Page 6 of Under the Champagne Moon
“Dulcinea? Is it really you?”
The gravelly voice behind him caught him by surprise. He’d missed the creaking of Laurence’s father’s Bath chair rolling behind him.
“Indeed, Sherington.” The lady’s mellifluous voice had none of the raspiness of aging. “What’s the meaning of you gadding about in a chair with wheels? Are there no good chairmen in Cheshire to carry you about the house?”
George Sherington laughed long and heartily.
“Father?” Laurence sent Gareth a curious glance at this rare display of good spirits. Sherington’s illness had taken him down, Laurence said, but even before that he’d been grieving dreadfully since his wife’s death. The losses that followed, of his friend, Bicton-Morledge, and worst of all, Thaddeus, had been heavy blows.
Sherington’s man wheeled him closer to the ladies and helped him transfer to the settee where the visiting lady sat.
Laurence sent a servant to fetch champagne glasses, and then introductions were made. Lady Ixworth extended a slim regal hand while her gaze skipped over Laurence and settled on Gareth again with a glittery interest that would have put a Covent Garden dove to shame. He swallowed the urge to laugh.
Fleur surely noticed the older lady’s interest. Her lips and eyes squeezed shut for the briefest of moments. Was she embarrassed?
When she cleared her throat and spoke, she told Laurence’s father how wonderful it was to see him after so many years.
Fleur, transformed, as genteel as a Mayfair maiden or her mother.
He chuckled. What was she up to?
Mr. Sherington looked just as perplexed, but he was quickly distracted by Lady Ixworth, who peppered him with the sort of teasing that signaled more than a mere acquaintance. Gad, as if they’d once been much,muchmore than mere acquaintances.
What an entertaining visit this was proving to be.
When the glasses had been filled and passed around, Fleur pulled a chair next to old Sherington, listening as if captivated.
Perhaps Lady Ixworth’s health was failing, and Fleur was fishing for a position as Sherington’s nurse.
Unless she thought being kind to the father might hook her Laurence’s hand?
No. She couldn’t marry Laurence. She was to marry Marceau, though she didn’t know it, and Marceau didn’t deserve her, and wouldn’t know how to handle a girl like her.
Fleur carried the mercenary blood of the Veuve Hardouin, a woman who had wriggled her way through the revolutionary madness and charmed Bonaparte with sparkling wine. Marceau was a mere watered-down distant cousin. No proper match for Fleur.
And yet… he needed to tell Fleur he’d discovered her family. Not here, though, and not now in front of an audience.
* * *
The next day
Fleur settleda breakfast tray on the table in Mrs. Bicton-Morledge’s bedchamber while sixteen-year-old Cora helped her mother from the bed.
“So kind of you to help, Fleur,” the lady called, struggling to sit up. Her white linen nightgown flowed like stout canvas tenting a heavy boulder. Cora knelt before her mama and helped her into her slippers. “If only I could see my feet. Thank you, my darling girl.”
A pretty, petite lass, Cora was the image of what her mother must have looked like at that age, with dark curling hair and deep blue eyes. She was the eldest of the three Bicton-Morledge girls; that is, the eldest at home. Phyllis, who must now be nineteen, had run off with a soldier three years prior. The son of the family had died tragically in a fall from a horse. The two younger girls, Jemimah, aged eight and Suze, aged four, were in the nursery with one of the few remaining servants, a devoted nursery maid.
Cora helped her mother through her ablutions while a maid popped in to carry out the night waste, and they soon had the lady settled more or less comfortably into a chair.
Fleur drew the table closer and lifted the covers revealing shirred eggs, ham, and buttered toast.
“Heavens, how am I to eat so much?”
“Try, ma’am,” Fleur said.
Cora tucked a napkin over her mother’s expansive lap and dove for it when it slid to the floor. “Tuck this into your bodice, Mama, and eat. Cook says you must keep up your strength.”
The lady grasped her daughter’s hand and smiled. “Are you gossiping about me with the servants?”
