The Bastard (3 page)

“
Enchantée de faire votre connaissance
.”
Jeannette allowed him to take and kiss her hand.

“My pleasure, I assure you.” His warm fingers clasped hers a moment longer than necessary as calculating eyes, eyes that very nearly matched his coat, probed hers. “May I bring you another drink? Your hands are cold.”

Jeannette pasted a fresh smile on her face. Thomas Villard was no young man. He had to be approaching forty, but he possessed interesting features. Thick, dark eyebrows arched above deep-set eyes in a thin face that would have been mildly attractive if not for his hawkish nose. “
Merci
, no. Perhaps I am not yet accustomed to the weather here. And this hall bears such a draft.”

He glanced at the enormous room with its high ceilings and great, dangling chandeliers. “So it does.” Turning to her mother, he bowed over her hand. “May I compliment you on the beauty of your daughter? And her impeccable English?”

Rose Marie beamed. “
Merci, monsieur
. And may I ask how you know the baron?”

“I am a frequent visitor at Hawthorne House. You might say I am like family.”

Before he could elaborate, another gentleman approached, holding a brandy in one hand. “I should have known I would find you flirting with the bride, Thomas,” he boomed with a boisterous laugh. “Take pity on your poor brother and introduce me.”

Thomas Villard sniffed, dabbed a handkerchief to his great nose, and complied—but with obvious reluctance. “Lady Lumfere, Lady St. Ives, may I present Richard Manville, my younger brother.”

“Sired by different fathers,” Richard clarified, which explained more than the difference in their names. While Thomas was tall, angular, and clean-shaven, Richard was husky with a barrel chest, bearlike hands, and a full beard.

“You are both from Cornwall, yes?” Jeannette sensed a certain tension between the two brothers.

“Richard lives in Liskeard. I prefer London, for the most part.” Sir Thomas seemed to forget his irritation as his gaze lingered on her once again. “I find country life a bit dull at times, although the baron occasionally entertains, which goes far toward breaking the monotony.”

“The way the baron entertains would certainly do that,” Richard added and finished his drink. “Myself, I prefer a more...conventional existence.” He winked at Jeannette and set his glass on the tray of a passing servant.

“Isn’t your wife waiting to leave?” Thomas asked.

This pointed question met with another booming laugh. “Don’t worry,” Richard told him. “I’ll not give away your little surprise.” Lifting an unlit pipe to his lips, he tilted his head in acknowledgment of the women. “Sleep well tonight, ladies,” he said and swaggered off, presumably to find his impatient wife.

Sir Thomas watched his brother go. “Bit of a lout, isn’t he?”

Jeannette said nothing. Richard did seem coarse, but she was more concerned with his words than his manner. What had he meant by
I’ll not give away your little surprise
?

“I see you have met Sir Thomas, my dear.”

St. Ives’s voice at her elbow caused Jeannette to turn in surprise—and to cringe when she found him standing so close. “
Oui,
and his brother Richard.”

The baron chuckled. “Ah, yes, Richard. He is gone now, I believe.”

“And none too soon,” Thomas added dryly.

“Did he have much to say?” the baron asked.

“
Non,
milord.” Her mother answered before she could. “He was anxious to see to the comfort of his wife.”

“He forgets himself too easily.” Sir Thomas scanned the room once again. “Has our friend Desmond arrived? He is so late now he has all but missed the festivities.”

“He is by the door—and looking splendid, I must say,” St. Ives responded.

Jeannette followed the line of her husband’s gaze to a tall blond man speaking to a group of older gentlemen. Wearing clothes that were almost as extravagant as St. Ives’s—a dark red suitcoat with gold stitching over a shiny, gold waistcoat—he wasn’t difficult to spot.

As if he could sense their attention, he looked up and met Jeannette’s gaze.

“Handsome devil, is he not?” the baron prompted.

“It is difficult to tell at this distance,” Jeannette replied when she realized her husband was talking to her. But the way the other man carried himself reminded her of a strutting peacock, fanning its feathers for all to admire.

St. Ives laughed. “Perhaps you will agree after you have had the chance to get to know him.”

The confusion caused by Richards’s strange words cut deeper, but the baron’s expression revealed nothing of his thoughts and his next question distracted her. “You must be exhausted. Are you ready to retire?”

Jeannette grappled with her failing nerve. “If you will please allow me a moment, my lord,” she replied. “I must bid my parents farewell.”

“Agatha waits to take you upstairs to your chamber.” He indicated a prune-faced maid standing patiently at the bottom of a grand stairway. “I will be up after you have had time to change. Come, Thomas. Shall we greet Desmond?”

Blood rushed into Jeannette’s cheeks as Thomas Villard’s gaze raked over her once more. By the salacious glint in his eye, she suspected he imagined all that would happen between her and the baron in the next hour. She could tell that it aroused him.

She reached for the comfort of her mother’s hand as St. Ives pulled Villard away.

“The time has come,
ma mère
.” She struggled to mask the nervousness in her voice as she watched the baron move through the remaining dancers.

Rose Marie patted her arm. “He does not rush you. He is a kind man, no?”

Jeannette couldn’t bring herself to formulate an answer that would have no scrap of truth or enthusiasm, so she changed the subject. “Tell me, what did you think of Villard’s brother?”

“Richard Manville?” Doubt clouded her mother’s expression. “He seems strange.... But he was deep in his cups.”

Her mother was right, of course. What did she expect from a drunken, ill-mannered Englishman? She was simply grasping at anything with the power to divert her mind from the very near future. “Of course.”

Rose Marie leaned in. “Are you too frightened to go through with this,
ma petite
?”

“No!” The word came out overly loud; Jeannette feared her mother noted it.

“Alors,”
her mother sighed. “The baron is far too old for you. I told you when he offered for your hand that I would rather see you with—”

“A young handsome man? Maman, a woman with no dowry cannot pick and choose. We could not afford to turn the baron away. And Papa’s own cousin, Lord Darby, found him to be a worthy suitor,
n’est-ce pas
? Darby is a powerful man here in England. We can trust him.”

“But you are our only daughter. I could not bear it if—”

“Maman,” she interrupted again. “’Tis too late. I belong to the baron.”

“Of course.” Forgetting her earlier display of optimism, her mother fell silent for several seconds. Then, she said, “I pray for your happiness, my child.”

Jeannette nodded. “I know. Where is Papa?
I must hurry.”

“
Je ne sais pas
.
I have not seen him for half the night. This has been a difficult thing for him,
ma petite,
to see his only daughter wed to a foreigner.”

“Tell him to think of it as an end to our uncertainty over the future,” Jeannette told her. “We could have fared much worse in our predicament.” She eyed the crowd again, but her father was nowhere to be seen. Even Henri had disappeared, which was just as well. She never could have fooled her brother into thinking she was satisfied with her situation and knew her unhappiness would pain him.

“Give my love to Papa—”

Rose Marie’s hand latched onto her arm. “Stay. Another few minutes won’t make any difference.”

Jeannette noticed Lord St. Ives watching her. “I must go. I do not wish to appear reluctant.”

“Of course.” Her mother released her as the heavy doors of the house banged shut on the heels of some departing guests. The tomblike sound filled Jeannette with dread. Yet, forcing herself to turn away, she moved toward the waiting maid and mounted the curving staircase, saying a silent good-bye to her youth.

Agatha had a bath waiting. Jeannette allowed the maid to assist her with undressing, then sank into the warm water. Even the thought of what lay ahead couldn’t silence the contented sigh that issued from her lips as she stretched out. The bath was unusually large, a welcome luxury. She nodded to the maid, who picked up a cake of perfumed soap to wash her as Jeannette extended a dripping leg out of the water.

That, at least, was fair and white. Despite being an only daughter, or possibly because of it, Jeannette had spent much of her time at her family’s country estate, riding or roaming the hillsides. Outdoor exercise had left her body a little too lean, perhaps, and the sun had made her complexion slightly darker than the pallor so sought after by most females, but she wasn’t one to worry about such details.

The maid’s touch eased her headache, but did little to stop her troubled thoughts from returning to the ball.

Richard Manville was a strange one. Drunk or no, his words made her uneasy. And there was something mysterious about Sir Thomas Villard. Possibly that Desmond fellow, as well. With their knowing glances and sly smiles, her husband and his friends behaved as though they shared a great secret, or a joke of some sort.

“Does Sir Thomas visit Hawthorne House very often?” she asked the maid.

Agatha’s hands stilled on her shoulders. “No, milady. The master brought ’im ’ome for the first time only a week ago.”

“What?” Jeannette nearly sloshed water over the sides of the tub as she twisted around. “But I thought Sir Thomas and my husband have been close friends for some time. He said he is like family!” She knew her husband’s servant might hesitate to comment, but Sir Thomas had left her unsettled enough she couldn’t help pressing for what information she could get.

The maid began to wring her hands. “Well, per’aps so. I am just a lowly servant, after all. I don’t rightly know the master’s business—”

“But you do know who visits here, no?” Jeannette reached out to still the woman’s agitated movements. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

“No, milady.” The maid’s round eyes did nothing to convince Jeannette, but there was little she could do to persuade her to speak against her will.

“Tell me something. How long have you been at Hawthorne House?” Jeannette hoped another tack might get Agatha to open up.

The maid readjusted a bone hairpin to keep Jeannette’s hair from falling into the water. “Twenty years next month, milady.”

“Do you like it here?”

Several drops of water ran off her hands and plinked in the bath before she answered. “It keeps a roof over me ’ead,” she said at last.

“And my husband, he is kind?”

From the corner of her eye, Jeannette saw Agatha throw a glance at the door.

“Per’aps we should dry ye off now.”

Not really an answer. The maid’s lack of a response did not bode well.

Agatha waited with a large towel. Jeannette rose, letting the water run off her body in rivulets. Her husband would arrive any minute; she didn’t want him to catch her in the bath. Perhaps if she’d finished her toilette, he’d put out the lamps before he took her virginity.