Regency Rogues and Rakes. Anna Campbell

sorry,” he said. “I had no idea.”

      “Why should you?” she said. “The point of all this is my family, and who I am.”

      “Then your name really is Noirot,” he said. “I’d wondered if it was simply a Frenchified name you three had adopted for the shop.”

      Her smile was taut. “That was the name my paternal grandfather adopted when he fled France during the Revolution. He got his wife and children out, and some aunts and cousins. Others of his family were not so lucky. His older brother, the Comte de Rivenoir, was caught trying to escape Paris. After he and his family went to the guillotine, my grandfather inherited the title. He saw the folly of trying to make use of it. His family, the Robillon family, had a bad name in France. You know the character, the Vicomte de Valmont, in the book by Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses?”

      He nodded. It was one of a number of books Lord War-ford had declared unfit for decent people to read. Naturally, when they were boys, Longmore had got hold of a copy and he and Clevedon had read it.

      “The Robillon men were that sort of French aristocrat,” she said. “Libertines and gamblers who used people like pawns or toys. They weren’t popular at that time, and they’re still not remembered affectionately in France. Since he wanted to be able to move about freely, Grandfather took a name as common as dirt. Noirot. Or, in English, Black. He and his offspring used one or the other name, depending on the seduction or swindle or ruse in hand at the moment.”

      He was leaning forward now, listening intently. Pieces were falling into place: the way she spoke, her smooth French and her aristocratic accent…but she’d told him she was English. Well, then, she’d lied about that, too.

      “I knew you weren’t quite what you appeared to be,” he said. “My servants took you for quality, and servants are rarely taken in.”

      “Oh, we can take in anybody,” she said. “We’re born that way. The family never forgot they were aristocrats. They never gave up their extravagant ways. They were expert seducers, and they used the skill to find wealthy spouses. Being more romantic and less practical than their Continental counterparts, the men had great luck with highborn Englishwomen.”

      “That must hold true for English men as well,” he said.

      Her dark gaze met his. “It does. But I never set out to get a spouse. I’ve lied and cheated—you don’t know the half of it—but it was all for the purpose I explained early in our acquaintance.”

      “I know you cheat at cards,” he said.

      “I didn’t cheat during our last game of Vingt et Un,” she said. “I merely played as though my life depended on it. People in my family often find themselves in that position: playing a game on which their life depends. But cheating at cards is nothing. I forged names on our passports to get out of France quickly. My family often finds it necessary to leave a country suddenly. My sisters and I were taught the skill, and we practiced diligently, because we never knew when we’d need it. We were well educated in the normal ways as well. We had lessons in deportment as well as mathematics and geography. Whatever else we Noirots were—and it wasn’t pretty—we were aristocrats, and that was our most valuable commodity. To speak and carry ourselves as ladies and gentlemen do—you can imagine the fears it allays, the doors it opens.”

      “I can see that it would be much easier to seduce an aristocratic English girl if you don’t sound like a clerk from the City or a linen draper,” he said. “But you married a cousin. You have a shop. You didn’t follow the same path.”

      She got up abruptly from her chair and moved away in a rustle of petticoats. He rose, too, unsteadily, and he couldn’t tell whether that was the aftereffects of fighting and drinking or the hope warring with the certainty he’d lost her.

      She walked to the library table and took up his notes. “Your handwriting is deplorable,” she said. She put them down and, turning back to him, said, “I haven’t told you about my mother.”

      “An English aristocrat, yes? Or something else?”

      She gave a short laugh. “Both.”

      She returned to her chair, and he sat, too. His heart thudded. Something was coming, and it wasn’t good. He was sure of that. He was leaning forward, waiting. He was wanting it to be over with and hoping against hope it would be good news. But it couldn’t be good, else she wouldn’t be so ill at ease, she who was never ill at ease, mistress of every situation.

      And what was wrong with him? She’d admitted to forgery! She’d told him she came from a line of blue-blooded French criminals!

      “My mother was Catherine DeLucey,” she said.

      He recognized the surname, but it took a moment for him to place it. Then he saw it: blue, vivid blue.

      “Lucie’s eyes,” he said. “Those remarkable blue eyes. Miss Sophia, too. And Miss Leonie. I knew there was something familiar about them. They’re unforgettable. The DeLuceys—the Earl of Mandeville’s family.”

      Her color came and went. She folded her hands tightly in her lap.

      He remembered then. Some old scandal to do with one of Lord Hargate’s sons. Not the one who’d manhandled him yesterday, though. Which one? He couldn’t remember. His brain was slow and thick and aching.

      She said, “Not those DeLuceys. Not the good ones with the handsome property near Bristol. My mother was one of the other ones.”

      He’d been leaning toward her so eagerly, and she’d seen the hope in his eyes, and the uncertainty.

      Then she saw the truth dawn. His head went back, and his posture stiffened, and he looked away, unable to meet her gaze.

      Sophy and Leonie had told her he didn’t need to know. They’d said she’d only heap coals on her own head, and since when had she taken on the role of martyr?

      But they didn’t know what it was to love a man, and so they didn’t know what it was to hurt at causing him pain. He’d opened his heart to her. He’d offered her the moon and the stars, knowing nothing about her. and she hadn’t had the courage to offer what she could in fair return: the truth.

      She’d reminded him again and again of her trade, because she could cope with his coming to his senses and rejecting her because of what she did for a living. But to tell him who she was, then see his face change as he shut her out…That would hurt more than she could bear.

      She saw it now, and it hurt more than she’d imagined. But the worst was over. She’d live.

      She went on quickly, eager to have her sordid tale done. “My mother was a blueblood, but she wasn’t like the other Noirot wives. She hadn’t any money. They married each other for fortunes that turned out not to exist. They didn’t learn the truth until the marriage night, and then they thought it a great joke. She and Father led a nomadic life, from one swindle to the next. They would run up debts in one place, then leave in the dead of night for another. We children were inconvenient baggage. They left us with this relative or that one. Then, when I was nine years old, we ended up with a woman who’d married one of my father’s cousins. She was a fashionable dressmaker in Paris. She trained us to the trade, and she saw to our education. We were attractive girls, and Cousin Emma made sure we learned refinement. That was good for business. And of course, a pretty girl with good manners might attract a husband of wealth and quality.”

      She looked up to gauge his reaction, but he seemed to be studying the carpet. His thick black lashes, so stark against the pallor of his skin, veiled his eyes.

      But she didn’t need to read the expression in his eyes to know what was there: a wall.

      A sense of loss swept over her, and it was like a sickness. She felt so weary. She swallowed and went on, “But I fell in love with Cousin Emma’s nephew Charlie, and he had no money. I had to continue working. Then the cholera came to Paris.” She made a sweeping gesture. “They all died. We had to close our shop—not that I would