Forever My Love (Berkeley-Faulkner #2)(53)

“But Guillaume… what he did… I knew you would hate me for what I helped him to do.”

“You were just a child, a frightened child. Rand and I both understood that it wasn’t your fault. We never blamed you, Mireille. You were such a good friend to us, especially to me.” Her voice broke, and her face seemed to crumple. “We never blamed you at all.”

Mira burst into tears as Rosalie moved toward her and hugged her. Feeling like the child she had been five years ago, Mira dropped her head wearily on the fragrant silk-clad shoulder and let herself cry helplessly. Rosalie had been the only good part of the past. There was no home, no family, no other friend that Mira could look back to… but suddenly the Berkeleys were here, they were real as nothing else from her past life was real to her.

“Mireille,” Rosalie said, patting her back gently as she became aware that Mira was weeping not from joy but from confusion and misery. “Please don’t cry so hard… there, now… there’s no reason to cry. You’re safe and well, what .could possibly be so heartbreaking?”

“Everything is wrong,” Mira sobbed, past reason, past the point where she could control herself. She thought of Alec and her tears seemed to scald her cheeks. “I’ve made everything so wrong. There is nothing I can do now—”

“Don’t cry,” Rosalie soothed, her voice filled with motherly reassurance. “Nothing is worth getting yourself in such a state. We’ll fix whatever it is.”

“No one could,” Mira sniffled, about to explain further, when she looked up and saw Rand Berkeley’s dark golden face. His hazel eyes were as barbaric and oddly piercing as ever. She quivered with fright, freezing like a startled doe. “Monsieur,” she said hoarsely, expecting a cloud of anger to descend over his attractive masculine features. But he didn’t appear to be angry. In fact, his expression was kind as he spoke in the gentle, resonant voice she remembered so well.

“Mireille Germain. I’ll be damned.” A huge hand descended on her shoulder, his touch strong and warm. Then, seeing that Mira was in no condition to converse rationally, he patted her upper arm briefly be-~:~ fore turning to his wife. Ever mindful of Rosalie’s welfare, Rand decided to remove the women from the stares of the liveried servants and the increasing number of onlookers. “Rose, why don’t the two of you talk inside the carriage?” he suggested, whispering in, Rosalie’s ear. “First of all, find out what the devil she’d doing at Sackville Manor. And more important-ask her where—”

“I’ll ask her about Guillaume later,” Rosalie murmured. “Something is terribly wrong, Rand, and we want to help her, not quiz her. We’ll have plenty of time later to ask about her brother.”

Berkeley was about to dispute the issue, since his immediate and overwhelming interest was in the whereabouts of Guillaume Germain, but the sight of Rosa lie’s tear-drenched eyes was too much for him. Muttering under his breath, he nodded and helped the pair into the carriage. As he turned to cast an assessing glance at the front of the manor, Rand saw the dark, nearly indistinguishable figure of a man at one of the ground-floor windows, a man who watched the scene on the drive intently, his fingers curved against a glass panel like talons.

Rosalie emerged from the carriage several minutes later. She took her husband’s hand as he helped her out, smiling at him, although her expression was anxious. Their thoughts and emotions were attuned al-most perfectly, and they each knew from a glance at the other that a private discussion was in order, slowly they walked a few feet away from the vehicle.

“I don’t believe it,” Rosalie said, whispering so that Berkeley had to duck his head to hear her. “After five years we’ve finally found her.”

“A more accurate statement would be that she found’s,” Rand murmured. Rosalie shrugged impatiently.

“This is not a time to examine rhetoric, Rand.”

“And hardly the place, my love. I dislike standing in le middle of the drive and airing our private life for le amusement of Sackville’s guests. Wouldn’t we be more comfortable if we moved this conversation into a quiet sitting room in the manor?”

“Not just yet,” Rosalie replied, slipping her arm through his and looking up at him worriedly. “Everything is a little confused. I’m a little confused by all that has happened in the last half-hour. It is so very odd to look into that young woman’s face and see Mireille’s eyes. Do you realize that she is the age that I was when you and I met?”

Berkeley shook his head absently. “Somehow I kept picturing her as a child.”

“You’ll never know how many times during the past years I have stopped in the middle of something to think about her and wonder where she was.”

“I’ve done much the same concerning her brother,” Berkeley informed his wife grimly. “Where did she say he—?”

“Darling, we did not talk about Guillaume. She is so overwrought that I could hardly understand any of what she said.” Rosalie held his arm more tightly, and he slipped his free hand around her back in an automatic gesture. “I don’t know quite what has happened to her, but she did say that she spent some time in east London when she first arrived in England.” She shivered before continuing. “It hardly bears thinking, my Mireille in that… that…”