Free Scandal's Child by Sherrill Bodine Page A

and Caroline’s, and perhaps even Jacko’s life. There was no way she could embroil him further, especially a little voice nagged inside her, because she intended to cry off.
    Perhaps Trigge will just give up and leave us in peace, Kat’s usual optimistic nature decreed. He couldn’t possibly follow them to Saville’s home. There they would all be safe. Perhaps, if Jules did not mind, she would take a trifle longer than first planned to end their engagement.
    When would they arrive? She needed to beg Jules’s indulgence until she could be sure they were safely away from Sir Edmund Trigge.
    The gently rolling countryside was covered with grapevines as far as the eye could see. Occasionally Kat could spy a great household way back, up on a hill, or the coach would pass an elaborate gateway.
    Finally, Jules signaled the coach to turn into a roadway that hadn’t been dragged for years. The two other occupants of the coach were jolted awake by the vibration before, mercifully, they came to a halt.
    Château Saville was enormous. Four stories of stone rose straight up to the sky. There were no towers or battlements and Kat, absurdly, wondered how the place had ever been defended.
    Inexplicably, Jules was attuned to her thoughts. “I only remember a few of the stories I’ve been told about the house. Apparently it had been planned as a summer palace, but the knight was lost in the crusades. It stood empty until my great-great-grandfather was titled. He was really the one who finished the château and planted the vineyard.”
    Jules glanced around wonderingly. “I remember it as much larger.”
    Jacko assisted Caroline and Hannah from the coach. Jules walked across the crushed brown rock, at least here some attempt had been made to rake it level, and rang a bell hidden to one side of the
porte cochère
. At once the door was flung wide. A tall, painfully thin woman walked out. Her gray hair was pulled tightly back into a bun and she wore a stiff black dress corded round with an eye-catching set of gold keys.
    “Mon dieu! Monsieur le Comte, you are the image of your late father!” she exclaimed and then gasped as Jules turned fully to face her and she saw his left cheek. Her eyes widened for an instant before she stopped herself. Taking a deep breath, she hurried down to meet them.
    “I am Madelaine Bernair, the
ménagère
of Château Saville. You will not remember me, you were so young when you fled the terror.” She crossed herself. “My parents were in charge then. Now I am housekeeper and my husband, Anton, estate manager. Our families have long served the
famille
Devereaux, and we preserved as much as we could during these long years.”
    “Madame Bernair,” Jules bowed to her, taking one of her gnarled hands between his palms. “My solicitor has told me of your devotion to my home. It shall not be forgotten. Now I want you to meet my guests.”
    Once again he gave Kat a smile that caused the oddest sensations in strange parts of her anatomy. This time he also took her hand, leading her forward. “My fiancée, Lady Kathryn Thistlewait. Her brother, Lord Thistlewait.”
    Kat noticed the usual stunned stare from Madame Bernair when she and Jacko stood side by side.
    “Miss Hannah Hamilton and Miss Caroline Strange,” he continued.
    “Welcome to Château Saville,” Madame Bernair replied coolly to the introductions, her dark gaze unapproachable. “I have made rooms ready and ordered a light repast that will be served in the dining hall in one hour.”
    Exhausted from her sleepless night, Kat brushed off her uneasiness at Madame Bernair’s chilly greeting. Everything else seemed in order as they moved slowly through the house. The rooms were immaculate, if sadly out-of-date. Here and there, Kat could see bright patches on the walls where pictures should have hung. There was much to be done here. Perhaps she could repay Jules’s kindness to them all by assisting in the redecoration of the house. Fresh hangings