Fairchild's Lady (Culper Ring Series) (4 page)

And that when he had returned to Fairmonte, it had still all seemed the same. Untouched.

He stretched out his fingers, yearning for the familiar pages of his Bible. He hadn’t dared bring it with him—’twas an English translation, and he hadn’t a French one. And though he would by necessity confess to Lady Poole and Lady Julienne that he was British, he could not risk anyone else discovering it. They would certainly remain silent because it was their secrets he carried. But the rest of the court…

Father in heaven, open their hearts to hear Lord Poole’s plea. Help me
to convince them quickly of the need for them to return to England. Clear the path homeward, please
.

He opened his eyes, but still Julienne’s face filled his mind.
And insulate my heart
.

She was even more beautiful without the mask than he had supposed. And not as young as he had feared. She was yet unwed, but it could bring little comfort. Not when he realized last night that the mysterious duc Lady Poole had mentioned was none other than the duc de Remi.

He had learned on his last trip here that Remi was a formidable man, one renowned for his iron fist with his tenants and feared in the political arena. While some of the aristocrats supported the idea of change for the Third Estate, the duc was not among them. He rather seemed perfectly content to prosper while others starved.

Much like he seemed content to let his wife die alone at their château while he remained at court with Julienne.

Fairchild’s fingers curled into his palm now, and the peace of the morning seemed to burn away under the ascending sun. Some said Julienne was the duc’s mistress—a reasonable assumption on the one hand. Others insisted she was not, that he wouldn’t continue to pursue her so single-mindedly if he had already acquired what he so obviously wanted. Not that Fairchild had realized, when he first heard the gossip about the duc de Remi, that it was
his
Julienne of whom the court whispered.

But now he knew. Oh, now he knew. And nearly wished he could have held longer to the comfort of ignorance.

He had watched them last night at the meal. Watched the way the middle-aged duc fawned over her, the way he never let her out of his sight and snarled at any other man who dared to speak to her. Much as he had watched the way she avoided the duc’s touch whenever she could manage it, the way she moved her feet in a constant dance to evade him, all while making it look as though she were merely playing the flirt.

She wasn’t. Nay, she was rather parrying him like a swordsman, so expertly that the duc seemed oblivious to the nature of her moves. But Fairchild understood.

Unless, of course, he had merely convinced himself of what he wanted to believe.

“
Bonjour
, monsieur.”

Her voice brought him to his feet. It tugged a smile onto his lips. He swept off his hat and made a quick bow, noting she was dressed to ride but alone. “
Bon matin
, mademoiselle. Is your mother not with you?”

She waved a hand toward the palace, the sunlight tangling in her hair and rendering it gold through its alchemy. “She is but a minute behind me. Monsieur, I…” She swallowed and stepped closer. Though her face was every bit as controlled as the mask she had worn the night they met, her eyes seethed with thought and feeling. “I owe you an explanation.”

He swallowed past the dual desires to deny it and demand it as he put his hat back on. “Do you?”

She nodded and affected a pleasant expression even while her eyes bespoke sorrow. “I can only imagine what you must think of me. The presumed betrothed of a married man, one who slips away with another for a midnight stroll through the garden…”

“
Arrêtez
.” He barely kept himself from reaching for her hand—only the other aristocrats milling about the grounds halted him. “Please, stop speaking of yourself so. I know…” Caution stilled his tongue. Any one of the people nearby could be the duc’s ally. He didn’t dare breathe a word against him.

The turn of her lips mocked the sheen she blinked away. “It is an honor to have gained the duc’s attention. One I certainly neither expected…nor sought.”

What could he do but nod? ’Twas as he had thought. Remi had decided she would be his, and she had not been consulted on the matter. His throat constricted when he considered what the duc might have done to her had he caught her with Fairchild that night in the garden. Innocent conversation would not have looked so innocent to a jealous suitor.

Though let the man try something when
he
was present—let them see how the life of a coddled noble bore up against twenty years of military training.

She drew in a deep breath and moved to his side, nodding toward Versailles. “Here comes Mère.”

His hand yearned to settle on the small of her back. To guide her forward, to protect. To pull her close, to embrace.

To distract himself, he followed her gaze and spotted Lady Poole coming their way, dressed in a stylish riding habit with a crop in her hand. Though he could not yet make out her face, he suspected there would be hard lines around her mouth and eyes like the ones that had appeared yesterday. “I imagine you had an interesting discussion last night.”

“
Non
. There was no time.” But her tone rang now with steel. Obviously, she needed the answers to the questions he raised yesterday. Well, he would see that she got them.

Once the countess joined them with a
bon matin
full of false cheer, Fairchild motioned for the groom to bring out the horses he’d already asked to be readied. He helped the ladies up onto their sidesaddles and then swung onto his mount. He nodded at Lady Poole. “I defer to you, madame. Where shall we head?”

She didn’t so much as meet his eye. Nay, she adjusted her gloves and picked up the reins as if he scarcely earned any regard. “A ride through the countryside would be just the thing today, I think.”

He nudged his horse into a trot when she did. And, when Julienne fell in beside him rather than her mother, he couldn’t resist sending her a smile. “I am curious. Does the duc know you are out riding with me this morning, mademoiselle?”

Lady Poole looked over her shoulder with narrowed eyes. “We naturally told him that you were an acquaintance of my late husband to whom we must pay our respects, monsieur. He himself was a friend of the comte de Rouen, so he understood.”

“Ah.” Fairchild schooled his lips into a proper expression of near boredom. “Very good. I feared I might cause you some disquiet. Last evening at the court meal the duc seemed very…protective.”

“Of course he is.” The countess raised her chin. “My Julienne is a prize coveted by many, and he knows well how fortunate he is to have won her heart.”

Julienne made no response other than a too-quick exhale that someone more cynical than he may have called a snort of derision. Her fingers tightened on the reins but then immediately relaxed. Otherwise, her face remained clear.

Evidence enough that she dismissed her mother’s words as false. A young woman in love would have smiled.

They made only idle conversation for the next ten minutes as the countess led them past the gardens and hedges, past all the people meandering about. Past, even, the drilling regiments on the green that made Fairchild take note as much as they had yesterday.

Then, finally, open countryside surrounded them, where no listening ears could hide. And the countess pulled back to fall in on her daughter’s other side. The look with which she speared him was anything but warm. “Now speak, monsieur. Tell me why you have dared to intrude upon my peaceful life with your absurdity.”

Fairchild tried to hold her gaze, but his eyes shifted of their own volition to Julienne. She watched him intently, but no accusation came from her. He drew in a long breath and looked to her mother again. “Your life will likely not be peaceful much longer, madame. You are insulated here at Versailles, but I have been all through France, and the things I have seen… Already the Third Estate has taken its first stand in demanding a constitution. They will not stop until they have demanded equality, something rarely achieved without the shedding of blood.”

For a moment she stared at him as if he spoke in Russian rather than French. Then she let out a scoffing laugh. “The peasants? You speak to me of ghosts because of the distress of the
peasants
?
Mon chére
, you worried me needlessly. That will be resolved quickly enough. The king has it well in hand.”

“No, he does not. And when I brought word of the state of French affairs home, I was not the only one who thought uprising and riots were sure to come.”

“Home.” Julienne’s voice trembled over the word, and her fingers now gripped the reins as if they were all that anchored her to the world. “And where, monsieur, is home? Ushant?”

He granted himself only a moment to wish there were some truth that would not be so bitter for her. “London.”

Lady Poole drew in a sharp breath. “The state of France is no business of the British!”

That drew a dry laugh from his lips. “Comtesse, when have our nations not been of the utmost interest to each other? Eager to find some way to gain the upper hand? It has always been so—even when you married the Earl of Poole some twenty-six years ago.”

“I do not know—”

“Mère! Why do you bother denying it? Our presence here says clearly that you know exactly of what he speaks.” Julienne wore fury well. It made her look more the elegant woman and less the
ingénue
. Though when she turned her face toward him, it softened to determination. “Tell me who this man is.”

“No.” Her mother reined in, and they followed suit, halting. “No, you will not hear the story from a stranger’s lips. It is mine to tell, not his.”

He acknowledged that with an inclined head. “Then by all means, my lady,” he said in his native tongue. “Tell it.”

The way her chin quavered, he nearly regretted forcing her hand. Never in his life had he deliberately brought a woman to tears—but it must be done. ’Twas for their better good.

She focused her gaze on her daughter. “I was only seventeen when I became engaged to the comte de Rouen. Our wedding was still some months off when he inherited a sizable plantation in the Caribbean, and he decided to travel there to assess it.”

Julienne sighed. “I know this story already, Mère. What has it to do with a British—”

“I will get to that part.” Lady Poole squeezed her eyes shut. “He enjoyed life on the plantation and requested I join him there. So my parents and I traveled to Martinique. We were married, and my family promptly returned to France.”

When the countess’s voice broke, Julienne drew in a long breath and reached over. Her mother took her hand with a small smile. “Then the comte died, as you know.”

“
Oui
, only a month into your marriage. And you stayed a while longer and then came home.”

“
Mais non
. I did not stay at all.” Her mother looked away, toward the horizon. “I hated it there, and I had no great affection for either the comte or his family residing on the plantation. I boarded a ship immediately. But we were only a few days from port when we were set upon by…”

“The British.” Fairchild put in when it seemed she would not continue. “Specifically, by one Captain Gates, then a second son to an earl and determined to make his fortune on the seas.”

The lady’s face combined whimsy with pain. “It was a love like lightning, bright and startling. We married in Barbados, not caring about all the reasons we ought to have waited.”

Though Julienne’s gaze left her mother’s face for only half a moment, it was long enough to meet his, long enough to echo the questions that reverberated inside himself. Was that what
they
had experienced that night—a lightning love? Bright, yes. Startling, definitely. But was love the proper word?

Maybe. Yes. But it hadn’t been so fierce as lightning, nor so quickly gone. It hadn’t led them to any hasty decision that night but rather to months of wondering what might be.

“We were foolish. And soon realized it.” Lady Poole sighed and looked to her daughter again. “A letter was awaiting Edward in Barbados, from his family—news that his brother had died and he was now an earl. We sailed directly for England.”

Julienne swallowed and drew in a breath whose quavering strummed on Fairchild’s heart. “And this man is my father? Not the comte de Rouen?”

“Without question, yes. He was a good man, Julienne. Do not think otherwise. He tried to prepare me for life in England. But I… For a year I tried, but his mother and sisters hated me, his sons—”

“Sons?” Julienne’s hand slipped out of her mother’s.

Lady Poole sighed. “Yes, from his late wife. Two of them.”

“Brothers.” Incredulity saturated her tone, but it bore the tone of joy. “I have brothers?”

“They never accepted me, certainly not as their mother nor even as a friend. And it became worse after you were born. The dowager countess tried to take you from me. She told me I must send you to live with a nurse until you were weaned.” The lady shook her head. “Your father was no help, being too overwhelmed with the estates he knew nothing about. I wanted home. I wanted my père. So I told him I was going to France for a visit, and I…never went back.”