скачать книгу бесплатно
‘I can imagine it would have been normal for you. I expect you were very sure of yourself, even as a boy.’
Jean-Luc laughed. ‘What was your upbringing like? No, you need not answer,’ he added hurriedly, ‘I did not mean to pry.’
Sophia hesitated. She was under no obligation to tell him anything, but it seemed wrong to shut him out completely when he had just confided so much to her. ‘My relationship with my father was difficult. He wanted a son. As a female, I was of limited use to him.’
‘But you knew he cared for you?’
She knew he had not. ‘I never doubted he was my father,’ Sophia said, unwilling to lie.
‘You refer to him in the past tense.’
‘He died four years ago. My mother many years earlier. To return to the matter in hand,’ she said hurriedly, ‘are you saying that, thanks to Mademoiselle de Cressy, you are doubting your own parentage?’
‘Mon Dieu, no! The difficulties I spoke of were a long time ago. My father was very proud of my success. He told me not long before he died, ten years ago, just nine months after Maman, that he could not have asked for a better son.’ Jean-Luc’s hand tightened around the quill he had been fidgeting with. ‘For my father, that was quite an admission, believe me.’
‘More than I ever got,’ Sophia said with feeling. ‘My father never missed an opportunity to tell me that he had never wished for a daughter of any sort, never mind...’ Two. The pain took her by surprise, making her catch her breath. All too aware of Jean-Luc’s perceptive gaze on her, she took a firm grip of herself. ‘Never mind my father,’ she amended lamely. ‘We were talking of yours.’
He waited, just long enough to make it clear he knew she was changing the subject, then set down his quill. ‘My father, Robert Bauduin, you mean, and not the Duc de Montendre.’
‘Indeed. May I ask how you plan to prove your heritage? I’m assuming that you doubt a simple introduction to me will send Mademoiselle de Cressy running for the hills. That you require me to be by your side to maintain the façade, in order to buy yourself the time you need to gather the evidence to quash her claim completely?’
‘Ah, you do understand.’
‘But of course. If a wife does not understand her husband, then she is a poor spouse indeed,’ Sophia quipped.
Jean-Luc smiled, albeit faintly. ‘I must confess, I’m concerned as to how she will react when she does meet you. To date, she has quite simply refused to accept that I have a wife.’
‘Then we must hope that she does not try to eliminate me—an outcome not at all unlikely in the context of this tale, which is worthy of Shakespeare himself.’
‘Or perhaps more appropriately, Molière,’ Jean-Luc said drily, ‘for it has all the hallmarks of a farce. It is, to say the least, inconvenient that the agent which Maxime—Maxime Sainte-Juste, my lawyer, that is—sent to Cognac to retrieve documentary evidence of my birth, came back empty-handed.’
Sophia wrinkled her nose. ‘You don’t find it odd that he couldn’t locate the certificate of your baptism?’
Jean-Luc shrugged. ‘I was surprised, I had assumed that I was born in Cognac, and my parents had always lived there but they must have moved to that town when I was very young. I was born in 1788. It was a time when there was much unrest in the country, crops failing, the conditions which resulted in the Revolution. There could have been any number of reasons for my parents to have relocated.’
‘What about your grandparents then? You must know where they lived.’
‘I don’t. I never knew them, and have always assumed they died before I was born, or when I was too young to remember them.’
‘But there must have been other relatives, surely? Cousins, aunts, uncles?’
‘No one.’ Jean-Luc twisted his signet ring around his finger, looking deeply uncomfortable. ‘When you put it like that, it sounds odd that I never questioned my parents when they were alive, never even noticed my lack of any relatives at all when I was growing up.’
‘But why would you? Your parents are your parents, your family is your family.’
‘Yes, but most people have a family,’ he said ruefully. ‘It seems I did not, though of course I must have relatives somewhere. Unfortunately, I have no idea where I would even begin to look in order to locate them.’
‘What about family friends, then?’
But once more, Jean-Luc shook his head. ‘None who knew my parents before I was born. You’re thinking that is ridiculous, aren’t you? You are thinking, there must be someone!’
‘I am thinking that it is extremely awkward for you that there is no one.’
‘Extremely awkward, and a little embarrassing, and very frustrating,’ he confessed. ‘I cannot prove who I am. More to the point,’ he added, his expression hardening, ‘I cannot prove to Mademoiselle de Cressy who I am, which means that...’
‘You must prove that you are not who she says you are, the long-lost son of the fourth Duc de Montendre.’
‘Exactement.’ Jean-Luc grimaced. ‘Unfortunately, not as straightforward a task as you might imagine. I have, however, made a start on testing the veracity of Mademoiselle de Cressy’s documents. Unlike me, she does have a baptism certificate. Maxime’s agent has been despatched to Switzerland to check it against the relevant parish records. If it proves to be legitimate, then his next task will be to attempt to obtain a description of Juliette de Cressy. As the only child of the recently deceased Comte de Cressy, there must be someone in the neighbourhood where she says she lived for all her twenty-two years who can shed some light on her.’
‘So she was born after her parents left Paris?’
‘If her parents were the Comte and Comtesse de Cressy—who were, incidentally, real people, that too I have established—then she was born six years after they arrived in Switzerland, fleeing Paris in the days when it was still possible to do so, before The Terror.’
‘And the marriage contract, it was written when?’
‘It is dated 1789, the year of the Revolution, and one year after I was born—not that that has anything to do with it.’ With an exclamation of impatience, Jean-Luc got to his feet, prowling restlessly over to the window to perch on the narrow seat in the embrasure, his long legs stretched in front of him. ‘The marriage contract appears to be signed by the sixth Comte de Cressy and the fourth Duc de Montendre. It stipulates a match between the Duc de Montendre’s eldest son, whose long list of names does not include mine, and any future first-born daughter of the Comte de Cressy.’
‘And this fourth Duc de Montendre was killed during the Terror?’
‘As was the Duchess, some time in 1794. This much Maxime has been able to discover, though the circumstances—there are so few records remaining, so much has been destroyed. It may be that the witnesses to the contract also—if they were loyal servants...’
‘They too may have gone to the guillotine?’
‘Like so many others. The final months of the Terror following the Revolution saw mass slaughter, so many heads lost for no reason. Maxime thinks that trying to prove Mademoiselle de Cressy wrong could turn into a wild goose chase.’
‘A whole flock of geese, by the sound of it. It sounds daunting in the extreme.’
Jean-Luc grinned. ‘There is no finer lawyer than Maxime, and no better friend, but the reason he is so successful in his chosen profession is because he is a cautious man, and the reason I am so successful in my chosen profession—or one of them—is that I recognise when it is necessary to cast caution to the wind.’
He returned to his seat behind the desk, picking up his quill again. ‘Maxime is right, though, it will not be a simple matter to prove I am not this Duke’s son. There have been many cases in France over the last few years, of returning émigrés or their apparent heirs, claiming long-lost titles and estates. With so many of the nobility and their dependents dead, so many papers lost, estates ransacked, it is very difficult to prove—or to disprove—such claims. And even if they prove to be true, in most cases, the reward is nothing, or less than nothing, you know? What money existed has long gone, along with anything of value which could be sold or stolen. No one really cares, you see, if Monsieur le Brun turns out to be the Comte de Whatever, if only the name is at stake.’
‘So it would be, ironically, easier for you to accept the title than to reject it?’
‘Equally ironically, acquiring a title, especially such a prestigious one, would, in the eyes of some, be of value to my business. It would,’ Jean-Luc said with a mocking smile, ‘be more prestigious to buy wine from the Duc de Montendre that from Monsieur Bauduin.’
‘But it is not a mere title which mademoiselle would have you claim, but a wife. And another family. Another history.’
‘None of which I desire.’
‘No, but Mademoiselle de Cressy does. Which begs the question, if she is the real Juliette de Cressy, and the contract is valid, if her father really was the Comte, then why didn’t he pursue it when he was alive?’
Jean-Luc nodded approvingly. ‘A good question, and one which you can be assured I asked her. She told me that her parents vowed never to return to France. For them, the country was tainted for ever by the Revolution, which is perfectly understandable—Paris must for them have been a city redolent with terrible memories. Her betrothal to the son of the Duke who was the Comte’s best friend, was a sort of family myth, she said, a story that she was told, and that she believed to be just that—a story. It was only when her father died, and she discovered the marriage contract in his papers, that she realised it was true. His death, she openly admits, left her penniless, for his pension died with him.’
‘So she came here, to Paris, to claim her only inheritance, which is you.’
He shook his head. ‘According to her family tale, as Mademoiselle de Cressy tells it, the Duke sent his son to Cognac in the very early days of the Revolution, to keep him safe, to be raised in secret by a couple named Bauduin, until such a time as he could safely reclaim him. Only his best friend, the Comte de Cressy, was aware of the ruse, and the Comte and his wife fled France around about the same time as their daughter now claims I was sent to live in Cognac. And so it was to Cognac Mademoiselle de Cressy went first, when her father died. And from there, she claims, traced me to Paris—not a difficult thing to do, since my business originated in that town and the office which I keep there today bears my name. This element of her story is, obviously, the most dubious, and equally obviously, impossible to either prove or disprove.’
Sophia frowned, struggling to assimilate the tangle of implications. ‘You think she had the contract and the baptism certificate in her possession, and that she targeted you to play the long-lost heir?’
Jean-Luc spread his hands on the blotter. ‘I am one of the wealthiest men in France. My parents are dead. I have no siblings. And she believed me to be single.’
Sophia couldn’t help thinking that when Jean-Luc himself was added to the equation, it was not surprising that Mademoiselle de Cressy had elected him. ‘Do you think she has taken account of the risk that the real son of the Duc de Montendre might turn up in Paris?’
‘It is fifteen years since Napoleon allowed the first of the émigrés to return, and almost four since the Restoration. If the fourth Duc and Duchess of Montendre had a son—something which is still not verified—and if he is still alive, I think he would have surfaced before now.’
Sophia shook her head. ‘If it is a scheme, it is very ingenious, and Mademoiselle de Cressy must be very bold to attempt to carry it off.’
‘Or very greedy.’
‘Or very desperate.’ As she had been. Desperate almost beyond reason, and utterly heedless of the consequences. Sophia’s stomach churned at the memory, that constant feeling of panic as she searched for a solution, any solution to her own dilemma.
‘Sophia?’ Jean-Luc lifted his hand from hers as soon as she opened her eyes. ‘You look as if you are about to faint. Can I get you some water?’
‘No.’ She clasped her hands tightly together, trying to disguise the deep, calming breaths she was being forced to take. Never again. That was why she was here, wasn’t it? Never again. She could not afford to draw parallels between herself and this Juliette de Cressy, must not allow herself to imagine that they had anything in common. More than anything, she must not allow any sympathy for the woman to jeopardise her own future. ‘I’m fine,’ she said thinly. ‘Perfectly fine. So, where do we go from here?’
He looked unconvinced by her smile, but to her relief, he did not question her further. ‘Establish you as my wife, first and foremost. Introduce you to Mademoiselle de Cressy, which will be in in the presence of Maxime. Try to verify the existence of the lost heir. Try to verify the marriage contract. I have a very long list of tasks, which I will not bore you with.’
‘I won’t be bored. I’d like to help.’
He looked startled. ‘Your role is to play my wife.’
‘Doesn’t a wife help her husband? What do you envisage me doing, if not that?’
Jean-Luc shrugged in a peculiarly Gallic manner. ‘What does a wife do? I have never been married, perhaps you can tell me.’
Almost, she fell for the trap he had laid, but she caught herself just in time, and smiled blandly. ‘Why don’t you let me think about that, come up with a plan of my own, which we can discuss.’
He laughed, holding up his hands in surrender. ‘Very well. I have made arrangements for you to visit the modiste to select your trousseau tomorrow. There will be time before that for me to introduce you to the household. The day after that, a tour of the hôtel. And after that, I am happy to hear your ideas. I do have a very competent housekeeper though, I’m not expecting you to burden yourself with household matters.’
‘At the very least she will expect to take her instructions from me.’
‘Do you know enough of such things to instruct her?’
‘I would not offer if I did not.’
He leaned forward, resting his head on his hand to study her. ‘I was expecting The Procurer to send me an actress.’
‘I’m sure that there are some actresses capable of managing a household.’
‘You are not an actress.’
She rested her chin on her hand, meeting his gaze, reflecting the half-smile that played on his lips. ‘A better one than you, Jean-Luc, for your motives are quite transparent.’
‘But I’m right, am I not? You are not an actress?’
‘I have never been on the stage.’
‘No, I thought this morning, when I first caught sight of you, that your beauty was too ethereal for the stage.’
She could feel herself blushing. She ought to change the subject, to break eye contact, but she didn’t want to. ‘I’m tougher than I look.’
‘Of that I have no doubt. To come all the way to France, alone, even with the assurance of The Procurer’s contract, demonstrates that you are made of stern stuff. And now you offer to help me with my search for the truth, too.’ He reached over to cover her free hand with his. ‘Beautiful, strong and brave, and clever too. I am very glad to have you on my side, Sophia.’
For some reason she was finding it difficult to breathe. ‘We are both on the same side, Jean-Luc.’
‘I like the sound of that. I am not so arrogant as to imagine that I and only I can resolve this mess, Sophia. It’s true, I am accustomed to making all my own decisions, but one of the reasons they are sound is that I take account of other opinions. I would very much appreciate your help. Thank you.’
‘Thank you.’ No man had been interested in her opinions before. No man had been interested in her mind at all. That’s why she was feeling this strange way, light-headed, drawn to him, even enjoying the touch of his hand on hers. Until he withdrew it, broke eye contact, and sat up straight.
‘We are agreed then. However, before we begin the difficult task of proving that Mademoiselle de Cressy’s story is without foundation, there is the small matter of convincing Mademoiselle de Cressy that we are married.’
‘Can we do that? We don’t have any paperwork. What if she tries to verify our story while you are trying to prove her story wrong?’
‘My lawyer has informed her that we were married in England. As to paperwork, it hasn’t occurred to her to ask, perhaps because she doesn’t believe you exist.’
‘So, when do you plan to produce me as evidence?’
‘As soon as we can prove to ourselves that we can be convincing.’
Sophia pursed her lips. ‘You think we need some sort of dress rehearsal?’
He smiled at that. He really did have a very nice smile. It was easy to return it. ‘Tonight,’ Jean-Luc replied. ‘We will have dinner, just the two of us, with the attendant servants looking on. It will be a gentle introduction.’
‘You think so? In my experience, servants are the group most difficult to fool.’
‘Then we will know, after tonight, that if we can fool my household we can fool Paris society, and more importantly, Juliette de Cressy, yes?’
‘Yes.’ Was there a chance that Paris society would contain any visiting English society likely to recognise her? She could not possibly enquire, for to do so would be to betray herself. But The Procurer would not have sent her here if she had considered it a possibility, would she, for then she would have failed in meeting Jean-Luc’s terms, and The Procurer was reputedly infallible. She had to take confidence from that.
‘What is worrying you, Sophia?’
She gave herself a little shake. ‘Nothing. Save that we must concoct a love story, mustn’t we? People will ask how we met, won’t they, and how our whirlwind romance developed.’
‘Whirlwind romance,’ Jean-Luc repeated slowly. ‘I am not familiar with that phrase, but it is—yes, I like it. We will come up with a love story tonight worthy of your Lord Byron,’ he said, his eyes alight with mischief. ‘We dine at seven. I took the liberty of sending your maid out for an evening gown. I had no idea whether you would have anything suitable with you. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘There was no need. I do possess an evening gown, you know.’ Albeit a very shabby and venerable evening gown.
‘Don’t be offended, Sophia. Think of it as your stage costume,’ Jean-Luc said. ‘When you put it on, and not your own clothes, then it will help you, will it not, to play your part?’
How on earth had he guessed she had used that trick before? She had left her previous costumes behind in that house in Half Moon Street, but when she’d worn them—yes, it had been easier to pretend. ‘Thank you,’ Sophia said.
Jean-Luc got to his feet, holding out his hand. She took it. He bowed over it, kissing the air just above her fingertips. ‘À bientôt. I look forward to meeting my wife properly, for the first time.’
Chapter Three (#ub1360590-9119-57f8-8c4c-efbbc708e639)
The evening dress that Jean-Luc had thoughtfully provided was deceptively simple in its construction, consisting of a cream-silk underdress, and over it a very fine cream muslin cut in the latest fashion, the waist very high, the sleeves puffed, the skirts fuller than had been worn a few Seasons before. Gold-figured lace in a leafy design formed a panel in the centre of the skirt at the front and the back, with twisted gold and cream lace on the décolleté, and a matching trim on the hem.
‘Ça vous plaît, madame?’ the dresser asked Sophia, fussing with the bandeau which was tied around her hair.
