So in Love (22 page)

“Why do you have the vaults upstairs?” Jeanne asked when he led them to the locked area.

“Flooding,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her. “We’re next to the docks, and it’s been known to happen. This way, both the tea and spices are safe from water damage.”

“And the gold?”

“It’s impervious to most disasters,” he said. “Except theft. The vault has been especially designed to discourage even the most determined thief.”

At the top of the steps was a series of doors. One led to his office, the middle to the gold vault, and the far left to the tea and spice locker.

Margaret led the way, opening the door and glancing back impatiently at both of them. Unerringly, she went to the larger wheel door and waited for him to open it. When
he did, she was the first inside. The room was small due to the reinforcement of brick and stone around it, a precaution in case of fire.

The wealth represented here not only belonged to him but to his brothers. Shelves lined the room on three sides, and were filled with an array of small gold ingots. Bags of gold dust filled the far wall, and on the bottom shelf were a series of small drawstring bags, each one marked with Margaret’s name.

“You’ve put another one there,” she said, surprised.

“You’ve a birthday soon,” he said. Every year he marked another bag with her name as one of her birthday gifts. Douglas carefully selected Margaret’s main present, wanting something that would incite her imagination and give her a special memory of that year. For a long time he wasn’t sure she would survive, which made her birthdays even more special, a true day of celebration.

This year he’d picked out a tiny chest from the Orient, a box so perfectly carved from ivory that it was a work of art. Inside he’d placed a length of ginseng he’d found. The wizened and withered spice resembled a dancing figure with arms outstretched. Once, he’d seen Margaret in that same pose, and the figure reminded him of her. There were those in the Orient who believed it good fortune to keep a ginseng root that resembled oneself.

“May I show Miss du Marchand the spice locker now, Father?”

“Perhaps your governess isn’t interested,” he said, glancing at Jeanne. She returned the look, the first time she’d done so since they’d climbed the stairs.

“If you’d rather I wait in the carriage, I shall,” she said calmly.

“Why would you think that?”

“You seem to think I’m bored.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I can assure you that I’m not. I’ve learned a great deal in a short time.”

“What have you learned, Miss du Marchand?” His tone was too rough; he could hear the edge of his words. She looked at him levelly, never glancing away. But then, he’d never faulted her courage.

He bit back any further comments because Margaret had turned and was looking at them curiously again.

Walking the short distance to the far wall, he jerked on the bell cord that he’d had installed in case anyone was ever trapped in the vault.

When the young man assigned to help Jim arrived, he instructed him to find Henry Duman.

Henry was the most senior of his employees, a grizzled veteran of the war with America. Because he was one of the most trusted of his employees, Henry performed many sensitive duties, including his most recent visit to London. Douglas had sent him as an emissary to negotiate for a plot of land on the Thames. Henry was tactful, resourceful, and above all, loyal.

A moment later a tall man stooped below the lintel to enter the vault. Although his jacket fit correctly, his arms seemed curiously too long for his body. His legs, likewise, seemed out of proportion, almost as if he were perched on stilts. He looked as if he had been stretched on the rack. Even his face was elongated, a graying beard softening the line of his jaw. But when he smiled, as he did now, the expression lit up his face, giving him a charm that made people forget about his appearance.

Margaret squealed in delight and ran to him. “Henry, you’re back!”

For some odd reason, one Douglas didn’t quite understand, his daughter had been fond of Henry from the first moment she’d seen him. She’d been five at the time, and had gone to him without hesitation. For his part, Henry had
been bemused by the attention. Douglas often wondered if Henry had been isolated for most of his life because of his appearance. If that were the case, his life had changed the minute Margaret met him. His daughter was acutely protective of Henry, asking that the older man and his wife be invited to dinner at holidays, making Henry a present for his birthday. In turn, Henry always brought back a small surprise for her from each of his journeys. In that, he spoiled her as much as Douglas probably did.

“Do you have a present for me?” Margaret asked now.

“Margaret,” Douglas said, reprimanding his daughter with a look. She glanced up at him and smiled her most beguiling smile, evidently not the least chastised.

“I do,” Henry said, smiling and looking to Douglas for permission.

“Go ahead,” Douglas said, watching as Margaret walked down the stairs with Henry. The older man’s office was in the administration building, adjacent to the clerks. When Henry was not traveling as an emissary of MacRae Brothers, he was an excellent accountant.

Douglas knew from past experience that his daughter would perch in the chair in front of Henry’s desk and proceed to tell him everything that had happened in her life since the last time they met. His daughter’s distraction would give him some time to talk to Jeanne.

The moment had come. Finally. Irrevocably.

He turned and addressed Jeanne, bowing slightly. “We can either have this discussion where anyone can overhear, or we can do it in relative privacy. Your choice, Jeanne.”

Her frown had the effect of irritating him further. “What is wrong, Douglas?”

“You,” he said sardonically. “All my problems ultimately come down to one person—you.”

Her frown intensified but she didn’t say anything.

Douglas left the vault, glancing behind him to see if she
was following. In front of his office door, he wondered if this was the wisest decision. Although this confrontation had been coming for days, if not weeks, once the words were said they couldn’t be taken back. He would have a choice—to banish her from his life, or hate himself for not sending her away.

She hesitated for a moment, and then left the vault, her hands folded demurely one over the other at her waist, her bonnet very properly at the perfect angle, her soft green dress the same one she’d worn when he’d first seen her at Hartley’s home. There was little about her to recall the girl she’d been. There was no gaiety in her half smile, only forbearance. Her once expressive face was now impossible to read. Her posture was straight, perfect, and utterly rigid.

In all ways she appeared the proper governess.

However, in her gaze was a look of sorrow that shadowed her occasionally. He caught sight of it sometimes, so pervasive that it seemed as if a veil surrounded her, one constructed of the finest silk and nearly imperceptible to the eye.

Suddenly he wanted to banish that expression from her face, and make her laugh with Margaret’s abandon. He wanted, for a few hours, to change her into the girl he had once known. He, who abhorred pretense but who had engaged in it these last few weeks, decided that a few more hours would suit him well enough.

Perhaps they might love together again tonight, after he convinced her to allow him to visit her chamber. Or perhaps he would urge her into his. He would love her not as a man, surfeited with confusion and curiosity, but as he had as a boy, with the purity of first and best love.

The air seemed to shimmer between them. He wanted to touch her, but he dared not. He wanted to shake her, but it would end in an embrace. He wanted to force her to confess all manner of sins, perhaps with a kiss.

God help him, but he still wanted her.

O
pening the door to his office, Douglas stepped aside, allowing her to precede him.

Instead of entering, Jeanne wanted to leave. If she had any wisdom at all, she’d find her way to the French émigré couple who had given her refuge before and might again today. When, however, had she ever been wise around Douglas?

A wall of mullioned windows dominated the room, the view of the sea and busy port of Leith. At the far side of his office, facing the panoramic scene, was a large mahogany desk supported on all four corners with carved dancing dolphins. Seated here, Douglas would be able to see the vessels bobbing on the ocean currents. Did he dream of far-off places, or was Edinburgh enough of an adventure for him?

In front of the windows, perched on a tripod, was a long brass object. She walked to it, reached out her hand, and touched a metal wheel connecting the device to its support.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A telescope. With it you can see objects that are far away.”

She nodded, wanting to ask him to demonstrate. Now was not the time, however, for wonders of science or for delving into his interests. He had something on his mind. All afternoon he’d been acting oddly, glancing at her from time to time as if expecting her to change before his eyes. Something was bothering him, but she wasn’t entirely certain she wanted to know what it was.

“You can’t see the past, however,” he said.

She glanced over her shoulder at him and then turned to stare out at the docks. A beautiful ship, painted white, sat at the end of the wide wooden pier. The two tall masts, black against the brilliant blue of the sky, were devoid of sails. The hull swept forward, as if the ship itself were impatient to be on the waves again. The name,
THE SHERBOURNE LASS
, was painted on the side in red, swooping letters.

He was right, the past was obscured, but she could still feel the pain of it, even now.

“I should find Margaret,” she said.

“Margaret will be occupied for a good quarter hour, Jeanne, which will give us time to talk.”

She didn’t want to talk. Every time they met, she revealed a little more of herself.

Her past had been hinted at but not exposed. He’d seen her scars, but she’d never told him that she’d used his name as a comfort, biting down on the sound of it to muffle her screams during the beatings. She’d told him of returning to Vallans, but she’d never disclosed that she’d been nearly starving. He knew she’d escaped France, but he didn’t know what that terrible journey had truly been like.

Nor did he know the greatest secret of all—that they’d had a child together.

Tell him. Tell him and then leave. Tell him what had happened all those years ago.
Once she’d purged her conscience and unburdened her soul, she should ask him why he’d never come for her.

But the words wouldn’t come. She didn’t want to leave him. Or Margaret. The little girl had burrowed into her heart and remained there, firmly fixed.

She finally turned and faced him. Douglas stood in front of her, the sun illuminating his carefully expressionless features. However, she knew him well enough to know when he was angry.

His anger didn’t frighten her. Only the truth did.

“I have to leave,” she said, shocking herself. Yet it was easier, wasn’t it, to deny him rather than be refused? She would be the one to walk away.

“After we’ve talked about Paris.”

“No,” she said. She didn’t want to talk about the past. “If you would ask the coachman to take me back to your house, I’ll pack my belongings and leave.”

“I went to see you in Paris,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “I went to tell you my parents had come, but instead of you, Justine was there.”

She shook her head and held up one hand. Revelations would destroy her. The past was part of her, but the weakest, flimsiest part. She was held together with wishes and hopes and the barest breeze would shatter her. The last memory of them together should not be one of her weeping to him, begging him to understand.

“She told me you were with child.”

It was beginning, the endless questions, the look of contempt, and the horror.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, wishing that there was another entity other than God to whom she might pray. The God of Sacré-Coeur was alternately vengeful and inattentive, flicking a finger in her direction as if to punish her for even being alive. She’d begun to think of him as a celestial Comte du Marchand, with powdered hair and a shiny golden suit sewn of sunbeams.

She opened her eyes and forced a smile to her face. “Are
you so angry at me because I wouldn’t let you into my bed?” she demanded, turning on him. “Is that what this is all about?”

She strode toward him, and her smile broadened.

His expression altered, his frown changing to surprise.

“Very well, come tonight.” Halting a few feet from him, she smiled, deliberately taunting him. “Or now. Here.” Turning, she glanced at the expanse of his desk.

Walking toward it, she began untying the ribbons of her bonnet. She tossed it to a chair on the other side of the room and watched, uncaring, when it fell to the floor. She pushed his blotter out of the way and sat on the edge of his desk. Never moving her eyes from his, she began unfastening her bodice with both hands.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked. His tone was harsh, his voice raspy. She had succeeded in disconcerting him but she’d also deflected his questions.

“Readying myself for you, of course. Do you require that I remove all my clothes, Douglas, or should I just tip up my skirts? I like it when you kiss my breasts. But please don’t rip my chemise. I only have one.”

“Stop it, Jeanne.”

“Stop?” she asked, feigning dismay. Her fingers didn’t hesitate, however, opening her bodice until she separated the fabric, revealing her stays and below it her threadbare chemise. She felt daring and wicked, and thoroughly brazen. When she was a girl she had delighted in loving him, had done so in the bright light of morning. What she was experiencing now was less bravado than an almost desperate wish to forestall his questions.

“Do you not want me?” she asked.

“More than is wise,” he said, coming to stand in front of her. “If I didn’t, I would send you away. I would have sent you away long before now.”

The truth had a way of wounding her, but she pushed that thought away.

“Then perhaps we should simply rejoice in that, Douglas, and ignore everything else. It’s a harsh world, and there isn’t enough passion in it. Shouldn’t we feel blessed with what we have?”

She reached up with one hand and curled it around his neck.

“For a moment?” she asked. “Just a moment of forgetfulness.”

They had always been physically in tune with each other in a way that was magical and frightening. She wanted him to kiss her and make her forget. Perhaps in his arms they could revert to who they had been, and not the people they were now.

Make the years go away. Make the circumstances change.
A command she didn’t voice to Douglas because God had already heard and ignored her. But if she had a wish granted it would be that they would each feel free enough to love, and brave enough to love as they had once.

He stretched out his hand and touched her face, a soft and exploring touch that made her heart ache.

Holding out his hand, he waited until she took it and then he helped her from the desk. She turned, wondering if he was repudiating her, and that’s when she saw the curio cabinet. Five feet long and easily that high, it was fronted with glass. Three shelves held an array of distinctive objects.

Walking to stand in front of it, she stared at the statues on the three shelves. Some were small, barely a hand span. Others were busts, and some were only sculptural fragments of reliefs.

And each of them looked like her.

“What are these?” she asked faintly.

For a long time he didn’t speak. When he did, his words
came hesitantly. “A hobby of mine,” he said. He moved to stand beside her.

“Where are they from?”

“All over the world.”

The bust on the top shelf, a pale gray rendition of a young girl, had paint flecks on various places on the face.

“Phoenician?”

“Greek,” he said.

The hairstyle was a simple one, gathered at the back of the head with ringlets escaping at the temples. She’d worn her hair that way the morning she first met Douglas.

On the first shelf, a smaller statuette was posed in a contemplative state, her head tilted slightly as if hearing a sound from far away.

But it was the face of each statuette or bust that stripped the breath from her. Although the ages ranged from ancient to more modern, each face was slightly similar, the heroine almost fragile-looking. Jeanne had changed in the intervening years; her face had matured. But at one time, she’d had the same look about her.

She reached up and touched the glass, obscuring the face of one particularly poignant statue. The girl was dressed in a diaphanous garment, holding out one edge of her skirt with one hand, as if she heard the sound of flutes, or felt the wind and was just in the act of beginning to dance to it.

Jeanne had done that once, and when she’d stopped twirling and dancing to the breeze, she had found him standing there leaning against a tree, arms folded and a particularly intent look on his face. That day they had made love for the first time.

“You did remember,” she said, softly and with great difficulty. Her throat felt constricted, and the effort to speak was almost too much.

“Yes.”

She whirled, facing him. “Why?” she demanded. “Why would you do that? Why collect all those things that look like me?”

“Because those memories were the most precious of my life.”

Perhaps God did grant some of her prayers.

Standing with her fingers interlocked, she willed herself to move. But she couldn’t. Not even when he reached out and touched her face, trailing a path from her temple to her chin with one soft and stroking finger.

“What happened to the child, Jeanne?” he asked.

Instead of answering him, she asked a question of her own. “Who is Margaret’s mother?”

The question evidently discomfited him, because he only stared wordlessly at her.

Reaching out, she placed her hand flat on his chest. “You see, Douglas? Questions can hurt us,” she said. “And the truth could destroy us.”

“So you would rather live with falsehoods instead?”

“Yes,” she told him honestly. “If not falsehoods, then let’s be guilty of the sin of omission. We shouldn’t tell each other everything. We shouldn’t reveal the contents of our hearts and souls to each other.”

“I have nothing to hide.”

“While I do,” she admitted freely. “But the convent has taught me to loathe self-abasement. So I won’t reveal everything I am or have done simply to confess.”

“I’m not certain I can accept your type of ignorance,” he said. “There are some truths that need to be voiced.”

She shook her head vehemently. “No, there aren’t. For example, would you feel better or worse to know that I was kept in my room at Vallans, that I was never allowed outside for six months? I sat at the window watching the sky and the earth, desperate for the touch of a leaf or a blade of grass, or the soft, velvety feel of a flower petal on my palm.
I breathed in the air and longed for my freedom. That’s truth for you, Douglas, but knowing it doesn’t make life better, nor does it negate the past.”

Her gaze never veered from his face. “I used to weep when you didn’t come. The days passed, one after the other, and still you weren’t there. I thought that you must have been horrified at the thought of becoming a father. And yet you must have been somewhere else, already celebrating the birth of your first child. What a precocious lover you were. Tell me, did you leave any children behind in Nova Scotia?”

“Not that I know of,” he said, frowning at her.

“You were quite a rooster in France,” she said. “Margaret’s mother was French, was she not?”

She turned and walked in the other direction, pacing the length of the room. Nervous energy made her keep moving.

“You see, that’s the truth, and it hurts.” She smiled. “I don’t want the truth,” she said, shaking her head. “There are some things that should never be said, some confessions that should never be made.”

“And some that must be.”

She turned and looked at him. “Tomorrow,” she said. “Tomorrow, we’ll plan on wounding each other with words and memories.”

Reaching him again, she wound both hands on the back of his neck, interlocking her fingers tightly. “Give me today, Douglas, that’s all I ask.”

Tomorrow she would leave him, but first she’d tell him the truth he so obviously wanted. She’d tell him about leaving Vallans and going in search of the couple that had been given her child. She’d tell him the whole horrible story, one she recalled all too often in dreams. But first, give her this; she would ask nothing more of Fate or an inattentive God.

Gently and determinedly, she pulled his head down for a
kiss. “Kiss me,” she murmured against his lips and slowly they opened. He tried to draw back, but she wouldn’t allow him. “Please,” she said. Perhaps he heard her soft whisper against his lips, or only felt her desperation. An instant later his kiss deepened as his arms wrapped around her and pulled her close to him.

There was something magical about Douglas’s kisses. They took her out of herself, transported her to a different place and time, and made her a different person. Pleasure swept through her, from the tips of her fingers to her toes. He was an opiate, and she was the poor demented fool who would sell her soul for a few moments of bliss.

He pulled away and began unfastening his waistcoat. Removing his coat, then his vest, he began opening his shirt, and all the while he never looked away, only stared at her solemnly. As if what they were about to do was something grave and momentous, more so than any time they’d ever loved.

These weeks with Douglas had taught her one thing above all, that she could never replace him in her mind or her heart. Every other man in her life would be measured against Douglas and be found wanting.