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Chapter 5
Angele was distressed. She couldn’t bear to see the wretched misery that had so distorted Gabriel’s handsome face. Where had he gone? Should she try to find him and offer comfort? She dithered, unsure of her role. She was no longer chatelaine of this glorious house, nor was she supposed to be his wife. Her deception, posing as her cousin Marie, meant she had to maintain her distance. If she behaved otherwise, Gabriel might become suspicious. He knew about his son now; she had fulfilled her obligation to both her men. Perhaps it was time she left to return and collect Christopher from Churchton? It was far too late in the day, though, to attempt the journey. Besides, the snow had put paid to any travel today. By the morning it may have subsided. She would wait until the morrow.
Returning to her chamber, she decided to take a much needed rest before dinner. She was exhausted both emotionally and physically from her arduous journey, an adventure that had begun three weeks previous. The emotional sentiment she’d experienced at seeing her husband again had drained her. What she required was a restorative nap.
She awoke to the comforting sound of song. Ivy moved around the chamber, carefully placing Angele’s belongings into chests and drawers. As she tidied, she sang a melody in a soft, lilting voice. A Christmas tale of three ships, one Angele had never heard before.
She remained still, peacefully unmoving, taking comfort from the maid’s presence. Finally she stirred. Her dreams had been turbulent, filled with remembered passion. The kind of memories she had forced from her consciousness long ago. Having Gabriel there physically in front of her brought back the full recollection of their love. She knew what lay beneath his costly lawn shirt and moleskin breeches. Flushed and restless, she rose from her bed and allowed Ivy to help her with her ablutions.
She changed for dinner, leaving aside the black dress. Instead she chose a lavender gown, edged with black lace. The last thing she donned before leaving the sanctuary of her chamber was the impenetrable veil.
He was waiting for her, resplendent in hues of black and gold brocade which highlighted the depths of his long wavy brown hair and reflected the golden flecks within his irises. Knowing that her gaze was screened from him, she allowed herself the luxury of studying his crotch, remembering with clarity the deceptive serpent that slept within his breeches.
Heat prickled, and perspiration trickled between her breasts. She knew she was torturing herself. It had to stop before she revealed her true identity.Sowhat?An insidious thought filtered through her resolve. Again, she conjured an image of her son, but that was quickly overshadowed by the powerfully vivid memory of the night he had been conceived.
Gabriel, as he had reared up over her prone body. She’d laid beneath him, writhing with need, the image overwhelming as she recalled how it felt to have his thick girth enter her slick, hungry channel. She gasped.
“My lady, are you unwell?” he asked, immediately concerned.
“No. I am exhausted, and perhaps a little hungry,” Which was no lie, after all.
He came over to her, waving the footman away, and pulled a chair from the table, indicating that she should sit. “I think your sojourn here may be longer than you’d anticipated, for the weather shows no sign of a thaw.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgement. “I am sorry to inconvenience you so close to the Yuletide.”
“It is no bother. The guests who attend the masquerade ball are mainly local friends and acquaintances who know that it will be cancelled if the snow is too deep.”
They continued to make small talk until the food was served, and then unusually, he ordered the footmen from the room.
“Since we are family and alone, I ask that you remove your veil. I am made of stern stuff and I assure you that your injured face will not repel me in any way.”
Angele panicked. She knew her husband to be a stubborn and insistent man. She must convince him that she could not possibly reveal her face.
“That is most kind and thoughtful, my lord, but I do not know you well enough as yet to feel comfortable without the security of my cloth shield.”
He chuckled politely. “Perhaps in a few days hence, once we are better acquainted?”
She breathed a sigh of relief at his nod of understanding.
Slowly, she fed herself beneath the fabric covering her face. Eating under her veil was something she had become adept at over the intervening years.
They ate their first course of trout in silence. She watched him covertly, hidden from his gaze. Her fervour for him grew as she studied him. It was exquisite torment to have him this close to her, seated near enough for her to breathe in his body scent. Her appetite for food deserted her. He asked if she had eaten her fill, and she nodded.
He rang the bell for their plates to be removed. It wasn’t until the main course of honey-glazed venison had been served that they actually conversed.
He began by asking her about her journey. She explained that they had bypassed France, crossing the English Channel from the Netherlands. He lamented the rising in France and the deaths of King Louis and Queen Marie Antoinette. They discussed the cruelty of the guillotine and the loss of the young dauphine and the princesses, talking in hushed tones of the ongoing terror that gripped the country. Angele had not heard that Robespierre and his government had fallen or that Robespierre himself had met the kiss of the guillotine at the end of July. She expressed fervent hope that the savagery that swept the country of her birth would soon dissipate along with the tyrant’s death.
Angele slipped up only once when she declared herself glad that her father had not been alive to see the horrors perpetrated against his family and friends. Gabriel obviously presumed she’d meant Marie’s own father, because he made no comment to her untimely remark. She recalled that her uncle had passed away the year before her father. They had not travelled to Italy for the funeral because her own father was failing, and she was already spending large amounts of time travelling between England and France.
When dessert was served, he began to tell her of his regret at leaving Paris two days before the rising occurred. Immediately her mind returned to that fateful day.
They had arrived in Paris mid-afternoon. Gabriel made her promise that as soon as she had seen her father and spoken with her mother, she would rest. He worried about her, and she loved him for his concern. The truth was, she’d felt exhausted. Receiving the shocking news that her father was dying, followed by the scramble to prepare for the journey had been bad enough, but the uncomfortable three day journey, worrying the whole time about her father, had left her utterly worn out.
Gazing upon her haggard Papa as he’d lain upon his death bed, she’d wept. His pale skeletal hand had crept across the counterpane to cover hers.
“You are here.”
Angel noted how weak his voice sounded, the illness having robbed him of all his previousjoiede vivre.
