Chapter 13
“Estelle, are you sure you won’t eat anything? You had no breakfast. A bite of apple? A sliver of cheese?”
Estelle shook her head at Linette and went back to staring blindly out the carriage window.
The castle was long gone from her view now. Was it only a week since she’d arrived there brimming with such excitement to see Valentin again?
Her heartache so intense thatshe found it difficult to breathe, let alone think of eating, she closed her eyes and tried not to think about the look on his face when she had left him with barely a kiss earlier that morning.
Yet if she had lingered any longer, she might have agreed that he leave his country, his people, and accompany her to Cornwall.
Why not be selfish to keep the man she loved more than life by her side?Would it have been so wrong? Valentin had wanted to come with her! She had seen it written all over his face and blazing in his eyes!
Estelle sighed, the sharp prick of her conscience answer enough that she could never have lived with herself, just as she’d told him. They were star-crossed lovers, destined to remain apart, her one consolation that she and Valentin had spent an impassioned nighttogether that she would never forget.
She blushed even now so heatedly that she lowered her head and stared at the forest green skirt of her traveling gown so Adam and Linette wouldn’t notice. She still couldn’t believe she had made it back to her room without them discovering anything was amiss, Mattie curled up and sleeping peacefully beneath the covers.
Estelle had apologized profusely andtold Mattie that she was forever in her debt, but the young woman had only smiled with genuine kindness and quickly changed back into her own clothing.
The only embarrassment had been the two guards at the front doors to Valentin’s private apartment, but she had ducked her head and passed by them with Robert steering her by the elbow. He had assured her as they made their way down the stairsthat the men were sworn to loyal silence about Valentin’s private matters—yet she didn’t truly care anyway.
If the night she and Valentin had spent together made her a fallen woman, she would wear that badge unapologetically. In a few months’ time she would know for sure if she carried his child, but for now, it would be their treasured secret.
Again, she closed her eyes, remembering how theservants she, Linette, and Adam had passed in the castle as they made their way to the waiting carriages had looked upon her with pity. Even Madame Faucher, the head housekeeper who had packed them a basket of food for the journey and had accompanied them outside, had gripped Estelle’s hands warmly in goodbye, the older woman’s eyes welling.
Clearly, news of the terrible confrontation at theball had flown through the castle staff and into town, and probably throughout Bratavia. As the carriages had rumbled through the streets, first Estelle’s and then the one carrying their servants and the royal representative Louis, who was escorting them back to Calais, townspeople had come out of their homes and shops to watch them pass by, many appearing angry.
She could not forget the emotionalhomage paid to Valentin on the day of his coronation, his people well aware of the horror he and his father had suffered at the hands of Henri Chevalier and his son, Gaston. Surely the citizens of Bratavia wanted nothing more than his happiness, thwarted now as the woman he had chosen for his wife was on her way to board a ship bound for England, never to return—oh, God.
Estelle shook her headsadly, trying as hard as she could not to burst into futile tears.
The only other people who had seen them off besides Madame Faucher had been the footmen waiting to assist them, though Estelle had sensed Valentin’s presence as surely as if he stood there, too.
She had wanted to glance up to see if he stood at a window watching their departure, but the thought of seeing the anguish in his eyeshad been too much for her to bear.
Just as the incessant sound of clattering carriage wheels carrying her further away from the man she loved was too much to bear.
Had Princess Hortense already arrived to insist Valentin must choose a bride from among the three young women who had probably stood at the castle windows, too? Smiling and laughing and pointing at her—
“Estelle, you must try notto torment yourself so,” Linette pleaded with her as if reading her mind. Her sister glanced at her husband, Adam’s face as somber as Estelle had seen it, though he bore an air of helplessness, too.
And something else…the raw compassion in his eyes as he met Estelle’s gaze telling her that he knew full well where she had gone last night, and didn’t fault her for it.
Linette, either, her sisterjumping up from her seat next to Adam to the opposite side of the carriage, where she enfolded Estelle in her arms.
“It will be all right, Estelle! Surely in time, everything will be all right.”
Estelle couldn’t speak, shaking her head against Linette’s shoulder.
How could anything ever be right again when her terrible dream from a few nights before had come true?
***
“My lord, is thereanything I can bring you?”
Valentin didn’t answer Robert, but sat motionless in front of the cold fireplace in the drawing room.
Since yesterday, he had allowed no one to add more wood and stoke the fire and now nothing was left beneath the iron grate but dead ashes.
