Free Brocade Series 02 - Giselle by Jackie Ivie Page A

hope you and Etienne will somehow…oh dear. My mouth does run away with me sometimes. I apologize.”
    “Pardon? ”
    Giselle pried her gaze from Navarre and watched the dowager duchesse blush.
    “Yes…where was I ? Your new family is not so large, oui? I’ve heard your own swelled to eight, is it? So many sons! The Comte d’Antillion must be so proud.”
    Giselle murmured something . It didn’t matter. Mimi just kept speaking.
    “Well, there’s also Esmee . She was betrothed at birth to the eldest son of the Marquis de Lingue. It would’ve been such a union! One, I had a hand in creating, I must confess, but alas, the boy died from a childbed fever.”
    “Then who was Monsieur Denton?”
    “He was a commoner! A member of the bourgeois! Such a misalliance. He was a mere shopkeeper in Paris, a milliner. It was such a shock, and I still shudder to think of the repercussions.”
    She looked ready to faint. Giselle kept her eyebrows from rising, and was proud of that fact. And while she waited for the dowager duchesse to recover, she practiced ignoring Navarre’s presence, just as the priest had advised her to do.
    “Esmee’s rather …large, my dear,” the dowager duchesse continued. “Not that you’ll ever have that problem but she was also too old. Why, she was over twenty when Monsieur Denton offered for her. He was tossed out for his trouble. Their father would never allow a marriage with a tradesman. Esmee had other plans, though. You see. She eloped.”
    Giselle was engrossed by the story of Esmee’s elopement . She wouldn’t have dreamed the woman capable of such a thing.
    “Of course, Monsieur du Berchald, my husband’s brother, disowned her completely. Cut her off without a franc, if you will. He had no other choice.” She shook her head sadly.
    I won ’t look at Navarre. I won’t! Nothing can make me.
    “ She was in luck that Etienne accepted her back when Monsieur Denton died. Then again, Etienne was young…just sixteen, and he had other things occupying his life. He had just been wed with you, and received your dower.”
    With Janelle, you mean, Giselle thought absently. It was a moot point. She had still been wed. She was having a difficult time following the conversation. Navarre had moved from behind the pianoforte to the fireplace. Giselle somehow knew it without looking.
    “Now, we are just the remnants of the great Berchald dynasty . What you see before you, is the only family I have. You’d think with so many nephews, I would have more babies to spoil…oh dear. I have done it again.”
    “What of Na — Um. The others?”
    “Jean-Claude is wed almost eight years. That is his wife over there.”
    The dowager duchesse gestured to someone Giselle should have remembered. She looked over and saw a large, unhappy-looking woman. Giselle pitied her the stays of her corset, because she looked pinched in half. Giselle may have a small waist, but her own corset was driving her mad with the scratchiness. It was best to keep her mind off of it.
    She was wearing one of her new gowns, complete with panniers to hold the skirts out at the sides . To sit and converse with Aunt Mimi, meant she was barely seated on the edge of her chair. That was the only way her skirts would fit.
    “ They have a daughter, but alas, no heir. Of course, Jean-Claude would have a better chance of that if he stayed at the castle instead of intriguing with his Mama.”
    Aunt Mimi touched Giselle hand with the tip of her fan, as if she were telling the latest bit of gossip. And perhaps it was. What did Giselle know of it?
    “My maid mentioned that Etienne sent for a bath this afternoon, my dear . I can’t tell you how pleased I am about that.”
    Giselle moved uncomfortably on the chair . It wasn’t due to her dress. It was because of her failure. Etienne wasn’t sending for a bath because of his wife. She hadn’t managed to gain enough courage to even speak with him.
    “It would make my heart so proud to see his