Chapter Fifteen
He collected his wits. ‘What I don’t understand,’ he said, ‘is how anyone could pay attention to the opera when you were in the place.’
‘They’re French,’ she said. ‘They take art seriously.’
‘And you’re not French?’
She smiled. ‘That’s the question, it seems.’
‘French,’ he said. ‘You’re a brilliant mimic, but you’re French.’
‘You’re so sure,’ she said.
‘I’m merely a thickheaded Englishman, I know,’ he said. ‘But even I can tell French and English women apart. One might dress an Englishwoman in French fashion from head to toe and she’ll still look English. You…’
He trailed off, letting his gaze skim over her. Only consider her hair. It was as stylish as the precise coifs of other French-women…yet, no, not the same. She was…different.
‘You’re French, through and through,’ he said. ‘If I’m wrong, the stickpin is yours.’
‘And if you’re right?’ she said.
He thought quickly. ‘If I’m right, you’ll do me the honour of riding with me in the Bois de Boulogne tomorrow,’ he said.
‘That’s all?’ she said, in French this time.
‘It’s a great deal to me.’
She rose abruptly in a rustle of silk. Surprised—again—he was slow coming to his feet.
‘I need air,’ she said. ‘It grows warm in here.’
He opened the door to the corridor and she swept past him. He followed her out, his pulse racing.
LORETTA CHASE has worked in academe, retail and the visual arts, as well as on the streets—as a meter maid (aka traffic warden)—and in video, as a scriptwriter. She might have developed an excitingly chequered career had her spouse not nagged her into writing fiction. Her bestselling historical romances, set in the Regency and Romantic eras of the early nineteenth century, have won a number of awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s RITA®.
Website: www.LorettaChase.com.
In Memory of Princess Irelynn
Thanks to:
The milliners and tailors of colonial Williamsburg’s margaret Hunter Shop, with special thanks to mantua-maker and mistress of the shop Janea Whitacre and tailor mark Hutter, for helping me with numerous details of the art of dress, and for so generously sharing their expertise and enthusiasm
Chris Woodyard, for her invaluable help with dolls and demolished houses and every other pesky question I could think to ask her
Susan Hollowy Scott for storms at sea, as well as her usual wit, wisdom and moral support
My husband Walter for his cinematic eye, unceasing
