As well they might not, Patrick thought to himself. Quite a few members of the so-called Family had been executed by the British government over the last hundred years. Still, he could dismiss the danger of Napoleon spearheading an invasion through this particular monastery.

Dinner was served in the monastery kitchen, at a long, scrubbed table. Having been rescued from the boat, Floret was hunched condescendingly at one end of the table, seated across from Simone. Sophie slid onto the bench, followed by Henri, who appeared to have transformed into her shadow. He hadn’t left her side since they met.

“Isn’t this splendid?”

Patrick looked at his wife measuringly. If only London society could see its reigning beauty now! Sophie’s hair was topsy-turvy, since she had pulled off her bonnet and tossed it somewhere. Her eyes were shining with excitement at the idea of sitting down to supper with her own servants in a thirteenth-century monastery.

“Yes,” he answered, trampling down a sensation of warmth that threatened to make him dizzy. He deliberately put on the airs of a callous aristocrat. “Oh yes, this is an inimitable pleasure.”

Sophie wrinkled her nose at him. “You are funning, sir,” she said. “I can think of nowhere I would rather be than taking supper with Master Henri here.”

Her husband, on the other hand, could think of many things he would rather be doing. But they were all too heady for the ears of a young boy, and so he kept them to himself.

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

The next morning Sophie woke early and crept out of bed. Patrick lay in a tangle of faintly musty sheets, only the tip of one ear showing in his mop of black curls. For a moment Sophie paused, curling her bare toes against the cool stone floor. Then she quietly pulled on the gown she’d worn yesterday and struggled to fasten the back without Simone’s help. She slipped on her pelisse and her half-boots and crept out of the room.

As soon as she left, Patrick turned over and stared rather grimly at the cobwebby planks some twelve feet over his head. Something was happening that was beyond his personal experience. Seduce her no matter how expertly, his little wife had never succumbed. While he wasn’t quite the libertine she presumed, it was true that his previous lovers had invariably vowed eternal love by this point in the relationship.

Patrick frowned. What an arrogant popinjay he was! He had simply assumed that Sophie would forget all about Braddon, the man she was supposed to marry. The worst of it was that he had never wanted all those protestations of love so freely given by other women, but now … things were different.