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“Mary, hear me, we must not fall out over this. I am sure we can resolve the situation to everyone’s satisfaction, but right now, I simply have no idea how to proceed.”
“Perhaps Robin might come up with a satisfactory plan?”
“Mais non! Robin must not know about my return! You know as well as I that he will tell Gabriel.”
Mary spun about and seated herself beside Angele. “Not share such momentous news with my husband? Are you quite sane? It will be more than my hide is worth if he finds out that I have kept something of this magnitude from him. You are his sister-in-law returned from the dead!”
“Je t’implore! Understand, Mary, that I have no wish to cause St. Nicholas any further pain. I simply want him to know that he has a son and heir. He must not be saddled with me, not as I am now. It’s best he continues to think of me as dead.”
Mary’s eyes misted over. She stretched out a hand and placed it on Angele’s knee. “It isso very goodto see you again, my dear. I wept such tears of joy when I received the letter explaining that Christopher was alive and coming to England in order to claim his birthright, but to find that you, too, are alive… Well, words cannot express my joy. Please, dearest, explain to me the necessity for these ugly widow’s weeds?”
“Mais oui, if you insist.” Angele spoke in low tones, telling only the pertinent facts of her unhappy sojourn in Paris five years previous.
When she’d finished her tale of woe, Mary hugged her. “Dearest please trust me, and show me your damaged face,” she asked hesitantly.
Angele lowered her head and sat quiet for a few moments. Slowly she did as her sister-in-law requested, and raised the concealing cloth she wore to protect herself from prying eyes and ridicule. The familiar knot of shame formed as her sister-in-law’s face blanched at the sight of her scarred face.
Lifting her hand, Mary halted, and raised her brow for permission, which Angele gave with a curt nod. Mary traced a gentle fingertip along the deep groove of scarred tissue that ran diagonally across Angele’s once beautiful face.
“Does your eye hurt, can you still see clearly from it?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“It merely droops due to the inflicted wound. I can see quite clearly, thank you.” Carefully, she drew down her veil, once again obscuring her face.
“I am sorry, my dear, but I honestly do not think that my brother would care one whit about your disfigurement. He loved you so, Angele,lovesyou still. His mourning was quite terrible to witness.”
Angele fixed her gaze on Mary’s face with a frown; she attempted to determine whether or not Mary was telling her the truth.
Detecting only sincerity, she leaned towards her sister-in-law, and the two women, once so close, embraced, remaining clasped in one another’s arms for a few moments, drawing comfort, one from the other, each silent, caught up in the depth of their emotion. Mary was first to draw away. Sniffing, she pulled forth a scrap of lace that purported to be a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.
“It is so wonderful to see you,” she reiterated fiercely.
“It is good to see you, too, Mary. I’ve missed your companionship, you and Robin both. We four had so much fun together, did we not?” she reminded her softly.
Angele smiled sadly as she recalled the giddy, frivolous fun they’d had in the whirl of the London season during the summer before she had gone to France. She hastily shut down lest she remember more about that year.
“Tell me about my Gabriel. How is he?” Her voice held a tinge of longing which she knew the astute Mary would detect.
“He is well, physically. Although I feared for his sanity after the dreadful news arrived from Paris that you and your family had been murdered in the uprising. I was so sorry to hear about your parents and your dear sister. You must know that St. Nicholas blamed himself for leaving you there alone, without his protection…”
“But I was not alone, I was with my family. How could he have known that the people would rise up at that precise moment to begin the terror?” Angele interrupted.
Mary shrugged. “You know my brother. He saw only that he had abandoned you and that was the consequence of your death. The remorse ate him up. It is only this past year that he has hardened, determined to do his duty to secure an heir.”
“This woman he has met, do you like her? Does he, does he…love her?” Angele held her breath waiting for the reply.
“Noelle is but a child of eighteen, although…” She shrugged.
“Although?”
“I rather think she has a look of you about her. She is a pretty girl of a pale complexion, flaxen-haired and blue-eyed, but she does not possess your special kind of fey beauty. Oh, I am so sorry…” Mary faltered.
Angele stretched out her hand to pat her sister-in-law’s reassuringly. The mention of her former beauty having seen the scars obviously made Mary uncomfortable.
“I understand your meaning. Pray continue.”
“I don’t know her well. I would say Noelle is shy since she has very little to say for herself, and no, before you ask, I do not believe it to be a love match, at least as far as St. Nicholas is concerned.”
Angele nodded, grateful for Mary’s honesty. “It is an odd time of year for a wedding. Has Gabriel pre-empted the vows perhaps?”
