She didn’t so much as meet his eye. Nay, she adjusted her gloves and picked up the reins as if he scarcely earned any regard. “A ride through the countryside would be just the thing today, I think.”
He nudged his horse into a trot when she did. And, when Julienne fell in beside him rather than her mother, he couldn’t resist sending her a smile. “I am curious. Does the duc know you are out riding with me this morning, mademoiselle?”
Lady Poole looked over her shoulder with narrowed eyes. “We naturally told him that you were an acquaintance of my late husband to whom we must pay our respects, monsieur. He himself was a friend of the comte de Rouen, so he understood.”
“Ah.” Fairchild schooled his lips into a proper expression of near boredom. “Very good. I feared I might cause you some disquiet. Last evening at the court meal the duc seemed very…protective.”
“Of course he is.” The countess raised her chin. “My Julienne is a prize coveted by many, and he knows well how fortunate he is to have won her heart.”
Julienne made no response other than a too-quick exhale that someone more cynical than he may have called a snort of derision. Her fingers tightened on the reins but then immediately relaxed. Otherwise, her face remained clear.
Evidence enough that she dismissed her mother’s words as false. A young woman in love would have smiled.
They made only idle conversation for the next ten minutes as the countess led them past the gardens and hedges, past all the people meandering about. Past, even, the drilling regiments on the green that made Fairchild take note as much as they had yesterday.
Then, finally, open countryside surrounded them, where no listening ears could hide. And the countess pulled back to fall in on her daughter’s other side. The look with which she speared him was anything but warm. “Now speak, monsieur. Tell me why you have dared to intrude upon my peaceful life with your absurdity.”
Fairchild tried to hold her gaze, but his eyes shifted of their own volition to Julienne. She watched him intently, but no accusation came from her. He drew in a long breath and looked to her mother again. “Your life will likely not be peaceful much longer, madame. You are insulated here at Versailles, but I have been all through France, and the things I have seen… Already the Third Estate has taken its first stand in demanding a constitution. They will not stop until they have demanded equality, something rarely achieved without the shedding of blood.”
For a moment she stared at him as if he spoke in Russian rather than French. Then she let out a scoffing laugh. “The peasants? You speak to me of ghosts because of the distress of the peasants? Mon chére, you worried me needlessly. That will be resolved quickly enough. The king has it well in hand.”
“No, he does not. And when I brought word of the state of French affairs home, I was not the only one who thought uprising and riots were sure to come.”
“Home.” Julienne’s voice trembled over the word, and her fingers now gripped the reins as if they were all that anchored her to the world. “And where, monsieur, is home? Ushant?”
He granted himself only a moment to wish there were some truth that would not be so bitter for her. “London.”
Lady Poole drew in a sharp breath. “The state of France is no business of the British!”
That drew a dry laugh from his lips. “Comtesse, when have our nations not been of the utmost interest to each other? Eager to find some way to gain the upper hand? It has always been so—even when you married the Earl of Poole some twenty-six years ago.”
“I do not know—”
“Mère! Why do you bother denying it? Our presence here says clearly that you know exactly of what he speaks.” Julienne wore fury well. It made her look more the elegant woman and less the ingénue. Though when she turned her face toward him, it softened to determination. “Tell me who this man is.”
“No.” Her mother reined in, and they followed suit, halting. “No, you will not hear the story from a stranger’s lips. It is mine to tell, not his.”
He acknowledged that with an inclined head. “Then by all means, my lady,” he said in his native tongue. “Tell it.”
The way her chin quavered, he nearly regretted forcing her hand. Never in his life had he deliberately brought a woman to tears—but it must be done. ’Twas for their better good.
She focused her gaze on her daughter. “I was only seventeen when I became engaged to the comte de Rouen. Our wedding was still some months off when he inherited a sizable plantation in the Caribbean, and he decided to travel there to assess it.”
Julienne sighed. “I know this story already, Mère. What has it to do with a British—”
“I will get to that part.” Lady Poole squeezed her eyes shut. “He enjoyed life on the plantation and requested I join him there. So my parents and I traveled to Martinique. We were married, and my family promptly returned to France.”