“Half? That seems more than generous…” She narrowed her eyes at her brother. “This Rose is not a little girl, is she?”
“I would call her petite,” Francois said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“Nay. Do not tell me. Let me guess. This Rose is eighteen and as pretty as her younger sister?”
Francois looked off into the distance and rubbed his chin, as if considering the question. “Nineteen. And prettier than her little sister.”
“Did she take the money you gave her?”
He shook his head. “The lovely Rose kept two coins as a reward, one for herself and one for her sister, and insisted I take back the rest.” He paused. “But I slipped the rest to Lily, who hid them under her cloak.”
“This Rose has enough trouble having Mychell for a father, without you adding to her grief.”
“Me?” Francois said, slapping his hand against his chest. “Add to a young woman’s troubles?”
“That is what you do,” Linnet said. “Have a care, Francois; this is an unsophisticated girl. You cannot—”
“You’ve no cause to chide me. I’ve done nothing,” Francois said, holding up his hands. Then he added, “But I cannot help it if she wants me.”
She rolled her eyes.
Francois’s expression turned serious again. “I am sorry, love, but I have more news to give you.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “ ’Tis unhappy news, this time.”
“So long as you are safe and here with me, the tidings cannot be too unhappy.”
“I must return to France at once.”
“To France? But why?”
“An urgent message came three days ago from our father’s steward.”
Her heart began to beat faster. “From the steward, not Alain?”
“Alain was not well when I left a few months ago,” he said in a gentle voice.
“Why did you not tell me?”
He raised an eyebrow but did not answer. If he had told her, she likely as not would have said she wished Alain were already burning in hell.
“I am sorry, sweetling, but the steward wrote to inform me of Alain’s death.” He patted her knee. “He was nearly sixty, you know. He had a long life.”
“I am a wicked, wicked person.” Linnet covered her face, overwhelmed by guilt and an unexpected sense of bereavement.
Alain had made mistakes from the moment they met—constantly correcting her behavior, attempting to make her conform to his notion of how a protected young lady of noble birth should act. But she had not been protected, and she could not fit that mold.
She would have refused to conform in any case, simply because it would have pleased him. Anger and resentment had gripped her soul; her burning need to punish him had blinded her to aught else.
And now, it was too late to make amends. Too late to attempt a reconciliation. Too late to ever truly know her father.
“I was bitter about the time you spent with him,” she said, wiping a tear away with the back of her hand. “Now that we know the truth, I can see how very wretched that was of me.”
“The fault lay with him as much as you,” Francois said. “He’d no notion of how to treat a daughter, especially one like you. You weren’t raised to be a simpering lady—and living in Sir Robert’s household those last two years did not help matters.”
When Stephen and Isobel left for England, they had put the twins in the care of Sir Robert and his wife. The couple had imposed no rules and delighted in Linnet’s independent nature. Linnet had adored them.
“Though you drove him mad, our father was fond of you, in his way. When I saw him last, he asked a hundred questions about you.”
She sniffed. “That makes me feel both better and worse.”
