consisted of too much wine and not enough clothes for either of them. An odd sense of regret overtook him. He stuffed the letter inside his coat.
“Your grandfather’s letter is here, monsieur.” Gaston pulled a missive from the pile and placed it meaningfully before Jack.
“You can forego all the monsieuring, Gaston. You’ve known me since I was wet behind the ears. These formalities give one a headache.”
The older man’s lips twitched, and he bowed smartly. “As you wish, Ambrose.”
“I’d prefer monsieur, after all.” He pushed away from the desk. “We both know you are running this place handsomely by yourself, and my presence is only a formality. Shall we call an end to this dreary meeting? I have other things to do.” Being in the room with the reminder of his beloved father’s death staring down at him was suddenly too much.
Gaston arranged the papers on the desk into neat stacks. “Fortunately, the vignoble manages well on its own.”
“If that is the truth, I wonder why my grandfather sends me here at all.”
The Frenchman’s thick black eyebrows drew together in a line. “Perhaps it is so monsieur will have meaningful employment and not waste his time on frivolous living.”
“Amazing, Gaston. You didn’t even mutter that under your breath but boldly stated my grandfather’s opinion verbatim.”
Gaston bowed smartly. “We share the same opinion.” His wizened features lost some of their tightness. “I have known your family since before you were born. I do not ask your pardon for speaking plainly.”
Restraining a laugh at Gaston’s seriousness, Jack rose from the chair. “I would not expect any less from you or my grandfather.” He clapped his grandfather’s old friend on the shoulder and gave his mother’s portrait a fleeting look. “Show me from this place, Gaston. It’s time I returned to my wicked life so you may carry on your more important work.”
Outside, Jack ordered his driver to take him to his grandfather’s chateau. He leaned back against the velvet padding and removed Danielle’s letter.
She’d spared no amount of graphic English and French words to describe exactly what she proposed for their reunion. Le comte was conveniently abroad, and she was alone in her sprawling chateau on the outskirts of Bordeaux. Jack tried to remember small details of her face and figure, but could not. Fleeting, scented memories of Georgiana flooded his mind instead.
How she’d clutched his coat on the ship, her lithe body pressed against him when a most opportune wave sent her flying into him. The way her full, rosebud lips moved when she spoke or laughed. The mischievous glint in her eyes as she’d teased him on the way to Portsmouth, obviously relieved to leave England behind.
He should send word to Georgiana that, unfortunately, his business in Bordeaux would keep him too occupied to pay a visit. She was a reasonable girl, and doubtless Lady Priscilla had many outings and enjoyable times planned to keep her busy enough she would not give him a second thought. Perhaps she might even attend a ball and have an innocent love affair. Something to take her mind off that dog, Mitford, and throw her back into the world again.
He almost sighed with relief as his plan unfolded. He’d send word to Danielle and tell her to expect him before nightfall. He could sup with her, though he did not remember eating or drinking much when they were together. He waited for his ardor to stir; for the expectant ache in his loins to grow as he anticipated a night in her arms.
Nothing.
“Perhaps Lockewood is right,” he muttered. “I’ve taken too many blows to the head to think straight.” When the time came to go abroad this year, he’d paced the floor in his impatience for the journey to commence. Now, so close to sating his desire, he was almost disturbed the burning passion he’d felt for the saucy brunette had vanished.
Better to avoid both women and any complications they might cause. He intended to enjoy himself on his grandfather’s gold the short while he was in France. An anonymous love affair was what he needed. Perhaps he’d go to Paris and find someone for a few nights’ passion and then return to Bordeaux and the tedious business of the vignoble.
He crumpled the letter into a ball and tossed it out the window, where it caught on a gust of wind and rolled into a ditch.
Chapter Six
“One does become used to the simple country ways after a time,” Lady Priscilla said, fanning herself lazily while Georgiana and Aunt Adele took tea with her in the garden.
Georgiana sipped her lukewarm tea and tried to look more interested in the conversation, which had alternated between how to keep lace from drooping in the humid weather and the trouble with garden moles, who were very much the same, it turned out, as English ones.
“I can see why you prefer living abroad,” Aunt Adele said with a sigh, closing her eyes and leaning back against the plump chair cushions. “I thought you would come home to England when your Jean-Luc died.”
“Oh, la,” Lady Priscilla replied. “I have everything I want right here. There is no end to amusements of all sorts.”
Georgiana glanced around the garden. Except for the chattering of a few birds and the occasional hum of a bee, all was quiet.
“What amusements?” she asked politely.
Lady Priscilla blinked, as if surprised to see Georgiana was still there. “We have many balls—rather like our assembly balls back home, though much more enjoyable. And the food is far better, though they have never heard of white soup. It’s not the same, really, when there’s no white soup at a ball.” She went into a discourse on a menu she’d sampled once, and Georgiana waited impatiently for her to continue about the ball. She seemed to notice Georgiana again and smiled suddenly.
“My husband’s nephew, Alphonse, is attending one tonight. I will ask him to take you along, if you like.”
Before Georgiana could accept, Aunt Adele spoke up. “She cannot go out
unchaperoned, dear sister.” She fanned herself hastily, glancing at Georgiana as if to say, I saved you from unspeakable danger. “We should send for that wonderful Mr. Waverley. He is the dear friend of my nephew, Mr. Lockewood.”
Heart quickening at the mention of Jack’s name, Georgiana picked at an orange, peeling it with her nails. “Jack doesn’t have any time for us, Aunt Adele. He sent word he was too busy to entertain us.”
She tried to sound as light and nonsensical as the two ladies but swallowed a bitter taste in her throat. More than two weeks had passed since he’d left them in Bolbec. When Jack didn’t come for her at the end of their first week, she’d put it down to his being occupied with the winery. The following Friday arrived, and instead of Jack’s broad shoulders gracing the chateau doorway, he’d sent a messenger.
Aunt Adele nodded. “Oh, yes. I’d forgotten. Fine gentlemen are always so occupied with more important things.” She turned to her sister. “Perhaps your husband’s nephew can take her, if Georgiana wishes to go. Is Alphonse an amiable sort of man?”
“Oh, yes. In fact, he is going to join us for an early supper before the ball. Georgiana, dear, you may use Marceline to help you dress and do your hair. We are a bit more fashionable here in France.” She patted the sides of her gray ringlets dangling from beneath a soft linen cap the same as her sister’s.
Georgiana ate a segment of the sweet orange. Her disappointment at Jack’s absence faded as the realization she would go to the ball unchaperoned began to form in her mind. She could spend the entire night dancing with whomever she pleased, as often as she wished, without a guardian’s stern eyes upon her. Her French was very good, and she was eager to try her conversational skills upon people younger than seventy.
“Thank you, Lady Priscilla. I’m looking forward to it.”
She finished her orange as the women forgot her again. When it was clear she would not be missed, she excused herself and went upstairs to her chamber. Sweeping open the lacy woven curtains, she breathed in the warm, fresh air of the gardens below. Softly rolling hills stretched beyond the horizon, dotted with other estates and wooded areas as far as the eye could see. The countryside was peaceful, and the local village filled with friendly people, who’d bobbed a curtsy or tipped their hats to her and Aunt Adele when they’d taken a drive at the beginning of their trip.