Sailing – no, shipwrecked. Shipwrecked on an English shore, on English sand. And an English woman? Or had that been Giselle? The images, blurred and hazy, swam in and out of view of his mind’s eye, and Pierre closed his eyes in the attempt to concentrate.
And then they snapped open again. No, it had been real: he had escaped France, he knew it, and now he was in England. Where exactly, he did not know. With whom, he had just as little comprehension.
“Ah, you are awake then.”
A vision: a woman, simply dressed in a light pink gown, holding what looked like manna from heaven.
“‘Tis only a little rainwater, I confess,” said the golden-haired dream. “But it seemed a pity to waste it, and you were in need of water badly. Here.”
Without waiting for his permission to approach, she continued forward and kneeled by the sofa on which Pierre lay. Before he could say a word with his dropped jaw, she cupped his head and gently poured water down his throat.
It was the sweetest draught he had ever tasted. His parched throat burned slightly at the contact, but was instantly soothed, and his mind started to clear.
“Hel-Helene?”
She smiled, and Pierre gazed, completely captivated by her smile. It was beyond beauty: it was a heady mixture of unconscious pleasure to hear her name from his lips, and the joy that it sprang in his soul, and the curve of her pink lips, and the softness of her touch, and it grabbed at his heart as none of the Dames of the French court ever had.
“Helene,” he repeated as she took the cup away, and smiled quietly at him. “That is your name, n'est-ce pas?”
She nodded. “Helena, but I suppose it is much the same. And yours is Pierre – Pierre d'Épiluçon?”
Something in his stomach jolted when she attempted to wrap her tongue around his name. “Pierre d'Épiluçon.”
Helena leaned back and rested her head against the chair. “Well, Monsieur Pierre, I regret to inform you that you have been unwell.”
Pierre tried to sit up, and found that he could do so as long as he did not move too fast. “Unwell?”
She nodded, and the sunlight pouring through the window behind him made her hair beam. “I…I found you on the beach, not twenty yards from this house. You had been shipwrecked, I think, and struggled to find your way. You did not seem unwell, but when I awoke I found you in a fever.”
“A fever?” Pierre stared at her, and tried to remember. Well, that would certainly make sense. How could Giselle have been here, after all – and his parents, he had talked with them…but they could not have been here, it was not possible.
Helena seemed to be watching him closely. Suddenly conscious that there may be a tear creeping into his eye, Pierre forced himself to twist on the sofa and drop his feet down to the floor. His shoes were gone, but a pair of what looked like ancient slippers were waiting for him.
“It has been but one day,” Helena gently lifted each foot and placed it in a slipper, “and I must admit, I am relieved to see that the fever has broken. If it had continued much further, I would have had need to call Mrs Thatcher.”
This last name meant nothing to Pierre, so he brushed it aside, asking, “But you, mademoiselle Helene. You have taken care of me?”
He could see the answer immediately in the modest glow of recognition, but all she said was, “I was here, and I made you comfortable. I am no doctor, monsieur.”
“Non, but I feel much better!” Pierre tried a smile, and found that his winning charm did not seem to have been damped by his drop in the ocean. “That would have taken a little skill, I would say. I am in your debt, mademoiselle – at least, I assume that it is mademoiselle. Should I say, madame?”
The young woman stared at him for a moment, and Pierre was surprised to find within himself a desperate hope that he was wrong. But how could he be: a gentle woman like she, beautiful, caring, all alone in this house, small as it was? These slippers were not made for a woman’s feet.
“I-I am unmarried, monsieur,” she eventually said, with colour in her cheeks. “Why would you think otherwise?”
Pierre smiled, and this was a genuine smile, born of relief and a little heat that flooded through his heart. “You are alone here, mademoiselle, without anyone?”
He regretted his phrasing at once, for he saw in an instant that she took it as a threat.
“My father is – is in town,” she said stiffly, rising and moving towards what Pierre assumed was the kitchen. It was so difficult to navigate in these peasant homes. “I assure you, I am quite protected, and what’s more there are three more cottages but a mile from – ”
“Pardon, you misunderstand me,” said Pierre hastily, outstretching a placatory hand. “I just wished to enquire whether there were any more of the house to whom I owed the gratitude of saving my life.”
He almost overdid it, he could see that in the colour of her cheeks, but she was mollified.
Helena stepped forward, cup still in hand. “Well then,” she spoke with a little discomfort, but less distrust. “In that case, you should have some more water. You need to regain your strength.”
Her hips swayed slightly as she walked towards him, and Pierre discovered that regaining strength was not going to be a problem. Controlling the strength of desire that Helena was starting to awake in him was going to be a very different matter.
She watched him with those blue eyes as he drank, unaided this time. And then she spoke, causing him to splutter into the cup. “Who is Giselle?”
“Giselle?” He coughed, trying to breathe as she took the cup hastily from him. “What do you mean, Giselle?”
Helena sat back in the chair, staring at him with a far more knowing look than he was comfortable with. No one in France had ever looked at him like that. “Giselle. You mentioned her several times during your delirium; you called out to her a few times, if I recall. Who is she?”
Pierre shifted on the sofa, conscious of the red tint that was starting to diffuse over his cheeks. So, he had called out for her – it was truly embarrassing to be caught in such feeling by someone as strikingly beautiful as Miss Helena.
“Forget my request,” she said unexpectedly, and the eyes he had dropped rose quickly to meet hers. “I should not have asked, I had no right to pry.”
She handed him the bowl that she had brought through from the kitchen, and Pierre stared down at it, horrified. He had never seen anything like it in his life, and hoped to God that he never would again.
“What is this?”
Helena smiled mischievously. “Why, monsieur, are you telling me that you have never eaten English gruel before?”
Pierre picked up the spoon that had almost drowned in the bowl, and watched as something grey, lumpy, and warm dribbled down back into the mass. “This is food?”
She laughed, and picked up her own bowl – a bowl, Pierre saw, that was filled with a very different fare. “‘Tis the very lifeblood of English schools and prisons, monsieur, and there will be those who tell you that they are essentially the same place. No, I jest sir, ‘tis food. Something plain and simple, to bear you up after your fever. You can enjoy real food in time.”
“Real food like that?”
Helena smiled down at her own bowl. “Yes, fish stew. It is delicious, fresh from the sea that I pulled it from a few hours ago, and it is not for you until you have finished your own.”
Pierre grimaced, but lowered the spoon. Anything to keep off the topic of Giselle.
He was not so fortunate.
“I think,” said his fair companion, hesitantly, “that you lost your family in the Revolution. Is that true?”
Unable to tell whether it was a blessing or a curse that his mouth was now full of gruel, Pierre nodded, and swallowed. “I appreciate that you have no wish to force the truth from me, so I shall give it to you. My father was guillotined, my mother killed by a mob, and my sister – Giselle – tried to escape to England a year ago.”
Helena’s own spoon had paused halfway between her bo
wl and her mouth, and fish stew was dripping. “Guillotined? Killed? Your mother?”
Pierre nodded again. “I have not heard from my sister in that year, and when I received news that my neck was the next to be laid on the line for France, I knew that it was time for me to come and look for her myself. Letters, servants, rewards could not bring me joy. And I can never go back now: France is as closed to me, for the rest of my days.”
She was staring at him, and the horror and compassion that mingled across her face was painful for Pierre to see. “I am so sorry for your loss, monsieur, it is – well, it is simply terrible.”
Pierre swallowed. “It…it was terrible. Sometimes I dream about them, and it is so real that when I wake up, I almost forget that it is happened. And then I remember, and it is like going through the bereavement all over again.”
They eat in silence for a minute, and then Helena peered at him curiously. “You did tell me, monsieur, that you were a criminal. Why did you lie?”
He laughed, setting down the almost empty bowl. “In a way, it was the truth. I and my kind have been considered outlaws, criminals, poison to the country of France, all for the crime of being rich in coffers and rich in bloodline.”
“That is awful!” Helena’s mouth was aghast, and his spirit soared to see her so outraged. “Pierre, that is despicable, how can it be allowed?”
“Do not fret yourself,” he said in his best reassuring tone, reaching out to take her hand. It was warm, and it sparked something in him that he could not describe. “These troubles of mine, and my people – they are something that you, in your state of life, will never have to know anything of. ‘Tis just for those of us burdened with nobility.”
Helena felt the heat and irritation rush through her body, and her cheeks coloured. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”
She could see by the surprise in his eyes that Pierre had not been expecting such a rush of fierce emotion.
“Pardon?”
“Burdened with nobility?” She repeated, trying to maintain her composure but failing miserably. “It may surprise you to learn, monsieur, that my family was once relatively wealthy. We owned much of the land around here, and if it had not been for some…unfortunate financial decisions that my father made, along with familial sickness, well, I would have left you under the care and charge of my housekeeper.”
Helena saw with sadness that Pierre was attempting not to smile.
“Ah, you may smile, sir,” she said quietly, the gentleness that was truly at the core of her soul washing over her and quelling the fiery sparks of anger, “but I can inform you that I received news just yesterday that my sister is engaged to be married to the Duke of Caershire. I am not, perhaps, to be a duchess myself, but to be the sister of one should, I am sure, make me quite as noble as many.”
She had not known exactly what she was to expect from these words: she was certainly delighted to be able to speak them, proud of her sister, honoured with the newly formed connection. What she had not excepted was for Pierre d'Épiluçon’s eyes to widen, soften, and then settle in a new expression of respect and interest – and, and here she coloured slightly, with desire.
“And there you show your true colours,” she said quietly. “Yes, I see how you look at me now. I scorn your idea of nobility, if it can have such a change in your view of a person. Am I not the same woman who saved your life? Do you not owe me the same respect?”
Pierre may have been born a noble, but at that moment, he looked unable to speak. “Pardon, je suis désolé – it was not my intention to…”
Helena was not trying to glare, but she could not help it. “Perhaps, monsieur, you need to learn to view people as worth something beyond their social status.”
5
It was a day of frustration for Pierre d'Épiluçon, as he sat on the sofa, not permitted to move or stir by his hostess, when he felt with every passing moment that his energy and vitality was returning to him.
The sun moved slowly and lazily across the room, adding to the atmosphere of futility. Pierre fidgeted, and received nothing but stern looks all the morning from Helena.
“Sit still,” she would say quietly. “You must regain your strength.”
And so he did. Nothing moved save his eyes, but they found more and more to be pleased with as the days progressed, for he found the bustle of Helena more than enough entertainment to keep his mind alive.
At first, he tried to ignore her as she pottered about the room: moving to the mending pile, quickly stitching together a shirt, moving then to the kitchen and bringing through some spring flowers in a vase, popping upstairs for a shawl. It was as though she was unable to keep still, unwilling to stay in one place.
Unable to accept his gaze?
Pierre felt longing flow through him as he watched her. True, he had noticed her quiet and still beauty the moment that he had taken a good look at her, but it was only now that he watched her that he noticed her elegance, her attention to detail, the way she cared for that little house as though it was a person. The earrings that she always wore, diamonds they looked like, though he supposed now they were but glass, glimmering in the light.
And then three days after he had arrived, she broke into his thoughts. “Do you require anything?”
Pierre started, and his gaze focused on her, standing before him, hands on those flowing hips.
He swallowed. “Non, merci mademoiselle.”
She moved away again, but not before giving him an arch look that made parts of him stir that really should not be awakened, as a twinge from his leg reminded him of his recent injury.
Now she was moving through the room, dusting. It was incredible, Pierre mused as he watched the turn of her neck as she looked around at her work, just how elegantly and neatly she kept the place, considering their circumstances.
“You watch me, sir.” Her words were not sharp, but her look was. “Do I displease you?”
“Quite the contrary,” he responded without thinking, and almost laughed aloud at the blush that his words instigated. “My apologies, mademoiselle, I only meant that you are doing nothing to incite displeasure. Please, continue as though I am not here.”
And yet he could hardly forget that she was there. After lunch, she gave him a small book – the only book that he had noticed in the house – and he looked down with pleasure to see that it was Voltaire.
“Ah, Voltaire!” He smiled at her, and was glad to see a small smile in return. “I did not know that you were an aficionado of Voltaire!”
For a moment, she rested on the armchair beside him, and now there was a natural smile. “Yes, he was my favourite author. When I was small, we had a library with his complete works, but…well, all the books had to be sold. That was the only one I was permitted to keep, and that only because we had a duplicate.”
Pierre looked at her gently, and reached out a hand to clasp hers. It jolted more desire in him than he knew what to do with. “Helene, I am sure that one day, you will have your own library.”
Helena looked up at him, and his jaw dropped at the longing he saw in her eyes. Yes, she felt the same pull, the same –
“I would love a library of my own,” she said wistfully, and all the hopes that had risen within him died away. “But I suppose I shall visit my sister’s, once she is married to the Duke of Caershire.”
And without another word, she pulled away and disappeared once more into the kitchen.
Pierre sank back into the sofa, trying to catch his breath. Well, if he had hoped to convince himself that he felt nothing for her, then he was sadly mistaken! Fire was flooding through his body like never before, and if he was not careful, he would be in some danger of regarding Miss – but then, he did not know her full name.
The afternoon dragged on with Pierre forbidden, continuously, from stirring an inch. He watched her, and saw the truth in her that her family had once been wealthy. He could see it in the way that she held herself, the excellent taste she displayed in book
s, music, and décor. The way she glared at him when she caught his eye, and that smile that he was sure she was unaware she revealed.
Yes, he was attracted to her. Though it would be far too easy to press that point home, Pierre was forced to admit that as his strength gained apace, he found himself wanting to speak with her more.
“Tell me, Helene, how – ”
“Helena,” she corrected as she bustled past him, taking another shirt from the mending pile and dropping elegantly into a chair – and not, Pierre noticed, the chair beside him.
“Helena,” he said quietly, and with such feeling that she started and looked up. Smiling at having gained her attention, Pierre continued, “tell me how your sister and the Duke of…of…”
She smiled, and his stomach twisted as he saw it. “Caershire.”
“Yes, that,” he said hastily. “How did they meet? How came they to become engaged?”
Her smile faded slightly as she concentrated on the stitching, bringing it closer to her eyes in the fading afternoon sun. “Engaged?”
Pierre nodded, trying to ignore the dexterity of those light fingers.
Helena shrugged, and her smile returned, but it was a shy one. “How does anyone become engaged, I suppose. They met, they liked, they loved.”
He watched her cheeks tint a delightful shade of pink, and grinned. She was very conscious of him, that was true – did it stem from an attraction to him, or merely an awareness of his?
“And they are to be married soon?”
She glanced up at him with questioning eyes. “You are very curious. Do you know the Duke?”
Pierre shook his head nonchalantly, and shivered slightly in the cooling evening air. “No, I just wondered. Such different social circles, I thought, it does not seem likely that – ”
“You are cold,” Helena interrupted, laying aside her mending and reaching for a blanket.
Pierre bristled. “This has gone on long enough, mademoiselle, I am quite well now. A little confusion yesterday, perhaps, but I have fully recovered my strength and I do not need – ”
Ravishing Regencies: The Complete Series: A Steamy Regency Romance Boxset Page 21
