Regency Surrender: Notorious Secrets: The Soldier's Dark Secret / The Soldier's Rebel Lover. Marguerite KayeЧитать онлайн книгу.
wish.’
She shrugged, but he was becoming attuned to her many permutations of shrug, and Jack knew this one for feigned indifference. When he eased open the catch, he could understand why. Inside were two miniature portraits, one on each side. The first, of a flaxen-haired child, was obviously Celeste. The second, facing it, was of an older woman, her pale hair pulled tightly back from her forehead. Aside from the eyes, which were blue, the resemblance between mother and daughter was very strong, but when he said so, Celeste frowned.
‘Do you think so?’
He was surprised by the uncertainty in her voice. ‘She is unmistakably your mother, and clearly the source of your own beauty.’
Celeste touched the miniature with the tip of her finger. ‘She was beautiful. I had forgotten.’
‘May I ask her name?’
Celeste snatched her hand away. ‘Blythe.’
‘They seem to me to have been painted as a pair,’ Jack said. ‘I’m no expert, but...’
‘No, you are right. Both are by my mother’s hand.’ She had herself firmly under control again, and spoke in that cool way of hers he’d initially mistaken for detachment. ‘Unusually, actually, for she mostly painted the landscapes around Cassis. The fishing boats, the calanques—the limestone cliffs and inlets which punctuate the coast. I have never seen another portrait painted by her.’
Which made this pair all the more touching, Jack thought. He was tempted to say so, but hesitated, remembering her reaction earlier, when he had pushed her on her feelings. And she had pushed him straight back. A salutary lesson, he reckoned, in how not to go about extracting information. ‘Cassis,’ he said instead. ‘The village where you grew up?’
Celeste treated him to one of her shrugs. The feigned indifference one again. ‘Paris has been my home for many years.’
‘I remember, you said you were sent there to school when you were—ten?’
‘Yes. And stayed on to study art.’
‘You were very young to be sent so very far from home.’
‘It was a very good school.’
She would not meet his eyes. Another sensitive subject. ‘You mentioned there was another clue?’ Jack said, once more deciding that the best policy would be to bide his time.
She handed him a small packet of stitched muslin. Inside was a man’s signet ring. ‘I found it when I went to Cassis to close the house up after—after,’ Celeste said. ‘I was taking Maman’s paintings down. This was sewn to the back of her favourite canvas. It must have been there for years. I have no idea what it signifies. It clearly does not belong to my mother.’ She leaned across him to peer down at the ring. ‘The markings, I thought perhaps were a family crest. That might lead us somewhere,’ she said, looking at him hopefully.
‘It looks to me more likely to be a military crest. I’m not sure of the regiment. I would need to check.’
‘Military? Why on earth would my mother have such a thing in her possession?’
‘It’s a good question.’
‘As if we don’t have enough questions already. Do you think you can help, Jack?’
He studied the ring with an ominous sense of foreboding. ‘I can try.’
* * *
The next morning, a soft breeze blew up as Celeste walked with Jack along a path which led from the far end of the lake, over a gentle rise to an ancient oak, underneath the spread of which was a wooden bench. The view was prettily bucolic, bathed in the golden early-morning light. They stood on top of the hill while Jack pointed out the spire of St Mary’s Church some five miles away, where Lady Eleanor’s father was the vicar, and closer, the many-gabled rooftops of Trestain Manor. Golden fields of half-harvested wheat contrasted with the dark-green tunnels of hops, while the low, thatched roofs of the farm buildings and cottages contrasted with the distinctive, conical roofs of two oast houses where the hops were roasted.
Celeste was entranced, her charcoal flying over page after page of her sketchbook, while Jack, seated on the bench under the tree, filled her in on some of the history of what she was drawing. He was back to his usual garb of leather breeches and boots, a shirt without either waistcoat or coat. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up. The skin of his right arm was already turning golden-brown. She would like to draw him like this, his long, booted legs stretched out in front of him, his hair falling over his forehead, the curve of his mouth in a lazy smile. That mouth, the source of such intoxicating kisses.
Desire knotted in her belly. She had never before tumbled so perilously close to completion after a few kisses. The rapidity of her arousal had caught her completely unawares. When he had touched her nipple...
Celeste inhaled sharply. Even now, the memory of it was enough to heat her. And to frighten her. All very well to thank Jack for bringing her body back to life as she more or less had, rather embarrassingly, yesterday, but he had brought it to a place it had never been before. Her claim that abstinence had somehow attenuated what Jack’s kisses did to her felt faintly ridiculous now. In her whole life, she had taken four lovers, and there had been two years between the first and second, yet she knew with certainty that none had made her feel the way Jack did.
The natural conclusion, that it was not circumstances but this man, this very particular man, was what had kept her awake last night. Clearly there was something, some force, some element, some quirk of nature, which made their bodies so well matched. This explanation, she should have found comforting, but for some reason, she did not. If it had not been so reasonable, she would have been inclined to dismiss it as wrong.
‘Is Mademoiselle ready to partake of breakfast now?’
Celeste jumped, staring down at blankly her half-finished sketch. Her charcoal was on the grass beside her. How long had she been daydreaming? At least with her back turned to him, Jack would not have noticed. Or if he had, he had decided not to comment, she thought with relief. There was nothing worse than being asked what it was one was thinking, for it was inevitably something one did not wish to share. It had been unkind of her to mention those lost moments of Jack’s yesterday. Call it daydreaming, call it disappearing, as she had, wherever they were, they were private. His and his alone.
She gave him an apologetic smile as she joined him on the grass, leaning her back against the bench. ‘Thank you.’
He quirked his brow but said nothing, pulling the hamper they had brought with them out from beneath the shade of the tree before spreading a blanket out. There was fresh-baked bread, butter and cheese, a flask of coffee and some peaches. ‘Picked fresh this morning, and though they are ripe,’ he said, sniffing the soft fruit, ‘I don’t expect they’ll be anything like what you’re used to. Our English sun is just not strong enough.’
Celeste stretched her face up to the sky, closing her eyes and relishing the heat on her skin. ‘It is a good deal warmer than I expected. I don’t think I have seen a drop of English rain yet.’
‘You will. One merely has to wait a few days.’
Jack handed her a cup of coffee. Celeste tore off a piece of bread, burying her nose in the delicious, yeasty smell of it. ‘Another myth. I was told that the English cannot bake good bread, but this is most acceptable.’
‘A high compliment indeed from a Frenchwoman.’ He handed her a slice of cheese and laughed when she sniffed that too, wrinkling her nose. ‘Try it, you might be surprised.’
She did, and was forced to admit that, like the bread, it was excellent. ‘Though it breaks my French heart to do so,’ she added, smiling over her coffee cup.
‘But you’re half-English, are you not?’
‘I suppose I am, though I don’t feel it. I think one has to be part of a country before one feels any sense of belonging. All this,’ Celeste said, spreading her arms