Page 5 of Under the Champagne Moon
A new thought nagged: would Etienne Marceau appreciate her?
“She’s a distant cousin to the Bicton-Morledges.” Fleur’s frosty tone pull him out of his reverie. “I’ve been serving as her hired companion.”
“Does she live at Bicton Grange?”
“No. Well, that is, we only just arrived from Staffordshire.”
“Staffordshire.”
“Yes.”
“How did you come to…” He thought of the sulking little girl Fleur used to be. “Do you mean that Bicton-Morledge sent you away?”
Fleur tugged her arm free and turned on him. “Think you that Mr. Bicton-Morledge and his lady would cast off an orphan?”
He passed by the ravaged drive and unkempt park at Bicton Grange. Perhaps clothing and feeding Fleur had been too much of a burden. But surely Fleur had some money from her parents.
He’d learned some of her history from his time spent in France. If she was, in fact, the right Miss Hardouin—and how could she not be?—her father had been a son of a crafty textile and wine merchant. While Fleur’s grandfather changed sides as needed during the revolution, Fleur’s father opposed the sans culottes, and then, perforce, was disowned by his family. He’d joined the counterrevolution and been executed in Lyon when Fleur was no more than an infant.
Gareth had seen a miniature of Fleur’s mother, a blond and strikingly beautiful daughter of a minorseigneur. All of that family had been lost to the ravaging peasants. Perhaps there truly had been no money following young Fleur to Switzerland when she and her mother escaped.
Unless the late Bicton-Morledge had squandered his young ward’s inheritance. Always a possibility.
Fleur still watched him, a glint in her eyes that was not humor.
He touched her elbow again. “Perhaps they were tired of your long silences.”
Her shoulders rose and fell in a huff, and she continued down the corridor.
He ought to apologize, but this was Fleur, and she’d never been a child to appreciate insincere coddling. As a woman—well, time would tell, but he doubted she’d developed a taste for polite lies.
“How long have you served the lady?” he asked.
“Ten years.”
“Ten years? You couldn’t have been more than?—”
“I was twelve when I came to her.”
Sent off as a child to serve as a companion? Why?What had his Petal done to deserve that fate?
Their arrival at the drawing room door silenced his questions, and he stepped aside to let Fleur enter first, watching the sway of her hips and the delicate slope of her shoulders under her gown.
Serving as drudge to an older lady hadn’t dampened her pride or her spirits. Yet what an awful life, fetching shawls, brewing possets, and who knew what other more disagreeable tasks were required.
The marriage to Marceau planned by her grandmother, the Veuve Hardouin would save her from that life. She’d have her own home, wouldn’t she? Or would she and Marceau be required to live under the thumb of the Veuve?
Mrs. Smythe sat near the fire, an elegant older lady nearby. Curls as white as his neck cloth burst from under the visitor’s bonnet. The lady wore lavender, as did Fleur. Half-mourning? For Bicton-Morledge or someone else?
“Good day to you, ladies.” Gareth bestowed his most charming smile.
He watched as Fleur’s back stiffened, suppressing a chuckle. Her hair had darkened over the years, and the coil of regal gold sparkled under the back of her tiny bonnet. By God, Fleur ought to be a royal princess instead of a princess of the champagne world.
Sherington’s Cousin Esther looked up, relief easing her tense mouth. A timid, compliant widow who’d needed a home, she’d been happy to take on hostess duties when Sherington lost his wife a year earlier.
The older guest raised a quizzing glass to her eyes, and he felt that bright, magnified eyeball creeping from the top of his head to the tip of his boots. And then up again pausing over-long at his unmentionables.
He smiled and raised the bottle of champagne in a salute.
