The Earl's Untouched Bride. Annie Burrows

there.

      ‘What is it?’ he sighed.

      ‘First, I have to tell you that I do not wish you at all to take me shopping!’ she declared defiantly.

      ‘You are unique amongst your sex, then,’ he replied dryly. ‘And what is second?’

      ‘And second,’ she gulped, the expression of guilt returning in force, ‘is that you do not need to buy me a ring.’ Holding up her hand to prevent his retort, she hastened to explain, ‘I already have a ring.’

      He stiffened. ‘Our engagement may not have been my idea, mademoiselle, but it is my place to provide the ring.’

      ‘But you already have. That is—’ She blushed. ‘The ring I have is the one you gave Felice. The very one that made her run away. She gave it to me.’

      ‘The ring…made her run away?’ He had chosen it with such care. The great emerald that gleamed in its cluster of diamonds was the exact shade of Felice’s bewitching eyes. He had thought he was past being hurt, but the thought that she found his taste so deficient she had run to another man…

      ‘Yes, for until that moment it had not been at all real to her,’ he heard Heloise say. ‘She thought you were merely amusing yourself with a little flirtation. Though I warned her over and over again, she never believed that she could hurt you. She said that nobody could touch your heart—if you had one, which she did not believe—and so you made the perfect smokescreen.’

      ‘Is that estimation of my character supposed to be making me feel better?’ he growled.

      ‘Perhaps not. But at least it may help you to forgive her. It was not until you gave her that ring that she understood you really had feelings for her. So then of course she had to run away, before things progressed beyond hope.’

      ‘In short, she would have kept me dangling on a string indefinitely if I hadn’t proposed marriage?’

      ‘Well, no. For she always meant to go to Jean-Claude. But she did not mean to hurt you. Truly. She just thought—’

      ‘That I had no heart,’ he finished, in clipped tones.

      Inadvertently he jerked on the reins, giving the horses the impression that he wished them to break into a trot. Since they were approaching a corner, there were a few moments where it took all his concentration to ensure they were not involved in an accident.

      ‘Oh, dear.’ Heloise was gripping onto his sleeve with both hands now, her face puckered with concern. ‘Now I have made you angry again, which is precisely what I wished not to do. For I have to inform you that when we are married, if you forbid me to contact her, knowing that I must obey I will do so—but until then I fully intend to write to her. Even if she has wronged you, she is still my sister!’

      The moment of danger being past, the horses having been successfully brought back to a brisk walk, she folded her arms, and turned away from him, as though she had suddenly become interested in the pair of dogs with frills round their necks which were dancing for the amusement of those strolling along the boulevard.

      ‘Ah, yes,’ he replied, reaching over to take her hand and place it back upon his own arm. ‘You fully intend to bow to my every whim, don’t you, once we are married?’

      ‘Of course! For you had no thought of marrying me until I put the notion in your head, so the least I can do is be the best wife you would wish for. I will do everything I can,’ she declared earnestly. ‘Whatever you ask, I will do with alacrity!’ Pulling herself up short, she suddenly frowned at him suspiciously. ‘And, by the way, why did you suddenly change your mind about me? When you made me leave, you seemed so set against it!’

      ‘Well, your proposal was so sudden,’ he teased her. ‘It took me by surprise. Naturally I had to consider…’

      She shook her head. ‘No, I may have surprised you, but you had made up your mind it was an absurd idea.’

      ‘So absurd, in fact,’ he countered, ‘that nobody would credit it. Nobody would believe I would take one Mademoiselle Bergeron merely to save face at being embarrassed by the other Mademoiselle Bergeron. And therefore they will have to believe that you were the object of my interest all along.’

      When she continued to look less than convinced by his complete about-face, he decided it was high time he regained control of the conversation.

      ‘Now, getting back to the ring. May I enquire, although I somehow feel I am about to regret doing so, why your sister left it with you? The normal practice, I should remind you, when an engagement is terminated, is for the lady to return the ring to the man who gave it to her.’

      ‘I had it with me when I came to visit you this morning,’ she declared. ‘I was going to return it to you for her if you should not agree to my suggestion.’

      ‘Indeed?’ His voice was laced with scepticism. ‘And yet somehow it remains in your possession. How did that come about, I wonder?’

      ‘Well, because you were so beastly to me, if you must know! I told you the deepest secret of my heart and you laughed at me. For the moment I quite lost my temper, and decided I should do with it exactly as Felice said I ought to do! For you are so wealthy it is not as if you needed to have it back, whereas for me…’

      She let go of his arm again, folding her own across her chest with a mutinous little pout which, for the first time in their acquaintance, made Charles wonder what it would be like to silence one of her tirades with a kiss. It would probably be the only way to stop her once she had built up a head of steam. Something in the pit of his stomach stirred at the thought of mastering her militant spirit in such a manner. He shook his head. It was not like him to regard sexual encounters as contests of will. But then, he frowned, when had he ever had to do more than crook his finger for a woman to fall obediently in line with his every whim?

      ‘I take it you meant to sell it, then?’

      Heloise eyed his lowered brows contritely.

      ‘Yes,’ she confessed. ‘Because I needed the money to get to Dieppe.’

      ‘Dieppe?’ He shook himself out of his reverie. ‘What is at Dieppe?’

      ‘Not what, but who. And that is Jeannine!’

      ‘Jeannine?’ he echoed, becoming fascinated in spite of himself. ‘What part does she play in this farce, I wonder?’

      ‘She was Maman’s nurse, until she eloped with Papa.’

      ‘There seems to have been a great deal of eloping going on in your family.’

      ‘But in my parents’ case it was a good thing, don’t you think? Because even if they were terribly poor for the first few years they were married, since my grandpapa cut her off entirely, she was the only one to survive the Terror because her family were all so abominably cruel to the menu peuple—the common people, that is. Jeannine was cast out, but she married a fermier, and I know she would take me in. I would have to learn how to milk a cow, to be sure, and make butter and cheese, but how hard could that be?’

      ‘I thought it was hens,’ he reflected.

      ‘Hens?’

      ‘Yes, you said when you married me you would live in a cottage so that you could keep hens. Now I find that in reality you would rather milk cows and make cheese.’ He sighed. ‘I do wish you would make up your mind.’

      Heloise blinked. Though the abstracted frown remained between his brows, she was almost sure he was teasing her. ‘I do not wish to milk cows at all,’ she finally admitted.

      ‘Good. Because I warn you right now that no wife of mine will ever do anything so plebeian. You must abandon all these fantasies about living on a farm and tending to livestock of any sort. When we return to England you will move in the first circles and behave with the decorum commensurate with your station in life. You are not to go anywhere near any livestock of any description. Is that clear?’

      For