Annie Burrows - Regency Innocents

‘Why, yes,’ he admitted, feeling Heloise tense beneath his grasp. ‘I feature as a lion in a circus, if you please.’

‘Oh, of course. The king of the beasts!’ she trilled. ‘Well, I must not take up any more of your time. I am sure you two lovebirds—’ she paused to laugh at her own witticism ‘—would much rather be alone.’

As soon as you have finished your ice,’ Charles said, once Mrs Austell had departed, ‘I shall take you home. Our “news” will be all over Paris by the morning. Mrs Austell will convince everyone how it was without us having to perjure ourselves.’

He was quiet during the short carriage ride home. But as he was handing her out onto the pavement he said, ‘I trust you will destroy your sketchbook before it does any more damage?’

‘Damage?’ Heloise echoed, bemused. ‘I think it served its purpose very well.’

‘There are pictures in there that in the wrong hands could cause me acute embarrassment,’ he grated. He had no wish to see himself portrayed as a besotted fool, completely under the heel of a designing female. ‘Can I trust you to burn the thing yourself, or must I come into your parents’ house and take it from you?’

Heloise gasped. She had only one skill of which she was proud, and that was drawing. It was unfair of him to ask her to destroy all her work! It was not as if she had made her assessment of her subjects obvious. Only someone who knew the character of her subject well would know what she was saying about them by portraying them as one type of animal or another.

It had been really careless of her to leave that sketchbook lying on the table when she had gone up to change. She had not been gone many minutes, but he had clearly found the picture she had drawn of him prostrate at her sister’s feet, while she prepared to walk all over him. And been intelligent enough to recognise himself, and proud enough to resent her portrayal of him in a position of weakness.

He was not a man to forgive slights. Look how quickly he had written Felice out of his life, and he had loved her! Swallowing nervously, she acknowledged that all the power in their relationship lay with him. If she displeased him, she had no doubt he could make her future as his wife quite uncomfortable. Besides, had she not promised to obey his slightest whim? If she argued with him over this, the first real demand he had made of her, she would feel as though she were breaking the terms of their agreement.

‘I will burn it,’ she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I promised you, did I not, that I would do my best to be a good wife, and never cause you a moment’s trouble? I will do whatever you ask of me.’ However it hurt her to destroy that which she had spent hours creating, the one thing in her life she felt proud to have achieved, her word of honour meant far more.

‘Heloise, no—dammit!’ he cried, reaching out his hand. That had been tactless of him. He should have requested to examine the book, and then decided whether to destroy the one or two sketches which might have caused him some discomfort. Or he should have been more subtle still. He should have asked if he could keep the whole thing, and then ensured it was kept locked away where nobody could see it. Not demand her obedience in that positively medieval way!

But it was too late. She had fled up the steps to her house, the sound of her sobs sending a chill down his spine.

How had the evening gone so wrong? He had decided she needed reassurance, and what had he done? Bullied and frightened her, and sent her home in floods of tears.

If he carried on like this she might still decide to run away to her farm in Dieppe. And where would that leave him?

Heloise gazed wide-eyed around the mirror-lined interior of the most expensive and therefore the most exclusive restaurant in Paris.

‘Most people come to Very Frères to sample the truffles,’ Charles had informed her when they had taken their places at a granite-topped table in one of the brilliantly lit salons.

That seemed inordinately foolish, considering the menu contained such a staggering variety of dishes. ‘I will have the poulet à la Marengo.’ She leaned forward and confided, ‘Although it is much cheaper in the Trois Frères Provencaux.’

‘You do not need to consider the expense,’ he pointed out. ‘I am a very wealthy man.’

Heloise shifted uncomfortably as his gaze seemed to settle critically upon her rather worn lilac muslin. ‘I am not marrying you for that.’

‘I know,’ he acknowledged. ‘But you must admit having a wealthy husband will make your lot more tolerable.’

‘Will it?’ she replied in a forlorn little voice. She really could not see that it mattered how wealthy her husband was when he was in love with someone else. Someone he could not have. And when she would only ever be a poor second best.

‘Of course,’ he replied briskly. He had decided to make amends for his overbearing attitude the previous evening by spoiling her a little. And demonstrating that he was prepared to consider her feelings. ‘I appreciate that you may find certain aspects of marrying me more uncomfortable than I had at first assumed.’ If he didn’t want her bolting to Dieppe, he would have to persuade her that marriage to him would be nothing like the picture she had painted of being chained down by Du Mauriac.

‘I shall not forbid you from pursuing your own pleasures.’ He did not want her worrying he would be forever breathing down her neck. ‘Nor shall I expect you to hang on my arm.’ He would not force her to any event that she would rather not attend. He knew that her rather retiring nature might make it hard for her to hold her own with some of the people with whom he routinely crossed swords during the course of his public life. However, he did not want her to feel he saw her shyness as a failing. ‘It is not done for a man to be seen about too much with his wife,’ he explained. And though we must live in the same house, there is no reason we may not live virtually separate lives.’

Her heart fluttered in panic. It sounded as if he meant to deposit her in some house in a foreign country, where she knew nobody, and leave her to fend for herself.

‘D … don’t you want people to think we have a true marriage?’

He felt touched that she could still think of his image, when she must have so many reservations about the new life she was about to embark upon.

‘We must be seen about together occasionally, yes,’ he acknowledged. ‘Just once every se’en night or so should be sufficient.’

She bit her lip. She could hardly complain if he could not face wasting more than one evening a week on her. Hadn’t she rashly declared she would go and live in a cottage and keep hens if he did not wish to be burdened with her company?

‘Do you have a house in the country, my lord?’ she asked. The hens were seeming increasingly attractive.

‘That is far too formal a way to address me now we are to be married,’ he countered, puzzled by her abrupt change of subject. He had done what he could to put her at ease. Now it was time to take things to a more intimate level. ‘You had best call me Walton. Or Charles.’

‘Ch … Charles,’ she stammered, the familiarity of his name catching on her tongue.

‘And may I call you Heloise?’

She nodded, rendered speechless at the warmth of the smile he turned on her for acceding to this small request.

‘I hope you will like Wycke.’

‘Wycke?’