by Abby Gordon
“They threatened us and you,” her grandmother added. “As soon as the executors told us you’d accessed your father’s estate, Bertrand arranged for security for you.”
“What?” Jessica stared, mouth open.
“The men across the hall,” her grandfather confirmed. “They were extremely upset that something happened the first time they went on holiday.”
“Steve and Hank?” she breathed, stunned. “Oh, my God.”
Remembering her mentioning them, Sean studied the comte, reassessing the man on many levels. He had known where Jessica was. Despite everything, he’d been willing to let her go, to find her own way, probably praying every day, as Sean would if it had been Maisie, that she would contact them on her own. Glancing at the strained, distraught expression on the comtesse’s face, Sean had a feeling that she’d had much to do with her husband’s actions. The man had deep still waters and a strict code to living life, but Sean sensed he would do anything for his family.
The comte frowned. “How did you know about Pierre and Giscard? Who they were and what they were up to?”
Relaxing now and turning her head towards him, Jessica smiled. “I spied on them. Using the tricks you told me your parents used on the Nazis.”
“They were part of the Resistance?” Sean asked.
Bertrand nodded proudly. “They were.” He gave his granddaughter a rueful expression. “It all came out when I told them I’d thrown you out and disowned you. I can’t,” he added hastily. “But…” he shook his head. “They were furious. Giscard saw marriage to you as a way to get his hands on more than the allowance his family received. Pierre,” he glanced at his wife.
“Pierre saw Giscard’s marriage to you as a way to get more as well,” she sighed, clearly ashamed by her son’s actions.
“So, everyone was to get money out of it but me?” Jessica observed, a trace of bitterness in her tone. “Just lovely. And what was your reaction when you realized all this?”
“I cut them both off,” Bertrand replied quietly.
Sean shook his head. “You just said that…” he leaned forward.
“I couldn’t with Dominique, nor could I with Jessica. I wouldn’t have done so if I’d been able to. I could and did with the bastards.”
“Why?” Jessica demanded.
“She was my child,” he replied simply as if that said it all, spreading his hands out. “My angel. I didn’t understand her, but I absolutely loved her. Getting that call from your father’s manager tore my heart out.” He reached across the table, a pleading look in his eyes. “And you, you were the same. My sweet granddaughter. As if God had given us a second angel.” He sighed heavily. “And I did no better at keeping you safe than I did with her.”
Sean could see the shock and confusion in Jessica’s eyes.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” she whispered. “Did you ever tell her? Tell Mum?”
“Tell her what?” Bertrand asked, puzzled.
“That you loved her,” Sean answered, squeezing Jessica’s hand. “Do you ever tell your wife that?”
“She knows,” the comte replied, shaking his head and glancing at his wife who gave him a reassuring smile. “I am the head of the family. I take care of them.”
“Being a father is a bit more than that,” Sean drawled, shaking his head in wonder. At least he’d been doing that right. “I make sure I tell my daughter every time we talk that I love her. She knows that no matter what she does I will love her. I’m going to figure your daughter didn’t think you loved her.” Shocked dismay appeared on their faces. “And until now, Jessica didn’t think you loved her either.” The distress increased as the comtesse reached for her husband’s hand. “Why didn’t you ever do more than issue commands? When her parents died, did you ever hold her when she cried? Why didn’t you explain about her dog?” He glanced at Madeline. “Why didn’t you let her go with the dog, be there at the end?”
“A child does what she is told,” Bertrand said stiffly.
“And that worked out so well the first time you repeated all the mistakes with Jessica,” Sean reminded him.
“Jessica,” a crisp English accent said to her right.
Startled, Jessica turned her head.
“William? Oh, how lovely to see you,” she gasped jumping up and hugging the sous chef. “I thought you were in San Francisco,” she said excitedly, straightening his hat. Eagerly she turned to Sean who had stood when she had. “William was at the Lincoln. He’s the one who urged me to move from the dining room to the club and encouraged me to be a bartender.”
The comte sniffed and his wife looked horrified.
“He wanted me to be the best I could be,” Jessica replied simply, then turned to William. And saw the cart. “Oh, a proper high tea. William, how thoughtful.”
He smiled as she sat back down. “That’s the chatterbox I remember,” he chuckled.
“Jessica?” Sean blinked. “A chatterbox?”
“When she first started at the Lincoln, she asked questions one after the other so fast you could barely answer one when the next three were coming out,” William told him, setting the cups out. “I’ll let you pour, Jessica.” He put the pot in its cozy before her. “Or is it Miss Longworth now?”
“Sorry about that,” she whispered. William had been like a big brother taking her under his wing and teaching her so much.
“I think I understand. The crash even on that horrible stormy day had notoriety. You would have been hounded by the paps almost as bad as the royals. With much less protection than they have. You had no family.”
“We are her family,” the comte declared.
“Then where were you?” William inquired as he set out plates and trays of pastries and sandwiches. “Where were you then? Five years ago? Where were you two weeks ago? Nowhere to be found. That’s where. Mr. Livingston was the one there for her. Of course, you got her into that mess, but you got her out. And for that I’ll respect you.”
“Thank you,” Sean managed, amazed and loving how everyone around her wanted to protect her. Well, nearly everyone, remembering the club manager and a few others.
“That pot has your chamomile mint,” William told Jessica, adding a second. “This one is Earl Grey. I had a feeling the gentlemen with you might need something a bit stronger.”
“You know her well,” murmured Sean.
William winked at him, then squeezed Jessica’s hand before guiding the cart through the tables back to the kitchen. Sean leaned toward Jessica. “I’m going to have to wonder about the reputed stoicism of the English, stiff upper lip and all that.”
“Ah, well, I’m part French,” she replied, pouring tea for the men. “And William’s mother was Irish. That’s where he gets the red hair from. Tea, Grandmama?”
“The chamomile, please,” came the answer.
For a long moment, no one talked. Sean knew Jessica would be trying to process everything, but wouldn’t have dared to hazard a guess as to what was going through the minds of the French couple.
“Jessica,” Madeline spoke hesitantly. “Can you forgive us? Even a little. Things with us weren’t all horrible, were they? The art lessons? Music? The walks and shopping we did?”
Focusing on her grandmother’s words, Jessica sipped the tea and thought of those years. She’d tried to resist, as if enjoying anything after their deaths was dishonoring her parents’ memory. Her grandmother’s persistence and, when her grandfather wasn’t there, occasional gentle smiles and touches had cracked the prickly wall she’d built around her.
“Have you kept up your piano?” her grandfather inquired, glancing up from the pastry he was cutting into. “You should listen to her play,” he said to Sean. “Magnifique,” he praised, touching his lips. “She could hear nearly anything once and play it. She could read the music a few moments and play it with exquisite perfection. I would hear her and open my study door so I could listen.”
“I’ve heard her,” Sean replied with a smile. “She helped m
e with a song on my latest album. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. And she just went to the piano and…” Sean spread his hands out. “It came together.”
Bertrand beamed at him and Jessica nearly dropped her tea cup.
“You did that?” she whispered. “You liked my playing?”
“Why do you think I made the trip to Paris every weekend?” he demanded, seeming surprised she asked. “So I could be with you and Madeline, mais oui. To hear you talk about what you’d done during the week. To hear you play. To take you to see Paris so you knew and loved her.”
“I had no idea,” she whispered, battling her tears. It struck her what her grandparents had done. Her grandmother had left her homes, moved to Paris so she wouldn’t be alone in a strange city. So a little girl would know her family was there. “I was so caught up in my own grief, then my anger at the world.” Shaking her head, she glanced at Sean. “I swear, I’ve cried more around you the past two weeks than I have since Mum and Papa died.”
“Tears, no tears, please, child,” her grandfather pleaded, pulling a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and passing it to her. “I can handle anything but your tears.”
“I hear you on that,” Sean murmured, nodding and sharing a manly glance with the comte.
“You’ve been holding up well,” Jessica observed, wiping her cheeks.
“He would hear you sobbing in your room those first few weeks, and I thought his heart would break,” Madeline told her.
“And when she was finally quiet, you would sneak into her room to make sure she was still breathing,” Bertrand reminded her.
“She sleeps so deeply,” agreed Sean.
That flummoxed her grandparents for a moment. Jessica dabbed at her eyes with the linen and found the corner with the ancient herald. Her thumb rubbed over it.
“I remember you telling me about the Lavendals. After dinner during Christmas holidays. We’d go to Grand- mere’s sitting room. There would be a fire going. I would curl up in a corner of the sofa and you would talk,” she said quietly, slowly letting herself smile. “You went back to the beginning of the family, getting books, photographs and portraits so I could see them. You told me how so many through history had tried to tear the family apart but that the family, the true family, always stayed strong. Always found their way home somehow.” She found her grandfather’s face and found in his eyes something she’d never seen before—beyond the stern mask she could see the desperate love of a father and grandfather. “Grand-mère wasn’t the only one to check on me at night. One night, nearly a year after, there was a storm. I woke up and you were there, sitting on the bed, telling me I was safe. That whenever there was a storm, you would be there. I thought at the time that I had to be dreaming.”
Tears slipped down her grandfather’s cheeks. “You weren’t dreaming, child.”
Jessica managed a smile through her own tears. For a long moment, she just stared at the grandfather she had fought against for so long. And understood. The anger melted. Family. She wasn’t alone. She had Sean, who brought Charlotte, Maisie, even Tony with him. She had Pippa. And now, most of all, she had her grandparents back. Gathering herself, she sat up straight and squared her shoulders. Approval blazed in her grandfather’s eyes.
“I understand now, Grand -père,” she told him. “All of it now.”
Tilting her chin up, she raised an imperious hand. A waiter was there before she lowered it.
“Yes, Miss Longworth?”
“We have family to celebrate. A bottle of Lavendal champagne, seventy-two if you have it,” she told him, eyes on the comte’s pleased face.
“We do indeed, Miss Longworth. One moment.”
“You remembered,” the comte said proudly, cleared his throat then wagged his hand at her. “I wasn’t sure you were paying attention when I was talking. I thought you were thinking ‘oh, when will the old man shut up?’” He waved a hand. “You asked more questions about the grapes.”
Jessica and her grandmother chuckled. Sean groaned and the three Lavendals looked at him.
“And I was trying to impress you with my wine collection and the island?” he muttered. “I feel like an idiot.” He shot her a grimace. “You did notice that it was a Lavendal chardonnay we had the night you fixed the primavera.”
She grinned, giving her grandfather a wink. “It was an eighty-two.”
Bertrand winked back. “His taste is as excellent in wine as it is in women.”
“Thank you,” Sean murmured, taking her left hand. “So? Should I formally ask?”
Her heart nearly bursting, she nodded. “I think you should. Grand-père was also in the French army. And an excellent shot. He practices at least once a week. So I wouldn’t irritate him too much.”
“And what is this about?” the comte wondered a slight twinkle in his eyes.
“Monsieur le Comte, I request the hand of your granddaughter in marriage,” Sean asked him seriously. “I love her and she loves me. Surprisingly, she’s willing to take me on.”
Jessica could see that her grandfather was both surprised and touched. Then passed the handkerchief to her grandmother whose eyes were filling with tears.
“Young man, you have good taste and good sense. I hope you have strength. The Lavendal women are full of passion and life and will push you to your limits,” the comte replied, smiling his approval.
“I had noticed that,” Sean answered, raising Jessica’s hand to his lips.
The champagne was brought, opened, and poured.
“May you have love always,” the comte proclaimed, raising his glass.
Chapter Sixteen
“I can walk, Daddy. I’m a big girl and don’t need to be carried all the time,” Maisie insisted as they entered the elevator car.
“All right, darling,” Sean relented as Charlotte entered the security code into the panel. He set her down. “I think you stole the show tonight. “
“You did when you pulled the pipes out for us to follow you into the theater,” his daughter replied with a sleepy grin.
“It’s freezing cold, Jessica and your mother were shivering and the photographers wanted one more picture and pose,” he grumbled.
Jessica and Charlotte grinned.
“It was quite clever,” Jessica told him. “I’m still not sure how you were able to get Grand-père and Grand-mère in but I think they both quite enjoyed it.”
“I like them,” Maisie announced. “Grandmama is going to teach me about gardens this summer.”
“She knows a lot about them and Grandpapa knows all about grapes,” Jessica agreed.
The elevator stopped and Charlotte guided Maisie toward their apartment. “Can you make it on your own?” she was asking as she tapped the code in.
Maisie’s answer was swallowed up by a yawn. With a chuckle, Charlotte helped her inside and closed the door. Sean grinned as Jessica tapped in their code.
“Your grandparents think she’s an angel,” he commented as he opened the door.
“They’re right.”
“She has a devious little mind,” he countered.
“Like her father?” Jessica asked archly, setting her clutch on the side table.
“Not exactly like her father.”
“In what way?”
“She doesn’t know what it’s like to sit next to you for two hours after you’ve whispered that you took your panties off in the ladies’ room,” he growled, stalking across the front hall. “You have any idea what I’ve been going through the past four hours of the movie and the damn after-party? Making idle chatter with everyone when all I wanted to do was…”
Jessica smiled, raised her hands to the buttons of the straps on the bodice and pushed them free. The rich red satin flowed down her body leaving her clad in only silky thigh high stockings and her four-inch heels.
“What can I do to make it up to you, Master?” she whispered, stepping clear of the red satin puddle.
“That first night,” he told her, dropping his
jacket at his feet and tossing his cufflinks onto the table. The studs of his shirt clattered to the floor in his haste to remove it. “That first night. I want that first night with you again. Only this time,” he told her as she knelt on the jacket. “This time, I am not leaving you alone in the morning.”
Her fingers quickly worked at the cummerbund and his pants.
“Master, this time, neither of us will have the energy in the morning.”
His fingers threaded through her loose tresses as she pulled his pants and boxers down.
“Show me, slave,” he whispered the command. “Show me.”