Gabriel St. Briac’s white teeth gleamed when he smiled. “You might say so, Captain Raveneau. Your friend is called Beauvisage, is he not? His family came to own Château du Soleil through marriage to one of my female St. Briac ancestors.”
Isabella, who sat beside him looking bewitched, protested, “But, m’sieur, why would it pass to her if there were St. Briac males?”
Sampling a piece of cheese, he replied, “Because, my lady, my great-grandfather was…misbegotten. How do you say it? Born on the wrong side of the blanket? His father was the son of Paul Mardouet, seigneur de St. Briac, but his mother was a nun.”
“How is that possible?”
“You are very young,” he conceded. “Perhaps this is the sort of thing that should wait until you are older?”
“No! I have more knowledge of the world than you imagine, m’sieur. I insist that you tell me.”
St. Briac looked across the table to Sebastian, who sighed and lifted both eyebrows in assent.
“D’accord. Suffice it to say that Philippe Mardouet, the only son of the lord of St. Briac, had a love affair with a young woman in the village, and shortly thereafter, Philippe was killed in a hunting accident. When his father died the next year, the property passed to Philippe’s sister, Marie, and her Beauvisage husband.” St. Briac paused and the room was utterly silent as the guests waited to hear more. “Meanwhile, Philippe’s broken-hearted lover entered a convent when he was killed. After she had taken vows, she found that she was with child. That baby was my great-grandfather. He was raised by his Tante Marie, in the family château, and they christened him Philippe, after his father, and gave him the surname of the village of St. Briac. Of course, there was never any question of him being the rightful heir to the title or lands, because he was a…”
“A bastard,” Isabella supplied, her eyes round behind her spectacles.
“Exactly so, my lady.” A wry smile touched St. Briac’s mouth. “Philippe went out into the world and made his own fortune and built his own manor house, here in Bretagne. But our family has carried the name of St. Briac to remind us of our origins.”
“That is the most romantic story I have ever heard,” the girl murmured, seemingly unable to tear her gaze from the handsome face of Gabriel St. Briac.
Watching them, Julia couldn’t help worrying a bit about Isabella, and when Sebastian turned toward her, she saw by his expression that he shared her concern.
“God’s blood, what are we going to do with that child?” he muttered.
“Child? She is on the verge of womanhood.”
Devon Raveneau took charge of the situation from her chair at the head of the table. “I have eaten far too much of Madame Tocquer’s cherry tart! I fear I am in danger of nodding off in my chair.”
“It’s late,” said her husband, rising.
Surveying the remains of their meal amidst the guttering candle flames, Julia found that she was suddenly very tired. As they all moved slowly toward the door, she and Sebastian made their farewells to the Raveneau family.
“Now that I’ve been reunited with Isabella, I don’t feel right about leaving her with you,” Sebastian told them in a low voice.
Raveneau laughed. “You forget that we already have a daughter and she is just two years older than Isabella.”
“I have loved having Isabella with us,” exclaimed Mouette, linking arms with the younger girl.
“We will bring you to Cornwall very soon,” Julia told her sister-in-law. They embraced and she smiled into her eyes. “You are not alone, my dear. You have a home with us and you shall see it before the summer wanes.”
Farewells were exchanged and Gabriel St. Briac kissed the hands of all the women except Julia. “I bid you all adieu, for I shall walk with Lord Sebastian and his lady. One can never have too much protection on the waterfront at this hour.”
When the Frenchman had disappeared with Sebastian and Julia through the arched granite doorway of the inn, Mouette turned to her young friend and shook her head.
“I have never seen you behave that way before! Don’t you know that he is a fully-grown man and you are just a schoolgirl?”
Isabella pretended to swoon, and her spectacles slipped down her nose as she exclaimed, “Oh, Mouette, can’t you see? That is the man I intend one day to marry.”
Chapter 28
It was nearly midnight by the time André Raveneau slipped into the carved tester bed beside his wife.
“I can’t remember the last time I felt this tired,” he complained, shifting uncomfortably on the rather lumpy feather mattress. “Being a host has never been my strong suit.”
Devon made no reply.
“Are you sleeping, petite chatte?” He rolled toward her and reached for her, but she managed to elude his embrace. “What’s wrong? Has that cherry tart upset your stomach?” Shaking his head against the meager pillow, he added, “The food was good enough, but too rich for my taste. When can we go home to Connecticut?”
That was too much for Devon. She sat up in the bed and looked down at him. “I want to talk to you.”
His dark hand reached out to touch the bed gown she wore, only to find it was fastened up to her neck. “What the devil is this?”
“Never mind. Sit up and talk to me.”
“Why can’t we lie down and talk? Take off that ridiculous piece of clothing, cherie, and come into my arms where you belong.”
“André, I am very serious.” She narrowed her eyes at him for emphasis. “Heed me.”
He stared at her, clearly thinking. Devon thought it was terribly unfair that just the sight of him continued to stir her as no other man could. “Eh bien.” Slowly, he pushed himself up until they were sitting side by side. “For you, I will do it. Do you want to talk about one of the children?”
“You might say that.”
“Morbleu! Stop looking at me as if you would like to feed me poison and speak your mind!”
“All right, I will.” She then found herself speechless and waved a fist at him. “Ooh! Why is that, even after so many years, you can make me feel so angry, so helpless, so—so—”
“Are you mad? I haven’t done anything wrong!”
“André, I know about Sebastian.” Devon waited, rather enjoying the sight of his suddenly stunned expression. After a moment, she turned the knife. “I know about you and Charlotte.”
“Of course you do. I told you that I knew her many years ago,” he said carefully.
“No. That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Raveneau threw back the covers and got out of bed, stalking naked across the room. Moonlight lent a faint silvery glow to his movements and the contours of his lean-muscled body. Devon watched as he poured a small amount of brandy and drank it.
“Am I to be condemned for having known other women before our marriage?” he demanded.
Devon gave a mirthless laugh. “You can’t be serious! You? I know that about you better than anyone. I had to accept you with your flaws—”
“Flaws? Is that what you call them?”
She pretended not to hear him. “The fact that you were a libertine before we met is not the issue tonight, and I’ll thank you not to attempt to distract me. I want to talk to you about Charlotte Trevarre, the Marchioness of Caverleigh.”
His eyes narrowed. “You needn’t describe her further.” He found his breeches on the back of a chair and began to pull them on, followed by a fine linen shirt.
“What are you doing?”
“Is a man not allowed to have even a small corner of privacy in his life? Must I share all of my past with you, even matters that do not concern you or our marriage in the least?” Raveneau fumbled around in the shadows for his boots. “I am going out, where I will not be forced to divulge every last secret to my wife!”
“I have always respected your privacy. You were an adult for a dozen years before we met and I have always realized that there would be parts of your life that would remain hidden to me. However, sir, one person
from your past has caught up to us and demands to be shared.”
“What the devil do you mean?”
“Kindly lower your voice before Lindsay awakens and starts to cry!”
“Another reason to take my leave! A man ought to be able to raise his voice when justifiably angry without being told to hush as if he were an errant child!”
“Do you mean to go outdoors and shout, then?”
“Mon Dieu,” he growled, “you try my last bit of patience, Devon!”
She scrambled out of bed and rushed to the door, pressing her back against it and spreading her arms wide on either side of her petite, nightgown-clad form. Rose-gold curls fell across her brow as she faced him defiantly.
“You are too fine a man to run away from me, André. Sit down!”
Their eyes met and, after nearly two decades, she could almost read his thoughts. Raking a hand through his hair, Raveneau pivoted and walked back to bed.
“I am at your command, madam. Do you see? I sit.”
“Don’t you dare mock me.” She marched after him and perched beside him on the edge of the heavy bed.
“Clearly you believe that you know something quite shocking. I would have you share it with me.”
Devon pursed her lips, wondering how her husband had managed to turn the situation around so that he was the inquisitor. “This is not a game. If you imagine that I want to delve into your secrets, you are mistaken.” Her eyes softened. “In truth, I have always found it appealing that there were parts of you I would never know, and that will continue to be the case after tonight. But André, we must talk about Charlotte—and Sebastian.”
Raveneau leaned against the dark, carved bedpost and gave a harsh sigh. “You know me too well, cherie, perhaps better than I know myself.”
“Yes. And I am aware that you would rather not revisit your past.” Moving closer, she reached for his dark, strong hand, and felt the tension in it. “We can face this together, you know.”
After a long minute of silence, he said, “I was only nineteen when I met Charlotte here on the Breton coast, where she had come to paint. She was already married, unhappily, and had a son, George.” Raveneau arched a cynical brow. “The same son who is now hell-bent on squandering his family fortune.”
“Nineteen.” Devon considered this. “Did she…school you in the ways of love?”
“Ma petite, I am shocked that you would ask me such a thing!” Relaxing a bit, he laughed softly and drew her against him. “Charlotte was older, it’s true, but perhaps not more experienced. It was a passionate romance, but it ended when she returned to England and I went to sea. I didn’t see her again for many years, until you and I married and traveled to London.”
“And, did Charlotte tell you then that you were the father of her younger son, Sebastian?”
He didn’t flinch, but Devon saw the scar that marked his jawline whiten. “She did not. Why do you say such a thing?”
“Well, first of all, his parentage is quite obvious now that he is a grown man. I knew it in my heart the day that he and Julia arrived in London and I saw him standing in our doorway.” She turned against him and searched his face. “Surely you saw it, too?”
“I will be frank with you and admit that the thought did cross my mind, but physical resemblance is not proof, Devon. It could be purely coincidence.”
“You and I both know differently. It is there in so many ways: the set of his shoulders when I see him from behind. The certain way he arches his eyebrow. The shape of his hands. Even the sardonic tone of his voice and laughter. He is so eerily similar to you at the same age—but perhaps I can see it more clearly than you.”
Raveneau shook his head. “Your imagination is very powerful.”
“I have tried to tell myself the same thing. After all, why would I want to believe that you created a child with another woman? But then, tonight, I saw the eye ring.”
The look on his face told her that he knew exactly what she was talking about. “I despise that…objet.” He said it in the French way. “It is disturbing, a disembodied eye staring out from a piece of jewelry!”
“You have seen it yourself then? Before tonight?”
“Twice. The first time was perhaps six years ago, when we brought Lisette Beauvisage to London and we were staying in our former, smaller home in Grosvenor Square. I encountered Charlotte outside one day; I recall that she had little Isabella with her. We chatted and then she made a point of removing her glove so that I couldn’t help seeing that damned ring.”
“She said nothing?” Devon was grateful that, now that this subject was in the open, she could depend on her husband to be honest.
“No. But she watched me. And I confess that a chill ran down my spine when I saw it.”
“You recognized your own eye?”
He shrugged. “Not exactly, but I had the thought. I remembered that she had painted a miniature of me that summer in Bretagne. It occurred to me that she might have used that likeness as her model for the eye ring.”
“But why would she make such a thing so many years later? Do you think that she continued to love you?”
“I couldn’t say. Perhaps she made it as a lark, after eye jewelry came into vogue. On the other hand…”
“Yes?”
“Ah, well, the second time I saw that ring was when Sebastian brought it to our home after his meeting with Miles Bartholomew. He said that his mother had left it with the solicitor, with explicit instructions that Sebastian should receive it if she died.”
“Of course; a message!”
“Perhaps. There was a second ring, set with sapphires, which she bequeathed to him. My suspicions were strengthened with I saw them together.”
Devon waited. She could hear the rapid beating of her own heart.
“You see, the second ring was one that I gave Charlotte during that long-ago summer on the coast of Bretagne. It had belonged to my own deceased mother, and I was foolish enough in my love-struck youth to part with it.” Raveneau rubbed his brow with long fingers, then looked directly into his wife’s eyes. “Ah, cherie, no doubt that our thoughts are the same at this moment. Charlotte left the two rings to Sebastian to supply clues that might never have been deciphered if our paths had not crossed this summer.”
“You have known, then, but did not intend to act?”
“I saw no reason to go that far. We are all perfectly happy in our lives. Until you insisted on this discussion tonight, I had every reason to continue to keep my own counsel.” He gave Devon a faintly defiant look. “It is not as though I have turned my back on Sebastian. On the contrary, I have offered him my friendship in the strongest possible terms, but he is a grown man and perfectly able to manage his own affairs. He is past the age of needing a father, especially one who has been absent his entire life.”
She went into his arms and held him close. “My darling, is it possible that you might be wrong?”
“It is highly unlikely, but I shall consider the matter. Later.” Raveneau kissed the tender spots on her neck, drawing a throb of surrender from Devon’s traitorous body. “At the moment, I am very weary of talking and thinking. Kindly remove that ridiculous garment and come to bed with me, where you belong.”
“But André—”
He arched a brow in a gesture she found irresistible. “I perceive that I must attempt to reassure you that you are the only woman I have truly loved. Will you let me try, petite chatte?”
Chapter 29
As the wind blew black clouds across the moon, raindrops began to spatter the transom windows outside the captain’s cabin. Sebastian, fully dressed, had just pulled on his boots and drawn his hair back into a queue when Julia stirred in the cozy bunk. She had slept soundly through the night, rocked by the motion of the Peregrine sailing through the currents of the English Channel, but now the ship began to surge erratically. A storm was brewing.
Julia’s beautiful eyes opened and his heart turned over. Whenever he thought back to the way she had loo
ked when they’d first met in Bath’s Royal Crescent, he wanted to laugh. She’d been so crisply discerning then, her rich sable hair neatly twisted into a knot atop her head, her dark-blue eyes clear and direct. Now, when they were alone together, his wife was like a tiger cub. She purred in his arms and regarded him through eyes that were half-closed with passion. The transformation she had undergone made him love her and yearn for her even more ardently.
“Are you going away without even coming to bed?” she mumbled now, frowning.
“You’re not making sense, love.” Sebastian sat down on the edge of the bunk. “I’ve just been in bed, but you were sleeping. I can assure you it drove me mad, having you nestle up against me, but I didn’t have the heart to wake you.” He didn’t add that he’d resisted because every minute of stolen sleep was precious on a night like this. There wasn’t time for love play just yet.
“All I remember is falling asleep waiting for you to come back from talking to Gabriel St. Briac.” Julia paused, pushing the mass of her hair back. “M’sieur St. Briac is your agent, isn’t he? That’s why we’ve been consorting with him, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Of course, if he’d been an uncivilized brute as I half-expected, you would never have met him and Raveneau wouldn’t have invited him to join us last night.” Sebastian searched his chest for his heaviest tricorne hat, then drew it on firmly. The wind had begun to howl and the timbers of the Peregrine groaned in response. “I wasn’t lingering on the dock until nearly midnight just to be sociable, you know. Our cargo had to be loaded.”
What he couldn’t share with Julia was the new plan he and St. Briac had made while standing on the docks. Sebastian and his crew would soon return to Roscoff, to load an especially valuable cargo of the very finest French brandy and Breton salt. The brandy would fetch so high a price that Sebastian’s share should enable him to achieve financial solvency at last.
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