engagement officially at Lady Dalrymple Hamilton’s ball last evening.’
‘I know,’ she replied. It had been his decision to make that announcement which had finally driven Felice to take off so precipitously. She had hoped to keep him dangling for another week at the very least. Heloise worried at her lower lip. She hoped Felice had managed to reach Jean-Claude safely. Although he had gone ahead to Switzerland, and secured a job with a printing firm, he had planned to return and escort Felice across France personally.
‘No need to look so crestfallen. I do not expect you to shine in society as your sister did. I will steer you through the social shoals.’
‘It is not that!’ she replied indignantly. She might not ‘shine’, as he put it, but she had mingled freely with some of the highest in the land. Why, she had once even been introduced to Wellington! Though, she admitted to herself with chagrin, he had looked right through her.
He glanced down at the rim of her bonnet, which was all he could see of her now that she had turned her head away.
How shy she was. How hard she would find it to take her place in society! Well, he would do all he could to smooth her passage. It was her idea, after all, that was going to enable him to salvage his pride. He would never have thought of something so outrageous. He owed her for that. And to start with he was going to have to smarten her up. He was not going to expose her to ridicule for her lack of dress sense.
‘Deuce take it,’ he swore. ‘I’m going to have to buy you some more flattering headgear. That bonnet is the ugliest thing I think I’ve ever seen.’ He leant a little closer. ‘Is it the same unfortunate article you trampled so ruthlessly in my drawing room this morning?’
She looked up at him then, suddenly cripplingly conscious of how far short of the Earl’s standard she fell. ‘It is practical,’ she protested. ‘It can withstand any amount of abuse and still look—’
‘Disreputable,’ he finished for her. ‘And that reminds me. While we are shopping, I shall have to get you a ring.’
His eyes narrowed as a look of guilt flickered across her mobile little features. No wonder she did not attempt to tell lies, he reflected. Her face was so expressive every thought was written clearly there.
‘What is it?’ he sighed.
‘First, I have to tell you that I do not wish you at all to take me shopping!’ she declared defiantly.
‘You are unique amongst your sex, then,’ he replied dryly. And what is second?’
And second,’ she gulped, the expression of guilt returning in force, ‘is that you do not need to buy me a ring.’ Holding up her hand to prevent his retort, she hastened to explain, ‘I already have a ring.’
He stiffened. ‘Our engagement may not have been my idea, mademoiselle, but it is my place to provide the ring.’
‘But you already have. That is—’ She blushed. ‘The ring I have is the one you gave Felice. The very one that made her run away. She gave it to me.’
‘The ring … made her run away?’ He had chosen it with such care. The great emerald that gleamed in its cluster of diamonds was the exact shade of Felice’s bewitching eyes. He had thought he was past being hurt, but the thought that she found his taste so deficient she had run to another man …
‘Yes, for until that moment it had not been at all real to her,’ he heard Heloise say. ‘She thought you were merely amusing yourself with a little flirtation. Though I warned her over and over again, she never believed that she could hurt you. She said that nobody could touch your heart—if you had one, which she did not believe—and so you made the perfect smokescreen.’
‘Is that estimation of my character supposed to be making me feel better?’ he growled.
‘Perhaps not. But at least it may help you to forgive her. It was not until you gave her that ring that she understood you really had feelings for her. So then of course she had to run away, before things progressed beyond hope.’
‘In short, she would have kept me dangling on a string indefinitely if I hadn’t proposed marriage?’
‘Well, no. For she always meant to go to Jean-Claude. But she did not mean to hurt you. Truly. She just thought—’
‘That I had no heart,’ he finished, in clipped tones.
Inadvertently he jerked on the reins, giving the horses the impression that he wished them to break into a trot. Since they were approaching a corner, there were a few moments where it took all his concentration to ensure they were not involved in an accident.
‘Oh, dear.’ Heloise was gripping onto his sleeve with both hands now, her face puckered with concern. ‘Now I have made you angry again, which is precisely what I wished not to do. For I have to inform you that when we are married, if you forbid me to contact her, knowing that I must obey I will do so—but until then I fully intend to write to her. Even if she has wronged you, she is still my sister!’
The moment of danger being past, the horses having been successfully brought back to a brisk walk, she folded her arms, and turned away from him, as though she had suddenly become interested in the pair of dogs with frills round their necks which were dancing for the amusement of those strolling along the boulevard.
‘Ah, yes,’ he replied, reaching over to take her hand and place it back upon his own arm. ‘You fully intend to bow to my every whim, don’t you, once we are married?’
‘Of course! For you had no thought of marrying me until I put the notion in your head, so the least I can do is be the best wife you would wish for. I will do everything I can,’ she declared earnestly. ‘Whatever you ask, I will do with alacrity!’ Pulling herself up short, she suddenly frowned at him suspiciously. ‘And, by the way, why did you suddenly change your mind about me? When you made me leave, you seemed so set against it!’
‘Well, your proposal was so sudden,’ he teased her. ‘It took me by surprise. Naturally I had to consider …’
She shook her head. ‘No, I may have surprised you, but you had made up your mind it was an absurd idea.’
‘So absurd, in fact,’ he countered, ‘that nobody would credit it. Nobody would believe I would take one Mademoiselle Bergeron merely to save face at being embarrassed by the other Mademoiselle Bergeron. And therefore they will have to believe that you were the object of my interest all along.’
When she continued to look less than convinced by his complete about-face, he decided it was high time he regained control of the conversation.
‘Now, getting back to the ring. May I enquire, although I somehow feel I am about to regret doing so, why your sister left it with you? The normal practice, I should remind you, when an engagement is terminated, is for the lady to return the ring to the man who gave it to her.’
‘I had it with me when I came to visit you this morning,’ she declared. ‘I was going to return it to you for her if you should not agree to my suggestion.’
‘Indeed?’ His voice was laced with scepticism. ‘And yet somehow it remains in your possession. How did that come about, I wonder?’
‘Well, because you were so beastly to me, if you must know! I told you the deepest secret
