Philippe lifted Veronique’s hand to his lips with a smile. “Mademoiselle Saint-Gaudens, it is a pleasure to see you looking so well.”
“Now that my feet are on steady ground again, I am happy.” She held out her hand to the tall man. “Percival, do come and greet my friends, Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Villeneuve.”
His stooped shoulders refused to be hidden by his navy coat and the thick fall of crisp, white ruffles at his stock. Black hair drifted forward, like a dog’s floppy ears, to frame his long face. As he bowed over her hand, she could not help noticing how his knobby knees were accented by his stylish breeches.
“Vicomte de Villeneuve,” he said with a smile, “I had hoped to encounter you during your stay in Philadelphia to thank you for your kindness to my Veronique on the voyage here.”
“It was my pleasure to be able to remind that cur of his manners.”
“I also had hoped to speak to you of another matter. When I was calling on Monsieur de Talebot last week—”
“Vachel is here?”
“Arrived about a week before your ship, mon seigneur.” He nodded toward Lirienne. “If you will excuse us, ladies.”
“Of course,” she said, with a smile at Philippe. He was grinning as he had when she’d told him that she was pregnant. Something about Vachel de Talebot’s presence in Philadelphia must mean good news to him.
Veronique took Lirienne’s hand. “Tell me all the tidings you have heard here in Philadelphia. Percival is a dear, but he insists that I don’t go out unless he can escort me. As he is so busy …” She shrugged.
“My only tidings is that Philippe and I are going to have a baby.”
“How perfect! A new beginning in our new country. The vicomte must be delighted.”
“He is.” Her smile broadened as she recalled the proud sparkle in Philippe’s eyes when he touched the mound where their child was growing.
“I am so glad things are going well for you.” Veronique sighed. “I sometimes fear Percival and I shall never be married. The modiste I hired has bungled everything I have asked her to do.”
“Veronique, I’m not sure how to ask this, but could you use some other assistance with sewing for your wedding?”
“Can you suggest someone?”
“I sew well.”
“I don’t understand.” A frown ruffled her forehead.
“We’re impoverished. Philippe refuses to let me work for strangers, but I thought … that is, if you …” She forced a smile as she glanced to where Philippe was laughing with Monsieur Goyette. “My mother taught me to do many types of fancywork. I can sew or—”
“I can’t have a vicomtesse doing such work for me. You would shame yourself and your husband.”
“There’s no pride in starvation, especially when I must provide for my baby. After all, you wouldn’t want your godchild to suffer, would you?”
“Godchild?” Veronique’s dark eyes sparkled with pleasure. “You’d ask me to be your baby’s god-mother?”
“If you would agree.” She hoped Philippe would, because she had not discussed this with him. He had to see that this might be the only way for them to stay alive long enough for the baby to be born.
“My parents will be so delighted to discover that a lady as fine as you has asked someone like me to stand with her at her baby’s baptism.”
“There’ll be no baptism if we starve. Veronique, you’re my friend. That’s why I’m making this offer, which I would not extend to a stranger.”
Veronique bit her lower lip as she stared at Lirienne. Wanting to hide her threadbare elbows, Lirienne fought the urge to laugh. The dress was finer than the rags she had worn at Madame Fortier’s house. But, whether she wished it or not, she was no longer Lirienne Gautier. She had become, in some small way, the exiled Vicomtesse de Villeneuve.
“Lirienne, I have some money—”
“I could not accept your charity.” Taking her friend’s hands, she said, “If you feel uncomfortable paying me for my work, I would be happy to help you for free.”
“You are too generous, but I cannot ask you to sew my gown for nothing.” She looked at the ground, obviously embarrassed.
Lirienne said, “Forgive me for speaking of what unsettles you. If you change your mind, Veronique, you may send a message to the Hogshead Tavern. It may cost you a bit to have the pubkeeper deliver it upstairs, but—”
“You live above such a low tavern? Why?”
“Philippe’s assets are in his estate which is unavailable to us now.”
“I never realized how difficult it might be for you here.”
“It is more difficult for Philippe than for me.” She smiled as she saw the two men walking back toward them. Philippe was smiling broadly. “It is so good to see him looking happy.”
“You really love him, don’t you?”
“Why do you ask?” she inquired, now as uneasy as Veronique had been moments ago.
“I have heard much about how marriages among people of your rank are seldom for love.” She squeezed Lirienne’s hands again. “I’m so glad for you that that is not always so.”
Lirienne was not sure what she might have replied, but she was saved from devising some half-truth as Monsieur Goyette bid her a good day before leading Veronique to a carriage farther along the street. When Philippe took her arm and began walking along the cobbled walkway in the opposite direction, he whistled a light tune.
“Did Monsieur Goyette give you good news?” she asked.
“The fact that Vachel is alive is excellent tidings, although I had no doubts that fox could find an escape from the hounds.” He smiled. “I think I shall pay a call on him this afternoon while you rest from this walk.”
“You worry too much about me.”
“Something I enjoy doing.” He whirled her into his arms and kissed her with a fervor that was sure to turn heads on the street.
She did not care as she slipped her arms up his strong back. Joy bubbled inside her. Maybe, at last, their luck had taken a turn for the better.
What a stroke of luck!
Philippe whistled a cheery melody as he carried a wooden box across the street in front of the tavern. He considered stopping in to have something cool to drink to celebrate his good fortune, but he had no interest in hearing the insults that were fired at him and Lirienne each time they walked past the drunkards on the street. How quickly these Americans forgot their debt to France! They still would be bending their knees to an English king if the French fleet had not come to their rescue.
Taking the steps of both staircases two at a time, he threw open the door and shouted, “Lirienne!”
His smile broadened when she peeked out of the bedroom. Setting the box on the table, he held out his arms and drew her into him. He tasted the welcome on her lips. Her arms slipped around him, and he delighted in her curves that were changing daily.
His wife. His beautiful wife, who was going to give him the child he had not known how much he wanted. His sweet Lirienne. Ma petite Lirienne, who loved him with all her heart.
Ma coeur. The words, in his own voice, echoed through his head, followed by Charmaine’s voice. Releasing Lirienne, he turned away. He had vowed to return to his beloved Charmaine, never to tell her good-bye. Yet thoughts of her vanished from his head when he held Lirienne.
Charmaine’s laughter filled his mind. How amused she would be at a vicomte who found himself torn between his wife and his mistress! Charmaine should have been both, but she had insisted on marrying Fortier. If he had held the title of vicomte then, would she still have honored her obligations to Fortier?
None of this made any difference when she was with her aged husband on one side of the ocean, and he was on the other with …
His gaze was drawn back to Lirienne. She was regarding him with bafflement. As his fingers feathered across her brow, easing those lines, he wondered why making Lirienne happy wrenched him with guilt. He had promised Charmaine to return to her, and he intended to fulfill that p
romise someday.
But for now, he had news to share with his wife. “Lirienne, I have found a way for us to leave this place.”
“How?”
“By obtaining for us a future.” Pulling her against him again, he crowed, “A home and land to live on respectably until we can go back to France.”
“A home and land here in America?” Lirienne searched his face, not daring to believe what she was hearing.
“Today I was able to borrow enough money from Vachel de Talebot—”
“You spoke with him? How did he escape from France?”
“I spoke with his attorney.” He smiled. “I look forward to seeing Vachel soon to thank him for allowing me to use my lands in France as collateral. I invested it in a wondrous expedition, which is about to begin.” Seating her by the table, he knelt in front of her. “We’re going to be part of a new beginning, in a colony where we can transplant our French ways and offer an asylum for those who flee the revolution.”
Lirienne stared at him in disbelief. “An asylum?”
“Imagine it, ma petite. A place where we can live in peace on our own land and return the world to rights.”
“Away from the city?”
He chuckled. “You miss the countryside, don’t you?”
“Most of it.” Her voice quivered with anticipation. “Our own land? How’s that possible?”
“A group of émigrés are leaving within the month to go north to a section of land along the Susquehanna River.” He stood and lifted her hands to his lips. “And we shall be with them! A new home and a new beginning!”
“It’ll be wonderful.” A new beginning sounded especially glorious. A new beginning for her and Philippe and the baby, with no shadows of the past hanging over them.
His eyes glowed with obsession. “When the city along the river is complete, it’ll be an asylum for our queen.”
“Marie Antoinette?”
“Already word has been sent to Paris to free the queen and the royal family from the Conciergerie. By the time they arrive here, we shall have our new settlement ready.”
She stared at him. “An asylum for the queen? That’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard of!”
His smile tightened. “I trust you won’t repeat that tonight when we dine with those joining us in our new settlement.”
“It can’t work!”
He glared at her. “What right do you have to tell a man that his dreams are futile? More hopeless causes have succeeded.”
“And many more have failed.” She reached out to touch his arm. “You could die in this scheme. Don’t you know how much you are risking?”
“I want our child to have its birthright. I learned from speaking to some recent arrivals from France that, within days of our departure, all seigneurial rights were abolished. Anyone of noble birth is now considered a traitor. I needn’t remind you what fate those of gentle birth face in France.”
Lirienne closed her eyes as she put one hand to her mouth and wrapped the other around her center. Her baby would be hunted down by the mob, to die on the guillotine.
When his hands settled on her shoulders and drew her head against his rough waistcoat, he whispered, “The only way to give our child a future is to make one here while we wait for France to come to its senses.”
“I want a happy life for our family. Perhaps we could have that if you didn’t cling so tightly to futile dreams.”
“I don’t think they’re futile. Neither do the others.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing for the past week? Plotting this insanity?”
“It’s not insanity! Maybe you’d rather stay here and starve.”
“We shan’t starve.” She stood and clenched her hands to hide their trembling. “While you have been busy with your schemes, I’ve been finding work to feed us.”
“You’ve what?” he snarled.
She stepped back from his fury. She wished she could take back the words.
“I told you I didn’t want you working for strangers,” he continued, striking the table so hard the box bounced. “Have you no pride in your name?”
“A name won’t feed our child!” When he winced as if she had struck him, she added, “I didn’t go to a stranger. I’m helping Veronique Saint-Gaudens with her wedding gown.”
He mouthed the name. When he turned away, she wanted to reach out to him. Silence smothered the room as she waited for him to speak.
Slowly he faced her, with no emotion. She feared she had overstepped what he could accept. She watched as he walked toward her, his suppressed rage tightening every step. When he cupped her chin, his lips covered hers. His fingers twisted through her hair as his tongue flicked across her skin, and she moaned with the escalating need.
“Ma petite folle, how can I be angry at you when you only wish to help?” He brushed her lips with another kiss. “You must tell Veronique that you won’t have time to assist her, for you’ll be busy helping me buy the supplies and furnishings we’ll need in our new home.”
“Will there be someone in our new home to assist in the birth?” She glanced at the door. “I have found Frau Wirt, who lives downstairs, is a midwife. She has agreed to help.”
He framed her face with his hands. “Do you think I would take you anywhere that might jeopardize our baby? We shall have a fine estate with all the help you need.” He lifted the box and set it in front of her on the table. “And you’ll need this then.”
The varnished wood was smooth. When she looked for a latch, he turned it so that she could lift the small brass hook. She opened the top and stared at the elegant dress inside. The silk gauze revealed the gold taffeta beneath it. One of the sleeves dropped onto the table, and she picked it up to discover that it was gathered with gold ribbons which ended at a small bow and a ruffle just below the elbow. With a high waist, it would fit around her.
“Do you like it?” Philippe drew the dress out of the box.
“It’s wonderful, but how could we afford such a luxury?”
His finger against her lips silenced her. “It’s not a luxury. Tonight, at the soirée, you must look like the wife of Vicomte de Villeneuve.”
“A party?” Icy fear coursed through her at the very idea of again trying to pass herself off as a member of the nobility. “I shouldn’t go. I’m not a—”
His most stubborn look reappeared. “You are my vicomtesse! Tonight you’ll prove that to everyone.”
Ten
When they entered the elegant house, Lirienne was not sure whether to be more impressed with its grandeur or Philippe’s. Never had she seen him looking more like an aristocrat. His cutaway coat was of a dark blue velvet embroidered with gold. The collar rose to his chin and opened to reveal the correctly arranged stock with its cascade of white ruffles.
This house was not as elegant as the Fortiers’. The rooms were beautifully furnished with cherry and mahogany furniture, but not gilt. The walls were painted instead of being covered with printed silk. Although the chandelier glowed, there were fewer tapers and prisms. But she had not been a guest in the Fortiers’ home. She struggled to act as serene as Philippe.
“Smile,” he said. “Do that and no one will be able to think of anything but how lovely you look tonight.”
She smiled as she put her hand on his arm. This was the husband she had dreamed of, a man who wanted to be seen with her, a man who could fall in love with her. He led her into a huge room to the left. It was filled with many guests, but she saw no one she recognized.
“Philippe!”
Lirienne was shoved aside as a tall woman threw her arms around him and kissed him lustily on the lips.
He loosened the woman’s grip. “Cornélie, look at you. I swear you are even more beautiful than when I saw you last at the house of the marquis.”
The tall woman pouted. “Lovely? Me? Mon Dieu, you must be half-blind. When we left France, we could bring only a few of the servants with us. It’s impossible to find a decent seamstress in all of Phila
delphia. I—” Her gaze settled on Lirienne, and she scowled.
“Cornélie de Talebot, this is my wife Lirienne.”
“De Talebot?” Lirienne asked. “Are you Baron de Talebot’s wife?”
Her frown deepened. “You know my husband?”
Philippe said with a smile, “Vachel was our host at the country estate after our wedding.”
“An, the country estate. Once we thought a primitive life was entertaining. Now it is the whole of our life.” She put a hand to her forehead. “I yearn for home and the way things were.”
“As we all do.” Smiling at Lirienne, he added, “Isn’t that so, ma petite?”
She saw the challenge in his eyes. What would he say if she replied with the truth? She had no longing for France and the society that had deemed her to have as little value as her master’s beasts. Meeting his gaze evenly, she said, “I’m enjoying our visit here. The Americans are so eager to savor their independence.”
“Such republican sentiments!” gasped Madame de Talebot, fanning herself with a laced handkerchief.
“I speak only of what I’ve seen, Madame de Talebot,” she said hastily.
As Philippe’s arm slipped around her shoulders, he said, “You’ll find my new wife offers many surprises, Cornélie.”
“Everyone shall be surprised that a young rogue like you is wed. Yet how could you resist such a lovely flower?” joked a masculine voice from behind them.
Lirienne looked over her shoulder. She almost did not recognize Vachel de Talebot because the baron had rolls of false hair pinned over his ears. From a passing tray, he snagged a glass of wine and took a hearty gulp while he stared at her. A twinkle came into his eyes.
Philippe’s chuckle drew his friend’s attention back to him. “Vachel, you old goat, you look well. Philadelphia must be agreeing with you.”
“Temporarily.” He grimaced. “Perhaps if these Americans could devise a decent wine, I might find this city more palatable. I’m quite surprised to see you here. How did you get out of Paris in your skin?”
“I was able to escape because a good man sacrificed himself to save my wife and me.”
Destiny's Kiss Page 10
