She straightened her spine. ‘In that case, it will be no hardship to you if I remove myself from here tomorrow.’
‘To go where?’ the older woman derided. ‘To your titled lover, perhaps? As if the Comte would have you! To a man such as he, you will either have been no more than a source of information about me—’
‘You flatter yourself, madame!’
‘—or a willing female body in his bed. If it was the latter, then I have no doubt he has already forgotten you!’
Lisette could not deny the truth of this last comment; that the Comte had gone out for further entertainment, after bringing her back to the tavern, proved that the kisses they had shared had meant nothing to him. As she meant nothing to him.
‘Do not assume everyone to have the same morals as yourself, madame,’ she hit back in her humiliation.
‘Why, you little—’
‘If you hit me again, then I shall be forced to retaliate!’ Lisette warned, her hands now clenched into fists at her sides as she faced the taller woman challengingly.
Helene fell back a step as grudging respect dawned in those icy blue eyes. ‘This is the first occasion when I have seen any visible sign that you are my daughter.’
‘And it will be the last!’ Lisette assured her scornfully. ‘I intend to pack my bags, such as they are, and leave here in the morning.’
‘As I asked before—to go where?’ The older woman looked at her coldly. ‘You have only the few francs I have given you since you arrived here; have no other money of your own. You do not own anything that I have not given you. You have nowhere else to go, Lisette.’
Another indisputable truth.
The very same truth Lisette had told Christian Beaumont earlier this evening...
‘If you choose to leave here, you will have no choice but to become a whore or to starve,’ Helene added cruelly.
‘Then I will starve, madame,’ she replied with dignity.
‘You are behaving like a child, Lisette,’ the other woman bit out impatiently.
No, what Lisette was doing inwardly was shaking in reaction to this unpleasant conversation, and her bottom lip now felt sore and swollen from the painful slap she had received from Helene Rousseau. Something Lisette still found difficult to believe had happened at all, when the Duprées, of no relationship to her at all, had shown her nothing but love and kindness for the past nineteen years.
Although that slap certainly made it easier for Lisette to accept her own lack of softer feelings towards Helene. Something she had felt guilty about until this moment. But no longer. Helene Rousseau was a cold and unemotional woman, and one Lisette found it impossible to feel affection for, let alone love. Now that she had decided to leave she did not need to bother trying to do that any more.
Helene was right, of course, in that Lisette did not have anywhere else to go, nor did she have more than a few francs to her name, but her pride dictated she could not allow that to sway her in her decision. She did not belong here. Not in the sprawling city that was Paris. And definitely not in this lowly tavern.
‘But not your child,’ she came back scornfully. ‘You do not claim me as such, nor do you have any right to do so after your behaviour tonight,’ she added as the other woman would have spoken. ‘If you permit it, I will stay here for what is left of the night and leave first thing in the morning.’ She gathered her cloak protectively about her.
Helene sighed wearily. ‘Lisette...’
‘Did you even bother to name me yourself before handing me over to the Duprées?’ Lisette challenged derisively. ‘Or did you leave even the naming of your child to strangers?’ She knew by the angry flush that appeared in the older woman’s cheeks that it had been the latter.
‘Surely you realise I could not have kept you here with me, Lisette—’
‘Could not? Or maybe you did not want to tarnish what is left of your own reputation by acknowledging me as your bastard child?’
Helene sighed heavily. ‘It is far too late at night for this conversation—’
‘It is too late altogether, madame.’ Lisette gave a disgusted shake of her head. ‘Would that you had left me in ignorance in the country.’
‘To do what? Live off turnips and marry a local peasant?’ The older woman’s lip curled.
‘Far better I had done that than live in this place!’ Lisette retorted. ‘I will leave here as soon as I am able,’ she repeated wearily as she brushed past the other woman to gather up a candle and light it before walking proudly down the hallway and going up the stairs.
She made it all the way to her bedchamber before giving in to the tears that had been threatening to fall since she had received that slap on her face.
Tears that were long overdue, as she placed the candle carefully on the bedside table before throwing herself down on the bed and sobbing in earnest; for the loss of the Duprées and the life she had known with them, for the shock of discovering Helene Rousseau was her mother, for her unhappiness since coming to Paris, for the lack of prospects ahead of her once she had left this place.