Page 80 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

“That you were happily married, I never doubted,” she said politely. “But to see you in England, I could only hope.”

The other woman regarded her with a considering look, and Inez recalled a suspicion she’d had before of Wigsby’s daughter: she played at the light-headed coquette, but she was really quite shrewd at the core.

“I hear my father has been giving you a devil of a time about the…er, aid you gave me in getting free of him,” Priscilla said. “I do hope he hasn’t been too much of a bother.”

Inez swallowed an agonized laugh. Not too much of a bother. When for the past two years, she had looked about her each time she set foot on the street in London, knowing if he’d found her so easily the first time, he could again. Without a character reference she could only get the lowest of stations, laundry maid, cook maid, scullery, when she had been lady’s maid to this elegant creature.

And in the laundry and the kitchen and the scullery there were footmen with roaming hands and butlers who thought the maids were perquisites of their employment, or men of the house who thought that because they paid a meager salary, the women in their employ should attend to all manner of their needs. She’d been chased from house to house as if pursued by the hounds of hell, and the only safe place she’d found to land was the household of Amaranthe Illingworth.

Where, instead of having to fight the attentions of Joseph Illingworth, she had found a greater threat to her happiness: she’d fallen in love with the great sodden oaf, and now that she knew the happiness of being in his arms, she never wanted to be anywhere else.

Inez swallowed another lie—they seemed to rise so naturally—and instead said, “I understand why your father would be anxious to locate me.” She reached for her bag, wondering if now was the appropriate moment.

“That is very good to hear, because— Oh, my love. How wonderful that you could join us.” Priscilla held out her hand with a smile that transformed her face from merely pretty to truly beautiful.

At the time, Inez hadn’t understood why Priscilla Wigsby would abandon her status as a lord’s daughter, her comfortable homes and allowance, her abundance of suitors, and the chance for a secure future to throw away her heart and hand on a French gambler of dubious pedigree and even more dubious prospects. Yet when Pierre Dervieux strolled into the parlor, dressed to the excess of fashion that would make him a veritable macaroni in London, his gaze went straight to his little wife, and the look of indulgence he gave her, returned with the abject adoration in hers, explained to Inez what she had not previously understood.

Priscilla Wigsby had thrown away her pampered security on the chance that this man would made her happy, and thus far, she had been given no cause to regret her choice.

“My love, allow me to introduce you properly.” Priscilla giggled. “After all, you have both heard so much about one another from me. Pierre, this is Inez, the maid in my father’s house who arranged that I might elope with you. Inez, this is my darling Pierre Dervieux, of the Potevin Dervieuxes.”

Pierre made as elegant a bow over Inez’s hand as if she were one of Priscilla’s peers, and not a former servant. She knew the man had no more claim to aristocracy than she did; Pierre Dervieux had been making his living, when Priscilla met him, by his luck at the gaming tables in clubs and fancy homes. The same sure charm that had allowed him to bluff at brag allowed him to promise a life of romantic delights to Lord Wigsby’s daughter, and win her on the strength of them.

Yet sacrifice she had, for despite her happiness, Priscilla was occupying rented rooms in Plymouth, rather than enjoying herself as a guest of the Parkers at Saltram House in Plympton, or invited to join Lady Emma and George, Lord Mount Edgcumbe, whose baronial seat was just across the bay.

She had traded her place of acceptance in what passed for the Polite World, and she didn’t appear to miss it in the least.

So. A woman could fall and not miss a nest that had been a prison. But a woman who climbed into a nest others judged out of her reach—she would find many a door shut to her. A man might trespass the social boundaries with impunity, but the women who had committed their lives to upholding those boundaries would never tolerate an interloper.

Amaranthe Illingworth was her example here. Amaranthe had become a duchess, and the only women in England who outranked her were the Queen and the royal princesses. Yet Inez had heard certain high sticklers among the London ton reminding themselves that Amaranthe was the daughter of a vicar, whose grandfather had been in trade and whose mother came of Portuguese stock, and whose husband had, for all but the past year of his life, been an acknowledged bastard. What would they say about a lascar’s daughter taking on a title? Like a female Robin Hood, or the cinder girl who won the heart of a prince.

Pierre finished his elegant bow, and Inez dropped her hand. Robin Hood had been a lord’s son after all, so the legend ran, and the cinder girl came from a genteel family. She’d never been the daughter of a brown man in the land of the fair, and the evil stepmother had never rounded out the household income by selling her body for coin.

“My dear, you’ll join us for tea? Inez and I have so much to catch up on. I must tell her all about our honeymoon trip in Greece, and I am certain she has had adventures of her own since I last saw her. After all,” and she sent Inez a coy look, “she has yet to tell me how she came to be housekeeper for a baronet in Cornwall.”

Jock had indeed thoroughly acquainted Priscilla with Inez’s situation, she saw. Heat moved across the back of her neck, prickling beneath the smart kerchief swathing her bodice. She curled her fingers around her bag, as if anticipating the request.

Joseph’s brown eyes held a hint of red, like cognac melted into chocolate. Dervieux’s eyes were so dark as to seem like black coals, yet bright in his face as he turned back to Inez. His accent was unnecessarily thick for someone who had made his livelihood in Britain for as long as was said of him.

“I believe I will remain for a little minute of time, mon bijou.” His gaze moved over each line of Inez’s face, as if he were studying her for a sketch. “But speaking of jewels. Do I recall you believed the mademoiselle had some items of yours that she should most certainly wish to return, as she cannot wish your father to discover them in her keeping?”

Here it was at last, then. All out in the open. Inez picked up her bag, letting the regret squeeze her heart briefly. What this treasure might have done for Joseph, to help him refurbish Penwellen… But the Da Costas had never been thieves, not even in their darkest moments. They were too proud for that.

Besides, if she surrendered of her own will, that might bear some weight in her testimony if this man handed her over to the magistrate. She hoped.

“La, my old work bag.” Priscilla gave a bright, tinkling laugh as Inez set the item on the table. The linen-lined cotton bag, embroidered with crewel wools, had been one of the childish Priscilla’s first efforts to create a stocking bag, and discarded after her skills, and her need to be adorned prettily for good company, increased.

“You clever thing, Inez. It was good of her to collect these for us, wasn’t it, my dear? They would certainly have eased our way in those first few months, if only we had had the luxury of meeting you as we planned.” Priscilla watched Inez’s hands, not her face. “And to think she has held them safe for us all this time. Such a clever, darling, devoted girl. You always were so loyal, Inez. It is your best quality.”

“Oui, to hold them all this time.” The black eyes of the gambler still watched Inez. The prickling about her neck spread to her shoulders and down her back. The man was too perceptive. Too eager for the riches she was laying out before him, unrolling first the silk cloth in which she had wrapped the precious pieces, to protect them. He looked hungry and sharp. Inez wondered what kind of trouble Pierre Dervieux was in, that their main goal, upon returning to England, would seem to be the recovery of these jewels.

“And to never sell them to ease her own way. Nor surrender them when your father approached her,” Pierre remarked.

Out of reflex Inex raised a hand to her throat and the faded bruise. There was still a tenderness at times when she swallowed, thanks to Wigsby’s approach.

“I considered them yours,” Inez said. “After all, you, Miss Priscilla, asked me to collect them for you. And deliver them to you at the inn where you were waiting to depart London.”

“Do not forget, she is Madame Dervieux now,”Pierre said, and Inez saw that he considered the jewels his. The pendeloque earrings with their heavy diamond clusters set in repoussé silver. The choker with its thick strands of garnet and carnelian, dangling tiny briolette-cut rubies in cannetille rosettes. A heavy brooch made of pinchbeck with table cut emeralds and citrines in a glass overlay, and the aigrette of small diamonds and aquamarine, made to decorate a lady’s hat.