Brocade Series 02 - Giselle (10 page)

“Forgive me again, Giselle
. I didn’t bring you here to show
you these paintings, or to make love to you.”

He turned and walked
from her to stand under Aunt Mimi’s portrait.

“Then…why are…we here?”

Giselle was hoping to keep her reaction hidden, but her
voice gave it away. She watched him frown, and then he swiveled to look at the painting.

“
I brought you here to ask you. No! I beg you. To save us again! The only thing standing between my brother, Jean-Claude, and the title…. This is too much to ask of me!”

He slammed a fist into the wall beside
Aunt Mimi’s portrait. Giselle jumped. Her eyes blurred with unshed tears. She belonged to
Etienne. She’d just met Navarre. How was it possible to
feel like this in just one day?

“
Finish it, Navarre. Tell me.”

“Etienne must….” He touched the frame of the painting as if
he needed to draw strength from it. “You and Etienne must.
There has to be— I’m sorry. I cannot finish it. Esmee will
have to.”

“Etienne and I must have a son
.”

Giselle said it for him
. When
she’d finished they were surrounded by complete silence.
He nodded, but he didn’t have to. She knew what they
expected of her, but they didn’t know how difficult it would be. Etienne was horrid. She shuddered now, from the recollection of meeting him.
The idea of intimacy with him was
revolting to her.

“He wasn’t always as he is now
,” Navarre said,
surprising her with how he’d read her thoughts.

“Perhaps…Jean-Claude…won’t be as you suspect?”

He laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “You don’t believe
me?”

“
No. It’s not that. It’s just I….”

She let the words simply end
.
How was she to tell him of her aversion to the brother, that by his
own words, he hero-worshipped?

“Come, Giselle
. It’s late. I’ll see you to your chamber.”

He turned to her, and she shook her head
. She was watching
the floor at his feet. She couldn’t face him. Too much was
happening. She had no experience with men. Her senses were flying
at the memory of Navarre’s embrace, and yet reeling with the thought
of allowing it to be Etienne. With such a confusing reaction, how could she begin to help the family? How could she begin to try if
Navarre touched her again?

“Shall I get your woman?”

He knelt so she could meet his
eyes. They were more deep purple than blue in the light and so
gentle! They were going to haunt her.

She nodded and watched him go.

Her euphoric state lasted longer than she remembered.
She recalled little of the rest of the evening. Louisa chattered at her
while she undressed, but Giselle ignored her talk, and barely heard
Gerty’s unsubtle musings.

Navarre
had kissed her! True, it wasn’t on the lips,
but still..
.

Giselle
wasn’t disappointed. She kept remembering
what it felt like to be held so tenderly and almost-kissed. She’d wanted him to do it, too. She trembled to recall how it felt. The big
bed didn’t feel so large and overpowering.

“
It is time for your prayers, Giselle.”

Isabelle stood beside the bed-platform
with Giselle’s rosary in her hand. That was when the cloud over
Giselle’s thoughts evaporated, and everything came into perfect
focus.

The candle was too bright as she knelt
. Navarre was her
brother-in-law. He had embraced her, which was a grave sin, but she was
no less guilty, because she had enjoyed it. She had wanted more. Of
course, it was normal to be attracted to the first handsome man she
met, but that wasn’t absolution. She had a duty to her husband.

Navarre
was so handsome, though. Just the recollection made
her fingers slip on the beads. It was wrong to feel this way. Wicked.

And yet, so wonderful.

Eventually, she finished, and dismissed Isabelle. And then Giselle climbed into the immense bed, covered herself to her chin, and stared with unseeing eyes at the rest of the room. Everything beyond the bed’s pedestal was dark and menacing
if she thought about it.

She didn’t
. She kept thinking of Navarre.

The connecting door was open again. Giselle
lifted her head from the pillows to look. It wasn’t very
comforting to think of Etienne coming into her room at night while she slept, to look
at her, but he had that right. And more.

She pushed away from the headboard
and slid off the mattress. This time she remembered to put
on her dressing gown. If Etienne had the right to look at
her, she had the same right to see him. She went through the connecting door without thinking of the
repercussions. At least he’d bathed. Perhaps he wouldn’t be as
offensive.

“Have you come to stare?”

He glared at her from the balcony
and she considered running back to her room. But then she lifted her chin. She’d been a
coward long enough. It wasn’t helping the situation, and there was
no reason for it. He was a self-pitying, self-destructive invalid,
nothing more. She told herself she could handle him.

He sat in a strange looking contraption. Giselle’s gaze flicked
over it for a bit, before returning to his face. He didn’t look pleased to see her, but he had bathed and shaved, and he had his hair pulled back in a queue. He wasn’t as frightening-looking as before, but
he wasn’t assaulting her senses like Navarre did, either. He was
eye-catching, though, even with a scowl on the full lips that so closely
matched those of his younger brother.

Perhaps his rudeness was a defense against the world
. She
hadn’t looked at it that way before, and she was slightly ashamed at
herself. It wasn’t her fault, for she’d never been around a
handicapped person before, but she should’ve given him a little
compassion.

“It seems fair to me
,” she finally answered. She gestured to the
door behind her as she stepped toward him.

“
I only wanted to see what price I have paid for that valley of
yours.”

He turned away and looked out at Savignen
.
Navarre had been more than right. The trees were tipped pink
with dawn at the edges. Giselle held her breath and watched as the
color fanned out. It was beautiful and stretched as far as she could
see, stopping only when she glimpsed the river.

“
Well…that is what I came to do, too,” she replied.

She thought she was prepared for the look he gave her, but she
forgot his eyes. They were bluer than the sky and twice as cold. Giselle tried to feel a tingle, a stirring of anticipation, a murmur in her heart,
anything. He was fairly handsome.
His hair wasn’t as blond as Esmee’s after all, nor was it as dark as Navarre’s.

Navarre!

Giselle’s heart cried the name, and she stifled the
instant ache. It was her own stupidity that brought his image
instantly to her mind. She was a fool, and her dreams had been just
that. Navarre wasn’t her husband, the man before her was.

“
I suppose you’ve been asked to bear my son.”

Giselle stiffened at his words
.
How can he ask it so easily?
She fought the reaction, but knew she was blushing. As closely as he watched her, it would have been impossible to disguise
.

“Well?”
He sneered after the word.

She nodded.

“You’ll have to do the work then. I am incapable of that sort of movement
.”

Giselle
lost her color at his bluntness. She felt it. Oh! He was worse
than horrid, he was uncouth and bestial. She must have made some
sound, because he looked her over even more critically.

“You’re different from what we expected, Giselle
. You’re smaller, and not near as monstrous as I was led to believe.”

“Monstrous?”
She choked the word out.

“Well, you hadn’t been seen in years. Who knew why? I told
myself you couldn’t be as bad as I imagined, but the imagination runs
amok without reins. Navarre was right. You’re lovelier than anyone
expected. Who knows? Perhaps we’ll be successful in trying for a
son after all. I look forward to it.”

Giselle’s jaw dropped, and she couldn’t close it
. His eyes roved her form as if—
She couldn’t finish the thought
. She ran to her room
with the sound of his laughter following at her heels.

~

“Why is it you still cling to these hours, Giselle?” Louisa asked. “I wait for you to ring for Isabelle and myself, and you don’t.
Then, when I come to find out why, you’ve been up for hours. Don’t you realize what this is doing to you? You’re too weak, and you
can’t sleep through every luncheon….”

“Etienne came into my room again.”

The words stopped
Louisa’s tirade.
Giselle watched her suck in breath as if she needed more
power behind her speech, but she said nothing. Giselle looked away.
Louisa could wipe that speculative look from her face. Giselle wasn’t partial to Etienne, and she wasn’t likely to be, either.

“
Well…this is excellent news, Giselle. It’s just what this overbearing
household needs, too. Since I’m too old to continue as your governess, a
child would be a godsend.”

She thought Giselle was up and gazing out her window because of…that
? Ugh.
Have a child with Etienne? She
would rather die! And she wasn’t weak! Giselle had paced furiously about the chamber for hours! That wasn’t weak. That was a reaction to more imprisonment. The castle was consuming her. Closing in. And there was nothing she could do about any of it!

It wasn’t fair
! Her future had already been written, regardless of how she felt about any of it. She was expected to cleave unto
the monster in the room next door, close her eyes on any emotion, and allow him to—
S
he stopped the thought and squelched a retching motion
. He’d said she’d have to do the movements! She didn’t even know what that meant. And she refused to do
such a thing with him! Jean-Claude could just become the next
Duc
du Berchald,
and the family would just have to survive how depraved, debauched, or wicked he was
! Giselle wasn’t going to help them.

“
I need a companion, Louisa,” she said. “That’s what you are
and have always been. You know that.”

“Giselle.”

Louisa clucked her tongue in the reprimanding fashion
she had.
Giselle wasn’t going to allow that. Louisa didn’t know Etienne. She didn’t know one thing about it.

“Assist me to the
chapel, Louisa. I feel the need for peace, and I’m not getting any here.”

“You need to live more and pray less, Giselle, and you know
it.” Louisa put her hands on her hips.
“You’re the
duchesse!
You can have anything
you want, yet all you want to do is cover yourself in sack-cloth and
pray like the self-pitying waif the arrogant
Comte
d’Antillion created. Well, I
refuse to stand by and watch! Come, eat this delicious
breakfast, and decide your wardrobe for the day.
Madame
Esmee looks forward to continuing with you from yesterday. That woman
can help you more than you can possibly imagine. You mustn’t keep
her waiting.”

“
Don’t you listen? I don’t want to tour the castle! I don’t want any help with
running it! I want to seek solace in prayer. Is that too much to ask
from my companion?”

“You know the answer to that already. You can’t change your destiny, Giselle
. You can only bend it to fill your needs. How many
times must we go over this? You’re married to the
Duc
du Berchald.
Nothing can change it. You’re the chatelaine of Chateau Berchand,
and your duty lies within. Show me a priest who would argue that.
Well?”

Giselle sighed. Louisa was right again, and she was
thoroughly tired of it. “You’re not a very supportive companion,
Louisa.”

“You are so wrong
, my love. And I’m the best friend you’ll ever find. Between us, we’ll find a way to make this work, you’ll see. Things are never as bad
as we think they are. What do you say? The sun is bright, you can go wherever you like, and do whatever you wish. Who knows? A
child might be what the
duc
needs to bring out his charm.”

“Charm
? Etienne? You don’t know the man.” Giselle mumbled it, but
she did start picking through the breakfast tray.

“No, but I heard he sent instructions for tomorrow’s supper
. You’re more of an influence than you think. He might even join the
family downstairs. Think of that! He hasn’t joined them for dinner since the physicians sent by his mother gave up on him. That was
years ago. Think of it, Giselle!”

Louisa shook her head while Giselle sampled her omelet, trying
not to show how frightened she was at the thought. She was to dine opposite him? With the things he’s said and the lustful way he eyed her? How would she manage to eat?

“And all you long for is to pray
,” Louisa continued. “A habit
reserved for nuns, priests, and bedtime, I say.”

~

Dinner was as horrible as she’d imagined.

Non
,
Giselle
thought. It was worse than horrible, and she’d spent more than four
hours getting ready!

Isabelle had awakened her from a nap with the news that a hairdresser was there to see her
. Giselle would’ve asked who ordered his services, but knew she wouldn’t like the answer.

“Ah, Giselle,
good. You’re awake,” Isabelle said. “This is wonderful.
There is a
Monsieur
Poinre here. He is a hairdresser. He finished
with your new aunt, and is ready to assist you.”

“You’re a very lucky woman, Giselle. I hear he is the best
at hair
arrangement in all of Paris. We were lucky he came this far south on such
little notice, weren’t we?” Louisa asked.

Giselle met Louisa’s eyes in the mirror until her smile faded.
“I’m being prepared for sacrifice, and you dance with glee.”

“Sacrifice? You have a vivid imagination, Giselle. I’m more than surprised at you.”

“That’s what it is,” she grumbled.

“Non,
Giselle. It’s a fete, held in your chateau, and in your honor. It’s just as I imagined for you all these years. Think of it.
The
duc
gave instructions yesterday to prepare for his presence, and
the invitations went out all day long. You should see the list of
acceptances. It’ll be the most entertaining evening the locals have
seen in years.”

“That’s what
I’m
afraid of.”

“There’s no reason to be afraid
. Why wouldn’t they come?
No one has seen you since you were a child, and who can blame them
for their curiosity? You have no reason to be other than thrilled. I
know I am.”

“I’m being put on display, and you’re thrilled?”

Louisa laughed. “Of course, you’ll be on display, Giselle.
What beautiful woman isn’t? And you will be stunning. We’ll make
certain of it, won’t we, Isabelle? You’ll outshine them all. You’ll
see.”

So
. She was to be the entertainment…and worse. Etienne would be joining her at it
.

“You’ll be more than stunning
. Everyone will notice you tonight, everyone. We will make certain of your enticement.”

Such preparation was absurd
. She knew why they were doing it. And who it was to entice. But they didn’t know him! Etienne doesn’t need any encouragement. She shuddered again at the
thought. Etienne was barbaric, bestial, and uncouth.
Disgusting!
Revolting!

“
I have told this
Monsieur
Poinre that you’re undecided about
the powder for your coiffure. He’s an aficionado of that sort of style, and very hard to dissuade, I’m afraid.”

“
You? Unable to dissuade anyone? I find that hard to believe,” Giselle said.