Brandywine: Regency historical romance (The Brocade Series, Book 1) (15 page)

“What...is that supposed to mean?”

‘What do you think it means?”  He yanked the bedding from
her hands.

“Please don’t do this.”  She clutched the ribbon tie at her neck.

“Do what? You obviously aren’t interested in whatever I
have to offer, and I find you don’t appeal to me at all. That means whatever I do
would be punishment. Do you understand?”

There wasn’t a hint of gentleness in him as he loomed over her, and
Helene
noticed one thing — he was lying about his arousal. And his nightshirt wasn’t hiding it
.

“Good morn, My Lady!”

A maid came into the room, stopping everything. Even time.

“I did knock, but as it’s past
ten o’clock, and you left strict instruction, I need to—oh! Begging your
pardon, My Lord!”

The words ended and a rush of air portended the maid’s rushed exit. As did the sound of the door slamming.
Gil hadn’t moved his gaze from hers. And Helene hadn’t even blinked.

“You do understand what will happen if we have this conversation again?” he asked.

She nodded
.

“Good.” 

He dropped a kiss onto her nose and rolled from her. She heard him greet his valet. She heard the sound of their connecting door closing. She still didn’t move. Everything felt like it was alert. Prepared. Excited. Angered.

Oh no! She couldn’t possibly love him!

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Remind me not to take your advice, Bridget.”

Gil leaned
against a post and watched his bride.
It had been his mother’s idea to have Helene outfitted for another
ball gown, and while Helene hadn’t exactly agreed, she
hadn’t tried to lacerate him with her eyes, either. Unfortunately,
she also decided she wouldn’t go unless every lady of her
acquaintance accompanied her to choose new gowns, too.

Gil shifted against the pole, avoiding the chair he was
supposed to be sitting in. Half the town appeared to be in the
shop, and he’d already fulfilled his obligation twelve times over.

“About the looking glass or the Hun?” Bridget replied. “I
have it from an excellent source that you exceeded my
expectations on that score. For all intents and purposes, she’s
modeling clay in your fingers.”

“I suppose you’re speaking the king’s English, Bridget,
although I have a few doubts. I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

He shook his head at the three women hovering about Helene. One giggled, and Gil smiled at her. She immediately
stuck herself in the finger.

“You’re doing that on purpose, Gil.”

“It’s a matter of male pride, Auntie. Trust me.”

“Male pride?” She snorted. On Bridget, the sound was loud enough
to make another patron frown. “You needn’t bother. You’ll just make her jealous, Gil. And w
ith your nocturnal antics, I wouldn’t think it necessary.”

“You probably shouldn’t stand so near the door in that ensemble, Bridget, my love. You’re frightening the other customers away. What would you know of my antics, nocturnal
or otherwise?”

They’d finally brought out a bolt of teal-colored taffeta, and
the look Helene sent him made his jacket suddenly feel altogether
too warm. Of course, she’d look fabulous in that color. It
was his choice, too, but he made her wait for his nod.

“Oh, Gillian!”

Bridget smacked his hand with her fan. He
almost snatched it.

“My household talks of nothing else.”

“You gossip with the help? For shame.”

Helene had the material draped about her, and the color
stood out so from the mauve gown she wore that several of the
other ladies clapped in approval, making any response from him an afterthought
.

“A good lady’s maid is the best source, Gillian,” Bridget said.
“And I’ve heard tales.”

“I wasn’t with Simone last night, Bridget, if that’s what
you’re alluding to. I have more sense than to spoil my own
production, don’t I?”

She used her fan with the precision of a chef. His hair
ruffled with each whipping motion. “I was speaking of you and
Helene, Gillian, and well you know it.”

“Helene? Your sources lie. She detests the sight of me and tells me so at every opportunity.”

“No wonder you’re no longer taking my advice. Here I was
under the rosy impression that you two had settled your
differences.”

“Some differences are too vast, my dear. Surely your
marriage to Dexter proved that.”

A shop girl handed him a sketch. He smiled warmly, and it
soothed his pride that she blushed.

“You’re disgusting, Gillian, love.”

Bridget whispered it as
the young woman walked back to where Helene was perched.

“So I’ve been told.” He grinned down at his aunt. ‘What say you
give your legs a rest, dear Aunt? The chair is yours. I don’t want to wear you out with
standing beside me.”

“You know, she acts rather oddly around that mirror,
wouldn’t you say?”

Bridget was right. Helene was doing her best not to look at
the image behind her. He should’ve noticed sooner. A lot sooner.

“I haven’t found the proper time to apprise her. I’ve decided
subtlety is more beneficial.”

She snorted again, but at least she folded her fan and he
could blink again. “You? Subtle? With the way you two tear up a
bed? Honestly, Gillian, you’d think you were talking to your
mother, asking me to believe such things.”

The shop went measurably hotter, and Gil stretched slightly
.

“Yes, that one, too.”  Gil nodded to the shop owner’s newest
choice and then sighed. “This is taking bloody forever!”

“The fitting or my inquisition? Because you’ll need to be specific if you wish my sympathy.”

“I can’t believe you’ve discussed my bedroom habits with the
servants, Bridget. You’ve found a new low.”

She laughed and caught his arm. “Gillian, forgive me if you
must, but I haven’t done any such thing. I merely guessed, and
you just filled in the blanks.”

“Very devious, Bridget. Perhaps you could find a better
occupation than baiting me today? I wouldn’t take the loss of your
company personally, I assure you.”

“My. Aren’t we prickly? Helene has my
sympathy. Take my advice, Gillian. You know how rarely I give it.”

“I believe we’re about finished, Bridget. I’d really enjoy
staying to assist you in the selection of your gown, but my fair
charmer calls.”

“Trust me, Gillian — the Hun.”

She tapped him with the fan
again, but this time he snatched it. He wasn’t going to act the
Hun or anything else. Helene had given him a clear dose of her distaste, and
he sure as hell didn’t need a repeat.

It was bad enough suffering enforced celibacy for almost
three months without having the wife he hadn’t asked for – and didn’t even like – telling him she found his presence in her bedchamber
odious.

Damn it!

There wasn’t any reason for it to rankle so much. Reginald was no help. Gil
thought the man had been funning earlier about an attraction to Helene. It made
sense. If Gil thought Helene was attractive to
others, he might put aside his dislike of the entire thing
and try to make the marriage work. He thought Reg was his
best friend for attempting it, but now Gil wasn’t so certain.

He didn’t even like brunettes, although his last affair had been with a decided brunette. He preferred blondes, the kind who knew how to please
a man and what to expect afterward, especially since they already had
a husband.

Helen had been the first without one of those, and just look
where that got him! Wed to a little, dark-haired madwoman who
could freeze any Lothario. It was rather difficult to believe she’d been
Brandy.

***

Chateau Montriart loomed through the clouds; not as she’d last seen it – a shell of walls darkened by soot – but it was beautiful. Light
glowed in each window, welcoming her back from the walk Mama
forced her to take.

Then her heart leaped, and she screamed.

“Hush,
Mademoiselle.
Hush!”

“The chateau’s on fire, Sherry! Every room! Grandpapa’s pictures,
Mama’s tapestries, everything!”

She ran, screaming at them to stop. Clawing the first one she came to. She ignored how much he resembled one of the
villagers she’d known all her life to rake her fingernails down
his face,

“Stop! You must stop!”

Her child’s voice
broke, and then there was just tears.

***

Helene’s eyes opened to the vacant side of the bed. She
lifted her head from a sodden pillow to shove the heels of
her hands to her eyes. She had the nightmare again. Oh no. It hadn’t been so real in years!

It had been stupid to call attention to herself like that. Only by
the great luck of turning her fury on Jacques, a dim-wit, had she managed to survive. He’d turned on her, and hit her with his shovel handle
. And there, he’d left her.

When she woke, tall grass on the road hid her, the earth beneath her was hard, and the
smoke of Chateau Montriart concealed her. And her nursemaid, Sherry,
was still at her side.

It had happened so long ago, but each time the nightmare came, it was real again. So real…

She remembered the stretch of road they had to walk, Helene’s slippers turning to rags on Sherry’s feet, because the
aristocratic granddaughter of the Comte de Montriart complained
so loudly and often that Sherry had already exchanged her leather shoes with
Helene’s in order to shut her up.

There had been such jubilation in the city when they
arrived, such triumph, and Helene hadn’t done anything except
complain more about her empty stomach.

Helene Montriart Bingham couldn’t stay in the horrid room
Sherry procured, either.

She refused to smell the rot, sit in the
dirt with nothing to do, or wait idly while Sherry went looking for
work. The maid listened to her calmly, told her there were worse
fates, and locked her in.

Helene had never been locked up in her life, and the cell
Sherry chose had only one piece of furniture, a sagging, slat-board bed. With nothing else to do, Helene slept on it, only to be
tossed from it by an abusive man she’d never seen
before when Sherry returned.

He was but the first.

Helene closed her eyes in shock that
night, afraid to speak, and then she shut her
mind to it, as well.

And every day,
Madame Guillotine
was busy. Sherry’s customers
spoke of it, but she hadn’t given it meaning, until one day. She’d gotten brave. And gone out to see
...

That’s when she saw
Madame Guillotine’s
purpose. It
made her retch even now, a lifetime away. Sherry had
almost deserted her then, and she would’ve been justified because
of all the trouble Helene caused…but Brandy came to her rescue. Brandy; the little
wench of loose virtue, fast tongue, and even quicker reflexes.

She
became Brandy so fully that Helene hadn’t resurfaced for over six years.

It was safer that way. She’d rather receive a thousand
blows than do what Sherry did to keep them fed
. And then one day, Sherry told her to go. She gave little
Brandy a small amount of money, an aristocratic dress that proclaimed her position in life, and paid for passage to Calais with yet another faceless male friend. Sherry had sent her to meet Helene’s English uncle. Her father’s brother had come to France in search of any
survivors of the Bingham family. He’d promised to take Helene with him,
keep her safe, and protect her from nightmares.  

Lord Bingham had frowned at Helene’s attempt to dress up, and
then wrinkled his nose in distaste. She hadn’t enough perfume to override smells, but she’d refused to undress in order to bathe properly. She didn’t have payment for her own room. And the others staying at that inn weren’t discriminating. So, she’d drawn water from the pump, splashed herself,
shoved her hair under her cap, and donned a manner
reserved enough to please anyone — especially Gerard
Bingham.

Her cousin.

She’d been unbelievably stupid; hoping against
hope that her new family would save her, sending any nightmares
of the past six years so far away, she’d never be bothered again.

Helene knew exactly what Gerard wanted the instant she’d met his glance. It was the same look Sherry’s men had, only this time, Sherry wasn’t around to save her.
So Brandy had done it. She’d kneed Gerard in the groin when he tried to rip off her dress during a dance lesson, and then she’d sent a sword so far through his gullet, he shouldn’t have recovered.

That’s why Uncle Bingham beat her so severely it overrode memory of any prior
punishment, before he’d delivered her to the sanatorium. That place had even seemed a haven from her uncle’s fist and his words as he
rid himself of his brother’s ‘French baggage’.

A haven.

She’d been naïve.

It was rather funny how the memories made her
cringe – even now – buried under a mound of covers in a bed so far from all of it, it was ludicrous. But that’s what happened. It had almost stopped her feet at the wedding, when she’d walked that aisle on his arm. And been wed to Gillian Tremayne.