‘If he has any,’ Luc countered.
There was a slight confusion in a far corner of the dance floor. A young lady had fainted, it seemed. Partners relaxed and began to talk quietly to each other while chaperones bustled about.
‘His reactions so far do argue a lack of trust,’ Averil said. ‘But then, he knows as little about me as I do of him.’
‘It is not simply a question of trust.’ Luc frowned. ‘There is a practical expediency about it that I do not like—it does not seem to matter to him whether you told the truth or not, merely whether there would be consequences if you had not. I could understand him deciding that he would not marry you because you had been compromised, but this is having his cake and eating it, too.’
‘I suppose any man might be concerned about such consequences,’ Averil murmured. ‘You would, surely, if it was a question of the charming young lady in sea-green?’
He looked across the room. ‘Mademoiselle de la Falaise? Perhaps I would.’
Indeed you would. ‘Is she the one?’
‘Perhaps,’ he said again. ‘She is very lovely, very well bred. Her mother is a distant cousin on my father’s side. Her father’s estates are in Normandy also.’
‘Perfect.’ It was true, what they said: the heart did break and you could feel it, a hard, sickening pain like the crack of a bone splintering.
‘Time will tell. I do not know if there is any depth or spirit under the elegant little tricks and she does not know me at all. And her father is suspicious of the half-breed naval captain. He, too, wants to return to France, to take his place back at court, to be what he once was. He must choose his sons-in-law with care. Am I French enough for him? Where do my loyalties lie? Am I a dangerous constitutionalist like my father? He wonders about those things.’
‘Do you wonder? You sound very French now,’ Averil said. Her lips felt numb, but she kept smiling.
‘Really?’ Luc’s voice was sombre. He added something half under his breath and she strained to catch it as the band struck up again and couples straightened up and resumed their positions. I wish I knew where I belonged, what I was. Had he really said that? But he seemed so assured, so certain about his desire to return to France.
‘Oh, yes. Your intonation has changed, there is the faintest accent. It is most attractive,’ she added lightly, testing her own composure by being a trifle daring.
‘And you,’ Luc said as he took her hand and the first steps of the dance brought them almost breast to breast. The dark mood seemed to have fled as fast as it had arrived. ‘You are even more lovely than you were on my desert island, ma sirène.’
She could translate that: my mermaid. ‘You should not flirt with me while you are courting Mademoiselle de la Falaise.’ And that was all it was, flirtation. It came so easily to him, so hard to her. Or perhaps the difference was simply that her feelings were engaged and his were not.
‘I do not know how to flirt with you, Averil,’ he said as the dance parted them for a wide circle. As they came back together he was frowning. ‘With you, I can speak only the truth, it seems.’
‘Then you should not speak such truths,’ she said and looked up into his eyes. His expression changed, sharpened, and too late she realised that she had done nothing to shield her own. What had he seen in her face, in her gaze?
‘Averil, leave him. It is not too late.’
She was silent. The other couples were too close, her heart was beating too hard to find breath for words. When, minutes later, the music stopped and with it the end of the first dance, she stepped off the floor and into one of the little striped tents that were scattered around the room.
‘Leave him? For what? My ruin, if you are still asking me to be your mistress.’
‘Come to me. I will deal honestly with you, Averil.’
She sat down in a swirl of peach silk and gauze and he stayed on his feet facing her, sombre. Anyone looking in would think, perhaps, that they had intruded on a proposal. And that, of course, was just what it had been. A dishonourable proposal.
‘Then let us be entirely honest, shall we? You seek a bride, quite coolly, as though you select the right horse for your carriage.’ She paused to get her breathing under control. She must not let him see how this affected her. ‘You chose one who will restore the part of you that is not French because, somehow, your identity is compromised by your English blood. You want me, for reasons I will not explore here, and so, just as coolly, you offer me my ruin. Because I am a merchant’s daughter, and English, and therefore fit for nothing else. You call Bradon cold and practical. Have you looked in the mirror? That description fits you just as well, I think.’
‘You want to marry me?’ Luc asked, looking at her as though he had never seen her before.
‘I think,’ Averil said, finding her anger and with it breath to continue, ‘that you should remove yourself before I forget that I am a lady—insofar as a daughter of trade can be, of course—and throw one of these flower arrangements over your arrogant, smug male person.’
Chapter Nineteen
Luc turned on his heel and walked away, not because he feared a bouquet being thrown at his head, but because he was so strongly tempted to turn Miss Averil Heydon over his knee and … Or, strangle her. Or shake some sense into her. But it was he who needed sense knocking into. What had he said? That had almost been a proposal.
Louise de la Falaise saw him from across the room and made a pretty little gesturing motion with her fan. He bowed and walked on. She was very lovely and intelligent, too, as far as he could tell, with her every move and word being supervised by her mama. He should desire her, but he did not, even though she was probably the woman he would propose to. He desired one woman only and she was impossible.
Averil was English. His father had married an Englishwoman and their only child had never known where he belonged, where his loyalties lay, which identity was his. When the time had come to make a decision and take a stand, he had not had the strength to stand up to his mother and to remain in France with his father. The fact that he was just a boy made no difference. If he had stayed, he supposed that now he would be long cold in his grave.
But he had made his choice, he lived and now he had made a decision: as his father’s son he could make no other. He ha