Return to main book page

November, 1691.  Warwickshire, England

ISBN: 0446610534

      She smiled to calm him.  "Don’t worry, Sim.  Tell Milford I'll be there shortly."  The boy started away, but she called him back.  "What does this one look like?"

      Sim’s expression shifted from worry to confusion.

      "Is there a man Milford wants me to meet?"  The boy nodded.  “What does he look like?"

      "Big.  Fearsome, miss.  Looks through you."

      "Splendid," she murmured.  This, then, would be the one man with standards so low that he would agree to marry her. 

      Sim was right; the visitor was big.  And heavily armed.  A sword hung from his hip, a long dagger from his waist, two pistols were tucked into the sides of his belt.

      Eileen stood next to the stranger, but did not look at his face.  What little she'd seen on her approach had been daunting.  He wore no wig, his dark hair instead drawn back neatly and tied behind his neck.  His clothes were fashionably cut.  He wore a black fitted brocade coat that stretched across his wide shoulders and hugged a lean torso; a topcoat of fine black wool trimmed with braid lay on the bench next to him.  His linen shirt was white, his gathered breeches buff, his neck cloth silk.  Simple black leather gloves rested in his long fingers.  A man of obvious means.  She looked down at her clothes, seeing the many places she’d mended the muslin, the tear in her hem.  He would think her a pauper.

      "He's French," Milford said.  "Or at least that's what he speaks.”

      The stranger rose to his feet and faced her.  He was very tall; she stepped back as he bowed to her, then straightened to meet her gaze.  He was extraordinarily handsome and somehow she knew he knew that.  His eyes were deep blue, framed by dark lashes and straight brows, his cheeks dark with several days’ growth of beard, his nose straight, his mouth wide.  He watched her study him, his eyes amused now.

      “Mademoiselle,” he said in French.  “I hope I meet with your approval.”

      She felt her cheeks go scarlet. 

      “Find out his name, where he’s from,” Milford said.

      She raised her eyebrows.  “You don’t know who he is?”

      “Two boys found him asleep in the old cottage. 

      Eileen sat on the bench next to the stranger, smoothing her skirts, trying to think of French verbs.  "Welcome to Ronley Hall, sir.  Your name, sir?" she asked the stranger in French.

      "Jean-Paul Belmond, miss."

      "You are from?”

      Belmond smiled slowly, showing a dimple in his left cheek.  “London, mademoiselle.”

      Milford moved impatiently. "What is he, one of those Huguenots?”

      “Oui, monsieur,” Belmond said to Milford.  “Huguenot.  I am a soldier.  I am going to Scotland.  To offer my services to King William’s army.”

      Milford nodded.  “Tell him I fought with William at Maastricht, that I stayed with him all the way through the Battle of the Boyne.”

      Eileen didn’t need to tell him.  Something, quickly suppressed, flashed in Belmond’s eyes before she had said the words in French.  Anger?  “Two mercenaries,” she said with distaste. “You sell your ability to kill.”

      Belmond shrugged.  “A man must eat.”

      “You do not look like a man without resources.”

      “I am a younger son, mademoiselle, so I became a soldier.”

      "Ask him questions,” Milford said.  “If you want him when we're finished with him, you can have him.  Or he you, I should say.  Maybe he’ll even marry you." 

      Eileen took a deep breath, reminding herself that it would do her no good to speak sharply to the man who let her keep a roof over her head.  “You will keep a civil tongue, Milford, or I will not do this for you,” she said as mildly as she could.

      She looked into Belmond’s eyes again.  And realized, with a shock, that he had understood everything they’d said.

      "He treats you with little courtesy," Belmond said in French.  “One should not talk to a serving girl like that, miss, and I suspect you are not a serving girl.  None of them speak French. How is it you do?”

      “I was well educated.  Where is home, sir?”

      His expression was guarded again.  “Originally Brittany.”

      “You are not from Brittany, Monsieur Belmond.  You might not even be French, although your French is excellent."

      “You doubt me, mademoiselle?”

      “Yes.”

      “I have told you the truth.”

      “I would wager that you have not.”

      “Would you?  Who are you, miss?  Are you his . . . ? " He let his words fade, but she understood his meaning.

      "I am nothing to him.  He is trying to find someone to marry me, but it is unlikely; I have no dowry and no one wants a penniless wife."

      He smiled again.  "I should think many men would want to marry you, mademoiselle.  Your lack of dowry is not the impediment you think it.”

      “It is when your father denounced the king and then was murdered for his rashness.”

      “And your mother?  Is she here with you?”

      “She died with him.  She was from the country to the north, sir, not a healthy thing to be in England in these times.”

      “Your mother was from Scotland?”

      “Yes.  From the Highlands.”

      Belmond stared at her.  And she knew.