The Earl's Untouched Bride

Chapter Three

His eyes, which a moment ago had been twinkling with amusement, had gone dull and lifeless. It was as though he had retreated into a dark and lonely room, slamming the shutters against her.

She was positively relieved to get home, where her maman greeted her with enthusiasm.

‘I never thought to have secured such a brilliant match for my plain daughter!’ she beamed. ‘But we must do something about your attire,’ she said as Heloise untied the ribbons of the one bonnet she possessed. ‘He cannot want people thinking he is marrying a dowd.’

Hustling her up the newly carpeted stairs to the room she had shared with Felice, her mother grumbled, ‘We do not have time to cut down one of Felice’s gowns before tonight. If only I had known,’ she complained, flinging open the doors to the armoire, ‘that you would be the one to marry into the nobility, we could have laid out a little capital on your wardrobe.’

Nearly all the dresses hanging there belonged to Felice. From the day the allies had marched into Paris the previous summer, what money her parents had been able to spare had been spent on dressing her sister. She had, after all, been the Bergeron family’s secret weapon. She had flirted and charmed her way through the ranks of the occupying forces, playing the coquette to the hilt, whilst adroitly managing to hang onto her virtue, catapulting the family to the very heart of the new society which had rapidly formed to replace Napoleon’s court.

‘Nobody could have foreseen such an unlikely event,’ Heloise replied rather dispiritedly, hitching her hip onto her bed.

She worried at her lower lip. What was her sister going to do now? She had left carrying only a modest bundle of possessions, and her young husband would not have the means to provide either the kind of dress allowance she had enjoyed for so long, nor the stimulating company of the upper echelons of society.

Heloise sighed. ‘What about the lilac muslin?’ she suggested. It was quite her favourite dress. She always felt that it made her look almost girlishly attractive, though the underskirt, which went with the full, shorter overdress, was embroidered about the hem with violets. Surely she could not be taken for a supporter of Bonaparte if she appeared in public on the arm of an Englishman?

‘Where is His Lordship taking you tonight?’ her maman enquired sharply.

‘To the theatre first, and then on to Tortoni’s for ices.’

Her mother clicked her tongue. ‘Muslin to the theatre? I should think not!’ she snapped, entirely overlooking the political symbolism of the violets, Bonaparte’s emblem. ‘When Felice went to the theatre with him she wore the gold satin!’

‘I cannot compete with Felice, Maman,’ Heloise remonstrated. ‘Nor do I think it would be wise to try to be like her. Do you not think he might find it in poor taste if I did?’

‘I had no idea,’ her mother remarked sarcastically, ‘that you had such a grasp of what is in men’s hearts.’ Flinging a bundle of Felice’s discarded gowns to the bare boards, she gripped the iron foot-rail of the wide bed the girls had shared. ‘Don’t, I beg of you, do anything to make him change his mind about marrying you.’

‘He has only taken me to save face,’ Heloise pointed out. ‘I know he still loves Felice. Nothing I do will matter to him.’

Her mother regarded the bleak look that washed over her daughter’s features with concern.

‘But you are going to be his wife, you foolish creature!’ Coming round the side of the bed, her mother took her hand, chafing it to emphasise her point. ‘Listen to me! And listen well! You will be going away to live in a foreign country, amongst strangers. You will be utterly dependent on your husband’s goodwill. So you must make an effort to please him. Of course he will never fall in love with you—’ she made a dismissive gesture with her hand ‘—the sister of the woman who betrayed him. Not even if you were half so beautiful or clever as she. But at least you can try not to antagonise him. You must learn to behave in a manner worthy of the title he is going to bestow on you. He will expect you to dress well and behave well, as a reflection of his taste. You must never embarrass him by displaying any emotion in public.’

He had only just informed her that displaying emotion in public was vulgar. So her mother’s next words took on a greater power.

‘Above all, you must never clamour for his attention if he does not wish to give it. You must let him go to his mistresses when he is bored with you, and pretend not to notice or to mind.’

A great lump formed in her throat. He would, of course, be unfaithful. She was the one who had instigated this marriage, and though he was disposed to go through with it, she knew only too well that it was not because he found her attractive.

How could he? Even her mother, who loved her as well as she was able, referred to her as her plain daughter.

‘Mistresses?’ she whispered, a sickening vision of a lifetime of humiliation unfolding before her.

‘Of course,’ her mother replied, stroking her hand soothingly. ‘You are not blind. You know that is what men do. All men,’ she said grimly, her thin lips compressing until they were almost white. ‘Just as soon as they can afford it.’

Heloise’s stomach turned over at the implication of her mother’s words. Even her papa, who behaved as though he was deeply in love with her mother, must have strayed.

‘If he is very considerate of your feelings he will conduct his affairs discreetly. But I warn you, if you make any protest, or even show that you care, he will be most annoyed! If you wish him to treat you well, you must not place any restrictions on his little divertissements.’

‘I have already informed him that I will not interfere with his pleasures,’ Heloise replied dully. And when she had told him that she had meant it. But now the idea that he could hasten to the arms of some other woman, when he could barely bring himself to allow her to lay her hand upon his sleeve, was unbelievably painful. Rising to her feet swiftly, she went to the open armoire. ‘What about the grey shot silk?’ she said, keeping her face carefully averted from her mother. ‘I have not worn that for some time. I don’t think His Lordship has ever seen me in it.’

Heloise did not particularly like the dress, for it had bad associations. The first time Du Mauriac had asked her father if he might pay his addresses to his oldest daughter, he had been so proud that she had captured the interest of a hero of France that he had sent her to the dressmaker with the instruction to buy something pretty to wear when her suitor came calling. She had been torn. Oh, how pleasant it had been, to be able to go and choose a gown with no expense spared! And yet the reason for the treat had almost robbed her of all joy in the purchase. In the end she had not been able to resist the lure of silk, but had chosen a sombre shade of grey, in a very demure style, hoping that Du Mauriac would not think she was trying to dress for his pleasure.

‘It is not at all the sort of thing Felice would have worn,’ her mother remarked, shaking her head. ‘But it will do for you. I shall get it sponged down and pressed.’ She bustled away with Heloise’s best gown over her arm, leaving her to her solitary and rather depressing reflections.

He had never seen her dressed so well, Charles thought with approval, when he came to collect her that evening. The exquisitely cut silk put him in mind of moonbeams playing over water. If only her eyes did not look so haunted. He frowned, pulling up short on the verge of paying her a compliment.

For the first time it hit him that she did not really wish to marry him any more than he wished to marry her. And she looked so small and vulnerable, hovering in the doorway, gazing up at him with those darkly anxious eyes.

She needed solid reassurance, not empty flattery.

Taking her hand in his, he led her to the sofa.

‘May I have a few moments alone with your daughter before we go out?’ he enquired of her parents. They left the room with such alacrity he was not sure whether to feel amused at their determination to pander to his every whim, or irritated at their lack of concern for their daughter’s evident discomfort.

Heloise sank onto the sofa next to him, her hand resting limply in his own, and gazed up into his handsome face. Of course he would have mistresses. He was a most virile man. She would just somehow have to deal with this crushing sense of rejection the awareness of his infidelity caused her. She must learn not to mind that he frowned when he saw her, and stifle the memories of how his eyes had lit with pleasure whenever Felice had walked into a room.

‘Heloise!’ he said, so sharply that she collected he must have been speaking to her for quite some time, while she had not heard one word he had said.

Blushing guiltily, she tried to pay attention.

‘I said, do you have the ring?’

Now he must think she was stupid, as well as unattractive. Her shoulders drooping, she held out her left hand obediently.

‘Hell and damnation!’ he swore. ‘It’s too big!’

‘Well, you bought it for Felice,’ she pointed out.

‘Yes, and I would have bought you one that did fit if only you’d told me this one didn’t! Why in God’s name didn’t you tell me, when I raised the subject this afternoon, that this ring was not going to be any good?’

‘Because I didn’t know it wouldn’t fit. Although of course I should have known,’ she ended despondently. Felice had long, strong, capable fingers, unlike her own, which were too slender for anything more strenuous than plying a needle or wielding a pencil.

‘Do you mean to tell me that you had an emerald of this value in your possession and you were never tempted to try it on? Not once?’

‘Oh, is it very valuable, then?’ She looked with renewed interest at the jewel which hung from her ring finger. In order not to lose it, she knew she was going to have to keep her hand balled into a fist throughout the evening. ‘I was not at all convinced it would get me all the way to Dieppe. Even if I’d managed to find a jeweller who would not try to cheat me, I fully expected to end up stranded halfway there.’

Her reference to her alternative plan of escaping Du Mauriac turned his momentary irritation instantly to alarm. He would do well to remember that he held no personal interest for her for his own sake at all. He was only providing the means, one way or another, for her to escape from an intolerable match with another man.

‘Well, you won’t be running off to Dieppe now, so you can put that notion right out of your head,’ he seethed. Damn, but he hoped her distress was not an indication she was seriously considering fleeing from him!

Though he could see she was scared as hell of him right now. And no wonder. She had entrusted him with her entire future, and all he could do was berate her over the trifling matter of the fit of a ring!

‘Come, now,’ he said in a rallying tone. ‘We struck an honest bargain this morning. It is in both our interests to stick with it.’ He took her hands between his own and gave them what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. ‘We are in this together.’

Yes. She sighed. And so was Felice. He would never be able to keep from comparing her, and unfavourably. Just look at the way he was coaxing her out of the sulks in that patronising tone, as though she were a petulant child.

‘It is easier for you,’ she began. He was used to disguising his feelings behind that glacial mask he wore in public. But she had never been any good at dissembling.

‘Why do you suppose that?’ he said harshly.

‘Because I won’t know what to say to people!’ she snapped. Had he forgotten already that she had told him she was hopeless at telling lies?

‘Oh, come,’ he scoffed. ‘You ran on like a rattle in my drawing room this morning!’

‘That was entirely different,’ she protested. ‘It does not matter what you think.’ They were co-conspirators. She had no need to convince him she was anything other than herself.

Charles swiftly repressed the sharp stab of hurt these words inflicted. Why should he be bothered if she did not care what he thought of her? It was not as if she meant anything to him, either. He must just accept that playing the role of his fiancée was not going to be easy for her.

‘Very well,’ he nodded, ‘you need not attempt to speak. I will do all the talking for us both. Providing—’ he fixed her with a stern eye ‘—you make an attempt to look as though you are enjoying yourself tonight.’

‘Oh, I am sure I shall—in my own way,’ she assured him.

She loved studying how people behaved in social situations. Their posturing and jostling both amused and inspired her with ideas that went straight into her sketchbook the minute she got home.

A vague recollection of her sitting alone at a table littered with empty glasses, a rapt expression on her face as she observed the boisterous crowd at the guingette that Felice had dared him to take her to, sprang to Charles’ mind. He began to feel a little calmer. The theatre was the best place he could have chosen for their first outing together à deux. She would be content to sit quietly and watch the performance.

Then she alarmed him all over again by saying mournfully, ‘It was a stupid idea. I wish I had never mentioned it. Nobody looking at the two of us together will ever believe you wish at all to marry me.’

‘Well, they will not if you carry on like this!’ It was bad enough that Felice had jilted him; now Heloise was exhibiting clear signs of wanting to hedge off. What was wrong with the Bergeron sisters? He knew of half a dozen women who would give their eye teeth to be in their position. Why, he had been fending off females who wished to become his countess since his first foray into society!

‘You came up with this plan, not I. And I expect you to play your part now you have wheedled me into it!’

‘Wheedled?’ she gasped, desperately hurt. She had not wheedled. She had put her proposition rationally and calmly…well, perhaps not calmly, for she had been very nervous. But he was making it sound as though she had put unfair pressure on him in some way.

‘If that is what you think—’ she began, sliding the ring from her finger.

His hand grabbed hers, thrusting the ring back down her finger.

‘No, mademoiselle,’ he said sternly, holding her hands captive between his own, his steely fingers keeping the ring firmly in place.

She took a breath, her brow furrowing in preparation for another round of argument.

There was only one sure way to silence her. And Charles took it.

She flinched when his lips met hers, rousing Charles’ anger to new heights.

What was the woman doing proposing marriage if she could not even bear the thought of kissing him? Leaving go of her hands, he grasped her by the nape of the neck, holding her still, while he demonstrated his inalienable right, as her betrothed, to kiss her as thoroughly as he pleased!

Charles had taken her completely by surprise. She didn’t know what to do. No man had ever kissed her before. Du Mauriac had tried, once or twice, but she had been expecting it from him, and had always managed to take evasive action.

But she didn’t want to evade Charles, she discovered after only a fleeting moment of shock. What she really wanted, she acknowledged, relaxing into his hold, was to put her arms about him and kiss him back. If only she knew how!

Well, she might not know anything about kissing, but there was nothing to stop her from putting her arms about his neck. Uttering a little whimper of pleasure, she raised shaky hands from her lap and tentatively reached out for him.

‘My God,’ he panted, breaking free. ‘I never meant to do that!’

Leaping to his feet, he strode to the very far side of the room. Hearing her little cry of protest, feeling her hands fluttering against his chest in an attempt to push him away, had brought him to his senses.

‘I can only offer my sincere apologies,’ he ground out between clenched teeth. He could not think what had come over him. What kind of blackguard chose that particular way to silence a woman?

He had accepted intellectually that one day he would have to get his heirs by Heloise. But judging from her shocked recoil it had been the furthest thing from her mind.

The fierce surge of desire that even now was having a visible effect on his anatomy was an unexpected bonus. When the time was right, he was going to enjoy teaching his wife all there was to know about loving.

Until then he must exercise great restraint. He would have to get her used to the idea of him before broaching the subject of heirs. He already knew how shy she was, and had realised she would need to feel she could rely on him. How could she do that if she was worried he was going to pounce on her at any moment?

‘You need not fear that I shall importune you in that way again,’ he grated, his back still turned to her while he desperately fought to regain mastery over his unruly body.

Heloise pressed her hand to her bruised lips, her heart sinking as swiftly as it had soared when he had seized and kissed her so excitingly. Why had he done it if he was now adamant he would not be doing it again? Had it only been some sort of experiment? To see if he could stomach touching her as a man should want to touch his wife? If so, it was evident he regretted giving in to the impulse.

It was a while before he could bear to so much as turn round and look at her! But at least it gave her the time to wipe away the few tears that she had been unable to prevent from trickling down her cheeks. For she would never let him see how humiliated his rejection made her feel. If he did not wish to kiss her, then she would not beg for his kisses. Never!

She got to her feet, determination stiffening her carriage. She would never let him suspect—not by one lingering look, one plaintive sigh—that she…She faltered, her hand flying to her breast.

No, this was too appalling! She could not be in love with him. She must not be in love with him. She was certain she had not lied when she had denied being in love with him that morning. Her feelings could not have changed so swiftly during the course of one day. Just because he had strolled into the drawing room and swept all her problems away with his marvellously insouciant declaration of intent to marry her. Not because she had felt a momentary rapport with him while they had gently teased each other during their carriage ride.

And yet she could not deny that since her maman had broached the subject of his infidelity she had been eaten up by jealousy.

No, that was not love! It was wounded pride that made her eyes smart so. It had to be.

Her abstracted air, coupled with the Earl’s barely tamped down lust, created quite a stir when they entered the theatre arm in arm.

As soon as they were seated, Charles tore off a corner of the programme and wedged it under her ring. ‘That should hold it in place for now.’

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, keeping her face averted. It was stupid to feel resentful because he was being so practical about everything. She sighed.

‘Mademoiselle,’ he murmured, ‘I am about to put my arm along the back of your chair, and I do not want you to flinch when I do it.’

A shiver slid all the way down her spine to her toes at the warmth of his arm behind her shoulders. With him so close, every breath she took filled her nostrils with his clean, spicy scent. Though his arm was not quite touching her, she remembered the strength of it, holding her captive while he ravaged her mouth. She felt weak, and flustered, and utterly feminine.

‘I promise I shall not do anything you will not like. Only I must sometimes seem to be…how shall I put it?…lover-like when we appear in public. I shall not go beyond the bounds of what is proper, I assure you.’

No, she reflected with annoyance. For he’d found kissing her such an unpleasant experience he had vowed never to do it again! This show of being ‘lover-like’, as he put it, was as much of a performance as what was going on upon the stage. But then, she reflected bleakly, she had known from the outset that all he wanted from her was the means to salvage his pride.

‘Y…you may do what you like,’ she conceded, feeling utterly wretched. ‘I understand how important this show is to you.’ Turning towards him, so that their faces were only a few scant inches apart, she declared, ‘It was for this reason that you agreed to marry me, was it not? So that nobody would suspect you had been hurt. I think the worst thing you could endure is to have someone mock you.’ Raising one hand, she laid it against his cheek. ‘I trust you,’ she said, resolving that, come what may, she would never be sorry to have given him this one source of consolation. ‘However you decide to behave tonight, I will go along with it.’

Charles found it hard not to display his hurt. Go along with it, indeed! She could not conceal how nervous he made her. She was drawing on every ounce of courage she possessed to conceal her disquiet at his proximity. She had shuddered when he put his arm round her, tensed up when he had whispered in her ear.

Was it possible, he wondered, his heart skipping a beat, that she found him as repellent as Du Mauriac?

Regarding her nervously averted eyes, he refused to entertain that notion. She had come to him, after all. He had not put any pressure on her. She was just shy, that was all. He doubted many men had so much as flirted with her, let alone kissed her. She was as innocent as her sister had been experienced.

His expression bland, he murmured, ‘We should take advantage of our relative privacy to organise the practical details of our wedding, don’t you think?’