‘Why didn’t your employer establish his business here, then, rather than in Cognac?’
‘In those days, the main trade was still brandy rather than wine. I have thought often of moving my business premises to this city, but it doesn’t feel right. Though it is I who have expanded it into an international concern and given it the Bauduin name, I feel that I owe it to the old man, to keep something of his heritage, you know?’
‘And Cognac is also close to your heart too, isn’t it?’
‘Of course, even if it turns out not to be, as I have always assumed, the place of my birth.’ Jean-Luc drew them over to a wooden bench, positioned at the deserted far end of the quays with a view over the river. ‘Will you tell me, Sophia, what has made you so maudlin?’
‘I’m not...’ Catching his eye, she bit back her instinctive denial, shaking her head.
‘You know so much about me. This whole journey south, we have talked and talked of my family and the Montendre family, but never of you. I know I have no right to ask, but...’
‘It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, Jean-Luc, it’s just that I don’t think I can.’ Sophia stared out across the river. The tide was changing, making the boats rock rhythmically, the rigging seeming to sigh. There was the faintest tang of salt in the air. She licked her lips and realised she was crying silently. Days had gone by of late when she had not thought of her sister. Now, with the change in air, it all came back to her, and she longed, desperately, to spend one more day, one more hour with her. Ten months. How could it have been ten months?
Jean-Luc handed her a kerchief. She dabbed at her eyes. He did not press her, but there was such tenderness in his expression that something inside her shifted. This man, despite all the turmoil and uncertainty in his own life, cared about her. He understood her as no one else ever had. Not even...
‘Felicity,’ Sophia said. ‘It was because of Felicity that I was here, on my way south. She was my sister. She was resident in the spa at Menton. She was dying of consumption.’
* * *
It was as if a dam had burst. Sophia’s story tumbled out, an outpouring of tender love, raw grief and aching loss for her beloved sister that touched his heart. Jean-Luc had thought he knew her, thought he understood her, but here was a huge, significant part of her that she had kept completely secret, a wound too painful for her to reveal to anyone. Save that now, she was talking of it to him. He was honoured, but helpless. He wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her, ridiculously, that he would make it better. But he dared not touch her, lest he interrupt the flow.
‘She was five years younger than me, and such a lovely, loving child,’ Sophia was saying now, her big blue eyes aglow, focused on the distant past. ‘When Mama died, Felicity was just turned six. My father dismissed our governess, and so it fell to me to school her while trying to school myself. Despite the fact that he purported to be an advocate for formal schooling for boys...’ She blinked, turning her gaze back to Jean-Luc, curling her lip. ‘One thing you could say about my father, he was consistent in his hypocrisy.’
‘What kind of man was he!’ he exclaimed with barely suppressed anger. ‘Did he blame your younger sister too, for being the wrong sex in his eyes?’
‘It was worse than that. Felicity was never strong and my father—I don’t think he ever cared for her. That is a terrible thing to say, I know it is, but it is the truth, though even now, it pains me to admit it. She was often ill, you see, and she was painfully shy, consequently of little value in furthering his career.’
‘His career?’
Jean-Luc watched her weigh up whether or not to elaborate. She was the daughter of someone of standing, clearly. He was beginning to wonder if he knew anything about her at all.
‘He was a politician, a fairly eminent one, though never as successful as he believed he ought to be. He was too outspoken and opinionated, he alienated many potential allies. And after Mama died, when he lost the funds which had helped cover the cracks in his popularity, when he could no longer sponsor dinners and grease palms—you can imagine.’
‘A bitter man with a small mind who blamed everyone but himself for his failures?’
Sophia laughed drily. ‘That is him in a nutshell.’ Her brittle smile faded. ‘And who, when his youngest daughter’s health began to fail, claimed that it was nature’s way of sorting the chaff from the wheat. I disliked him heartily before that. I hated him then, though no more, I suspect, than he hated himself in the end, when even he was forced to confront his demons. He drank himself to death. After we had paid his debts, there was pretty much nothing left. That was almost four years ago, and by that time Felicity...’ Her voice trembled, but when he made to take her hand, she shook her head. ‘No, let me finish, if you please. If I stop now, I don’t think I’ll be able to carry on again.’
She twisted his handkerchief into a knot, her brows drawn fiercely together. ‘She needed sunshine and heat. She knew that her lifespan would be limited, the signs of the consumption advancing and ravaging her body could not be ignored. We had heard such good things of the air on the Mediterranean, people with her condition who lived much longer than those who remained in England, so I determined to find the funds to send her to convalesce there.
‘My sister—Felicity—she was so stoic, Jean-Luc, not even at the end would she admit to suffering. I don’t know how she endured it, knowing that her life would be cut short. She never would admit to it, I suppose that was her secret. Always with her it was tomorrow this, and next month that, and sometimes, she was so very good at it you see, I believed her.’ ‘She was very brave.’
‘Yes. She was very brave.’
‘But it must have made it very difficult for you.’
‘I didn’t think of it, because she did not.’ Sophia gazed down at her lap. ‘It was a shock when I did lose her, more than a shock. I should have been prepared, but I wasn’t. It has been ten months now, and there are still days when I wake up and I’ve forgotten that she is gone. Though it has helped, coming here to be with you. I have had a purpose again.’
Now she did allow him to take her hand, and to pull her head on to his shoulder. He held her, feeling her gradually relax, and together they watched the river, until finally she sat up. ‘I was only here, in this city, for one day. I thought I’d forgotten, but when I stepped out of carriage this afternoon, I remembered it very clearly.’
‘You found the means to send her to live in the south then?’ Jean-Luc asked.
‘Yes.’
Her withdrawal was almost palpable. ‘And you found a way to be with her too,’ he said gently, ‘before the end?’
‘Yes.’ It seemed he did know her, after all, enough to sense her silent thanks for the change in tack. ‘For six months, I stayed with her,’ she added.
‘And while you were with her, you improved your grasp of my language?’
‘Felicity teased me at first, for she was fluent by that time, of course, having been in Menton for about two years, but it turned out that we both had an ear for it. There was a Frenchman, another resident at the spa for the same reason as Felicity, who had taught at one of our English boys’ schools, and he helped. Felicity used to say that...’
Jean-Luc listened without interrupting as Sophia spoke, her eyes once again aglow with memories, her soft smile unbearably tender as she confided in him, laughing at this tale, grimacing at that, never once even hinting at whatever sacrifices she must have made, at the silent suffering she must have endured, crediting her sister with the brave heart, not for an instant imagining how much braver hers must have been, for it had to endure the aftermath.
‘That is more than enough,’ she said, cutting herself short in the midst of an anecdote. ‘Forgive me, I have prattled on.’
‘At my request.’ He kissed her gloved hand. ‘Thank you, Sophia. I am honoured.’
‘It is I who should thank you. I
have not, as you’ll have gathered, spoken of her at all. It has helped enormously.’
‘Now I know why you are an excellent listener. And were, I think, a most dutiful sister.’
‘I couldn’t save her, Jean-Luc. I couldn’t do that for her.’
‘I suspect you did a great deal more than she ever knew. Two years, I think you said, she was in Menton, before you joined her for the last six months?’
‘Yes.’ Sophia had got to her feet, shaking out the skirts of her pelisse. ‘We must have been sitting here for an age. The hotel will be thinking us lost.’
‘So you didn’t see her in the interim?’
‘Twice I was permitted to visit for a month each year. I made it a—’ She broke off, horrified. ‘We really should get back before the light fails, Jean-Luc.’
‘Condition,’ he finished for her. ‘Of your marriage, I presume?’ For it all made sense now. Horrible sense. Admirable sense. Brave, sacrificial sense. ‘Sophia.’ Jean-Luc caught her hand between his, struggling with the wealth of emotions coursing through him. ‘Ma belle, what you did, what you sacrificed—’ But seeing her face, he broke off, cursing under his breath. ‘You cannot possibly be ashamed. It was a noble thing to do.’
‘You think I married for Felicity’s sake, don’t you? But I didn’t.’
‘Sophia, you know there is nothing you can tell me that would make me think ill of you?’
She gazed at him for a long, painful moment. ‘I believe that is what you think,’ she said, finally, ‘but you deserve better than me.’ She turned away. ‘We must get back. I have the headache. You will have to excuse me from dinner.’
Chapter Eleven
Jean-Luc had secured the most luxurious suite in the hotel for their stay, the two bedchambers separated by a drawing room and a small dining room. Conscious of his far-too-perceptive gaze, Sophia drew on her vast experience of affecting indifference, keeping her face blank, her smile bland, as the housekeeper showed them round their accommodation. She turned down the offer of a lady’s maid, closing the door of her bedchamber firmly on Jean-Luc as soon as they were alone. And then she stood rooted to the spot in a maelstrom of regret and uncertainty and guilt. She had done the one thing she had promised herself she would not do, and spoilt things with her impulsive confession.
In despair, Sophia tugged off her hat and cast off her pelisse, only then noticing that a bath had been prepared, the steam rising from behind the screen. Jean-Luc must have ordered it. He knew how much she enjoyed the luxury of bathing after a day’s travel. She did not deserve such an attentive, kind, thoughtful husband. He did not deserve such a lying, deceitful, ungrateful, tarnished wife. So it was just as well she was not actually his wife. Even if she wished she could be.
No! Sophia stopped in the act of unlacing her gown. ‘No, no, no, no, no,’ she whispered viciously, ‘you must not be so stupid, so reckless.’ Her fingers shaking, she continued to undress. She wasn’t stupid, she was simply over-emotional. An understandable response to talking about Felicity, Jean-Luc being so understanding, the relief of finally confiding details of her personal life in him. Yes, that was it.
She wriggled out of her corset, casting her remaining undergarments on to the bed. Stepping into the deliciously hot, scented water, sinking down into the bath, she closed her eyes as the water began to soothe her tense limbs, and clear her fogged brain.
You think I married for Felicity’s sake, don’t you? But I didn’t.
Meaning that she had not gone through with marriage to Frederick. She’d thought it obvious, but it was actually quite ambiguous.
You think I married for Felicity’s sake, don’t you? But I didn’t.
Meaning that she had married, but for quite another reason. Sophia sat up, reaching for the soap. Was it wrong of her to hope that this was the interpretation Jean-Luc had put upon her words? Another lie. Though she hadn’t actually lied. And she would have gone through with it for Felicity’s sake if Frederick had kept his promise.
Sophia shuddered. Thank the stars he had not kept his promise! To be married to Frederick, to still be married to Frederick without even the comfort of knowing she was supporting Felicity, did not bear thinking about. How very different it would have been, compared to marriage to Jean-Luc. Not that she was married to Jean-Luc, she reminded herself once again as she stepped out of the bath, wrapping a large towel around herself. Though it felt like marriage. Or what marriage ought to be. Perhaps because it was not marriage!
Her husband was on the other side of that door, most likely having his customary glass of madeira before dinner. Tomorrow, she would accompany him to a lawyer’s office in the next stage of their quest to find the lost Duc de Montendre. He had been adamant, on the journey down, of the impossibility of he and the Duke being one and the same, but less and less certain of who he was. It was difficult to watch him struggling to reconcile the love he knew his mother had for him, with the possibility that she had been lying to him all his life.
These last few nights Sophia had been so exhausted after each leg of the journey that she had been fit for little more than to bolt down her dinner and fall into bed. Now, on the eve of what could be a momentous day, she could not in all conscience simply abandon Jean-Luc and leave him to fret in solitude. He, who had listened to her outpouring of grief and love, regardless of his own concerns. He had comforted her. And though he had leapt to the wrong conclusion, he had understood what drove her to do it.
You cannot possibly be ashamed, he had said.
Sophia gazed at herself in the mirror. She was not ashamed of her motives. She had not lied, when she told Jean-Luc she would have done more if required. She had succeeded in what she had set out to do, and she had freed herself at the end of it. Was she ashamed? Yes, of what she had endured in the interlude, forced herself to do, but of what had compelled her to do it? ‘No,’ she said firmly to her reflection. ‘No, not any more.’
It would make no difference to the world. She would be judged by her actions, not her motives. Let them judge! She was not returning to that world. And Jean-Luc? Sophia sat on the edge of the bed, wrapping her arms around herself. Jean-Luc was a very different matter. He was a respectable, honourable man, with an impeccable reputation and a business which prospered in no small part due to the integrity which she so admired in him. She didn’t just admire him, she liked him. A great deal too much to burden him with the truth. There could be no future for her with Jean-Luc, but it was her duty to support him in whatever way necessary while he uncovered his past.
Smiling, Sophia set about dressing in fresh underclothes, selecting a muslin gown of rose-pink with three-quarter sleeves which was loose enough not to require a corset. Some times, doing one’s duty was astonishingly pleasant.
* * *
Jean-Luc was in their drawing room, gazing out at the busy street in front of the hotel. Like her he had bathed and changed, exchanging his buckskin breeches and travelling coat for a pair of knitted fawn pantaloons that clung to his muscled legs, and a black tailcoat that emphasised the breadth of his shoulders. He turned as Sophia closed her bedchamber door behind her, a surprised smile lighting up his face. ‘Your headache has receded?’
‘I didn’t have a headache.’ Sophia took the madeira he poured for her, touching the rim of the delicate crystal glass to his. ‘Thank you for ordering my bath.’
‘Your nightly pleasure, and my nightly torture, imagining you soaping yourself in it.’
‘You do not!’
He kissed her softly on the lips. ‘Oh, but I do. And now you have a complexion to match your gown. You blush so very charmingly it is a delight to tease you.’
She set her glass down beside his, on a side table. ‘Are you teasing me?’
‘Would you prefer me to lie to spare your blushes? Or would you prefer me to tell you the truth?’ He pulled her into his arms. ‘Which is that I picture you lying naked,
the water lapping around you,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘your skin flushed with the heat, your hair streaming down your back like a river of gold, and your eyes closed in bliss.’
He kissed the pulse behind her ear. His hands were resting lightly on her arms, barely touching. There was still a gap between their bodies, yet Sophia was sure she could feel heat emanating from him. Though perhaps it was from her. She reached up to touch him, smoothing her hand on his freshly shaved cheek. ‘I do close my eyes,’ she said, pressing a brief kiss to the corner of his mouth. ‘I do find it blissful.’
Jean-Luc groaned. ‘Now I think it is you who are teasing me.’
She stepped closer, twining her arms around his neck. ‘Do you like it?’
He slid his hands around her waist. ‘Very much.’
She closed the last few inches between them, pressing herself against him, feeling the unmistakable ridge of his arousal, for the first time in her life, pleased to discover this proof of his desire. He wanted her. She caught her breath. She wanted him. She smiled up at him, a smile she hadn’t known she possessed, that let him see just how much she wanted him. She kissed him, not a fluttering kiss but a real kiss, shaping her mouth to his, touching her tongue to his, arching her body against his. A kiss which could leave him in no doubt of what she wanted. How far she had come, she thought hazily, in learning the unspoken language of kissing. How naive she had been, thinking kisses the most innocent of endearments, when they were actually the most intimate act of all.
But when she angled her mouth to deepen it still further, Jean-Luc dragged his mouth away from hers, his breathing ragged. ‘Sophia, if you are still teasing me...’
‘No.’ She kissed him again. ‘I promise you, I am entirely serious.’
‘Then I should tell you, ma belle, that so too am I. More serious than I have ever been in my life.’
He gave her no time to ponder his meaning, but when he kissed her, it was different, though she could not have said how. She very quickly ceased to care as his kisses woke the fire in her belly and heated her blood, welcoming the building tension inside her that she now knew for her own arousal. As before, there were kisses trailing paths from her mouth, down her neck to her breasts, but now she followed his lead, pushing aside his coat, tugging his shirt free from his pantaloons, wanting to touch flesh, skin, no barrier between them.
From Courtesan to Convenient Wife Page 16
