“When do you plan to hold this reception?” she blurted out in the middle of a conversation about some neighbor. Then she blushed at her rudeness.
But Izzy didn’t turn a hair. “After Christmas, close to the New Year. New year, new you!”
Zoë breathed again. So, almost a month before she needed to grit her teeth and make her entrance into English society.
She hadn’t yet told her sisters that she wasn’t at all keen to enter society. They were both so enthusiastic and had gone to so much trouble to ensure she was fit to enter the ton; she couldn’t bring herself to tell them.
She’d attended dozens of French society events, and though she’d been quite popular and hadn’t blotted her copybook—apart from the incident with Monsieur Etienne—somehow, doing it in England was different. For a start, she was nervous that she’d revert back to her old accent.
Everyone here had been delighted with the improvement in her speech, and when she wanted to, she could even insert a faint flavor of French into it, as a real French cousin would.
But driving through London, she’d heard a cacophony of accents out in the streets, and she was a natural mimic. It had helped enormously when Lucy was teaching her to sound like an English lady—she had a good ear—but Zoë also had a tendency to reflect someone’s manner of speech back at them, which was not so good. She’d discovered that when she’d met a Scottish lady in Paris and found herself, after fifteen minutes’ conversation, responding to the lady with a soft Scottish burr. Lucy had been horrified; Zoë hadn’t even realized she was doing it.
And even though she’d met dozens of charming Frenchmen, several of whom had even proposed marriage to her, none of them had given her the slightest desire to even consider marriage. It wasn’t because they were French, either—she just couldn’t see herself as a wife, living the life of a society lady. She just wasn’t made like that.
It was telling that the only man she’d ever been able to envisage herself marrying was a footloose vagabond English artist. Who was a charming, untrustworthy rogue.
The following morning after a delicious breakfast—Cook’s way of welcoming her back—Zoë joined Clarissa in the garden to pick rose hips. First Clarissa showed her how to pick them—she used scissors to snip them off—and for the first little while they worked side by side.
“Did you enjoy your time in France?” Clarissa asked as she snipped and dropped rose hips into her basket.
“Yes, very much. Lucy has been simply wonderful. I learned so much.”
“I’m glad.” Clarissa gave her a sidelong glance. “I was worried that you’d fall in love with a Frenchman and never want to come back to England. You didn’t, did you?”
Zoë laughed. “No, not at all. I met some very charming Frenchmen and some who were terribly handsome, but none of them caused my heart to beat the least bit faster.” She’d fallen instead for an English scoundrel, and what a mistake that had been. She added quietly, “I’m not sure I even want to get married.”
Clarissa turned to her in dismay. “Oh, but married life is so wonderful. I’m sure it’s just that you haven’t met the right man yet. Look at me—I was sure I was going to have to make a practical marriage, and certainly not to anyone who had a reputation with women, you know what I mean.” She sighed happily. “But Race wore me down and convinced me that he’d make a good husband, and I’ve never been happier.”
Zoë smiled. She’d seen at dinner the previous night how very well suited Clarissa and Race were. In fact, both her sisters had made very happy marriages, as had Lucy and Gerald. And Lord and Lady Tarrant.
“Perhaps there’s something wrong with me,” she said lightly. She couldn’t tell Clarissa—and certainly not in the face of her sister’s happiness—that the idea of being a society wife didn’t appeal in the least. Bearing children,being endlessly decorative and presiding over teapots, dinners and balls—it was simply not enough.
“Oh no, don’t say that. I’m sure you’ll meet the right man one day. Izzy and I will help you. Being married to the right man is blissful. Really, it is. Besides, don’t you want children?”
Zoë considered that. Yes, she did want children—as long as they were born in wedlock. It was bad enough being illegitimate herself, but to deliberately bring an illegitimate child into the world would be unforgivable.
On the other hand, she was an aunt now. She could love her sisters’ children. Perhaps that would be enough. Hoping to distract Clarissa from the issue of Zoë’s marriage prospects, she asked Clarissa about Izzy’s children and the one she was expecting, and from then on, the talk was all about babies.
As each rosebush was stripped of its hips, they moved farther and farther apart until they couldn’t even see each other, and talk was no longer possible.
Working in the garden was very peaceful, with the birds twittering and chattering in the trees and the scent of damp earth and flowers all around. Zoë snipped rose hips, her hands busy and her mind far away, in a small French village where people would be exchanging old paintings for new…
How could he, in all conscience, justify it? Those people were poor. The price he would get for those old paintings would make a big difference to their lives. Did it really matter that they had been stolen in the first place? It was thirty years ago, after all. But then she thought of the painting she’d taken and how much it meant to her. She sighed. There was no easy answer. She just wished—
“Izzy?” Milly Harrington, their annoying neighbor, stood there. She blinked when Zoë turned. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Yes,” Zoë agreed.
“So you’re back, are you, Zoë whoever-you-are?”
“Apparently. And it’s Zoë Benoît.”
She lifted a disdainful shoulder. “Zoë Ben-whahhhh, then, if you insist.”
“I do. And I see you’re still here as well.”
There was a short silence, then Milly said, “What are you doing cutting those knobbly things off my roses?”
