by Jackie Ivie
“Giselle. Dearest. You look wonderful. I’m certain there was never a more beautiful duchesse in the entire line. Perhaps that’ll be enough….”
She bit off the end of the sentence, while Giselle smiled.
“Merci. “ She inclined her head at the flattery, and felt the egg-shaped sapphires bobbing against her ears. “But tell me, Aunt Mimi, how my appearance can be enough to help?”
Her mouth was speaking, but her mind was leagues away. What did Etienne mean, Navarre’s sapphires? she wondered.
“Etienne is being…difficult,” Aunt Mimi said softly. “We were hoping you might be able to…soothe him somehow. The guests will arrive soon, and….”
The words stopped.
“Perhaps I can keep him from drinking more wine?” Giselle supplied.
Aunt Mimi’s lips tightened and she nodded.
“I’ll do my best,” Giselle whispered.
The other woman smiled.
“Come here, Giselle! Let me look at you! You look much different when you’re awake!”
Etienne slurred the words, and Giselle blushed at the crude comment.
“You are looking handsome also, Etienne.” She bent at the knees and held the sapphires in place with a hand while she dipped a curtsy. It wasn’t to hold the necklace in place as much as shield her décolletage. She felt his gaze anyway, and detested it. He wasn’t to look at her like that. It made her queasy. His gaze felt evil and disgusting and wrong.
It also dissipated the heavenly aura she’d been experiencing. And all of it was so wrong. She wasn’t to feel anything for Navarre. She should feel it for Etienne. But how could she force her heart to listen? Perhaps the thought of Etienne touching her was her punishment. The Bon Dieu was certainly making it vile. She couldn’t allow it. It would be wrong.
She loved Navarre.
She might be legally bound to Etienne in a ceremony from almost fifteen years in the past. Nothing could change that, but her heart would never accept it. She couldn’t let Etienne touch her. She’d never be his, because she knew now she belonged to— Navarre was announced behind her, stopping everything. And a moment later, came another announcement, this time of the Comtesse d’Antillion. Giselle took her time turning around, hoping to compose herself before letting her mama see her. It would never do if the comtesse thought the marriage unsuccessful.
There was too much light in the room of a sudden, and Giselle felt her face frozen in dismay as Navarre approached, her mother behind him.
“Navarre!” Etienne said loudly. “I see you talked my wife into wearing your sapphires. Is there nothing my dearest brothers won’t take from me?”
Giselle’s eyes went wide and she gasped. Navarre narrowed his eyes. Beyond that glance she didn’t dare look again. It was too dangerous, especially with her mother watching.
Giselle gestured for a chair to be brought for her, so she could act the part of adoring wife. She hoped she was doing the right thing.
“I’m pleased to see you looking well, Monsieur le Duc” the comtesse said. “And Giselle, I almost didn’t recognize you. You look splendid. And I must tell you, my dear, how your dear papa pines for word of you.”
Giselle smiled. She longed more to weep. Her face felt ready to crack.
“The comte? “ Etienne burst out laughing. “Set his mind at rest, Madame le Comtesse. My wife is pleasantly surprised by her new, so-virile husband. Aren’t you, Ma Cherie?”
His fingers touched her arm, sending an unpleasant chill through her. Giselle swallowed past the lump in her throat.
“Of course,” she murmured and smiled glassily.
CHAPTER TEN
“Why do they call the sapphires yours, Navarre?”
Navarre gestured for her to wait as he finished chewing his mouthful, but it was a wasted movement. She knew every breath he took, every bite he put into his mouth, and each time he swallowed.
Etienne was at the far end of the table, behaving better, probably due to Navarre’s influence. The wine decanter at the duc’s elbow had been refilled with grape juice splashed with a touch of vinegar. Navarre and Giselle had tensed the first time Etienne drank from it, and then relaxed at the same time. Giselle didn’t need to look toward him to see it, she felt it. It was strange how attuned they were.
Her mama was midway down the table, out of conversation range. Giselle was grateful. The meal she’d been dreading hadn’t turned out that way, at all. She knew why. Because Navarre was on her left again. Close. Almost intimate. The evening was actually quite wonderful. Giselle hardly tasted the courses before sending them away. She could’ve been served straw for all she knew. It was impossible to eat much in her ensemble, but she wasn’t hungry for food. And Navarre gallantly said nothing.
Giselle knew what she was hungry for. Her thoughts must’ve interpreted themselves more than once, because sometimes Navarre flushed becomingly against his lace jabot. Giselle placed her elbows on the aged lace of the tablecloth and waited for him to answer her question.
“The sapphires have been known as mine, ever since I bought them as a gift for my intended bride. Almost four years ago,” he replied.
His answer created instant pain. And then it burned. Why had she been so stupid? She didn’t want to know. She longed to rip the necklace off and throw it to the floor. Tears flooded her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to stop them. She couldn’t cry. Not now. Not with her mother attending.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry, Giselle.”
“I’m…not.”
She had to look away and watched the crowd of diners blur and clear with each blink. This was stupid. Of course he was betrothed. What aristocrat wasn’t? She’d suspected as much already. And it really shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t make her heart ache or her throat dry. She was married, anyway. She had no right to him.
“Do you want me to finish my story?”
Giselle watched as the woman at Navarre’s other side dipped her fingers into her goblet and stroked her eyelashes. Perhaps she wanted Navarre’s attention or the man at her other side. Giselle wondered how she could watch something as mundane as another woman primping, when it felt like Navarre held her heart in his palm and was squeezing it.
“No.” Giselle sniffed quietly, fortified herself, and looked back at him. “Yes.”
“Je t’adore, Giselle.”
Navarre said it softly, reaching for his wine glass with an arm that blocked the others from view.
Giselle’s heart stopped, and then it felt like it moved, lodging near the sapphire waterfall at her throat. Her eyes went wide. Stunned.
He adores me?
She couldn’t comprehend that she still sat upright, while the murmur of conversation flowed about them. She should be soaring. No. She must have heard it wrong. That was the only explanation.
“Did you hear me?” he whispered.
She moved her gaze to his. She couldn’t speak. She watched him smile and then hide it behind his lace-edged napkin. She’d been wrong. Her spirit wasn’t just soaring. It was rocketing.
“About the sapphires. My fiancée threw them at me, making certain everyone near her apartments in Versailles Palace knew how much she hated me. Do you know why?”
His fiancée hated him?
Giselle shook her head, the only movement she felt capable of making, and then she looked past him. The woman at his other side toyed with her gown, pushing the shoulders farther apart to exhibit more of her bosom. The effect on her dining companion was to be expected, because he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Giselle was disgusted at what she was watching, and tried to turn the emotion on herself.
She was little better.
She moved her gaze, looking beyond the elaborate centerpiece of fruit to find Etienne watching her. Giselle swallowed as Etienne raised his wine glass toward her. Even as inexperienced as she felt, Giselle recognized the gesture as a mark of ownership. She felt ill. Chilled.
Perhaps she should talk to her mother and tell her how intolerable the
duc really was. Perhaps the comtesse would save her. But how could Giselle annul the marriage that saved this family? And after her father’s action of sending the bill for her clothing, why should she?
It was a vicious quandary. With but one answer. She couldn’t speak to anyone. Too many lives would be altered…but what a horrid price she had to pay! She watched Etienne dribble the grape juice on his jabot, and Giselle shuddered.
“What is it?” Navarre asked. “Is it something I said? Pray forgive me. I shouldn’t have spoken as I did.”
Giselle turned back to him, tensed for the effect his gaze would have, but he wouldn’t look at her. He was carefully staring at a spot over her head.
“The woman who turned down your…gift? She must have been possessed, Navarre. If only…it had been…”
Giselle was near tears again. If only it had been me, she finished in her thoughts. She’d have wed him a hundred times over. It would be a heaven she could barely comprehend to know that at night, when the moon cast its spell, it would be Navarre with her….
Dark blue eyes drilled into hers. Giselle gasped at the intensity in his. She couldn’t finish her thought. She was amazed she wasn’t swooning.
“Perhaps my littlest brother can enlighten you, Madame la Comtesse!”
Etienne’ s loud voice came through the spell about her. Navarre snapped his head around. Giselle used the opportunity to hold her own lace-edged napkin to her lips.
“The comtesse asks why I’ve been secluded,” Etienne explained. “Perhaps you have an answer for her?”
Giselle looked to her mother. It didn’t appear the woman hadn’t asked any such thing, or if she had, she had quickly recanted. Giselle had never seen her mother looking so uncomfortable.
“Perhaps it’s time you retired, Etienne.”
Navarre pushed away from the table, flinging down his napkin.
“Why should I?” Etienne continued. “Is it my fault Jean-Claude tried to kill me? Well? Was it?”
No one spoke in the shocked silence that followed.
“Excuse my brother, Ladies and Gentlemen.”
Navarre gestured toward the wine, and Giselle heard polite chuckling at the inference.
“Drunk, am I?” Etienne shouted as he shoved his chair away from the table. “Well, dearest brother, I’m not so drunk that I can’t remember how my saddle was tampered with. I would have to be very drunk indeed, to forget that.”
“Say farewell, Etienne. I’ll have you taken to your chamber.”
Navarre stood over him, his voice low, yet filled with authority. Giselle was surprised to see Etienne’s chin fall forward. He looked like a little boy being punished.
“Forgive us, please.” Navarre bowed to the group, but his gaze didn’t seem to reach Giselle’s end of the table. “Come Etienne. I’ll fetch a footman.”
He pushed the wheeled chair toward the stairs. Giselle stared at them like everyone else, and then she moved. She realized her place was with her husband, and Giselle walked quickly to catch up.
“Footmen!” Etienne complained, slurring the words. “I hate being carried, Navarre. That has to be the worst. How did I ever let you talk me into this? I’m sorry.” His shoulders slumped. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to walk there by myself, just once more. Is that too much to ask?”
Giselle’s eyes filled with tears at the agony in his voice. And she realized he was crying, just like the first night when she’d eavesdropped. Navarre must have sensed her presence. He turned with such misery in his eyes, Giselle stepped back.
“Go back to our guests, Giselle. Now.”
“Giselle? Tell her to go away! At once! I won’t be pitied!”
Etienne’s voice was raw with torment, making his command even more hurtful.
“So. Salvage the party, Giselle,” Navarre said softly. “I’ll be back shortly.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but something held her back. It wasn’t her husband. Etienne was slumped forward in his chair with his arms humbly folded across his lap. It was the sum total of all that was happening. She shook her head, but Navarre wasn’t looking.
She had no choice. Again. She turned back.
~
There was something strange about her room when she woke. Giselle couldn’t quite place it. She wondered if it was the hairstyle Louisa refused to dismantle. She needed a more malleable companion.
Giselle sighed.
Such a thing would never happen. She loved Louisa, and the woman knew it. Louisa had been there for her when her own mother wasn’t. Louisa listened, argued, cajoled, and made Giselle see sense a thousand times over.
There was nothing sensible about the monstrous turban she’d wrapped about Giselle’s head, however. Louisa had clicked her tongue as she’d arranged the covering to make certain, ‘Monsieur Poinre’s artistry isn’t disturbed.’ That was stupid. Where was she supposed to go with such a coiffure? She couldn’t even find her way out of the castle on her own.
Giselle rubbed at her eyes and scowled into the darkness. The cage above her head was probably responsible for her sore shoulders, and her bad temper.
And Etienne’s door was closed.
Giselle lifted her head to study the connecting door. It wasn’t much, but she was grateful Etienne hadn’t come into the room the night before. It was bad enough she had to play-act through what felt like hours while her mama questioned her. The comtesse hadn’t come right out and asked if Etienne and Giselle had consummated their union, but she didn’t have to. Giselle had known what she meant.
Giselle groaned aloud at the memory. It didn’t stop it.
“Tell me Giselle, my darling one,” her mother had addressed her.
Darling one? Giselle had stared at that. Her mother never would have spoken such an endearment if the comte were present. For the first time, Giselle felt the immense distance that was between them. She wondered how could a woman allow her only daughter to be treated like Giselle had.
But she already knew the answer — her father.
“How goes your marriage?” the comtesse had continued. “Things are sometimes difficult for two people…wed as young as you were.”
Giselle had sat stonily and waited for Mama to embellish her words. Navarre hadn’t returned, and she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to salvage the evening.
It was obvious she was the main attraction. Even Esmee and Aunt Mimi were staring at her, and they should know better. So Giselle sat, a champagne glass in her hand and waited for her mama to finish her words.
“I mean…he’s different from what I remember. Can he…I mean, is he…still capable? After all, I am your mama, and the Lord knows I have some experience in these matters.”
Navarre still hadn’t come down, and Giselle wondered what was keeping him.
“Your papa spoke to me last night about the…situation. He’s at Versailles Palace, you know. Awaiting an audience.”
“No.” Giselle turned away so the comtesse wouldn’t see her expression. “I didn’t know.”
She immediately knew what was being inferred. Her papa was petitioning the king for an annulment. Not for Giselle’s sake. But because the comte wanted Savignen Valley back. It was crude of him, but he’d already proven that emotion toward the Berchalds.
Giselle sat there, wondering what she should say. It would be so simple. She could return to her tower… and everything would go back as before.
“He’s so worried about you, Child.”
Her papa? Worried about Giselle?
“He asked me to speak with you of it. He would be here himself, but you know how men are about such things. Always the property and negotiating it is with them. I wonder sometimes, how they expect….”
Giselle ceased listening. Navarre had appeared at the top of the stairs. She couldn’t have prevented the quickening in her pulse any more than she could have stopped breathing. And that’s when she knew.
She couldn’t let the comte get the annulment…but how was she supposed to feign l
ove for a husband she detested? It wasn’t possible. She wasn’t deceitful enough to speak such lies. And then Navarre entered the room.
All her inner turmoil fell to nothing. She no longer questioned anything. It was simple. If she hadn’t been affianced and wed to Etienne, she would never have met Navarre. Never known this feeling. This…quickening of the senses.
Her escape was right in front of her. Waiting. All she had to do was say the words. Giselle’s lips opened so she could breathe better.
Love was too strong.
She’d turned back to her mama and smiled shyly, and with that came an easy lie. “Etienne is every bit a man, Mama. Truly. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
Giselle crossed to join Navarre at the landing. She counseled herself to show nothing, although any lingering guests might think her worried over Etienne as well, wouldn’t they?
Giselle stood at Navarre’s elbow as they said farewell to those guests who were leaving. She only glanced up twice to see if he’d look. He didn’t. She was disappointed. She hoped it didn’t show.
Mama was leaving. Other guests had rooms for the night. Esmee, Navarre and Aunt Mimi stayed at the doors, waiting for those who were staying to seek their chambers. Giselle wondered why. She wasn’t going to bed without some answers.
Giselle didn’t recall what words they spoke. She watched as Esmee hinted at further invitations, while Navarre bid their guests adieu and kissed the ladies’ hands.
“That was horrid,” Esmee said finally as the family entered the blue salon and the doors were shut behind them. “Wretched. And I never want to spend another evening covering for him. How can you allow—?”
“Not now.” Navarre stopped her angry words with the same low tone he used on Etienne.
“Then when? I’ve spent years saving the Berchald name, and he ruins it in one evening! I don’t know how I can face—”
“I said, not now!”
