Royally Seduced

chapter 15


LILY FINISHED HER blogpost for Fashionista Magazine and checked the clock again. Jack had been working outdoors for several hours and she hoped he wasn’t overdoing it. Maybe he was back at the manor house with Marthe-Louise. Her stomach growled. And if not, maybe there was something to eat there.

Lily wandered down to the kitchen garden. Tomatoes, herbs and various squash overflowed the beds. Mrs. Wyndham’s gardener would be pea-green with envy. He fought humid weather and various related plant ailments all summer. Marthe-Louise was stooping over to clip some chives. “Ah, bonjour, Lily. You desire Jacques?”

Heck yes, she desired him, but probably not what Marthe-Louise meant since even Lily knew the French verb to want in a generic sense was désirer. Her cheeks heated. “Oui. Where is he?” She mimicked searching for him and Marthe-Louise laughed.

“The lavender, it is ready. Men working together in field.”

Ooh la la. The memory of Jack, a sweaty field hand, stripped to the waist was hot. Maybe she could see him from the side of the house that had a view of the hills. “Can I…” She gestured at the doorway leading to the formal living area of the manor.

Marthe-Louise waved her on. “Go. I cook nice dinner, eh?”

“Good.” She smiled at the older woman. She and Jack would have to get her a fancy gift before they left. Cooking for them all the time was above and beyond what she had expected.

Lily had asked Jack when the de Brissard family would return, but he said the lady of the house preferred Paris and probably wouldn’t be back this summer. Lily had no idea why not. She’d enjoyed Paris but loved Provence.

Lily walked down the hallway past the dining room and turned into the formal living room, or salon. Undoubtedly this was used for parties and maybe even weddings, being able to hold over a hundred people by her calculations.

She peered out the large French doors leading to the stone terrace, but no sight of Jack in the lavender fields. Maybe they were farther up the hill. She turned and caught sight of a large framed photograph hung on the wall that hadn’t been there during her tour. She would have remembered it because Jack was the subject.

Her eyebrows shot up as she peered closely at it. Jack in some fancy tux and tails, with a red sash across his chest, complete with a large gold sunburst medal pinned to it. And there was a woman in the photo. Unless Jack had a thing for older women with hair the same shade of auburn as him, she was his mom.

Lily looked closer and found several similarities in their high cheekbones, strong jaw and wavy hair. His mom was dressed just as fancily in a copper silk dress with a full skirt, and she was seated on an elaborate French-style chair upholstered in white and trimmed in gold. Jack stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder.

Pieces of the puzzle were starting to fit together, and she had the feeling it wouldn’t be a cute puppy puzzle or panoramic lavender field jigsaw.

Lily went back into the kitchen. “Marthe-Louise?” she called.

“Oui?” The housekeeper came out from the butler’s pantry, wiping her hands on a white towel.

“Photo.” Lily jerked her thumb backward at the salon. “Grand photo.”

The guilty look on Marthe-Louise’s face confirmed her suspicion. When Jack had brought her for the tour, he’d sent Marthe-Louise in there first to take down the evidence that he owned all of this.

Not only was he probably ten times richer than Mrs. Wyndham back in Philly, but he owned a huge chunk of France, the farm, this giant house plus the guesthouse. Where he had pretended to be a guest.

“Marthe-Louise.” Her tone was harsher than she had planned and Marthe-Louise shrank back. Lily took a breath. “What is Jack’s real name?”

The older woman frowned. “Jacques Charles Olivier Fortanier Montford. Comte de Brissard.”

De Brissard. The lavender family. “Comte?” She’d never heard that name before. “In English, count. His mother is the Dowager Countess de Brissard.”

Lily made a choking noise. “Royalty?” That jerk. He had said the de Brissards were a dull lot, and not to bother writing about them. No wonder.

“Oh, no.” The older lady chuckled, relieved to give Lily some good news for once. “Nobility.”

“Oh, is that all?” Lily gave an appalled laugh. “Good grief. I should have been curtsying before getting into bed with him.”

Marthe-Louise had caught the gist of Lily’s statement and pulled her wide cheeks back in a nervous grin. “Ah, the food—it burns.” She scurried away before Lily could say that it didn’t smell like anything was even cooking.

The mythical food wasn’t the only thing burning—so was Lily’s temper. She glared at the photo of the lying Comte de Brissard and stalked through the kitchen and out the back door.

She hit the stone pathway leading from the kitchen garden to the guesthouse.

Jack was walking shirtless down the hill from the lavender fields, wiping his face with a cloth, bits of lavender blossom and twigs stuck to his chest and back. “Ah, chérie, there you are. Did you get a lot accomplished this afternoon? I hope so, because I have plans for you this evening.”

He smelled of lavender and sun and heat. Yummy. She tamped down any wayward twinges of desire. She was mad at him and had to remember that. “Hello, Your Royal Highness.”

“Oh.” He stopped. “Lily, I was going to tell you, but the time was never right and then…” He tried to hug her but she pushed him away.

“Forget it! You can go be a sweaty field hand for all I care. I never thought it was such a hot look anyway.”

“What?” He raised his eyebrows. “It is hot outside.”

“Never mind!” Lily tapped her foot. “Any other secrets I should know about?”

He looked away guiltily.

“Oh, milord, now what? Are you next in line for the French throne?”

“I wouldn’t take that job for a million euros. Look what happened to Louis the Sixteenth.” He laughed but quickly became serious at her cold gaze. “Nothing so glamorous. My training for disaster-relief work is in medicine. I’m a physician. They want me to go to Malaysia, but I told them no this morning. I’m staying in Provence.”

Lily exhaled a long breath and slowly circled him.

He stared at her warily, craning his head over his shoulders. “What is it?”

“Looking for either a halo or a superhero cape.”

“Lily…” He held out his hands to her.

“No wonder you knew the names of all those tropical diseases. You probably teach a course in that stuff.”

“Some seminars at the tropical medicine institute in Paris,” he admitted.

“A professor, as well. And yet you have time to chat with the rest of us mere mortals. How ever do you do it?”

He set his jaw. “And you wonder why I don’t tell everyone about my background?”

“I am everyone. That’s really nice.”

“You know what I mean. You’re more than that.”

“So you should have told me. Madame Finch should have told me.”

“I asked her not to. I wanted you to get to know the real me, and I wasn’t sure if you’d be thrilled or repulsed at my circumstances.”

“Lots of gold diggers?”

“Another entirely appropriate American saying.” He took her hand, but she let her arm dangle loosely. “But I knew from the beginning that you weren’t like that. In fact, from what you said, you didn’t care for rich men anyway. I was afraid you would lump me in with them and not see me for myself.”

“I would have seen you for yourself,” she protested.

He shook his head. “What if I had said, ‘I am the Comte de Brissard, physician and nobleman. Come to my luxurious villa in Provence where I can woo you with my worldly riches’?”

Lily automatically made a face and he pounced. “You see? That would have been your honest reaction and that would have been the end of any possibilities between us.”

She considered her gut reaction and admitted he was probably right. “But that doesn’t mean you should have waited until I found out. You could have told me you were a doctor when we talked about infectious diseases. And you could have told me you owned this whole place when we first came here.”

“I know, mon coeur, and I am so sorry. My only excuse is selfishness. I did not want to risk having you leave me before we got to know each other, but I should have been up-front and honest with you as soon as possible.”

“Yes, you should have.” But she wasn’t so angry anymore. “And I’m actually more impressed with your education. You had to earn that, not inherit it.”

“Exactly.” He smiled in relief. “I am not ashamed of my heritage, but the title of Comte de Brissard would have fallen to me if I were the biggest idiot in France. But being a physician, that is my real accomplishment.” He tugged her closer. “And that is why I appreciate your hard work, as well. You are a writer, an entrepreneur. You are not relying on any family wealth or connections to succeed.”

“Oh, Jack.” She blushed a bit but rallied. “No more secrets.” She started to shake her finger at him but instead started picking lavender bits off his firm, sweaty chest.

“I promise.” He leaned down to kiss her but she turned away at a sudden loud engine noise. “What is that?”

Jack’s eyes bugged out. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

“Look, promise me you’ll take the next ten minutes with a grain of salt.”

“Oh, come on, are we in a soap opera? If you have an evil twin or are getting over amnesia, I swear I’m leaving right now. I knew I should have looked you up on Google, but you said you kept yourself off the internet.”

“As much as possible, but you would have gotten several hits.” The engine got louder, traveling along in a cloud of dust so Lily couldn’t see what was coming.

“Grrr.” Lily felt like kicking herself. Crack Reporter-Girl had fallen down on the job.

A big silver Rolls-Royce pulled up in the driveway, looking exactly like the old TV ad. The window rolled down, but instead of a distinguished gray-haired gent asking for American-made French-style mustard, the middle-aged, very well-preserved Frenchwoman whom she’d seen in the family photo gave them a startled look before stepping out of the car. Lily dropped his hand.

She kissed him on both cheeks, skillfully avoiding his damp skin, then scolding him. “Oh, Jacques.”

“Oh, Maman,” he groaned. Lily was so shocked by everything that was happening that she almost missed the fashionable blonde sliding out from the backseat.

Almost. “If that’s Jack’s mother, then who are you?” Lily asked. “His sister?”

The blonde gave what might be called a tinkling laugh by writers more twee and fanciful than Lily, and Lily disliked her immediately. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m Nadine, his fiancée.”

Lily’s dislike for the blonde turned to hate. And Jack the Count wasn’t far behind.



“WAIT!” JACK BELLOWED, seeing Lily sprint up the hill toward the guesthouse. His mother deftly blocked him as if she were some kind of American football linesman and he had to stutter-step past her. “Maman, please get out of my way.”

“Jacques, we just got here. Nadine found your photo online on Fashionista Magazine and we recognized the birthmark on the back of your neck right away. Whoever that girl is who is calling you Pierre in her blog, she certainly is temperamental. Standing here shouting at you and then running away. Not very dignified, if I may say so.”

“Forget about dignified, Maman. What are you doing here? What is Nadine doing here?”

“Making sure you’re all right.” She lowered her voice. “Nadine says the dysentery can affect your brain.” The last word came out in a horrified whisper.

Damn Nadine for scaring his mother. “Dysentery affects your guts, not your brain, and besides, where did Nadine go to medical school anyway?”

“You know I’m concerned about you, Jacques.” She made as if to embrace him but realized he had dead plant matter all over his sticky skin. Lily would have hugged him anyway if she’d thought he had a brain disease. Nadine would probably welcome a bit of brain damage in him, preferably in his frontal lobe to destroy his long-term memory of all the crappy things she’d done to him.

He gave her a hard look and ran after Lily. She was moving at a good clip, but he caught up to her when she slowed for a corner. “Lily, wait!”

She spun to face him. “Another woman, and you didn’t think to mention this, either.” She gave him a disappointed stare. “What did I do to you to deserve this?” She gestured at the house. “Not trusting me to tell me who you actually are. And after I was so careful to keep you anonymous in my blog. Apparently I could have made much more money by revealing your true identity to one of the tabloids and giving them all the inside gossip.”

“I wanted you to like me for myself. And we’re not engaged anymore.”

“Right. I bet if I went on Google, I could find your engagement announcement.”

“Yes, but—”

“Weak, weak, weak!” she blurted.

“It’s the truth.”

“And,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard him, “not only do you have a fiancée, but she’s an upperclass blonde bitch. Well, at least she was pretty bitchy to me, but then again, I’d be bitchy to a woman who I was pretty sure was sleeping with my husband-to-be.”

She turned her back to him and stalked in the door of the guesthouse.

“She’s not my—!” Jack was distracted suddenly by the Rolls rolling up the driveway. The blonde bitch popped out. “Go away, Nadine.”

“This heat is bothering your mother. She was feeling faint, so I left her on that cute bench in front of the house.”

“What? Did you at least get her a glass of water? Is she going to pass out and hit her head on the stone?”

Nadine widened her eyes as if she’d never considered any consequences to her actions, which she probably hadn’t. “My goodness, Jacques, maybe we should get back down to her. Marthe-Louise won’t know what to do if your mother goes into heat shock.”

“Heat stroke,” he corrected automatically. “I’ll have Marthe-Louise mix her some homemade rehydration solution.” But Lily was in the guesthouse, upset and hurting. He ran in the door and shouted her name.

“Go away, Jack!” she shouted. It sounded like she was upstairs.

“Lily, my mother needs me—wait for me.” Nadine was tugging on his arm so he left, casting an anguished look upstairs.

“Here, take the Rolls,” Nadine told him. “I’ll walk down in a minute.” His ex bundled him into the car and he directed the chauffeur to take him to the manor house.

He’d fix up his mother and then he’d fix up his mess with Lily.



“LILY?” A FEMALE French voice called her name.

Lily came out from the bedroom and peered over the railing. Nadine stood in the foyer staring up at her with a pitying glance. If there was anything Lily hated in the world more than humiliation, it was pity. She took the offensive. “So you’re Jack’s fiancée.”

“Jack?” She gave that nerve-grating laugh again. “Ah, Jacques and that American phase he went through.”

Lily squeezed the railing hard, not liking the idea that she was a continuation of his “American phase,” whatever that had been. “He never mentioned you.” That was the closest she could come to apologizing for inadvertently committing premarital adultery.

Nadine shrugged and climbed the stairs, Lily’s stomach falling with every step. “Jacques and I have a different relationship than you are accustomed to.” She reached the top landing and stood eye to eye with Lily.

Next to the Frenchwoman’s perfectly tailored cream-colored linen pants, white T-shirt and French designer silk scarf knotted chicly around her neck, Lily’s own outfit fell sadly short—cutoff khaki shorts and pink tourist T-shirt with a big black camera and strap silk-screened on it that she’d bought for herself as a gag gift.

But she tried to rally. She was not the high school’s token poor girl anymore. “What kind of relationship do you have?”

Nadine smiled gently. “Jacques was not himself when he came back from Borneo.”

“Burma,” Lily corrected. Geez, didn’t she know what country in which he’d been deathly ill? “And you didn’t fly out to be with him when he was so sick?”

Shock and disgust flared in her crystal-blue eyes but she quickly dampened it. “I didn’t have all my immunizations, and I knew Jacques wouldn’t want me to become ill, as well.”

“Hmmph.” Lily would have risked it.

“He needed space and a way to, how to say it? Blow off steam.” She gave Lily a meaningful look. “I knew very well what he might do once out here in the country. He gets the physical appetites of a peasant.”

Ah, and Lily was the peasant pressure release valve. Did Nadine not like “blowing off steam” with Jack? Was she nuts? Or as cold in bed as she seemed outside of it? “Look, I don’t know how the French nobility does things, but you don’t seem very upset that he has cheated on you.”

“Men do what they must.” Catching the doubt in Lily’s eyes, she raised her eyebrows. “But perhaps you doubt me? I am here with his mother, after all.”

Lily pursed her lips.

“You would like proof we are engaged? You of course may ask Jacques himself, if you are inclined to a messy and upsetting conversation.” She pulled her phone out of her purse and pressed it a few times. “Here is our engagement photo.”

Lily unwillingly looked at the small digital display. Yes, it was Jacques in that formal tux-and-tails outfit, complete with sash across his chest, tastefully embracing Nadine, dressed in an ice-blue satin ballgown.

“And here is the notice of our engagement in the Paris newspaper.” She typed for a minute and brought up a newspaper webpage written in French, of course, but their names and the words fiancé, fiancée and le mariage were mentioned several times.

There it was in black-and-white on the web. She cleared her throat. “And you still want to marry him despite the fact he cheated on you?” This didn’t make sense. Jack was scrupulously honest.

Except that he had lied about what he did for a living, lied about his real name and lied about his family owning a good chunk of Provence.

So much for scrupulously honest. She shook her head. Had she ever really known him?

Nadine waved her nicely manicured hand—French-manicured, of course. “We will, naturally, have much to discuss. But I am a forgiving woman. Jacques already told me about you. He said you are trying to be a writer.”

“I try.” Nadine needed to leave before Lily biffed her.

“Jacques says someday if you get lucky, you may be able to get a real writing job.”

“He said that?” That really stung. Her blog and the articles for the Fashionista Magazine website wouldn’t earn the Nobel Prize for Literature, but, dammit, she wrote carefully and put a lot of effort into them.

“Although every tourist who comes to France dabbles in travel writing, you were luckier than most and found your own personal tour guide.”

“Right. But I think my tour is over.”

“Good, I had hoped you will understand that he and I need some time together.” Nadine gazed meaningfully at the open bedroom door, which showed Lily’s clothes tossed on a chair.

“I understand.” Lily headed into the bedroom, blinking hard.

Nadine followed her. Why didn’t she back off and leave Lily alone? She’d go as soon as she could pack. But how would she leave? They were in the country, several miles from the nearest train station. “I’ll have to get a ride to the train.” Not that she wanted to run into Jack, rather Jacques, again.

“The driver will take you,” Nadine quickly offered. “You can ride in the Rolls-Royce. You will like it, your first ride in a Rolls.”

Lily didn’t bother to tell her she used to ride in one to school if Mrs. Wyndham was out of town. “Fine. Now, if you don’t mind…”

Nadine made a graceful gesture and wafted out of the room, her heels clicking on the steps.

Lily chucked her clothes into her suitcase and grabbed her toiletries. She spotted the lavender perfume from the Count de Brissard’s special AOC fields and dropped the bottle into the wastebasket. That kind of souvenir she didn’t need.

Her shredded heart was enough.