She paused with the fork halfway to her lips.
I was right about what? she wanted to demand. Or perhaps seize Jonathan by the shoulders and shake the answer out of him. But her composure held. She placed the prawn in her mouth, chewed thoroughly, and swallowed before coolly responding: “I fear I don’t understand.”
“Ah. Right. I beg your pardon. No matter how many times I imagined this conversation, it was never quite—but that’s of no consequence.” He cleared his throat again, his evident discomfort eclipsed only by his painful earnestness. “Allow me to clarify: You were right about my mother’s deception, and I’m very sorry I didn’t believe you. I learned the truth when we arrived in Neuf-Marché, to find my grandmother not on her death bed and gasping her last.”
“I knew it!” Claire cried out, then choked on a mouthful of bread. She coughed and sputtered until Jonathan offered her a cup of something, which she gulped gratefully. When it burned a path down her throat, she realized it was brandy.
“Thank you,” she murmured as she returned the cup, her face hot enough that it must surely be red as a beet. “I—er—am pleased to learn the marquise is not ill.”
“Oh, she is ill,” he said matter-of-factly. “Consumption. But it’s not often quickly fatal, and she’s always had a strong constitution, so she seems likely to remain with us a few years more.”
“I see.” While Kippers rubbed against her legs until she gave him another prawn, Claire’s mind was busy reordering the facts. “Then…when the messenger came to Greystone last Christmas Day, he did bring news of the marquise’s illness? But your mother mistook the urgency of the case?”
“No, and no.” Jonathan grimaced. “I’ve no idea what news the messenger brought—and perhaps there was no news at all, its invention being part of maman’s ruse. Because she’d already learned of the diagnosis several weeks before. And, I assume, understood the lack of immediate danger, or she would have sailed to France much earlier.”
“She knew for weeks and kept it from you?” Claire watched as, apparently satiated, Kippers curled up near the stove and promptly fell asleep. “Why would your mother do that?” she asked. “Just so she could use it to stop our wedding?”
“Probably.” Jonathan shrugged. “But that’s just a guess. I know no details. After seeing grand-mère upright and catching wind of maman’s lies, I left. Hired the first chaise I could find and got as far away from her as I could. We haven’t spoken since.”
Claire felt surprise, and perhaps just a touch of triumph, at this turn of events. She wished she could have seen Jonathan’s defiance and his mother’s reaction. If the woman had hoped that sabotaging her son’s marriage and breaking two hearts in the process would result in keeping him all to herself, she must have been bitterly disappointed. Claire could not help reveling a little in her enemy’s comeuppance.
And she felt glad for Jonathan. Defying his mother was a great step forward.
For him, of course.
As far as Claire was concerned…well, she wasn’t. She had no concern regarding the matter at all. It was far too late for that. Had he rushed immediately from Neuf-Marché to her side, perhaps things might have been different…
“Where did you go after that?” she heard herself ask, abandoning all pretense of incuriosity.
“Paris,” he said ruefully. “To embark on the Grand Tour my dear maman was always too frightened to allow.”
In truth, most young men of their generation had eschewed the coming-of-age tradition of touring the continent—unless sent there to endure the horrors of French warfare. But a hopeful peace had endured four years now.
“Wait. No,” he suddenly added under his breath. “She said she was too frightened, but in fact she was merely set on keeping me by her side.” A heavy sigh escaped his lips as he shook his head in apparent disgust. “In any case, I meant to follow my father’s route. From Paris to Lyon, Marseille, then on to Genoa, Florence, Venice, and Rome.”
The picture of him flitting about Europe, traveling in the greatest luxury, days filled with vivid landscapes, palatial cities, ancient treasures—a sultry, buxom Italian lady on his arm—made her jaw clench.
“How splendid,” she said through gritted teeth.
He fixed her with a penetrating gaze, his deep blue, expressive eyes making her fear the imminence of an ill-considered disclosure.
Hoping to head it off, she continued hastily: “Which city was your favorite? Rome, I’ll wager, unless you stopped in Pompeii? Ah, you did! Splendid. You must have been in heaven among all those antiquities.” The ones they used to talk about seeing together in future, for Jonathan had always been fascinated by ancient history. “The temples and amphitheaters and—er—columns,” she heard herself babbling on. “How perfectly splendid.”
La, how many times had she said splendid?
She fell silent.
And still the expression remained in his eyes. She braced herself for a declaration.
But instead of professing his love, he said: “In point of fact, it wasn’t particularly splendid. It was sad. Since the war…” He shook his head. “The devastation on the continent is beyond imagining. I found it difficult to enjoy the sights when all around me I saw so much suffering. People are destitute. Their homes and livelihoods were ripped from them. They still suffer from disruptions to trade, heavy taxation, massively higher costs for everything…so much impact. Though they’re beginning to recover, they still have so far to go.”
“Oh!” Her cheeks burned. “Of course! I was not thinking. We English are like to forget—now the threat of invasion has passed—that the continent was not as lucky. How such scenes must have afflicted you.”
“Some did.” He shrugged. “But, truth be told, I did not dwell overmuch. My mind was otherwise occupied. Any momentary distraction could not but give way, and very soon, to thoughts of you.”
There it was: the confession she’d feared. His tender look made his meaning clear, and her expression must have betrayed the question roaring in her mind—Then why the dickens did you not come back?—since he answered as if she’d spoken aloud.
“I wanted to come back. I should have come in an instant had I any hope of winning you over once more. But I knew all hope must be in vain.”
