Only With Your Love (Vallerands #2)(65)

“You are disgusting!”

“Basic needs,” he continued, “that at times have little to do with love.” He stared at her with direct blue eyes. “As you well know.”

Celia was pinned to the chair by his stare. A crimson tide washed slowly over her face. Raising her trembling hand to her chest, she tried to calm the panicked rhythm of her heart. “Oh,” she breathed. “How could you?”

“You’d like for me to pretend that night never happened,” he said quietly. “But one thing I’ve never been is a hypocrite.”

“No, just a thief, outlaw, despoiler of women—”

“Pardon,” Lysette’s blithe voice came from the doorway. “I was in the nursery with Rafael. It took a minute or so for me to…” She frowned as she saw the wounded anger on Celia’s face, and Justin’s unreadable expression. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?”

“We have a small mystery to be solved,” Justin replied, moving his gaze from Celia to his stepmother.

“Oh?” Lysette suddenly looked far, far too innocent. “Perhaps we should wait until Max returns home and then—”

“Nay, you’ll do very well,” Justin said. “You already know the answers to our mystery, don’t you Belle-mère? You can begin by explaining why Miss Briony Doyle threw herself into my arms a few minutes ago.”

“Briony? She…Oh dear!” Dismay crossed Lysette’s delicate features. “I had asked Briony to keep her distance from you. I thought that what I told her would have kept her from…ah, mon Dieu…she knows, then?”

“She knows,” Justin said flatly. “Belle-mère, tell me—and my charming wife—exactly what the relationship between Philippe and Miss Doyle was.”

Lysette cast an apprehensive glance at Celia. “I do not think it is necessary to divulge something that should be kept private—”

“Yes, it is necessary,” Celia said fiercely. “I am weary of all the secrets this family keeps! I wish to know what happened between Philippe and that girl. Did he love her? Did he make her his…” She found that she could not bring herself to say the words.

Lysette looked at their determined faces and her brow wrinkled in concern. “Philippe would not have wanted you to know, Celia. He never intended for you to know—it had nothing to do with you. But he never could have anticipated these circumstances, or what you would be asked to do for the sake of the family. Before I explain you must understand that sometimes people cannot help the way they feel. Sometimes they find themselves in situations over which they have no control—”

“She understands all that,” Justin interrupted. “Tell her.”

Lysette nodded and took a deep breath. “Philippe and Briony were amoureux for more than a year,” she blurted out. “He very nearly married her.”

Celia stared at her blankly. “Philippe?” she asked in a tiny voice.

“He and Briony tried to ignore each other. For a long time they denied how they felt. But then…” Lysette cleared her throat awkwardly.

“But I was waiting for him,” Celia half-whispered. She could not imagine Philippe in love with another woman. He had told her he loved her. He had written her long letters describing his feelings for her. A wave of hurt swept over her. “I-I thought I was the only one.”

Lysette regarded her compassionately. “You were the one he married, chérie. It took him a long time to choose between the two of you. After much soul-searching, he decided you were the one he truly wanted.”

Celia did not find that comforting. “But if he loved Miss Doyle, why did he not marry her?”

“Because he loved you too, dear, and he realized how much better suited you were to be his wife. You are educated and from a nice French family, a doctor’s daughter—”

“I was the safe choice,” Celia interrupted, her confusion changing to stormy anger.

Justin broke in. “Why are you upset? He chose you, didn’t he? You got what you wanted. That’s the only thing that matters.”

“It is not! If Miss Doyle and I had been equal in name and position, I would have been the second choice!”

He scowled in impatience. “You don’t know that.” Looking at Lysette, he lifted his brows questioningly. “How many people knew about their…ah, liaison?”

“No one except the family. Philippe conferred with Max about what to do, and Max told him—”

“You mean he married me because of his father’s advice?” Celia demanded, her voice rising with the fury of a scorned woman. “How long did it take him to make this decision? How much deliberation and conferring did it take before he finally came to France to marry me? I waited for three years! He wasn’t waiting for the war to end, he was taking his time about deciding which woman to marry!”

Lysette winced and sent a look of appeal to Justin.

Justin nodded slightly, his gaze flickering to the doorway and back to her in a silent command for her to leave. “Thank you for explaining things, Belle-mère.”

“Do you think Briony will divulge what she knows?” Lysette asked.

“No.”

“I pray that she will not.” Lysette sighed and retired gratefully.