Page 53 of My Deceitful Duchess
Sebastian looked up as she entered the reading room. Lottie and Harriet had settled across from him on the couch, leaving a space open for her between them. Which was good. She would need their support.
“Thank you for joining us,” Sebastian said evenly.
Jenny settled into the open space, and felt Lottie’s hand touch her shoulder. “Ask your questions and be gone,” she said.
“All right.” He reached for his tea, which had likely grown quite cold. “Have you been eating properly?”
“I don’t believe that’s any of your concern.”
“I sent you profiteroles this morning.” He leveled thatassessinggaze upon her, and she felt it like a stroke of his hand, measuring with his eyes every part of her he could see. The slenderness of her wrists, the slight thickening of her waist.
“I’m certain the kitchen staff enjoyed them.” Harriet pressed a plate of lemon biscuits into her hands, and she laid it upon her lap, uncertain she could manage even a bite.
“You’re with child,” he said, in what he seemed to think was areasonabletone. “You need to—”
“Have I misunderstood the nature of this visit?” she asked, sharply. “My child has no legal father and is thus none of your concern. Should I so desire your opinion otherwise, I will ask for it.”
His voice dropped low, hardly more than a whisper. “It’s my responsibility as well.”
“Consider yourself absolved thereof.” It was a hiss, sibilant and menacing.
His brows drew together. “I don’t wish to be absolved of it.”
“You’ll find, Mr. Knight, that I have about as much respect for your wishes as you have had for mine.” She did not miss the wince that pinched his face at the distancing address, nor the slight tremor of his hand on his cup.
“We’ll speak of this later,” he said, in that decisive manner than men had about them—as if their will would be done, incontrovertible and settled. She would let him think it all he liked; he would simply be in for a nasty shock when she refused to see him again. And that would behisproblem, and none of her own.
“Ask your questions, Mr. Knight,” Jenny suggested. “I find my patience wearing thin.”
He managed an uncomfortable little shrug. “First,” he said, “I would like to hear your story. Thewholeof it.”
Chapter Twenty Four
“Idon’t understand what you mean.” For the first time a crack had appeared in Jenny’s guarded expression.
“I mean you have given a statement to the authorities that is at best half a story,” he said. “I would like to know thewholeone.” All of it—everything she had concealed for so long.
“Of what relevance would that be?”
He offered a shrug. “Maybe none,” he admitted. “But sometimes the smallest things show me something at an angle I had not considered before. I want toknow,” he said, “everything youwouldn’ttell me before. Who you once were. Who you became. What led you to where you are now.”
Surreptitiously, she slanted a glance at Lottie, who said, encouragingly, “Youdidpromise, dearest.” Whatever that meant.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Jenny said, and by the nip of her shoulders, he assumed that eventhinkingabout her past made her uncomfortable.
“Your childhood,” he said. “Where were you born? When? What was your childhood like?”
She squirmed uncomfortably, nearly upsetting the plate in her lap. “I was born in Orléans, I think,” she said, “In 1792. I don’t remember my father.Mamansaid he died inLa Terreur; that he was a nobleman who had lost his head at the courtesy ofMadame la Guillotine.”
“Youthinkyou were born in Orléans?”
“It’s whatMamansaid, and I suppose it’s as likely as anything else.” She gave a queer little laugh as Harriet patted her arm. “Mamanwas a liar, Mr. Knight. There is no telling what the truth is—or was. She had fine manners, and a genteel accent—but she might have been only a governess to a well-heeled family for all I can say. All I know for certain is that she had too many children and no father for them. I was the last.”
“Of how many?”
“Six. Six children in all.Mamansaid we’d had to flee our home after my father was taken; that we were so poor because we couldn’t take much with us. I went barefoot more often than not.” Her head bent itself like a flower wilting. “We were always moving, further and further north—we ended up in Calais eventually.Mamansaid we had to keep moving just in case anyone was pursuing us, but I think it more likely that she was avoiding creditors. And then, when Napoleon came to power, we deserted France entirely.Mamansaid she’d had enough of revolution.”
“Wise of her.” Sebastian thought it lent at least a little credence toMaman’stale. “And when you arrived in England?”
