Chapter Twenty-Three
Eight days had seemed endless when she was staying with the Bradons. Now thirteen seemed to have sped by. Tomorrow she would sail for India. Tomorrow she would say goodbye to Luc and never see him again, possibly never hear what became of him. She had counted off the passing days with the dread of a prisoner awaiting execution, prayed that this evening would never come, but of course, it had.
Ferret had escorted a heavily veiled Grace to do their shopping, but as that had been spread over many days it had been possible to pretend it was still not all complete.
The only thing that had changed with time had been Luc, she realised, watching him as he lay asleep beside her. It was three in the morning, the watchman had passed only minutes before, but the candles were still burning. They had been making love half the night.
As the days had passed he had become quieter, more introspective. She had thought at first he was worried about Bradon, but then realised that he was too courageous to let the other man bother him once he had put measures for her protection in place. Then she wondered if he was working too hard at the Admiralty, but he seemed to enjoy the sessions he was having with his students and returned energised from them.
His lovemaking had grown more intense, more passionate, as the days and nights had passed and sometimes she would catch him watching her, his eyes dark and troubled as though she was a mystery he could not solve.
Now he lay sprawled face down, naked except for a twist of sheet that did nothing for decency. Averil resisted the temptation to touch him again or he would wake and she wanted him to sleep now so she could look at him and fill her memory with the images that would have to last her for the rest of her life.
For the first time she wished she could draw. ‘I love you,’ she whispered, over and over. It was a delicious, heart-breaking luxury to be able to say it. ‘I love you.’ Her lids drooped and she wriggled down the pillows to lie close beside him, soothed by the scent of his skin and the musk of their lovemaking. If she could just stay awake, the night would never end….
Luc woke slowly, smiling as he seemed to every morning, waking next to Averil. Eyes closed, he reached out a hand to where she would be lying curled up, her hair in her eyes, warm and soft and sleepy. She would come to him, still waking and they would kiss and then—then his hand touched the hollow in the mattress and it was cold. She was gone.
Puzzled, he opened his eyes and remembered. Today was the day she was leaving. The ship was sailing, Averil was going home. Leaving him.
That was what they had agreed and he had deceived himself for days that time would stand still. But it had not and he knew she had been fretting for this morning to come; he had just not admitted it to himself. He had moved a book she was reading and a scrap of paper fell out, a page torn from an almanac with the days crossed off. She had grown quieter and yet more restless and there were dark shadows under her eyes.
He closed his eyes again. Coward. Get up and face it. But there was something else to face, the fact that he had taken her innocence, had used her as his mistress when he could have simply hidden her away, given her the money she needed. That it had never entered his head until it was too late was no excuse. Neither was the fact that Averil enjoyed their lovemaking and had suggested the arrangement in the first place any justification.
There were no excuses for seizing what he wanted without thinking about Averil. But he was being punished for it now. He was missing her already. I’ve grown accustomed to her, he thought. Accustomed to her touch and her laughter, to her scent and her company, her courage and her kisses. Accustomed, that is all. She will be gone and I will propose marriage to the de la Falaise chit and find another mistress …
He rolled over on to his back, eyes wide open now. It was barely light. No, when he married he would make himself be faithful. Averil would not approve otherwise. But what did it matter what she would think? She would be thousands of miles away making a new life, trying hard to forget him and the bargain she had made to free herself from Bradon. By the time she came back to England, if she ever did, he would be in France, being a Frenchman at last, with his French wife and his French children at his side.
He tried to sink into the familiar dream that had sustained him so often in the past. But for the first time he could not picture the scene. Instead of a vivid picture of the château and laughing children and an elegant chatelaine there was nothing, just the black-and-white ghost of the house as he remembered it.
With a curse Luc rolled off the bed, dragged his robe around his shoulders and went to look for Averil. She was sitting in the dressing room, folding small items, placing them in one of the trays that would fit into the trunk that stood open next to the clothes press. Her face was shuttered, intent.
Luc thought to stand there for a while and watch her, but she looked up and the scrap of silk and lace fell from her hands. ‘I was finishing packing,’ she said.
So eager to be gone. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘You will be happy to see your father and brothers again.’
‘Yes. I miss them.’ She bent and retrieved the camisole. ‘This will all seem like a dream. The voyage, the shipwreck.’
‘Me.’
She nodded, not meeting his eyes. Yes, she could let it become a dream, find a husband in India, pretend none of this had happened. With any luck and a little acting the man would never know. He felt faintly sick and guessed that it must be jealousy of that unknown, unsuspecting man. She would make the choice herself this time, he knew. She would choose with care, someone she would get to know before she committed herself, someone she could trust.
‘You’ll marry,’ he said, almost welcoming the knot of pain in his gut.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, picking another garment from the drawer. ‘I would like children.’
‘Come back to bed.’ Luc heard his own voice, rough, demanding. Impatient. He could have kicked himself when Averil put down the garment she was folding and rose obediently to come to him. Obedient to the man who is paying her.
‘Come,’ he said, more gently and saw the tears glimmering in her eyes. The tears he had put there because he was selfish and thoughtless and had taken what he wanted. ‘Come back to bed and let us say goodbye.’
At nine o’clock Averil stood on the dockside shielded from the press of the crowd by Tubbs’s bulk behind and Tom the Patch at her side. Ferret was with Grace, making sure the last of the baggage was safely on board. The other men were scattered along the quay, watchful and armed.
She searched in her reticule for a hair pin and found the Noah’s Ark box. She had forgotten all about it. ‘Tom, can you write?’
‘Yes, ma’am. Learned at dame school.’
‘Then can you please make sure this is posted for me?’ she asked and scribbled Alistair’s name and title on a slip of card and handed them both to him. ‘He is sure to have a town house.’
‘No.’ She could not think of a thing to say. She could hardly think.
Her protectors clustered around her. The only person missing was Luc. He would be making himself visible in Mayfair, he had told her. ‘I daren’t go with you to the ship,’ he said as he held her in his arms in the battered hackney carriage. ‘I can’t be veiled, I’m too big and I can’t hide this damned nose of mine. You will be safe. Ferret will stay with you until the pilot is taken off at Tilbury.’
Of course she would and it was the practical, sensible thing for him to do, she knew that. And Luc had probably had enough of her emotions by now and wanted to avoid a tearful scene on the quayside.
He was right to fear it. She had been on the verge of losing all control ever since she had woken. The urge to kiss him awake, tell him she loved him, had been so overwhelming that she had slid from the bed and gone to pack her last remaining things, just so she was a safe distance from him.
And then he had stood in the doorway and looked at her with something like anger in those dark grey eyes and the roughness in his voice when he had asked her to come back to bed had been like a blow.
But their lovemaking had been almost silent, slow, so tender and gentle that she thought she would weep and then found that she was and that Luc was kissing the tears from the corners of her eyes before they could fall. ‘You never cry, Averil,’ he said.
Now she thought he had drunk every tear. Her eyes felt hot and dry, but she managed a smile for Grace and Ferret when they came to say it was time to board and words of thanks for the men who were guarding her.
Then she was at the rail and the ship had cast off and was slipping down river on the falling tide and she searched the quayside for a tall man, a dark head, the face that she loved. The man who had cupped her face in his hands as he looked at her with something in his eyes that she had never seen before. ‘Au ‘voir, ma sirène,’ he said as he climbed out of the carriage without looking back.
‘Au ‘voir, Luc. Je t’aime,’ she whispered now as the docks slid away and the river widened. Ferret and Grace left her alone. Ferret, she knew, was scanning the passengers, checking, double-checking for anyone taking an interest in her.
Time passed, London passed, the river widened into an estuary. Soon they would drop the pilot, and Ferret would go with him.
The clocks rang the half-hour. Luc stared blankly at the open newspaper in front of his face. Diamond Rose was casting off now. She would slip down the Thames on the falling tide leaving nothing behind to mark her presence, only the ache in his heart.
The print blurred and he blinked, appalled to realise there were tears in his eyes. What the hell was the matter with him? It felt as though something—someone—had died.
And then he realised. Something had. He loved her. He loved Averil and he had let her go, sent her out of his life. The image of the château came back, in colour now, and the children were there and the woman by his side and the laughter was Averil’s and the smiles on the faces of the children were hers, too. He had killed that future, those children, and it was too late. Too late.
But he had to try. Luc threw down the paper, ran from the library and down the stairs into the hall of White’s club, thrust past the indignant members by the porter’s desk, out on to St James’s Street. ‘Cab!’
Behind him he heard the porter. ‘Sir! Your hat, sir! Your coat!’ but the hackney stopped. ‘Get me to the nearest livery stables in five minutes and there’s gold for you.’
It would be too late, but he had to try.
Averil watched the banks as Tilbury came into sight. In a few minutes it would be too late, there would be no turning back. Perhaps it was already too late and this was madness, but quite suddenly, she knew what she must do. And with the resolve the blanket of misery that had seemed to stifle every breath lifted. ‘Ferret!’
‘Yes, miss?’ The little man materialised by her side.
‘I am going back with you.’
‘What—back on the pilot boat? To London? To the Cap’n?’
‘Yes. To the Cap’n.’ For as long as he wanted her, for whatever he wanted her as. She loved him, she was his. Papa, she thought. Forgive me, but he is my life now. I ruined your plans the moment I left Bradon. I cannot live without Luc.
‘Right, miss. Don’t know as we can get your stuff off again, though.’
‘It doesn’t matter, just so long as we don’t forget Grace.’
‘I wouldn’t do that, miss,’ Ferret said with an emphasis that cut through her preoccupation with Luc. Ferret and Grace?
It took some argument and several guineas before the captain agreed to put another two passengers and their hand baggage off, but at last, as the ship lost way and the pilot boat came alongside, she was scrambling down the ladder with Ferret’s hands on her ankles guiding her safely. ‘If you’ll excuse the liberty, miss.’
‘Of course.’ And Grace seemed to be positively enjoying it when her turn came.
The cutter cast off and headed for shore. ‘What’s that?’ the pilot said, scratching his head and pointing at an identical craft heading out towards them. ‘Late passenger, I reckon.’
There was a man standing up in the bows, rock-steady, at home on a ship. A man she would know anywhere. ‘Luc,’ she whispered.
Hands reached out to stop her as she fought her way forwards amongst sailors and coils of rope. Then she was standing on the prow as he was and as the boats lost way and came together he reached out and caught hold of her and swung her across to him.
‘Averil. You were coming back to me?’
‘Yes. To you.’ She stood there in the circle of his arm and everything vanished, the onlookers, the tossing boat, everything but him. ‘You were coming for me?’
‘I love you. Why did I not know before? I love you.’ He looked down at her, and for the first time she saw real uncertainty on his face. ‘Do you think you could …? You came back. I thought I would be too late. I rode harder than I ever have in my life and yet I thought I would be too late. But you are here for me …’
‘Because I love you, too. More than anything, more than everything. I love you, Luc.’
‘Thank God.’ He closed his eyes and pulled her tight against him and she could hear his heart thudding as though he had been running. ‘Let’s go home.’
Luc was so silent beside her in the carriage on the long drive back from Tilbury that Averil wondered if he had changed his mind. But his arm as he held her against his chest was rock steady and his breathing was even, like that of a contented man. After a while she felt pressure on the top of her head and realised he was resting his cheek on her hair. She wanted to close her eyes and just luxuriate in being loved, but there too many things to worry about yet.
‘Should I go into the country for a while until Bradon gives up looking for me?’ she asked after twenty minutes.
‘He is going to know soon enough,’ Luc said.
‘But he will call you out!’ Averil wriggled free and twisted on the seat to look at him.
‘He’ll humiliate himself if he does—you were not known to be his betrothed, so if he fights me over you it will become common knowledge that he was jilted. If there was a chance he could get you back without a fuss, then that would be one thing—that was what I was afraid of, that he’d snatch you if he found you—but he won’t be able to do that now.’
‘But why not? We know he is ruthless and cold-blooded—’
‘A married woman is of no use to him,’ Luc said so calmly that for a moment she missed his meaning.
‘Married? You mean to marry me?’
‘Of course.’ His smile as he saw the realisation hit her was pure, unclouded joy. ‘There is no need to worry about banns—I can swear the allegation and get a licence from the vicar at St James’s church just opposite Albany. I can prove residence easily enough, even though I am hardly a regular churchgoer. You do not mind St James’s?’
‘Mind? But you cannot marry me, Luc. You want a Frenchwoman. And my grandfather was a grocer, for goodness’ sake!’
‘So you came back to be my mistress?’ It was his turn to stare now. ‘You love me enough to do that?’
‘Of course,’ she said, impatient that he did not understand. ‘For as long as you want me.’
‘I want you for ever.’ He shook his head, as frustrated as she by their mutual incomprehension. ‘I did not understand what it was to be in love. I made all those stupid conditions, set up barriers that mean nothing. Yes, you are English, but you can learn French, we can divide our time so the children can grow up in both countries. Our first son, of course, will inherit the title, so he must always feel more French than English, but I know you will support me in that.’
‘Children,’ she murmured, and nodded, too moved for words. Their children. She wanted to kiss him because the look in his eyes answered every doubt she could ever have that he loved her.
‘D’Aunays do not marry trade,’ Luc said bitterly. ‘I can just hear the words in my head. I was a fool, a prejudiced fool. Well, this d’Aunay will marry for love. All that matters is that I have found an intelligent, brave, beautiful woman whom I adore and who will stand by my side.’
It was a dream come true, and like all dreams, nightmare lurked on the edges. ‘Bradon could sue you for alienation of my affections, the loss of my dowry.’
‘Then he can have your damn dowry,’ Luc said. ‘How much does your father love you? Will he settle for a French count with a promising career in the navy while the war lasts and a foothold in two countries when it ends? Will he pay off Bradon if I do not ask for any dowry with you and settle my own money on you? He still gets a son-in-law with some influence and standing, after all.’
‘You would do that?’
‘Of course. I would hand over every penny I own to keep you. Averil, you have turned my life upside down. I thought I knew what I wanted and now all I want is you. You will marry me?’ The sudden uncertainty in his voice caught at her heart. He was so strong, so confident and yet he was so unsure of her.
She swallowed, trying to find the right words to reassure him, but he got to his knees on the floor of the rocking carriage, caught her hands in his and said, ‘Averil Heydon, I love you. Marry me and I swear you will never regret it. Marry me, because I do not think I can live without you.’
‘I shall have to,’ she said as she lifted their joined hands to her lips and kissed his knuckles. ‘Because I cannot live without you either. Je t’aime.’
‘Now that,’ Luc said as he sat down beside her and pulled her into his arms, ‘that is all the French you will need for a long, long time.’
The carriage rocked on its way towards Piccadilly and the old church, but Averil did not notice it, for Luc’s arms were strong around her and his mouth was tender on hers and the words he spoke, although she did not understand them with her head, she could translate with her heart, because they were all of love.
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