Free So in Love by Karen Ranney

she asked, startled not only that he was privy to Hartley’s intentions but that he would speak them aloud. Evidently, the rash and reckless young man had not disappeared completely.
    “Hartley bragged of it.”
    A shocking answer, and one for which she had no quick rejoinder. But then, she’d been cured of that habit in the convent. Speech was not only restricted, it was forbidden her for many years. She’d grown accustomed to her own thoughts but had lost the skill of conversation.
    He did not seem to notice her lack as he waited patiently for her to answer him. She glanced to her right, to see Davis talking with the coachman, one cheek stuffed like a squirrel before winter.
    “I escaped France on my own, Mr. MacRae,” she finally said, the words evoking too much recall. “I am capable of rebuffing such offers.”
    “And if that isn’t enough?”
    “Then I shall endure the situation.”
    His face abruptly shuttered, the expression in his blue eyes flattened. There was nothing in his look that revealed his thoughts. How adept he’d become at hiding himself, almost as talented at the task as she. “You would consent to be Hartley’s mistress?”
    “If I must.” Would he please leave? She was beginning to tremble, and if they remained there much longer he was certain to notice.
    “I have a position,” he said, surprising her. “Although not carnal in nature. You’re a governess, and I have need of one.”
    She glanced up at him, studying his face. “Do you?” she asked, feigning disinterest.
    “Will you not consider it?”
    “Caring for your child?” Was this hell, and she had somehow died in the escape from France? Was this the Almighty’s idea of a jest? Or was it, perhaps, one of her innumerable nightmares? No, she could feel her stomach clench and her knees weaken. That never happened in a dream.
    Davis was suddenly there, tugging on her hand, pulling her back to her duties. Irritated at herself for so easily falling under the spell of the past, she turned away with no further word.
    But he was not done with her, it seemed. He followed her and tapped her on the shoulder peremptorily.
    She glanced at him and then away, realizing that she had never seen him angry before. He had only been a lover to her or a friend.
    “You haven’t answered me, Miss du Marchand.”
    “I have a position, Mr. MacRae. Thank you, but I believe I’ll keep it.”
    “Even if you must become Hartley’s mistress?”
    Davis looked at her curiously.
    She turned and faced Douglas. “There are worse things than becoming a rich man’s mistress,” Jeanne said in a low voice. Her gaze was suddenly intent on the cobbled street below her feet. You never cared what happened to me ten years ago, the girl she’d been shouted at him. Why do you now? The woman, however, wisely restrained her words.
    She left him before he could reach out and touch her again. Hearing his footsteps behind her, she gripped Davis’s hand tightly and nearly ran down the street.
    Douglas MacRae, like France and all its memories, belonged in the past.

Chapter 8
    D ouglas watched Jeanne walk rapidly away, thinking that he was three times a fool.
    What had he done?
    He was right: She’d changed. She’d become as arrogant as any French aristocrat. Then I shall endure the situation .
    What the hell did that mean?
    It was foolish to tell himself that she no longer had the power to elicit any emotion from him, because in the space of a quarter hour he’d felt irritation, anger, and curiosity. Without seeming to try, she’d pierced his self-restraint and proven that his indifference was only a façade.
    She disappeared from sight and he found himself wanting to follow her and demand to know why she had stared at him as if she didn’t understand his suggestion, foolish as it was.
    Despite her arrogance, however, her eyes had looked tired. And her fingers had trembled on the child’s shoulder. How old was the little boy? Six? Seven? The age of Hartley’s