Page 21 of Lord Carlisle's Enticing Lure
When Giselle at last climbed the steps of a grand house and pulled the knocker, she was admitted immediately by the butler. For now, she was safe inside.
What to do to ensure that fellow did not hurt her?
Clive would hurry back to the hotel, ask Terese to take Bella to the carousel, and get Langley to help him find a man to guard Giselle. Today.Now!
She would be at her reception, he hoped, for at least an hour. That was all he had to ensure she was safe, unharmed. And he would do it.
After years of loneliness and self-doubt, he had found a woman he wanted for his own. He would not lose her.
Not to anyone.
She could be his.
Wouldbe his, forever.
Chapter Nine
The butler whoshowed Giselle up the stairs to Madame Le Brun’s salon was a Frenchman with that superior attitude all French majordomos possessed. “My pleasure,” he murmured to her in his Parisian accent as he opened both doors to admit her.
She nodded her thanks. One was never overly effusive with a man of his ilk. They took much as their duty, more so than their British counterparts.
But Giselle focused on her hostess. The lady sat on a long settee surrounded by two guests. Both were Giselle’s friends, the very ones she had avoided meeting in the Lanes yesterday. She would have to answer for that hasty retreat, if indeed they had spotted her. So be it. She grinned at them all.
Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun paused in her conversation and rose, hands out to greet Giselle. She was a small-boned woman with light-brown hair. She possessed an elegance to her that she long credited to her youthful exposure to those who lived at the court of Versailles. That grace she wore like a second skin, and its power drew others to her immediately.
Giselle noted that the years of the artist’s exile from France had aged her with lines around her pretty eyes and silver in her soft hair. The renowned artist did Giselle the honor of embracing her.
“Ma cherie,” the lady whispered as she kissed Giselle’s cheeks. “How happy I am to see you. I am so glad you’ve come.”
She stuck to her native language, as she had never learned any useful English, though word had it she knew a bit of Russian and German. Knowledge of German had come to her over her many years spent throughout states there. She had also lived in St. Petersburg, painting, among others, Tsar Alexander and his wife, Élisabeth, daughter of the Duke of Baden.
Amber and Gus embraced Giselle as well, then moved to facing chairs, leaving space for the newest guest and their hostess. Madame Le Brun looped her arm through Giselle’s.
“Madame Le Brun,” Giselle said to her mama’s old friend with courtesy and the warmth of remembered happiness, “I am delighted that you found me here and invited me to your home. I had no idea you were here, else I would have announced myself to you.”
“No damage,” the lady went on in French, giving Giselle a hint that probably the guests at this entire party spoke that language to accommodate this famous lady. “I understand. Not an issue, I assure you. Our mutual friends, Augustine and Amber, wrote to tell me you were in residence. Now as we continue, you are Giselle and I am Élisabeth, oui? I insist.” She gave a rueful shake of her head as she led Giselle to the settee. “We are old, old friends. Too old, oui?”
Madame gestured toward Amber and Gus. “Now, I know you three have known each other a long time. Correct me if my memory is poor, but did you not all attend the same Parisian finishing school?”
Giselle acknowledged Madame Le Brun’s knowledge with a smile. The woman’s memory for people and events had always been shockingly good. But Giselle suspected that Gus and Amber—had the topic come up before her arrival—had confirmed it already.
Giselle’s affections for Gus and Amber were bountiful, the three bearing a fondness for each other born in their youth and nurtured in trials and tribulations over the years. Although their friendship had begun decades ago in a young ladies’ school together, they had kepttheir relationship close even during the Terror. Both ladies had attended Giselle’s daughter’s funeral. Then in 1802, they both had come south for a visit from Paris to Blois, where Giselle continued to tend the family winery.
During that visit, Gus and Amber had secretly recruited Giselle for the work they all did together. It was then she had started to produce sketches and drawings of landscapes for them. Finally, last year, when René Vaillancourt had threatened to end her life and take her to La Force, Giselle had gotten a message to them in London about the deputy’s threats. Amber and Gus had managed her escape to England with the help of Lord Ashley’s former majordomo, a fellow named Corsini, and another in their network, Jacques Durand, a smuggler who worked the Channel ports as if he were more fish than man. The three women now worked together on Giselle’s latest project. It kept them united and busy.
Élisabeth knew none of that and would learn none. The coincidence of their meeting here was just that. Giselle was also grateful for the cover it provided her. She could appear a woman with many friends, not a hermit keeping to her room day in and out.
“Now you must tell me of your health.” Élisabeth kept Giselle’s hand in hers. Other guests—ladies and gentlemen—milled about talking, laughing with each other in subdued tones. But the four women who faced each other were intent on their own conversation. “You are well?”
“Very well, merci beaucoup.” Giselle wished not to speak of herself, but it was true that as a child she had been sickly. “How do you like Brighton, Élisabeth?”
“Ah, Brighton,” Élisabeth sighed, content. “I am happy to bask in the sun. I do like to walk along the shore.”
“How long do you remain here?” Amber was curious.
Élisabeth shrugged. “I am here only a few weeks. But then, I say that of every city I visit. The result is I overstay and bore those around me.”
“We both renewed our acquaintance with Madame Le Brun in London recently,” Gus said, calm and cool as ever. Her French was excellent, as she had grown up in Paris under the tutelage of her prestigious aunt, Cecily, Countess Nugent. That lady was once the friend of Josephine Bonaparte, and for many years, the infamous mistress of the old Duke of Orleans.
