Forever My Love(64)
"You're finished so soon?" she asked huskily, leaving off her search for a handkerchief.
"I managed to postpone the minor problems for later. I explained to the servants that we have a very special guest who will be staying here indefinitely—and that she must be treated like royalty."
"I am the last person in England who should be treated like royalty," Mira said bitterly, spooning more sugar into her tea and stirring nervously even after it was dissolved. "You don't know who I am, or what—"
"I do know," Rosalie said gently. Their eyes met and the agitated movement of Mira's spoon stopped abruptly. "Guillaume told Rand many things five years ago in France before… before we were separated. I know about your mother. I know about your upbringing, and your background."
"You do?" Mira froze in astonishment. "You know and yet you've asked me to stay with you?"
"Oh, Mireille…" Rosalie sat down in the chair close by, arranging her skirts automatically and folding her hands in her lap. Her expression was pitying and affectionate, and vaguely amused. "From the day I was born, I thought I was the daughter of a confectioner and a governess… I was a housemaid. Although I was educated, I had to work with my hands sometimes… I polished and scrubbed… I knew what it was like to have to pick up after someone else… I knew what it was like to want things that I thought I could never have. But when I was your age, I found out that I was the product of a secret love affair between a noblewoman and the most notorious dandy in the world—"
"Beau Brummell?"
"Yes, Brummell." Rosalie's smile became wistful. "He is my father. But I discovered that the dandy's daughter was no different, no better, than the confec-tioner's daughter. It made no difference who my parents were—I was still the same woman. Now people think of me as Lady Berkeley, and some of them scrape and bow, and some whisper about my shadowed past, but most of them would never believe that I had once run up and down the stairs lugging buckets of coal for the fire, afraid I would get my ears boxed for being slow. And if things could change so drastically for me, they can for you."
"But a confectioner's daughter is one thing… I am something else entirely. "I am"—Mira's face whitened as she forced out the words—"the daughter of a prostitute." She had never said the word out loud before. "That makes me lower than—"
"Don't." Rosalie's blue eyes flashed, and suddenly her face seemed chiseled out of brittle ivory. She spoke with a meaningful slowness. "I don't want you to say that ever again. Not to me, not to Rand, not to anyone. Your future depends on it, do you understand?" Mira shook her head, transfixed by the sternness that had transformed Rosalie's expression. "No, I'm afraid I don't understand. I don't have the kind of future that—"
"You have a wonderful future," Rosalie corrected determinedly. "I intend to make it so." She continued in a softer tone as she witnessed Mira's increasing bewilderment. "I will take care of everything. We'll be very clever… we'll be very discreet. Believe me, I am England's foremost authority on how to survive a scandal. For the first two years that Rand and I were married… well, that's a story in itself. The next several months you will rest here quietly while the gossip about you and Sackville recedes—" "It won't."
"It will. Gossip is only enjoyable when it's new. It will fade eventually. And when it does, and you have been forgotten about, I will bring you out as a different woman.""Sang de Dieu, what are you saying?" Mira demanded, horrified. "You can't do that!"
"I certainly can. We will make you Rand's ward. Mireille Germain… a timid young woman brought up by a fine, very old, very respectable French family, transferred to the Berkeleys' safekeeping along with her very attractive dowry."
"I have no dowry."
"Of course you do—I'll supply it."
"I won't accept it. And besides, there are hundreds— thousands—of ways that people will poke holes in my story."
"But I still remember what a superb actress you are. You'll be so convincing that most people won't think of disbelieving what's in front of their eyes."
"What about everyone who saw me at Sackville Manor?" Mira asked desperately. "They'll remember me, and they all know I'm not from some respectable French family."
"That is a slight problem—"
"It's a tremendous problem!"
"—but Rand will help us think of some good lies. And he'll convince Sackville to support whatever story we come up with. Rand is very persuasive."