by Karen Ranney
He wasn’t a bad-looking man. In fact, she might consider him handsome if his character were not so lamentable.
“You’re married, sir. Have you forgotten?”
His laughter was surprising. “Of course I haven’t, Jeanne. Why else would I propose putting you up in your own house?”
Hartley reached out and cupped her breast again, squeezing lightly. She shivered and stiffened.
“You should become accustomed to my touch, Jeanne, if you’re to be a mistress.” His eyes narrowed and the genial air he’d adopted only a moment ago slipped. In its place was the gaze of a man who knew his own power, and knew full well that she had none.
She hated him, just as she’d learned to hate Sister Marie-Thérèse, just as she’d grown to hate her father.
The first and only time she’d given herself to a man had been with love. Nothing would ever be quite as beautiful as those months in Paris, when she and Douglas had been able to steal away together. She had learned that loving Douglas physically was only an extension of what she already felt for him. She’d lost her virginity gloriously to him, and her passion had grown each time they were together until the world seemed to shimmer with it. Ten years ago she couldn’t wait to be with Douglas again, each hour they were apart almost physically painful.
Hartley made pleasure sound tawdry, something to feel ashamed about. How foolish a man he was not to know that passion without emotion was lifeless.
When she didn’t move, didn’t rebuff his touch, he smiled. “I thought you would see the truth of the situation. The French are infinitely excitable, but they have moments of practicality.”
She didn’t look anywhere but at his face, keeping herself from moving only by the greatest of wills. Robert Hartley was not the first bully she’d ever encountered.
He dropped his hand while the other slid around her neck, pulling her toward him. Slowly, giving her time to move, he pressed his lips against her mouth. She kept her eyes open, focusing on his closed lids. His lips were cool, the pressure on her mouth forceful. He didn’t kiss as much as mark her.
“You’ll warm up in no time,” he said, pulling back. He thrust his hand into her hair, dislodging the pins of her bun. “You’re not a virgin, are you, Jeanne?”
At her silence, he chuckled. “I didn’t think so. A man can tell. There’s a certain ripeness to you.”
She heard the sound of Davis returning at that moment, the intrusion welcome. She moved back just as the little boy opened the door, coming into the room with a burst of energy.
“What are you doing here?” Hartley asked, turning and frowning down at his son.
“Nurse says that it looks to rain, Father. And Robbie has a cold.”
Hartley nodded, and turned to Jeanne once again. “I’ll come to you tonight, Jeanne, to give you a taste of me,” he whispered. “I suggest you be receptive to my visit.”
A minute later he was gone, and the schoolroom was blessedly free of him. She took a deep breath. Even the air seemed cleaner.
“Are you all right, miss? You’re trembling.” Davis’s voice seemed to come from very far away.
Twice she tried to speak, and twice nothing emerged from her lips. “Yes,” she said finally managing a word. She placed her hand on the child’s head, forced a smile to her lips. “I’m fine, Davis.”
In that instant Jeanne made her decision.
Even if it meant being without a home or living in uncertainty, she would not be Hartley’s mistress. She had already proven she was a survivor. She would not surrender now. Nor could she bear the thought of Douglas being so close, a possible witness to her humiliation.
Instead, she chose her freedom, knowing that she would have to endure whatever fate dealt her. She had done it before, she could do it again.
Chapter 10
J eanne found that it took a special type of courage to wait for nightfall. The young girl she’d been screamed inside for Douglas to come and rescue her from this untenable situation. But the more mature Jeanne knew that there were no longer any knights in her world. She was alone and dependent upon herself.
The sound of thunder drew her to the window. A storm was approaching on the horizon, chasing the night across the sky. God would reward her courage with rain, then. She tilted her chin up to stare at the sky as if facing a Deity hiding behind the clouds.
“Scare me with thunder, punish me with rain,” she softly dared.
God sent a bolt of lightning to scratch the sky.
She only smiled in response.
A few moments later, she went to the armoire, bent, and opened one of the two drawers and withdrew her valise. Stained and worn, it had held the remnants of her life on her flight from France.
Filling the case with her possessions took only a moment.Two chemises, two dresses, a selection of well-darned stockings, her extra set of stays, and a silver hairbrush given to her.
Reaching in to the bottom of the armoire, she pulled out the book of poetry she’d rescued from the ruins of Vallans. It fell to the floor, revealing the flyleaf. There, in her schoolgirl script, she’d written her name over and over coupled with Douglas’s. Jeanne Catherine Alexis du Marchand MacRae. She averted her eyes from the flyleaf, embarrassed that she’d been so utterly foolish. Another woman now bore Douglas’s name.
She packed the book into the valise before reaching into the armoire again. Her fingers smoothed over a small journal, another item she’d rescued from the ruins of the library at Vallans.
When she was a little girl, she’d accidentally discovered a loose brick in the fireplace there. Over the years she’d made a habit of using it to hide those treasures she didn’t want her nurse or governess to find. When she’d returned to Vallans in disgrace, to live out her confinement, everything in her room had been searched, every scrap of paper removed, every book, everything that might have reminded her of her time in Paris destroyed. But she’d already hidden the most precious of her belongings behind the loose brick.
After leaving the convent, she’d returned to Vallans simply because she had nowhere else to go. It had taken her some time to get her bearings among the ruins, but when she did, Jeanne found her way to the chimney that had once been the focal point of the library. She’d knelt there, clearing off the space in front of what had been the hearth.
Using her nails for leverage around the brick, she’d pulled it free an inch at a time. Slipping her fingers inside, she retrieved those four items she’d hidden nine years earlier. The locket her mother had given her before her death, a book of poetry given to her by Douglas after learning of her love of verse, the journal, and the greatest of her treasures, a pair of spectacles with double-hinged temple pieces and small round lenses. They fastened behind her ears with two lengths of ribbon.
These four items were proof that she was loved, by her mother, her governess, and by Douglas.
She hefted the small leather journal in her hand. For something so small, it contained enormous power to wound. Perhaps it would be wiser to wish that the journal had been consigned to the flames. She didn’t want to read the words of this hopeful young woman. But she dared herself to open the book.
Page twelve:
Douglas kissed me today. I thought my heart would explode in my chest from its frantic beating. I couldn’t breathe and simply lay in his arms, almost afraid. No one warned me about the power of a kiss. No one told me that it would make me feel as if my mind were separated from my body. Father Haton says that God abjures the sinner who tastes the pleasures of the flesh until marriage and I know now why. It is too difficult to stop kissing Douglas.
Another page. Twenty-four:
My feet don’t touch the cobbles beneath my shoes, and my heart itself feels as if it has wings. Does love make angels of mortals, then? Do I have the power to speak to God in my new state of grace? I love him, God. I love the way he laughs, and the way his eyes crinkle when he’s amused. I love the passionate way he argues a point and even his horrid accent when he speaks Frenc
h. I love his family because he does, and carrots because he does, and birds that sing because it makes his beautiful blue eyes sparkle to hear them.
Jeanne pressed one hand flat against the page, as if to soak up the intricate script and, by doing so, feel the emotions through the ink. Her chest hurt again with the pain and pleasure of loving Douglas.
She couldn’t read any more. She knew, without turning to the page, what the last entry would read:
I fear my time has come and I’m both excited and afraid. I wish there was some way to get word to Douglas. We’re about to have a child and he should know. But if he knew, would he come to me? My heart says yes even though there has been no word from him. I pray that I’m a good mother, that my father will forgive me upon seeing his grandchild. And I know, somehow, that Douglas will return for me.
The next day she’d been sent to the convent.
Her fall from grace had been a sudden and cataclysmic one. One moment her father was tolerant and amused. The next, the Comte de Marchand was her jailer. They had never restored their relationship. How could they? He had sent her daughter away for the sake of bloodlines, for the sake of his pride.
Packing the book into her valise, she closed it, picked it up, and left the room.
At the head of the stairs she hesitated, listening for footsteps. At the second-floor landing she could hear the distant sound of conversation and realized that Hartley was speaking with Althea. He was acting the doting husband prior to coming to Jeanne’s room.
Slowly, she continued down the stairs, careful not to make a sound.
The large front door was locked by seven, but she knew where the key was kept. Carefully, she reached behind the enormous blue and white Chinese vase for the small key box.
A moment later she was out the front door, locking it behind her. She tossed the key into the hedge, a delaying tactic that would guarantee no one would follow her from the house.
Although she’d already made her decision to leave, Jeanne took the four front steps reluctantly. Past the walk lined with gravel was the future, unknown, uncertain, and holding a degree of fear.
She’d already made her decision about where to go. Her aunt’s husband wouldn’t take her in, having already refused to do so once, but she would take refuge for a few days with a couple she’d met on the voyage across the Channel. They were the parents of the girl she’d nursed, the same ones who’d given her the three dresses. The coins she’d been willing to spend on a sweetmeat for Davis would be a small payment for their kindness. Hopefully, she’d find employment soon.
The lamps in this area of town were extinguished early in case they disturbed the residents trying to sleep. Clutching her valise close to her chest, Jeanne walked into the darkness. Above her, thunder rumbled and lightning flashed, as if God hadn’t forgotten and was still affronted by her dare. Brisk wind whipped tendrils of hair from her bun and lifted her skirt above her ankles.
She could feel the sharp edges of the cobbles beneath her thin shoes, and determinedly ignored the discomfort. She’d walked nearly the whole distance from Vallans to the French coast. Wagons had been scarce on the crowded roads. The distance she needed to travel tonight was much shorter in comparison. The community of émigrés lived on the other side of Edinburgh, in a section of Old Town.
Suddenly she was grabbed from behind, arms reaching around her waist and jerking her off her feet. She screamed, but a rough hand over her mouth cut off the sound. Jeanne dropped her valise and used her fists to strike at the assailant behind her.
He swore and grabbed one of her wrists. Jeanne retaliated by kicking him. One foot connected with a leg but he didn’t hesitate, grabbing her other wrist. Twisting out of his grasp, she slapped at him.
“Damn woman!”
She kicked him again before bending down and grabbing her valise and swinging it at him. It struck him in the chest with a resounding and satisfying thud.
He swore again, grabbed her and picked her up by the waist, and slung her over his shoulder. His chuckle infuriated her, and she got in one good blow using her elbow on the back of his head.
“Damn woman, will you be still?”
She heartily hoped that his shout would alert some of the neighbors, but no one emerged from the adjacent townhouses.
She debated biting him, but resorted to striking him repeatedly on the backside with her fists.
“I really don’t want to do this, miss,” he said. “If you don’t stop struggling, I’m going to have to hit you.”
“Then you’re going to have to hit me,” she said, kicking her legs into the air. “I’m not going to let you rape me without a struggle.”
“Rape, is it? I’ve never raped a woman in my life,” he said indignantly.
He lowered her to the ground, and she was so surprised that she stood there for a moment staring at the shape of him in the darkness. A second later, she took off, running as fast as she could. Her assailant was right behind her. An instant later he tackled her, throwing her roughly to the ground.
She lay there, winded.
“Get off me, you brute,” she demanded when she could speak.
“I’m going to take you to him,” he muttered. “Let him decide what to do with you.”
She could barely breathe, let alone formulate a question. Like a sack of meal she was slung over his shoulder again. Backtracking a few paces, he bent and retrieved her valise and began to walk, keeping to the shadows.
Jeanne was in the ignominious position of hanging upside down, the blood rushing to her head. She struck at him with her fists, but the effort was a puny one. She still couldn’t catch her breath completely, and now she was dizzy.
Less than five minutes later, her assailant dropped her unceremoniously at the base of a series of steps. She landed on her backside, staring up at him in the light of two lanterns. He was a young man, with a thin face and long brown hair. For a moment they glared at each other before he jerked his chin in the direction of the stairs.
“You’re a might too heavy to carry all that way,” he said, gesturing up to the front door.
She frowned at him, ignoring that insult. “What is this place?” she asked.
“Never you mind. Are you going to walk or should I get someone to help me carry you?” he asked.
“I’m not as heavy as all that,” she said, annoyed.
He made a rude sound.
She stood, brushing her skirt, ignoring her sore backside. He grabbed her by the wrist and half dragged her up the steps. She debated kicking him again, but just then the door opened.
An elderly man, attired in a long dressing gown, a tasseled cap on his white hair, frowned down at both of them.
“Tell MacRae I’ve brought her here. She was going to run, and I didn’t know what to do.”
The majordomo stepped aside, revealing the one person she hadn’t expected to see, didn’t want to see. Douglas MacRae.
“Will you tell this person,” she said, sending a sidelong glance toward her abductor, “to leave me alone? I take it I’m here at your request?”
“Actually, no,” he said, moving to stand in front of the manservant.
“She was leaving the house, sir,” said the young man beside her. “The captain told me I was to tell you her whereabouts. He didn’t tell me that she’d be slipping away like a thief. I nearly missed her.”
Douglas looked at the young man and then at Jeanne before turning to the elderly retainer. “You may retire, Lassiter,” he said. “As you can see, this visitor is for me.”
The majordomo looked at Douglas, then at Jeanne, no expression visible on his face. But the stiffness of his shoulders as he bowed left no doubt as to his displeasure. In an instant he’d faded away, as all upper servants were trained to do. One moment he was present, the next he was akin to invisible.
“You’ve shocked my servant,” he said dryly, reaching out and gripping her arm. “I suggest that you come inside before you scandalize all of Edinburgh. Thank you,” he said, dis
missing the young man with a few coins. “You did well.”
Before she could speak, before she could utter a protest, Douglas had pushed her into the doorway and closed the door behind them. A moment later the door opened again.
“Forgot her valise, sir,” the young man said, and set the case inside the door.
Douglas’s eyebrows lifted as he glanced at the valise and then at Jeanne. “Planning a trip?”
“I shouldn’t be here,” she stated. “As you said, I might scandalize all of Edinburgh.” Not to mention your wife. The very last person in the world she wished to meet tonight was Douglas MacRae’s wife.
The thunder boomed again as Douglas glanced upward. “Will you not stay until after the storm, Miss du Marchand? Unless, of course, you have somewhere to go and a timetable to keep?” His tone was light, as if the circumstance of her appearance amused him.
She remained silent.
“Why were you leaving? Did Hartley get too amorous?”
He turned and faced her. She was wrong to think him entertained by her plight. Instead, he appeared angry. His eyes were narrowed, and his mouth thinned. Once again, she had the thought that the Douglas of her youth had matured to become a very imposing man.
Abruptly, she wanted to know everything about those years between them. What had happened to him? Where had he gone? She wanted, most of all, to know why he’d never come for her.
Had he not known how desperately she’d loved him? How much she’d grieved for his absence? For years she’d wondered if he’d died, and prayed for his soul more than for her own.
She didn’t speak as he removed the shawl from her shoulders. When his hand lingered on her back, his fingers trailing to her neck, she took one cautious step forward.
“I should not be here,” she said.
“Then leave,” he said, his voice rough, almost rude.
She glanced at the door and then back at him.
