Sophie choked back a giggle. “No! No, I was a most biddable child. It was my father, actually,” she added uncomfortably.

“Oh.” Patrick handed Sophie her muff. Henri—who was obviously taking his role as aide-de-camp very seriously—herded Simone and Floret down the winding cliff steps before them. The sun had risen on a clear, cold-hearted day. Far above, two hawks swooped and circled around the tumbling chimneys of the monastery.

“Look,” Sophie cried, trying to change the subject. “My nanny used to say that hawks swept the cobwebs from the sky.”

“Your nanny,” Patrick repeated. “Where was your nanny while you were consorting with the laundry woman?”

“She was married to Mary’s brother,” Sophie explained. “That’s how Mary found a position in our house. Normally my father didn’t allow any servants in the house who weren’t French.”

Patrick was starting to get a very odd feeling about Sophie’s childhood. “So all the servants were French, including the governesses—whom your father freely wooed?”

“ ‘Wooed’ isn’t precisely the word,” Sophie said. “I wouldn’t call it wooing, because he always pulled them into his arms just when Mama was going to pass by. He was quite obvious about it. Even as a child I realized that his behavior had more to do with vexing Mama than with the governesses themselves.”

“Well, I’m sure they disliked that,” Patrick observed.

“Yes,” Sophie replied. “Perhaps they would have objected less had he expressed genuine admiration. However, I think even my father would have had trouble wooing some of my governesses. Mademoiselle Derrida, for example, had a bosom like the prow of a ship. She stayed with us for quite a long time.”

“Then what happened?”

“Oh, Papa was discarded by his latest amour, which left him no way to provoke my mother in the ballroom. So he fell back on the household. But by this point Mama had replaced all the household servants with rather elderly and extremely unattractive women, so Papa was forced to resort to Mademoiselle Derrida.”

Fascinated and revulsed, Patrick prompted, “What did he do?”

“Well, as I recall, he embraced Mademoiselle fervently in the Blue Parlor.”

“And?”

“She struck him on the head with a brandy decanter.”

Patrick winced involuntarily.

“It wasn’t really her fault; it was the first thing that came to hand. But it was also the first time that my father rather than my mother dismissed a governess. He had a bump over his eye for days. I remember being quite happy because he stayed home every night for a week. After Mademoiselle Derrida left, I was sent to Cheltham Ladies’ School. I think my mother despaired of finding another suitable governess.”

Patrick gave Sophie a rather grim smile. No wonder she thought he’d be out buying negligees for other women the moment she turned her back. Life with the marquis sounded like Bedlam.