Portrait of a Scandal

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She dragged herself out of the past with an effort to hear Monsieur Le Brun was now telling Sophie a gory tale of an uprising that had been quelled upon the very spot where they stood. He pointed at some marks in the wall, telling the fascinated little girl that they’d been made by bullets.

She shuddered. Not at the goriness of the tale, though she would claim it was that if anyone should question her. But, no—what really sickened her was the thought that Harcourt assumed she was having intimate relations with this stringy, sallow-faced Frenchman.

Why was everyone always ready to assume the worst of her? All she’d done was leave Stanton Bassett to take a little trip. She’d followed all the proprieties by hiring a female companion, yet just because she’d stepped outside the bounds of acceptable female behaviour, just the tiniest bit, suddenly Harcourt assumed she must be a...a woman of easy virtue!

Based on what evidence—that she was with a man to whom she was not married, dressed in clothing that indicated she was relatively poor? And from this he’d deduced Monsieur Le Brun must be her protector?

Didn’t he remember she was a vicar’s daughter? Didn’t he remember how he’d teased her about being so prim and proper when they’d first met?

Although he had soon loosened her moral stance, she reflected on a fresh wave of resentment. Quite considerably.

Perhaps he thought she’d carried on loosening after they’d parted.

Next time she came across Harcourt she would jolly well put him right. How dare he accuse her of having such poor taste as to take up with a man like Monsieur Le Brun?

If anyone had bad taste, it was he. He’d married a woman with a face like a horse, just because her family was wealthy and powerful.

Or so her parents had said. ‘The Delacourts wouldn’t let one of their daughters marry in haste. If they’ve got as far as announcing a betrothal, negotiations must have been going on for some time. His family might even have arranged the thing from the cradle. It is the way things are done, in such families. They leave nothing to chance.’

The certainty that they were right had made her curl up inside. It had seemed so obvious. He couldn’t have walked away from her, then proposed to someone else the next day. Miss Delacourt must always have been hovering in the background.

But now...now she wondered just how deliberate and calculating his behaviour had been after all. He’d talked about finding her so attractive he’d almost thrown caution to the winds.

As though...as though he hadn’t been able to help himself. As though he’d genuinely been drawn to her.

But in the end, it had made no difference. He’d married the girl of whom his family approved rather than proposing to the girl he’d only known a matter of weeks.

Though none of that explained why he seemed so angry with her now. Surely, if he had been toying with the idea of proposing to her back then, he should be glad they’d finally met up when both of them were free to do as they pleased?

Only—he didn’t think she was free, did he? He thought she was a kept woman.

Oh!

He was jealous. Of Monsieur Le Brun.

That was...well, it was...

So preposterous she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. When Monsieur Le Brun shot her a puzzled glance, she realised that, in stifling it, she’d made a very undignified sound, approximating something like a snort.

She made a valiant attempt to form sensible answers whenever Sophie spoke to her, but it was very hard to pretend to be interested in all the things Monsieur Le Brun was telling them about the park through which they were walking and the momentous historical events which had occurred on just about every corner.

When she felt as though her whole life had been flung up in the air and hadn’t quite settled into place yet. If she could only get past how angry he’d made her, by assuming she’d sunk low enough to...well, never mind what he thought she and Monsieur Le Brun got up to. It made her feel queasy. What about the other things he’d said? About finding her attractive?

Never mind irresistible. Almost irresistible enough to have lured him away from his sensible arranged match, to live in relative poverty and obscurity.

Had he been serious? Not one man, in the last ten years, had come anywhere near kissing her, yet Nathan claimed to find her so irresistibly attractive he immediately assumed she must be making her living as a woman of easy virtue. He had seethed at her and fumed at her, and only stormed off when he was satisfied he’d rattled her.

She stood stock still, her heart doing funny little skips inside her chest. She’d only ever been sought after seriously by gentlemen after they learned she was Aunt Georgie’s sole beneficiary.

But Harcourt assumed she was poor and desperate.

And he still claimed to want her.

‘Are you getting tired, Aunt Amy?’

Sophie had come running back to her and was taking her hand, and looking up into her face with concern.

‘No, sweet pea. I am just...admiring the gardens. Aren’t they beautiful?’

She hadn’t noticed, not until she’d worked out that Harcourt was suffering from jealousy, but the Tuileries Gardens were really rather pretty...in a stately, regulated kind of way, in spite of all the gruesome horrors which the citizens had perpetrated within it. The trees dappled the gravelled walks with shade, the sky she could see through the tracery of leaves was a blue that put her in mind of the haze of bluebells carpeting a forest floor in spring, and the air was so clear and pure it was like breathing in liquid crystal.

It was almost as magical a place as Hyde Park had been, when she’d been a débutante. She could remember feeling like this when she’d walked amongst the daffodils with Harcourt. Light-hearted and hopeful, but, above all, pretty. He’d made her feel so pretty, the way he’d looked at her back then, when she’d always assumed she was just ordinary, that there was nothing about her to warrant any sort of compliments.

That was because she’d always had to work so hard to please her exacting parents. She’d done her utmost to make them proud of her, with her unstinting work in the parish and her unquestioning support of her mother in bringing up the younger girls.

And what good had it done her? The minute she slipped, nothing she’d done before counted for anything. All they could say was that she was self-indulgent and ungrateful, and vain.

Though at least now she knew she hadn’t been vain. He must have liked more than just the way she looked, if he’d contemplated marrying her. He’d liked her. The person she’d become when she’d been with him. The girl who felt as though she was lit up from inside whenever she was near him. A very different girl from the earnest, constantly-striving-to-please girl she was in the orbit of her parents. He’d shown her that it was fun to dance and harmless to flirt. They’d laughed a lot, too, over silly jokes they’d made about some of the more ridiculous people they encountered. Or nothing much at all.

She’d slammed the door shut on that Amy when he’d abandoned her.

She’d tossed aside the former Amy, too, the one who was so intent on pleasing her parents.

It had been much easier to nurture the anger Aunt Georgie had stirred up. She’d become angry Amy. Bitter Amy. Amy who was going to survive no matter what life threw at her.

‘It is time I took you to another café,’ said Monsieur Le Brun. ‘It is a little walk, but worth it, for the pastries there are the best you will ever eat.’

‘Really?’ She pursed her lips, though she did not voice her doubt in front of Sophie. There wasn’t any point. The proof of the pudding, or in this case, pastry, would be in the eating. So she just followed the pair to the café, let the waiter lead them to a table and sank gratefully on to a chair, wondering all the while which, out of all the Amys she’d been in her life thus far, was the real one? And which one would come to the fore if he should come into this café, looking at her with all that masculine hunger?