Now all Christian had to do was convince Maystone of the same.
All?
Following the abduction and kidnapping of his grandson, even if he was eventually safely returned, Aubrey Maystone was not currently in a forgiving or tolerant mood. It would take more than Christian’s opinion on the matter to persuade that gentleman into accepting Lisette’s innocence. Especially if the other man should realise Christian’s opinion was not impartial where Lisette was concerned.
As he had demonstrated only too clearly these past few days, a man could not hope to hide his physical response to a woman. And Aubrey Maystone was nothing if not astute.
Which meant that Christian—
‘Are you even listening to me?’ Lisette challenged, becoming even more outraged as she noted his distraction. ‘Of course you are not. Why should a duc care for the opinion of a woman he knows to be Helene Rousseau’s daughter, and no doubt considers to be nothing more than a French putain—?’
‘You go too far, Lisette!’ Christian’s voice was a low and dangerous growl, a warning that all who knew him would most certainly have taken heed of.
But not Lisette. ‘I will go as far as I wish, Your Grace—’ she somehow managed to make the formal title sound every bit as insulting as the word putain ‘—when you obviously misled me from the very first words you ever spoke to me!’
As those ‘very first words’ had been his false surname and title, Christian could not deny the accusation. ‘I am Christian Algernon Augustus Seaton, Fifteenth Duke of Sutherland, as well as numerous other titles, at your service, mademoiselle. I trust you will forgive me if I do not get up and present a formal bow?’ he added with self-derision for his recumbent and incapacitated figure on the bed.
Lisette’s present feelings of humiliation were such that she could forgive this—this duc nothing. Helene’s treatment of her had been hard enough to bear, but to realise, to now know, that Christian Seaton had only been using her to get close to Helene, and in the process play Lisette for the fool, was beyond forgiveness.
She straightened, her spine rigid with the anger she felt. ‘No, I do not forgive you, Your Grace. Nor do I intend remaining in your company, or your vicinity, a moment longer—’
‘You cannot leave, Lisette—’
‘I do not believe you are in any condition to prevent me from doing exactly as I wish!’ She eyed him scornfully as he sank back weakly against the pillows after having sat up abruptly, obviously with the intention of standing up, until the pain of the movement became too much for him. ‘I am not completely heartless, and will arrange for a doctor to be sent to attend you before I leave, but—’
‘The landlord here believes you to be my ward—’
‘—be assured, I do not intend— Why would you claim such a thing, now that we are back in England?’ Lisette frowned across at him.
Irritation creased Christian Seaton’s brow. ‘I felt compelled, as you did aboard the sloop,’ he added pointedly, ‘to give some explanatio
n for our travelling together without benefit of a valet or maid.’ He grimaced. ‘I felt it best for all concerned, now that we have arrived in England, to continue with that pretence.’
‘I do not believe you felt anything or gave the matter a moment’s consideration, where I am concerned, Monsieur le Duc.’ Lisette glared her anger at him. ‘You had no thought other than your own need to avert a scandal.’ She turned on her heel and marched to the door of the bedchamber. ‘I only agreed to accompany you to England because of concern for your injury, but now that you are arrived safely I have no intention of remaining here with you a moment longer—’
‘I cannot allow you to leave, Lisette.’
‘You cannot allow?’ She spun back to face him, her cheeks warm with temper and the need to hold back the tears now stinging her eyes; she would not cry in front of this man.
Since the Duprées had died so suddenly, Lisette had been plunged into a life such as she had never imagined possible. That she now found herself in England, an outcast from her own people and country, and completely at the mercy of the false-faced Christian Seaton’s whims and fancies, was beyond enduring.
‘I shall go when and where I please, monsieur,’ she informed him stiffly. ‘And neither you nor anyone else shall stop me.’
‘You are a woman alone, without funds, and as such you are vulnerable—’
‘I am more aware of what that means than you are, I assure you,’ Lisette said scornfully. ‘But I would rather sell my soul to the devil than be beholden to you for a moment longer!’
A nerve pulsed beside Christian’s thinned lips, his jaw clenched as he attempted to maintain a hold on his own temper. ‘Believe me, alone in a foreign land and without money, it is not your soul you would have to sell in order to survive.’
Her face paled, even those pouting lips having become a pale rose colour, her eyes dark and haunted. ‘I despise you utterly.’
If she had said those words with venom, with any trace of emotion at all, Christian might have known what to say in return. As it was, he could only feel the cut of that emotionless statement from the top of his head to the toe of his boots.
‘I do not feel the same way about you, Lisette,’ he told her huskily. ‘Far from it, in fact,’ he added drily for the evidence she had seen just that morning regarding his body’s reaction to her.
She eyed him scathingly. ‘Then that is your misfortune, monsieur, because I most assuredly now despise you.’
Christian could see that emotion burning fiercely in her eyes. And she was only going to hate him more once she met Maystone and knew of Christian’s real motivation in bringing her to England with him. ‘But you will stay anyway.’ It was a statement, not a question.