Christian Seaton_ Duke of Danger(17)

Although that slap certainly made it easier for Lisette to accept her own lack of softer feelings towards Helene. Something she had felt guilty about until this moment. But no longer. Helene Rousseau was a cold and unemotional woman, and one Lisette found it impossible to feel affection for, let alone love. Now that she had decided to leave she did not need to bother trying to do that any more.

Helene was right, of course, in that Lisette did not have anywhere else to go, nor did she have more than a few francs to her name, but her pride dictated she could not allow that to sway her in her decision. She did not belong here. Not in the sprawling city that was Paris. And definitely not in this lowly tavern.

‘But not your child,’ she came back scornfully. ‘You do not claim me as such, nor do you have any right to do so after your behaviour tonight,’ she added as the other woman would have spoken. ‘If you permit it, I will stay here for what is left of the night and leave first thing in the morning.’ She gathered her cloak protectively about her.

Helene sighed wearily. ‘Lisette...’

‘Did you even bother to name me yourself before handing me over to the Duprées?’ Lisette challenged derisively. ‘Or did you leave even the naming of your child to strangers?’ She knew by the angry flush that appeared in the older woman’s cheeks that it had been the latter.

‘Surely you realise I could not have kept you here with me, Lisette—’

‘Could not? Or maybe you did not want to tarnish what is left of your own reputation by acknowledging me as your bastard child?’

Helene sighed heavily. ‘It is far too late at night for this conversation—’

‘It is too late altogether, madame.’ Lisette gave a disgusted shake of her head. ‘Would that you had left me in ignorance in the country.’

‘To do what? Live off turnips and marry a local peasant?’ The older woman’s lip curled.

‘Far better I had done that than live in this place!’ Lisette retorted. ‘I will leave here as soon as I am able,’ she repeated wearily as she brushed past the other woman to gather up a candle and light it before walking proudly down the hallway and going up the stairs.

She made it all the way to her bedchamber before giving in to the tears that had been threatening to fall since she had received that slap on her face.

Tears that were long overdue, as she placed the candle carefully on the bedside table before throwing herself down on the bed and sobbing in earnest; for the loss of the Duprées and the life she had known with them, for the shock of discovering Helene Rousseau was her mother, for her unhappiness since coming to Paris, for the lack of prospects ahead of her once she had left this place.

For the knowledge that the lavender-eyed Comte had in all probability already forgotten her existence.

* * *

Christian had instructed his coachman to drive around and park the carriage a short distance from the front entrance of the Fleur de Lis, once he was assured Lisette had climbed safely into one of the downstairs windows of the tavern. He was determined, before leaving the area completely, to see that Lisette reached her bedchamber safely.

He had been lying, of course, when he told Lisette he intended to go on to further entertainment. Helene Rousseau, and the clandestine comings and goings to her tavern, was his only reason for being in Paris.

At least it had been.

The puzzle that was Lisette Duprée had changed that somewhat.

There was a mystery there he did not understand. Helene Rousseau had been so overprotective of Lisette earlier in the tavern when she held a gun to his back, and yet at the same time there was an obvious lack of familial feeling between the two women. A disconnection that surely should not have been there—

Ah, he had just seen candlelight behind the curtains in the bedchamber he believed to be Lisette’s, instantly reassuring him as to her safe return.

‘Drive on,’ Christian instructed his coachman before settling back against the plush upholstery, his mind still occupied with the relationship between Helene Rousseau and Lisette.

There had never been mention of André Rousseau having a daughter, and surely the other man could not have been old enough to have a daughter of Lisette’s age? And yet, to Christian’s knowledge, Helene Rousseau had no other siblings.

In any case, the discovery of Lisette was an unexpected vulnerability in regard to Helene Rousseau. One that Christian felt sure Aubrey Maystone would not hesitate to use against that lady. As the Frenchwoman had been involved in using other innocents as pawns in her own wicked games.

Christian frowned at the very idea of using Lisette in that way.

Another reason for not taking her back to England with him?