“Courtalain!” Bianca gasped. “But that’s Nicole’s last name.”
“We are…related, yes.”
Bianca’s eyes instantly filled with tears. “You’ve used me,” she whispered desperately. “You listened to me, yet you’re on her side!” She started to rise, but her bulk made her awkward, clumsy.
Gerard took her shoulders in his hands and forcefully pushed her back down. “Because I am related to her certainly does not make me on her side. Far from it. I am a guest in her house, and there is not a moment when she does not let me forget that I am her charity.”
Bianca blinked rapidly to clear away the tears. “Then, you know she is not the pure little angel everyone seems to believe she is! She married my fiancé. She tried to take Arundel Hall and the plantation away from me. Yet everyone seems to think I am the one in the wrong. I only took what was mine.”
“Yes,” Gerard agreed. “But by everyone, I assume you mean the Americans. But, then, what can you expect from so crude a group of people?”
Bianca smiled. “They’re an ignorant lot. No one could see the way Nicole was carrying on with that horrid Wesley Stanford.”
“Or Isaac Simmons!” Gerard said in disgust. “She spends many, many hours a day with that piece of trash.”
A bell sounded in the distance behind them. It called the plantation workers who were left to dinner.
“I must go,” Bianca said. “Could we…meet again?”
Gerard used his frail strength to help her up, then put his ja
cket on. It was not an easy task. “You could not prevent me from seeing you again. May I say that, for the first time since I’ve been in America, I feel as if I’ve found a friend.”
“Yes,” Bianca said quietly. “I feel the same way.”
He took her hand and kissed it caressingly. “Tomorrow, then?”
“At lunch, here. I’ll bring a picnic.”
He nodded quickly, then left her.
Chapter 20
BIANCA STARED AFTER GERARD FOR A MOMENT. HE was really a fine figure of a man—his ways were delicate, refined, so far removed from the hideous Americans. She turned toward the house and sighed at the long way she had to walk. The distance was Clayton’s fault. She’d wanted someone to drive her about the plantation in a carriage, but Clay laughed at the idea and said he wasn’t about to put in roads because she was too lazy to walk.
During the long, hot walk to the house, she thought of Gerard. Why couldn’t she have married someone like him? Why had she gotten a mean, crude man like Clayton? She could have been happy with a man like Gerard. She repeated the name several times. Yes, life with him would be sweet. He’d never sneer at her or say mean, hurtful things.
Once inside the house, her euphoria vanished. The house was filthy beyond belief. It had not had a thorough cleaning in more than a year. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling. Clothes, papers, and dead flowers littered the table tops. The floors were scuffed and dirty. The rugs were so full of dust that just walking on them raised little clouds.
Bianca had tried to keep a staff, but Clay had always interfered with her discipline. He always backed the servants against her. After a few months, he’d refused to hire anyone to work in the house. He said Bianca’s temper was too vile to force anyone to endure it. Bianca’d argued with him, told him he had no idea how servants should be treated, but he’d ignored her as he always did.
“Here’s my dear—dare I say little?—wife now,” Clay said. He lounged against the stairwell, just in front of the dining room doorway. His shirt had once been white, but now it was dirty and torn. It was open to the waist, only halfheartedly tucked into the wide leather belt at his waist. His tall boots were caked with mud. In his hand was a glass of bourbon, just as there always was nowadays.
“I thought the dinner bell would bring you back,” he said lazily. He ran his hand across his unshaven jaw. “No matter what happens, the mere mention of food brings you running.”
“You disgust me,” she sneered, and went into the dining room. The big table was heaped with food. Maggie was one of the few servants who’d stayed with Clay over the past year. Bianca seated herself carefully and spread a linen napkin in her lap as she studied the food.
“Such hunger!” Clay said from the doorway. “If you were able to look at a man like that, you’d own him. But men don’t interest you, do they? The only interests you have are food and yourself.”
Bianca put three fried crullers on her plate. “You know nothing about me. It may interest you to know that some men find me quite attractive.”
Clay snorted and took a deep drink of the bourbon. “No man could be that big a fool. At least, I hope I am the only one who’s that stupid.”
Bianca continued to eat, slowly and steadily. “Did you know your dear, lost Nicole was sleeping with Isaac Simmons?” She smiled at the look on his face. “She always was a slut. She used to meet you, even while you lived with me. Women like that can’t live without a man, no matter what kind of man he is. I bet she slept with Abe as well. Maybe I was a matchmaker when I put them on the island together.”
“I don’t believe you,” Clay said under his breath. “Isaac’s a boy.”
“What were you like at sixteen? Now that she’s free of you, she can do whatever she wants with whomever she wants. I bet you taught her some of your dirty little bed tricks, and now she’s teaching dear, innocent Isaac.”