Page 81 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

Pierre took the gold ring with its sapphire set in pearls, the gem a rounded square with many facets, and pulled off his glove to slide the jewel onto his finger. He had the look of a buccaneer opening a chest of purloined treasure.

“Oh.” Priscilla said, her tone hushed. “I had forgotten how many there were.” She touched the earrings. “Those were Mama’s.”

“They are all yours, madame,” Inex said, setting the work bag on the small tea table as if surrendering that item, too.

Priscilla’s eyes filled with tears. “These were Mama’s dowry. She brought them to her marriage, and they were always meant for me. Inez, I thank you for this gift. Words cannot describe how much it moves my heart to have this piece of my mother returned to me.”

Inez swallowed and nodded, unable to speak for the swelling in her throat. What she would give to have something to remember her own dear mother by, other than struggle and tears because she had fallen in love with and married a man whom her family did not approve for her. Mariana Da Costa, like Priscillia Wigsby, had thrown off the dictates of society to follow the man she loved, and the world had been harsh to her for it.

But her mother had loved to the depth of her heart. She had never regretted her choice of a husband—only the choices she was forced to make to preserve her life with him. To the day she died, Mariana Da Costa had come alive in the presence of Ramesh Shirodkar the way she had no one else. Not even the presence of her cherished daughter.

Mariana had looked at Ramesh the way Priscilla looked at Pierre Dervrieux. It was an expression Inez felt on her own face whenever Joseph Illingworth walked into a room and illuminated it.

Pierre turned the ring on his finger, his lips curving in a fascinated smile.

“This means a great deal more than a family heirloom, my treasured one. This means we need not go begging to any of our friends, and you need not crawl to your father asking for his good graces.” He straightened his shoulders, a man burdened with new purpose. “Choose a special piece, mon bijou, to hold to your sentimental heart. With the rest of these, I will win you the fortune you deserve.”

“Oh, Pierre, my dearest love.” Priscilla’s lip trembled as she tried to affix the choker. Her fingers trembled too, and Inez, out of long habit, rose to help her with the clasp, pushing a few powdered curls out of the way.

Priscilla’s attire was as smart as ever, but Inez’s trained eyes caught the details. The lace ruching at the bodice of her open gown had a tear that a skilled lady’s maid ought to have fixed with invisible stitches. Her linen cap edged with lace had frayed ribbons that begged to be replaced. And while her gown was indeed cut to the latest fashion, the seam at the back showed a dark line along the stitching; the fabric had been reused from another gown, carefully taken apart and then remade to suit the style.

It was commonly done among the thrifty; Inez turned and turned her gowns until the fabric wore holes. But in her father’s house, Priscilla had never had other than new gowns handmade for her, and when a cap needed new ribbons, it went to the housekeeper—or Inez—and she to the milliner’s to purchase a new one.

“Pierre, my one joy.” Priscilla’s voice turned caressing. “Perhaps we might hold onto these few baubles, and I might wear them? Need they go to the tables, like the others? Like everything else?” she said softly.

“My love. My glorious angel.” Pierre crossed to his wife and caught up her dainty, pale hands. Priscilla had pulled off her silk gloves to touch the jewels, and her fingers looked very small, clasped in his.

“You knew you married a working man, oui? And this is the work I do. This is how I will provide for us. To give you the things you deserve, the riches with which I promised to drape you, the luxuries that will set off your perfect beauty. I will give you the world, ma cherie, but it will be a little while yet. I did not expect this streak of bad luck to turn against me. You have always been my, how do you say, lucky charm.”

He kissed her hands, the backs, then the palms, a lazy, lingering kiss. Priscilla shivered. Inez stood behind her chair, embarrassed by the ease with which the lovers forgot she was there, simply the maid, support and decoration to their self-absorbed lives.

The girl drew in a shuddering breath. “I know, my darling Pierre, all that you do is for me. You have said before. But also, remember, my angel, you said there would be a time where…where we…” She faltered and resorted to sending a gaze around the room, pleading and remorseful.

Inez understood. The petite salon, as Priscilla had so gaily named it, was rented lodgings, not her own roof. Those oils on the walls were not Wigsby or Dervieux ancestors looking down with benevolence on their patrimony, nor were they portraits and landscapes she had commissioned from the painters of famous friends. The color scheme of the parlor, indeed the entire house was not what Priscilla would have chosen; the furniture was not hers; and the room lacked the little adornments that English travelers so loved to acquire and display as proof of their taste and leisure.

“Soon, my precious one. I promise you it will be soon. You will have a little nest of your own, filled with pretty things to surround your pretty self, and all your friends will come to admire and envy you. I have no aim in my life but to make you happy. You know that, oui?”

“Of course, Pierre. You have told me so many times.”

“And, mon bien-amiée. I make you happy, do I not?” He pulled her from the chair into his arms, an easy strength in the gesture, but also a possessiveness that had Priscilla melting against him, turning up her face for his kiss.

“Oh, you do, my only one,” she moaned. “You do.”

Inez stepped away, her face heating. A year ago, two, she would have scoffed at a woman melting so easily to pretty lies and a caress.

But that was before she had done the melting of her own. Before she had encountered the man whose touch was alchemy, whose very presence transported her, and whose desires she had no wish to deny.

“Oh, this is a pretty sight. My ungrateful daughter, being pawed like a common trull in her very own drawing room.”

Inez froze. An icy wave coursed over her, as if she had been thrown into a current of cold water. For a moment, she could not breathe.

Wigsby. Only the devil himself could have found her so easily, or a man who had made a pact with Old Scratch.