Journey to victory, p.42
Journey to Victory, page 42
That title and the wealth her grandfather had left her had caused her to be ensnared by a fortune hunter, the man she’d divorced, not a happy thought. She kept her gaze lowered.
“This is why I bring it up. I ask a boon of you, dear cousin. From now on I will be to you Louis. And will you allow me to call you Sarah?”
“Of course, if you wish. But I warn you again, don’t tell anyone we are related.”
“Would that be so terrible?”
The letter made itself felt again. “I apologize. That is not how I meant it, Your Grace—”
“Louis,” he substituted.
“Louis,” she amended. “I am afraid more for you than for myself. I am an outcast. I would not want anyone to use our relationship to your disadvantage.”
“I see, Sarah. In that case my lips are sealed.” His tone became more serious. “Since we are alone and you have referred to your difficulties, may I ask how you are since I last saw you?”
“Thank you so much for your note.” In a way she was relieved that he had brought up the topic. “It helped me a great deal.”
“Bon. I was much moved by your father’s explanation of your predicament. Not many women would have been as resolute as you. To leave a husband who dishonored you in such a blatant manner, showing you no respect.” He shook his head. “Many women would have preferred to hide under the mantle of respectability in spite of all they suffered from an unfaithful and wasteful husband.”
She didn’t respond to his sympathy, but spoke of another regret, the pain she’d caused her parents. “Poor father,” she sighed, thinking of her former husband, his infidelity and complete disregard for her, and his wanton dissipation of her inheritance from her grandfather. “Father still wishes I had let him go to London and challenge my husband to a duel. But marrying Gerald was my fault.”
“I can understand both your positions, but what is done is done, n’est ce pas?”
“Too true.” Gerald had arrived from England to bring her news of the inheritance from her grandfather. He’d taken advantage of her unhappiness and offered to take her to England to escape her isolation and to enjoy her title and wealth. He’d told her that, for propriety’s sake, they would marry—just for the duration of the Atlantic passage—and then have the marriage annulled in England. She’d believed every word. If he’d had a shred of honor or even common sense, matters could have turned out so differently. But what was done was done. Her hand strayed to press against the troubling letter in her pocket.
They walked in companionable silence then, the few inches of snow crunching under their feet. As the sun lowered to the horizon, the wind quieted, but the late December day brought thoughts of the warm fire waiting for them and they quickened their pace.
“Sarah, may I be bold and speak more on this matter?”
She glanced at his face, which appeared serious. “If you wish,” she said faintly.
“I have thought much of your dilemma in the past weeks. At first I wondered why it should intrigue me so. Then I realized that you and I are not so different—we are both exiles.”
Sarah pursed her lips and he allowed her time to think. “I see. We are, aren’t we?” she said at last.
“Yes, but I think in a way, your road is more difficult.”
“How so, Louis?”
“I am in foreign land among strangers, but you are in your own country and yet separated from all you knew.”
She stopped suddenly. A giddy feeling passed through her, making her feel faint.
He halted. “Are you unwell, Sarah?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head to clear it. “It is just hearing it put into words. You are very perceptive, Louis.”
“I have much solitude and time to think,” he said wryly.
She smiled. “I have too.” They began to walk again, and she tucked her free hand into the crook of his arm companionably.
“So what are your plans, Sarah?”
“Plans?” Her life had been altered forever. What could change that?
“Indeed. You have one advantage over me. I must spend my life always prepared, always hoping to return to Paris or to my estate in Orleans. But you have a whole world in which to find a place to begin a new life.”
“I had not thought of it like that.”
“Well, you must think! Will you spend your life cloistered here like a nun?” He winked at her and patted her gloved hand. “A beautiful woman such as you?”
“Mother was right. You are a flatterer—”
“No, never.” They both laughed and hurried up the sweeping approach to Westhaven, her parents’ estate.
Just as they glimpsed the butler holding the door wide for them, a carriage on runners bowled up the drive and drew to a halt. A footman helped Sarah’s friend Janine down. A very petite pretty blond, she was wrapped in a modish rose-colored woolen shawl and wearing a hat of exquisite design, in fact her own design. “My lady, walking in the snow?” Janine exclaimed. “And le Duc.” She curtseyed deeply to Louis.
Louis lifted her hand and kissed it. “The lovely la femelle styliste. Have you finished dressing the ladies of New York society for the holiday balls?”
“Oui, Your Grace.” Janine blushed, keeping her gaze lowered in the presence of one she would never have approached in France.
Louis insisted on offering the young women his arms and led them into the house, singing a French melody.
Remembering when and how she and Janine, another refugee from the Revolution, had met on the docks of London three years ago, Sarah felt again the weight of the letter in her pocket. What news did it bring? And should she share it now and perhaps spoil her parents’ holiday as well as her own?
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Lyn Cote, Journey to Victory
