Page 3 of Sir Durham’s Disarming Asset

Once it did to her, too. She’d make it do that again. But with Rafe Durham, she was bitterly honest. “The happiest time of my life was when I went to Madame Campan’s little school for girls.”

“You needn’t talk, chouchou.” He called her his cabbage.

That brought her own smile. His term of endearment was certainly much better than those hideous slurs she had been called in the pits of the Conciergerie.

He went on, “I know you were friends with Hortense, Josephine’s daughter, and Caroline Bonaparte, Napoleon’s sister.”

She raised her brows at him in question. They were good at such silent conversations now, having had so much practice at communicating with looks and expressions.

“I was twelve years old when Papa left me there. Hortense was the same age. Caroline months older than we two. We were tightly bound, laughter our best tie. But also we three pretended we were musketeers, épées to the fight!”

“That I did not know!” He looked astonished. “Were you skilled?”

“I was.” And will be again. But that was beside the point now. She wanted to know all he had learned about her and how he knew those things. After all, how many men would care for a diseased woman, sores on her skin, bones jagged, with bugs eating her alive, strip her pitiful body and bathe her day and night…then soften her dry hide with oils? How many would do that and ask for nothing in return? “Who told you what you do know? Or have you told me that and I have, in my pitiful convalescence, forgotten that?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Cecily, Countess Nugent, told us.”

“And?” What else? Cecily had been her help, her succor when Vaillancourt had raised his influence against her.

“That she loved you. That you had other friends, dear ones. Among them were the countess’s two young wards, Augustine Bolton and Amber St. Antoine.”

“Older than I. But kind and dear.” Zeph sniffed back the urge to cry over the past. She had learned how silly that was. It solved nothing to ruminate on what could not be changed. “What else did the countess say?”

“That you were a light of Parisian Society for—what, a year? Then suddenly, you were sent to prison by Vaillancourt. Someday soon, when you are better able to speak, you will tell me all the details of that.”

Never. She shrugged, acting as if the episode of her imprisonment were a trifle. Immaterial and long past. She could not reveal to Rafe the whole of her conflict with charming, elegant, damnable René Vaillancourt. If Rafe heard the whole of it, he would sweep her up in his arms, as he had so many times these past few weeks, and make plans for them to move once again. She could not bear it. I love it here. Peaceful tides upon the shore and tender breezes in my ridiculously short hair.

But she knew it to be false hope. They two had assumed false names, but one day, some slip, some lie, some inconsistency, would easily betray them and Vaillancourt’s ruthless friends would seize them both. Rafe they would kill in a moment. But they would take her back and throw her at his feet. She would be dead in hours.

“You don’t wish to tell me? That is fine,” Rafe said in his usual tone of forgiveness. “The day comes when you can speak more easily. I will wait to learn. You will tell me. And we will slay all your dragons on the subject.”

She shook her head. “Vaillancourt is my only dragon.”

“A very violent one. Countess Nugent told us you stole from him.”

She did not dare move, only stared out to sea. He might know that, but not the full of what she had taken, nor its import.

He peered at her with humor twinkling in his eyes. “I know that look, Zephora Butler.” He used her full given name when he was vexed with her. “It declares that you don’t like that I know. But I do.” He sighed. “A gaming book. From his gambling den. Intriguing. And you gave it to someone to pass through Society? Then parts were picked up by the gossip sheets?” He chuckled, but his mirth died. “You shamed him.”

“And his friends,” she told him with a lift of her chin. Rafe Durham was too canny. He saw when she refused to reveal information. Merde. I thought I had cultivated a fine ability to hide my thoughts.

“Tell me when you will, Zeph.” He was fond of her when he called her by her shortened name. “I have work to do. Today I go to the village and buy clothes for us. Coats, scarves. Many poor sell them in the summer. We need to appear poor, and we need warm clothes to cross the Channel.”

“Tired of France already, are you?” she challenged him with a grin.

His hooded eyes told of compassion. “I love the country. The chateaux. The white wine. The brandy and calvados. I hate the new men who rule.” He sniffed. “Absolute power is never appealing to everyone.”

“In France, that is all I have seen.”

“You were here…when? During the Terror?”

She nodded. “We came in ’94. My father was secretary to James Monroe, who was the American minister to France. Papa took a house in the Rue du Bac. He hired a governess for me, but then sent me to Madame Campan’s school. I saw him twice in nine years. When he went to London in 1798, he left me there.” She put a hand to her throat. “The best…” She clutched at her throat. When would she ever be able to talk at length again? Was it another part of her that was dreadfully ruined?

“Don’t strain to talk.”

She waved two fingers at him. “The best decision my father ever made was to go without me. He saw me again once more in 1802 when he came to Paris. He had only a short time to live. I often wonder if he knew.” She grew pensive. “But he died in London last year in December. Also a good decision.”

She let her gaze rise to the peaceful cerulean sky above.