Romancing the Past

by Darcy Burke

  He should have stopped her right then. Should have told her there was no jewelry to give. (Well, strictly speaking, there was jewelry. He had brought several of his grandmother’s pieces with him to lend credence to his ruse if he were questioned. That didn’t mean he’d ever had any intention of actually giving those pieces away. His grandmother would have his head if he did such a thing.) Should have told her she had nothing to apologize for since it was all a ruse he’d invented to gain access to the Rousseau household…and to her.

  But all he could do was imagine how her sunset-colored hair would look fanned out across his pillow.

  Fortunately, she seemed to take his lack of a response as acceptance and barreled on. “But even though I have decided not to sell them, you still must not give the jewelry to me because if you do, I am sure my uncle will find some way to get his hands on it. He’s desperate for funds to improve his social and political standing, and if he knows I have something of value, he will take it. The only reason he has not managed to confiscate my savings is because he has no idea I have any; he thinks I put every penny I earn from my horses back into caring for them.

  “So please, don’t give me the jewelry. Tell Uncle Etienne you were mistaken, I am not your long-lost cousin, and the jewelry does not belong to me after all.”

  Well, he was never going to get a better opening than that. “I am not your cousin.”

  She blinked, then smiled and nodded approvingly. “Oh, yes. If you say it like that, I am sure my uncle will believe you.”

  Thomas shook his head. “You misunderstand me. I am really not your cousin. We are not related at all, insofar as I know, and I never intended to give you any jewelry. It was all a story I made up to get close to you.”

  Her expression went from amusement to confusion to disbelief. “To get close to me? But…why?”

  He settled more fully into his chair, trying to keep his manner gentle and reassuring. If she got upset or angry or frightened before he could convince her that he had her best interests at heart, the whole operation could be over in a matter of seconds. If she hated the British even half as much as most of the French had learned to do over the last few decades, he could wind up spending a lot of very unpleasant time in a French military prison, a prospect he relished not at all.

  But where to begin? None of his mental rehearsals had truly prepared him for the reality of this moment.

  He thought about what she’d told him: her efforts to save enough money to establish her own household, her uncle’s desire to ingratiate himself with Napoleon. Perhaps she would be more receptive to leaving home than he’d anticipated.

  So he’d start there. “To get you away from here before your uncle succeeds in using you to curry favor with the emperor.”

  She let out a huff of surprise. “How on earth could he do that? I am a simple country girl who breeds Percherons for local farmers. What possible interest could the emperor have in me?”

  “Because you are not just any simple country girl,” he told her bluntly. “You are the only natural child of the Honorable Mr. William Pitt, currently the Chancellor of the Exchequer and acting premiere of Great Britain.”

  And then he waited for the axe to fall.

  Chapter 4

  Sabine stared at Monsieur Allard, a strange mixture of disbelief and curiosity coursing through her veins. He was either barking mad—which seemed unlikely—or he was telling her the truth.

  She had known for as long as she could remember that her Papa was not her natural father. It had never mattered. To either of them. Claude Rousseau had loved her without reservation or condition, and she had returned that love measure for measure. When he died…

  No, she would not think about that. Not now.

  For the first time, it seemed strange to her that she had never given much thought to the question of who her natural father might be. Her mother had certainly known, but had given Sabine no hint as to his identity, and Sabine had been disinclined to ask. Or perhaps she had asked and been rebuffed, but didn’t remember the incident. One thing was certain: if Maman did not want to answer a question, she would have made it very clear to her daughter that the subject was not to be entertained.

  Either way, the answer had never seemed particularly important to Sabine. Papa was her papa. She had no use for another papa, especially not one who was never around to sing her songs or give her treats or take her fishing or teach her to ride horseback—astride before sidesaddle, very naughty—and to care for her mounts. He had given her everything she had needed, including Gaston and Copine, who would one day earn her a comfortable, if not copious, living.

  But now? Now she wished she had been less content with her ignorance, because she had no idea how to credit Thomas Allard’s claim.

  Daughter of the head of state of Great Britain? Surely not. The very idea was preposterous. How on earth would her mother ever have met the man? He was English, for God’s sake.

  Although, now that she thought of it, Maman had often observed that the British as a people were not nearly as demonic as the French liked to claim. Sabine had never thought this particularly strange, since Maman had also been inclined to give even Uncle Etienne and Aunt Marguerite the benefit of the doubt, saying that there were two sides to every story, and both were generally true if not entirely accurate. Still, Maman’s opinion regarding the English made even more sense if she had once loved an Englishman and knew her daughter was half-English.

  And Monsieur Allard seemed very certain.

  “What makes you believe I am this man’s daughter?” she finally asked.

  “A British agent intercepted a message from your uncle to Bonaparte about a month ago. In it, your uncle claimed to have proof that you were Mr. Pitt’s daughter, and…” He hesitated, frowning ever so slightly. The expression did nothing to mar the attractiveness of his features. If anything, this display of concern on her behalf enhanced his appeal. She found she was glad he was not her cousin; the cousins she had—albeit not blood relations—were, after all, quite unpleasant.

  “Go on,” she prompted with a rolling-hand gesture.

  Allard studied her face, clearly trying to gauge how badly she was likely to react to whatever he was about to tell her. Finally, he expelled a breath and said, “He also claimed you knew of your parentage and that you have been working with the French resistance to the emperor at the direction of your natural father.”

  Up until that moment, Sabine would have assured anyone who asked that her uncle had no power to cause her so much as a scintilla of emotional distress. Even as a small child, she had understood that her papa’s younger brother resented her very existence. Since his enmity wasn’t due to anything she’d ever done, she had never made any effort to ingratiate herself to him or his equally resentful wife and sons, nor had she allowed their hostility to trouble her. In fact, she enjoyed doing things that drove Uncle Etienne and Aunt Marguerite to distraction, both because there was nothing—under the terms of Claude’s will—they could do to stop her and because it was so very easy to get their goats. She had especially enjoyed thwarting their efforts to pawn her off the expense of her upkeep on some unsuspecting gentleman, despite her fervent wish to be out from under their thumbs. She had had more compelling reasons to reject her unsuitable suitors than simply to annoy her aunt and uncle, of course, but the fact that her rejections did annoy them was a bonus.

  But this…this shocked her. And hurt. Because her uncle had set her up to be incarcerated and interrogated and then, if she could not convince her accusers of her innocence, transported or possibly even executed for treason.

  It was hard to breathe past that thought.

  But surely there could be no evidence that she was conspiring with the British against the French government, since of course she was doing no such thing. All right, she had written a few rather uncharitable—oh, very well, positively fulminating—passages in her journal about the so-called emperor and his actions, but her private musings would hardly interes
t the police unless Uncle Etienne could truly convince them of her familial connection to Mr. William Pitt. And she could not imagine how he could do that when she herself had not known.

  Sabine swallowed the pain of betrayal so that it was only a small lump in her stomach. “What proof could my uncle have that I am who he says? My mother is gone. There is no one to confirm my paternity, one way or the other.”

  “It does not matter what your uncle has or does not have. Mr. Pitt has confirmed that you could be his daughter. If he had not, I would not be here. And I can assure you that anyone who has met the man would believe it to be the truth. You are the very image of him.”

  “No, that cannot be true. I look like my mother—except for the color of my hair and eyes.”

  Monsieur Allard smiled. “And those you clearly got from Mr. Pitt. His hair was the same shade as yours when he was young, and your eyes are the same shape and color as his. But it is not just your appearance; it is your mannerisms. You press your lips together when you are impatient, just as he does, and you incline your head when you are listening but do not like what you are hearing, just as he does. As you are doing now.”

  Sabine checked her own senses and was startled to realize that her mouth was indeed clamped into a thin line and her head was tilted backward ever so slightly, as though she could escape what Allard was saying by distancing herself even a fraction from him. She knew, as well, that these gestures were familiar and customary, ones she performed unconsciously in exactly the circumstances he described.

  She shook her head, more to clear her thoughts than to express negation. Was it possible? Could she be the daughter of a man as powerful and influential as the premiere of Great Britain? It seemed so terribly implausible and yet, it made sense of so many events that had previously seemed inexplicable. Starting with her uncle’s sudden cessation of his campaign to marry her off and thus rid himself of his legal obligation to support her. Somehow, Uncle Etienne had found out the truth of her parentage, and as a consequence, he had found a different way to unload her care and feeding onto someone else. After all, the terms of a will were meaningless if she were found to be a traitor to the state.

  But how had he found out? He must have been as unaware as she until a month or so ago, at which time, the parade of unsuitables had ended and, according to Monsieur Allard, the letter to Bonaparte had been intercepted by the British.

  And how lucky was she that the letter had been intercepted…

  “Why are you here?” she asked, narrowing her gaze on Allard’s entirely-too-handsome face, because as soon as she thought how lucky she was that the British had discovered what her uncle was up to, the less certain she was of that fact. It would not be any sort of credit to Mr. Pitt in the eyes of the British populace that he had a half-French daughter. She imagined that most of the English were every bit as suspicious and disdainful of the French as the French were of the English. Her stomach lurched. What if Monsieur Allard had been dispatched not to warn her or help her, but to eliminate her altogether? She had a hard time believing such a beautiful and seemingly kind man could do such a thing, but then, that made him all the more fit for the task, didn’t it?

  As if sensing her sudden apprehension, he placed his palm over the hand she had unwittingly tightened around the armrest of the chair and squeezed gently. “To bring you home to England.”

  His touch and the earnestness in his warm brown eyes—as much as his words—calmed her fears, not because the contact was restful but because the tension inside her went from cold to warm. Perhaps it was foolish, because he might be lying as smoothly as he’d lied about his familial relationship to her and the jewelry, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe he meant her harm. Not when his hand over hers felt like…well, like home. “Home to England? You are British, then?”

  He nodded.

  “A spy?”

  A snort of derision. “My God, no. I trained to be a diplomat. I am supposed to be in some friendly foreign country attending boring social functions and courting favor with the local politicians so they will support British interests both at home and abroad. This is the last thing I expected to be my first assignment.”

  His first assignment? Oh, dear. “Then why did they send you rather than someone more…seasoned?”

  His smile was self-deprecating. “My grandmother really is French. Her maiden name was Allard and her family is quite prominent in Lyon, which made it easy for me to fabricate a background that would impress your uncle enough to get me through the front door. Also, I learnt my French from her and from infancy, which means I have a more convincing accent than most Englishmen, all of whom sound like Parisians with all the interesting bits knocked off. That and the foreign secretary seemed to think I had a better chance of convincing a young lady of quality to abscond to England with me than any of the other agents he had available for the task, though I can’t fathom why.”

  She could fathom why. This man, whoever he was and whatever he had trained for, had the looks and manners to charm a dragon out of its treasure. Anyone with half a brain could see that. She imagined that women routinely fell over themselves in a bid for his attentions while he was both too polite and too modest to notice them doing it. Sabine was going to have to be careful not to fall into that trap. It would be all too easy to acquiesce to his wishes simply because he expressed them.

  Assuming everything he had told her was true, she couldn’t stay here. But to go to England? With a perfect stranger?

  He is rather perfect, isn’t he?

  She pushed aside the treacherous thought. She didn’t know anything about him, and no one was perfect. For all she knew, he was still lying to her, though everything he’d told her made an awful sense of her life. “What is your name? Your real name, I mean.”

  “Pearce. Thomas Chadwick Pearce.”

  “Well, Mr. Pearce…” She used the English form of address as opposed to the French. “I wish I could say I am pleased to make your acquaintance, but under the circumstances, that seems a stretch. And while I appreciate that it would be risky for me to remain under my uncle’s roof if what you are telling me is true, your superiors overestimated your powers of persuasion if they believed I would simply take your word for it and leave not only my home, but my homeland, with you. They must think me a fool.”

  “Ah, no. Not so. Allow me to prove it to you.” He released her hand and rose from his chair, crossing toward the bench on which his brown leather valise rested, its buckles undone and the top flung back to rest against the wall.

  Sabine wished she did not notice how firm and shapely his legs and…er…other portions of his anatomy north of said limbs were as he walked away from her, but she did. She noticed even more when he bent over to rummage inside the valise, coming out a few seconds later with two folded pieces of paper, which he brought back and handed over to her.

  “None of us—not the premiere, not the foreign secretary, and most certainly not I—ever believed you would simply take my word for any of this. I had planned to give you these when I first spoke with you about the situation, but you took me by surprise and I’m afraid I forgot. The first of these is your uncle’s letter to Bonaparte. The second, which you will notice still has its seal, is to you from Mr. Pitt. I have no idea what is in the second, though I am obviously familiar with the text of the first.”

  Sabine accepted the two letters, her stomach knotting with a combination of curiosity and anxiety. Reading her uncle’s letter would hurt, she was sure. No, she had never harbored any particular fondness for him, nor had she ever imagined he harbored any for her, but she still thought of him as family, and that had meant something to her, even when she had known there were no blood ties between them. Realizing this meant less than nothing to him, that her very life was disposable in his eyes, distressed her more than she would have predicted.

  And then there was the letter from Mr. William Pitt, the premiere of Britain, her natural father—these facts still seemed so fanciful, she had to re
peat them to herself to make them remotely believable. She rubbed her thumb across the bumpy surface of the wax that sealed it shut. What would a man who had not even known of her existence until a month ago have to say to her? Would he tell her how he had met her mother, how they had fallen in love? If, indeed, what had passed between them could even have been called love. Breeding horses meant she was quite aware of the physical component required to produce offspring, which meant she had always known her mother had permitted certain liberties at some point to a man who was not her husband, but she had not particularly considered the ramifications before. What had induced her, some twenty-five years ago, to have sexual relations with Mr. Pitt? Had she even been willing? And if she had not, did that change Sabine’s situation in any way?

  As if sensing her inner conflict, Mr. Pearce said gently, “You probably wish to read those in privacy. I hope once you’ve done that, you will decide to accompany me to the safety of England.”

  She looked up at him. Good heavens, but he was a beautiful man. With hair the color of brown sugar, eyes the color of whiskey, and an apple-red mouth, he looked good enough to eat. Perhaps this was how her mother had felt when she had first met Mr. William Pitt—restless and hungry for something she knew she should not have but wanted anyway. And maybe it had been more, too. A sense that the person looking back at her was just as hungry, just as restless, just as filled with longing for the forbidden fruit.

  Mr. Pearce held out a hand, offering to help her to her feet. She took it, the contact sending a tingle up her arm and setting her pulse to race. Their eyes met, and the air thickened. He lowered his head, his eyes dark with promise, and she thought he was going to kiss her and she held her breath. But instead of finding her mouth with his, his lips brushed her forehead, the touch so chaste and brotherly, she wanted to weep with frustration.