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place we WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 35

    lived.
    No one said anything for a moment. We just stared at each other, happy to be together again. Laurent was tall and handsome. His hair was dark and shiny like Helene's but the bones of his face were more prominent with a long nose, a tad too big, full lips and deep set dark eyes.
    Taken all together he was striking, with a masculine beauty that would turn heads. A long thin scar ran from his temple to the corner of his mouth, but instead of marring his face, it added to the mystery. Patty and Leah would go crazy over him I thought with a smug smile.
    I didn't want to be the one to ruin the happy mood of our reunion but I had to know what happened, why Celia had stolen me and where she was now.
    “Helene,” I saw her wince at my use of her given name, but I didn't feel comfortable calling her mother after an absence of twenty years. Maybe with time I could. I hoped so.
    “Why did Celia, I mean Celeste, do this? Why did she take me? Where is she now?”
    Laurent's face tightened at the mention of Celia, his hands gripped the arms of the chair he was sitting in so hard his knuckles turned white. Helene's face was frozen in pain and shock, like a child who realizes the toy they dropped in the river is gone forever.
    She shook her head with sorrow and looked at the floor a moment like she couldn't meet my eyes. Then, In her French accented voice, she slowly said, “It was my fault. I didn't realize how depressed she was, none of us did. I didn't know she hated and resented me so much.”
    She was lost in thought a moment and I tried to be patient waiting to hear her story. But, patience isn't one of my virtues. I wanted to shake the story out of her. I knew it would hurt to hear it and I knew I would feel angry and sad afterwards, but it was like a bandage, best pulled off, all at once, and as quickly as possible.
    She pulled her hands from mine, smoothed the fabric of her skirt restlessly and took a deep breath, “When Celeste was nineteen she fell in love. Henri was approved of by our Papa, and even though she was young, they were allowed to marry. I was her maid of honor. It was so exciting that Celeste included me, her fourteen year old little sister, in the wedding with all of her sophisticated, older friends.” Helene's face showed remembered happiness for a moment before the sad look returned.
    With a Gallic shrug of her shoulders, she continued, “For a time they were happy. Henri told Celeste he wanted a big family and she wanted the same. So they tried, for two years they tried and Celeste had miscarriage after miscarriage. She grew so weak and pale and Papa and I begged her to stop, to see a doctor. Finally, Henri and Celeste consulted a doctor. She had ovarian cancer. The doctors said the cancer was too far advanced, that it had spread. She had to get a hysterectomy at the age of twenty-one. She never cried about it, not even when Henri left her and filed for divorce. I should have spent more time with her, talked about what happened, but I didn't know what to say. I was only seventeen then and still very childish. She was my older sister, invincible and perfect. I looked up to her. In time, I was an adult and since she didn't speak of it, I didn't either. I thought it was forgotten.
    Your father, Lucien, and I were promised to each other as children and when we first met, him at twenty-one, me a shy eighteen, we fell instantly in love. We waited five years to marry, after what happened with Celeste's marriage, Papa wanted me to wait until I was older to make such a big decision. Celeste was happy for me, she had moved on with her life or so it seemed.
    She had a lot of social engagements, a job with an auction house and a nice human boyfriend that kept her busy. She was content, I thought.”
    I was puzzling over her use of the word 'human' to describe Celeste's boyfriend, but WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 36

    decided it must be a French thing and