Glitter Baby (Wynette, Texas #3)(17)

“Over there, chérie. Do you see that collection of gray stone buildings? That is the Couvent de l’Annonciation. The nuns there run one of the best schools in France.”

Belinda was more interested in the vineyards.

“Some of the finest families in Europe send their children to the nuns to be educated,” he went on. “The sisters even take babies, although the male children are sent to the brothers near Langres when they are five.”

Belinda was shocked. “Why would a rich family send away its babies?”

“It is necessary if the daughter is unmarried and a proper husband cannot be found. The sisters keep the babies until a discreet adoption can take place.”

The talk of babies was making her nervous, and she tried to change the subject, but Alexi wasn’t ready to be distracted. “The sisters take good care of them,” he said. “They’re not abandoned to spend their days in cribs. They have the best food and attention.”

“I can’t imagine a mother turning over her baby to someone else’s care.” She untied her sweater and slipped it on. “Let’s go. I’m getting cold.”

“You can’t imagine it because you still think like the bourgeoisie,” he said without moving. “You will have to think differently now that you are my wife. Now that you are a Savagar.”

Her hands closed involuntarily over her abdomen, and she turned slowly. “I don’t understand. Why are you telling me this?”

“So you know what will happen to your bastard child. As soon as it’s born, it will go to the sisters at the Couvent de l’Annonciation to be raised.”

“You know,” she whispered.

“Of course I know.”

The sun drained from the day as all her nightmares sprang to life.

“Your belly is swollen,” he said, his voice laden with contempt, “and the veins of your breasts show through your skin. The night I looked at you standing in our bedroom in that black nightgown…It was as if someone had ripped the blinders from my eyes. How long did you think you could deceive me?”

“No!” Suddenly it was all more than she could bear, and she did what she’d sworn she never would. “No! The baby’s not a bastard! It’s your baby! It’s your—”

He slapped her hard across the face. “Do not humiliate yourself with lies that you know I will never believe!” She tried to pull away from him, but he held her tight. “How you must have been laughing at me that day at the Polo Lounge. You trapped me into marriage just as if I were a schoolboy. You made a fool of me!”

She began to cry. “I know I should have told you. But you wouldn’t have helped me, and I didn’t know what else to do. I’ll go away. After our divorce. You’ll never have to see me again.”

“Our divorce? Oh no, ma petite. There will be no divorce. Did you not understand what I was telling you about the Couvent de l’Annonciation? Did you not understand that you are the one who has been trapped?”

Fear gripped her as she remembered what he’d said. “No! I’ll never let you take away my baby.” Her baby. Flynn’s baby! She had to make her dreams come true. She’d start her life again in California. She and a little boy, as handsome as his father, or a little girl, more beautiful than any child born.

The expression on his face turned fierce, and all the foolish dream castles she’d built crumbled. “There will be no divorce,” he said. “If you try to run away, you will never have a sou from me. You are not good at surviving without other people’s money, are you, Belinda?”

“You can’t take my baby away!”

“I can do anything I want.” His voice grew deadly quiet. “You do not know French law, my dear. Your bastard child will be legally mine. In this country, the father has complete authority over his children. And, I warn you, if you ever tell anyone of your foolishness, I will ruin you. Do you understand me? You will be left with nothing.”

“Alexi, don’t do this to me,” she whimpered.

But he was already walking away from her.



They drove silently back to Paris. As Alexi pulled the Hispano-Suiza through the gate and into the drive, Belinda looked up at the house she had grown to hate. It loomed over her, like a great, gray tombstone. She fumbled blindly for the door handle and jumped from the car.

Alexi was at her side almost immediately. “Enter the house with dignity, Belinda, for your own sake.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Why did you marry me?”

He gazed at her, the seconds ticking away like lost promises. His mouth tightened with bitterness. “Because I loved you.”

She stared at him, and a lock of hair whipped her cheek. “I’ll hate you forever for this.” She pulled away and ran blindly down the drive toward the Rue de la Bienfaisance, her misery stark against the sunny beauty of the spring afternoon.

She fled into the leafy shadows near the gate where the old chestnut trees hung heavy with white blossoms. Petals dripped onto the pavement and lay in great snowy drifts at the curb. As she turned onto the street, a gust of wind from a passing car swept up the fallen petals from the sidewalk and enveloped her in a cloud of white. Alexi stood unmoving and watched. Belinda, captured for one heartbreaking beat of time in a swirling cloud of chestnut blossoms.