feet had not redressed their positions at all. She still had to look up to meet his forbidding features, for the Earl was quite a tall man. And she had nothing with which to combat his hostility but strength of will. Not beauty, or grace, or cleverness. She had the misfortune to have taken after her mother in looks. While Felice had inherited her father’s even features and long-limbed grace, she had got the Corbiere nose, diminutive size, and nondescript colouring. Her only weapon was an idea. But what an idea! If he would only hear her out, it would solve all their difficulties at a stroke!
‘It is quite simple, after all,’ she declared. ‘It is that I think you should marry me instead of Felice.’
She cocked her head to one side as she waited for his response, reminding him of a street sparrow begging for crumbs. Before he could gather his wits, she had taken another breath and set off again.
‘I know you must think that this is preposterous just at first. But only think of the advantages!’
‘Advantages for whom?’ he sneered. He had never thought of little Heloise as a scheming gold-digger before. But then nor had he thought her capable of such fluent speech. Whenever she had played chaperon for himself and her sister she had been so quiet he had tended to forget she was there at all. He had been quite unguarded, he now recalled with mounting irritation, assuming, after a few half-hearted attempts to draw her out, that she could not speak English very well.
Though the look he sent her was one that had frozen the blood in the veins of full-grown men, Heloise was determined to have her say.
‘Why, for you, of course! Unless…Your engagement to Felice has not been announced in England yet, has it? She told me you had not sent any notice to the London papers. And of course in Paris, though everyone thinks they know that you wished to marry Felice, you have only to say, when they see me on your arm instead of my sister, “You will find you are mistaken,” in that tone you use for giving an encroaching person a set-down, if anyone should dare to question you, and that will be that!’
‘But why, pray, should I wish to say any such thing?’
‘So that nobody will know she broke your heart, of course!’ Her words, coupled with her look of genuine sympathy, touched a place buried so deep inside him that for years he had been denying its very existence.
‘I know how her actions must have bruised your pride, too,’ she ploughed on, astonishing him with the accuracy of her observations. Even Conningsby claimed he had not guessed how deep his feelings ran until the night before, when, in his cups, he’d poured out the whole sorry tale. But this girl, of whom he had never taken much notice, had read him like an open book.
‘But this way nobody will ever guess! You are so good at keeping your face frozen, so that nobody can tell what you are truly feeling. You can easily convince everyone that it was my family that wished for the match, and that they put Felice forward, but all the time it was me in whom you were interested, for I am the eldest, or—oh, I am sure you can come up with some convincing reason. For of course they would not believe that you could truly be attracted to me. I know that well! And if any rumours about a Mademoiselle Bergeron have reached as far as London—well, I have already shown you how one Mademoiselle Bergeron may enter a room as another. Nobody else need know it was quite another Mademoiselle Bergeron you had set your sights on. If you marry me, you may walk round Paris with your head held high, and return home with your pride intact!’
‘You are talking nonsense. Arrant nonsense!’ He sprang from his chair, and paced moodily towards the sideboard. He had ridden out malicious gossip before. He could do so again. ‘The connection with your family is severed,’ he snapped, grasping the decanter, then slamming it back onto the tray on discovering it was still empty. He was not going to be driven from Paris because a few tattle-mongers had nothing better to talk about than a failed love affair. Nor would anything induce him to betray his hurt by so much as a flicker of an eyelid. ‘I see no need to restore it!’
He turned to see her little face crumple. Her shoulders sagged. He braced himself for a further outpouring as he saw her eyes fill with tears. But she surprised him yet again. Rising to her feet with shaky dignity, she said, ‘Then I apologise for intruding on you this morning. I will go now.’
She had reached the door and was fumbling her hands into her gloves when he cried out, ‘Wait!’ His quarrel was not with her. She had never given him a moment’s trouble during the entire time he had been courting Felice. She had never voiced any protest, no matter where they had dragged her, though at times he had been able to tell she had been uncomfortable. All she had done on those occasions was withdraw into the shadows, as though she wished to efface herself from the scene completely. That was more her nature, he realised with a flash of insight. To have come here this morning and voiced that ridiculous proposition must have been the hardest thing for her to do. It had not been only the brush with the National Guard that had made her shake with fright.
He had no right to vent his anger on her. Besides, to let her out alone and unprotected onto the streets was not the act of a gentleman.
‘Mademoiselle,’ he said stiffly, ‘I told you I would ensure you returned to your house safely. Please, won’t you sit down again, while I get Giddings to summon a cabriolet?’
‘Thank you,’ she sighed, leaning back against the door. ‘It was not at all pleasant getting here. I had no idea! To think I was glad Maman had turned off Joanne, so that it was an easy matter for me to sneak out without anyone noticing.’ She shook her head ruefully. ‘It is true what Papa says. I am a complete imbecile. When I had to pass that crowd in the Tuileries, I knew how stupid I had been. Then to walk right up to the door of an Englishman, on my own, as though I was a woman of no virtue…’
Seeing her tense white face, Charles felt impelled to check the direction of her thoughts.
‘Please, sit down on the sofa while you are waiting.’
She did so, noting with a start that her bonnet still lay amongst its cushions. As she picked it up, turning it over in her hands as though it was an object she had never seen before, he continued, ‘Whatever prompted you to take such drastic steps to come to my house, mademoiselle? I cannot believe you are so concerned about my wounded pride, or my—’ He checked himself before alluding to his allegedly broken heart.
She turned crimson, suddenly becoming very busy untangling the ribbons of her bonnet. Her discomfort brought a sudden suspicion leaping to his mind.
‘Never tell me you are in love with me!’ The notion that this plain young woman had been harbouring a secret passion for him, while he had been making love to her sister under her very nose, gave him a very uncomfortable feeling. ‘I had no idea! I did not think you even liked me!’
Her head flew up, an arrested expression on her face when she detected the tiniest grain of sympathy in the tone of his voice. ‘Would you marry me, then, if I said I loved you?’ she breathed, her eyes filled with hope. But as he returned her gaze steadily she began to look uncomfortable. Worrying at her lower lip with her teeth, she hung her head.
‘It is no good,’ she sighed. ‘I cannot tell you a lie.’ She sank back against the cushions, her whole attitude one of despondency. ‘I’m not clever enough to make you believe it. And apart from that,’ she continued, as Charles settled into his favourite fireside chair with a profound feeling of relief, ‘I confess I did dislike you when you first came calling on Felice and she encouraged your attentions. Even though Maman said I was letting the family down by making my disapproval plain, and Felice insisted I was being a baby. But I couldn’t help feeling as I did.’ She frowned. ‘Although, really, it was not you at all I did not like, so much as the idea of you. You see?’
