“He had dark hair, slightly overlong, and very blue eyes,” Clarissa added hastily.
Oh lord, it did sound like Reynard. But she had to be sure. “Wait a minute. I might have a drawing of the man I met. I’ll run upstairs and fetch my sketchbook.”
A few minutes later she was back. Flipping the pages until she came to one of the sketches she’d done of Reynard, she showed it to her sisters. “Was this the man?”
Clarissa took it from her, and she and Izzy looked closely at it. “Our man was clean-shaven and tidier, but this is definitely him.”
Izzy took the sketchbook and started turning pages. “Oh, here he is again. And here.” She kept turning pages. “You really are very talented, aren’t you, little sister? These are brilliant.” She turned a few more pages and gave a small chuckle. “Youmighthave a drawing of him, eh? I’ve spotted several here.”
“I counted at least six,” Clarissa said and gave Zoë a complicit smile.
Zoë felt her cheeks heat.
Izzy closed the sketchbook and set it aside. “So, what happened?”
They sent for a fresh pot of tea and more biscuits and Zoë told them the story, from the time she left the Château Treffier—and why—to how she’d traded places with Marie because she wanted to visit the place where her mother spent her childhood. And about her decision to travel with Reynard.
“He was a painter, you see, and it was such fun working with him, painting together. But I slept in the wagon—which locked from the inside—and he slept outside.”Except for the one night he hadn’t, but she wasn’t going to tell them about that. It was still too tender, too painful to recall how she’d given herself to him wholly, believing him to be the honorable man she’d imagined he was. Believing it to be an act of love. And that he felt the same.
Instead he was just a cheating opportunist. And she’d been a fool.
“Pity,” Izzy said, and winked at Zoë.
“Izzy!” Clarissa said, shocked and at the same time amused.
“But you liked him, this Reynard, didn’t you?” Izzy said to Zoë.
Zoë nodded. “Too much,” she said in a low voice. “But it was impossible, so I had to leave.” She had no intention of telling her sisters or anyone that she’d discovered he was cheating the villagers. Or that she’d stolen a valuable painting from him, but that it wasn’t really stealing because it had originally been stolen from her family.
She’d already shown them the painting of her family, now in a handsome gold frame, saying simply that she’d come across it in France and had acquired it.
“Impossible, why?” Clarissa asked. “Because he was a vagabond and an artist?”
“Partly. I know you all want me to make a grand marriage and so—”
“No! We want you to make ahappymarriage,” Clarissa corrected her firmly.
Izzy nodded. “In any case, it’s clear that he’s not a shiftless vagabond at all but an English gentleman playing at being a vagabond artist.”
“And if he looked after you and slept outside on the ground, giving up his bed to you, he sounds truly gentlemanlike,” Clarissa said, her eyes shining.
“So he’s not impossible at all,” Izzy concluded.
Zoë nibbled on a biscuit. She had to find some way todiscourage them. He was still impossible. She would never marry a man who cheated poor people for a living.
And if he was in pursuit of her, it was probably only to retrieve the painting she stole.
She brushed crumbs off her fingers. “Well, whether he’s impossible or not, it’s of no consequence because we have no idea who he is. So let’s forget about him. I already have.”
Izzy picked up the sketchbook and passed it back to Zoë. “Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”
“No, I don’t want you to.”
Izzy just smiled. “The English aristocracy is rather like a village. Everybody knows everybody else, and eventually we’ll find someone who knows him.”
“Yes,” Clarissa agreed. “Even if we don’t go looking for him, he’s bound to turn up somewhere.”
Zoë hoped they were wrong. If he did turn up, lord, what a scandal there would be.
