Page 30 of Under the Champagne Moon
“Miss Hardouin.” Mrs. Knollwood was at her elbow. “The dancing starts soon. Miss Cora?—”
“Yes, yes.” She had duties.
She dabbed at her eyes with the cloth, and then handed it back to Gareth. “Use this for the blood. I must go. Helena needs me. Cora must go to the ball.”
* * *
Gareth heldthe cloth still damp from her tears and swiped at a drip of blood. Wide-eyed and vulnerable, Fleur looked stunned behind a misting of tears. Fleur was crying. His Fleur.
Haskell hovered nearby. Oh yes, Cora must come and dance with the King of the Harvest.
To hell with that.
She slipped off her smock and handed it to the housekeeper.
“Fleur, wait.” Gareth grabbed her free elbow. “Not yet. Don’t leave yet.”
She shook her head. Tears glistened on her cheeks.
“I…” The words stuck. He cleared his dry throat, swallowed, and tried again. “I love you, Petal.”
Astonishment lit her face, and his confidence rose.
“Marry me,” he said.
Her labored breath sent her chest rising and falling and he remembered the swell of her breasts in the yellow gown she’d worn to dinner at Sherington Manor, and the taste of the lips she was biting.
Her eyes fluttered closed a moment, and she shook her head. “Not now. I must go.”
“Wait, Fleur.”
But she was already gone, and Haskell had left with her.
He hurried out of the tent, prepared to chase her, but a hand gripping his arm tugged him back, wrenching his sore shoulder again.
Gareth turned in anger.
“Sorry,” Marceau said, holding up his hands. “Sorry. But don’t run after her, my friend. Not yet.”
Some minutes later,Gareth found himself in the tap room of the Book and Bell. Too numb to fight more, he’d allowed himself to be dragged off by the impertinent Frenchman, who’d pushed him onto a bench and set a pint and a bottle before him. Having noticed the curious looks from other patrons, Marceau kept his voice low and spoke carefully in English.
“I would have brought champagne with me to your village,” he said, “had I known we would both be made fools of by that chit of a woman.”
Gareth glared at the Frenchman and started to rise. “No, no,” Marceau said. “You’ve beat on me enough today. I apologize again. She’s not a chit—whatever that word means. She’s… cold; stubborn, and, and… hard. She reminds me of the Veuve.”
Gareth tossed back his brandy and poured some more. Had he not made that comparison himself before?
But Marceau was wrong. Fleur wasn’t cold. One only had to look at her determination to take care of Lady Ixworth and the Bicton-Morledge females.
“You don’t know anything,” he said.
“No?” Marceau shrugged. “I made an offer of marriage and was refused. My pride, it was crushed. I’ve never offered marriage before, though Marie has hinted at it often enough.”
Rightly so. She’d borne his child, and Marceau in his own selfish way, cared for the girl. Gareth didn’t hold with the notion of men keeping more than one household.
“But then I see her tell you no, and me, I feel better,” Marceau said.
“Shut up,” Gareth said.
