The Heir - Catherine Coulter [42]
Lady Ann rose gracefully, shook out her skirts, and extended her hand. “This is quite a surprise, my dear comte. I had no idea that any of Magdalaine’s family still lived. Needless to say I am also pleased.”
To her surprise, the comte clasped her fingers and brushed his lips over her palm, in the French style, which, she supposed, should be expected, since he was, after all, French. “The pleasure is indeed mine, my lady. I pray you will forgive my intrusion in your period of mourning, but news of the earl’s death just reached me. I wished to express my condolences in person. I hope you do not mind?” He spoke with a soft, lilting accent that made the three females in the room most readily forgive any supposed intrusion.
“Not at all,” Lady Ann said easily.
“You are the Earl of Strafford, my lord?” the comte asked Justin when he had released Lady Ann’s hand. There was a brief moment of silent appraisal on the part of both gentlemen before the earl remarked with negligent politeness, “Yes, I am Strafford. Lady Ann informs us that you are nephew to the late earl’s first wife.”
The comte bowed.
“Oh goodness,” Lady Ann said. “Where indeed are my manners? My dear comte, do allow me to present you to your cousin, Elsbeth, Magdalaine’s daughter, and to my own daughter, Arabella.”
Lady Ann was not at all surprised that the charming young man was greeted even by her normally standoffish daughter with a smile that would charm the color off Ann’s roses. Elsbeth nodded, wordless. She drew back a moment, allowing Arabella to speak first.
“Although we are not related, comte,” Arabella said, gazing at him with that open frankness of hers, “I do not take it amiss that you have come. I am pleased to meet you, sir.”
The comte gave her an engaging smile. He did not kiss her palm, merely bowed to her. Lady Ann believed him very well bred indeed. He then turned to Elsbeth. “Ah, my dear little cousin, I count it my good fortune to at last meet the only remaining member of our esteemed family. You are as beautiful as your mother, your smile as sweet, your eyes as gentle. My father has a painting of her, you see, and I have gazed upon it since I was a small boy.”
Instead of taking her hand, the comte gently placed his hands upon her shoulders and lightly kissed her on each cheek. Elsbeth flushed scarlet, but she didn’t draw back. She stared up at him with something akin to fascinated awe.
The comte stood back from Elsbeth, beamed at the assembled company, and said, embracing them all with outflung arms, “You are so very kind to me, a stranger. Though my little cousin is my only blood relation, I think already you are like my family.” He paused with an expectant look of charming inquiry.
The earl, clearly seeing his duty from all three eager female faces, said a trifle too coolly, Arabella thought, “Monsieur, allow me to ask you to remain at Evesham Abbey for a time, if, that is, you have no other pressing engagements. Of course if you do—”
“I was going shooting with friends in Scotland,” the comte said quickly, splaying his hands in the French manner that quite made the earl want to hit him. “But I assure you, my lord, that remaining here would give me the greatest pleasure. And such very lovely pleasure.”
From that moment on, the earl thought that Gervaise de Trécassis should be shot.
“Excellent, comte,” Arabella said.
“Ah, please call be Gervaise. Unfortunately, my title is only that—a title that has only emptiness. You see before you a simple émigré, torn from his home by that damnable Corsican upstart.”
“How horrid for you,” Elsbeth said, and there were indeed tears in her eyes.
Oh good Lord, the earl thought. He wanted to puke.
“Yes, but I have survived. I will continue to survive and retake what is rightfully mine after that Corsican is defeated or dead. You have the soul of an angel, my dear Elsbeth, to feel so for me. How like your mother you are. My aunt Magdalaine was a goddess, a lovely gentle goddess.”
It was difficult, but the earl managed to keep his snort behind his teeth. However, his black eyebrows shot up at