The Frenchman's Widow

  The Frenchman’s Widow

  by

  Eliza Lloyd

  Books in the Imogene Farrell series: Imogene, Jack’s Hellion,

  The Frenchman’s Widow and Lady Prescott’s Confidential Matter

  Copyright 2015, 2016

  All rights reserved

  

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead or places, events or locations is coincidental.

  Historical | Wicked Affairs Series

  Birds of Paradise Series

  Mad Duchesses (series complete)

  The Curse of the Weatherby Ball

  The Infamous Forresters

  Imogene Farrell series

  Body of Knowledge series

  Contemporary Romantic Suspense | Cold Play series

  Contemporary | Far From Home series

  Chapter One

  London

  1841

  The London and Brighton Railway train arrived at Euston Station at noon, bringing with it a tide of travelers and a single refugee. The train blasted its horn a final time before the passengers disembarked.

  Imogene Farrell LeClerc stepped down from the platform, lifted the skirt of her pink silk day dress and accepted the hand of a smartly dressed gentleman who’d ogled her throughout the lengthy journey.

  “Mon dieu!” her lady’s maid exclaimed, pressing a scented handkerchief to her nose.

  Imogene breathed in the smell of humanity and train smoke and freshly dampened rain air. And the stale fishy stench, the horse shit and the Thames. Five years had passed since she’d been home, but it would always smell the same.

  Her brother Charlie wanted to meet her at the station, but she’d refused, even going so far as to tell him she would be in tomorrow rather than a day earlier than planned. Today she just wanted to feel. And remember. And see all those things that had shaped her past. Nerves quivered in her belly.

  Her dress was of the Parisian style, and if she had to wear this damn corset, she wanted everyone in London to see her cinched waist, yards of silk and the jaunty hat with trailing ribbons that fluttered with every breeze. She planned to walk to her hotel and she planned to do it alone. There had to be some benefit to being the widow of a respected French merchant.

  On the outside and to her enlarged world in Paris, she was Madame Pierre LeClerc. On the inside, now hidden and rarely seen, was the old Imogene Farrell who yearned for freedom. She hoped there was some middle ground between utter respectability and wealth. And the despair and danger of absolute poverty and depravity.

  “Madame LeClerc, may I escort you to your accommodations?”

  Imogene had practiced a flirtatious smile, along with other socially acceptable mannerisms during the last five years, and she dazzled him with her best. Helpless, fragile widows needed big, strapping men to assist with the luggage and make arrangements for carriages and hold delicate hands so they didn’t fall from a train platform at full stop. Hell, she could have lifted her skirts and jumped across the tracks—she would have five years ago. Except she would have been in shabby trousers.

  “You are too kind, Mr. Thompson.” Of Thompson, Cherry and Newville, Solicitors, as he’d pointed out several times on the ride to London.

  Pierre had only been dead for two months. She mourned in her own way, but that mourning did not include black bombazine and jet jewelry.

  Her mourning involved missing her dearest champion and creating a new world for those in her charge.

  Pierre had been the best friend she’d ever had, outside of her brothers. And she had loved him in a way that had made him happy. For herself, she’d had contentment.

  “Thank you, Mr. Thompson. I do need assistance with my luggage. I would like to send it on to my hotel, along with my lady’s maid.”

  “Will your brother provide an escort?”

  “No, we’ve made other arrangements, but I thank you just the same,” she said.

  He carried a small satchel, but he lifted her larger valise and pushed his way through the crowd, while she stayed only a step behind and her lady’s maid, Laraine, one step farther back. Imo cut and weaved, avoiding contact as much as possible. She still had the street magic of her youth, only now she knew how to use it to her advantage as a desirable woman. Pierre had taught her much, but mostly he taught as a French man who appreciated women. With a sharp mind but aging body, he had been the perfect model of respectability, kindness and chivalry.

  She missed Pierre and the way he answered her questions with a sweet French epithet. Mon amour. Ma douce. Ma fille cherie. Belle femme.

  Colombe.

  Mr. Thompson dutifully made arrangements for the luggage while Imogene stood to the side. She clutched her fancy parasol and her purse hung from her wrist by a sturdy drawstring. Within a few months of her marriage, she learned the futility of impatience and had conquered that vice—mostly. Already the excitement of the city beat through her veins and she could barely contain her need to rush through the doors, leaving the raucous noise of the station behind.

  “I must ask again, Madame LeClerc. Are you certain I cannot escort you to your lodgings? It is impolite to leave a lady without a proper chaperone.”

  “You are ever thoughtful, Mr. Thompson, but I feel the need to walk today. It was so lovely to make your acquaintance.” Imo held out her gloved hand, and Mr. Thompson gripped her smaller hand between his much larger one, so different from her husband’s frail limbs and weak grip.

  “I know it is presumptuous, but would you consider a carriage ride in Hyde Park? Later in the week, perhaps? After you are settled, of course.”

  Imo had considered the possibility of another marriage. As yet, she was undecided. She did know she didn’t want to be alone, and to that end, she had already decided to accept a closer association should Mr. Thompson ask. He would not be the first, nor would he be the last. With her respectable name, she intended to meet a man who would appreciate her, in all the ways a man appreciated a woman. Whether Mr. Thompson was that man was yet to be seen. But Pierre, with a mind to her future, liked to remind her that opportunities where only a matter of saying yes.

  Pierre wasn’t Jack, but she hadn’t respected Pierre any less.

  Jack. His name was like a chant, an acolyte prayer inside her head. Soft, imploring reminders that she hadn’t forgotten him. Nor stopped loving him.

  Imo’s only love had been Jack Davenport, and Pierre had always known that, once she had told him the truth of her past. She had hidden her feelings well, but Pierre had instincts about people. It was why he was such an astute businessman. He knew her heart had been broken, though she’d never had to tell him.

  Jack was married and likely had forgotten her and their short-lived affair. It was the truth. And the other truth was that, for her, there wouldn’t be anyone else but Jack. Of course, she loved Pierre, and she’d been a good and faithful wife to him. But there was only one man who possessed her soul.

  “I would be honored,” she said to Mr. Thompson.

  “Would Thursday be suitable?”

  She said yes in spite of not knowing Charlie’s plans. “If there is a conflict with my brother, I have your card.”

  Imogene had learned to appreciate a man’s look. It had taken some time to recover after Jack and...well, she had recovered, and that was what was important.

  Mr. Thompson shot her a lopsided grin, doffe
d his hat and took his leave.

  Her quiet lady’s maid accompanied their bags to the hotel.

  Imo set her shoulders and walked out of the train station. Aside from the fact she was not wearing a damn ridiculous corset when she was last in London, it was as though she’d never left.

  * * * * *

  Fitzroy Square was within walking distance, but she wasn’t going to visit Mary FitzPatrick just yet. Mary had been her mother’s dearest friend years ago, before Mam died, and she had faithfully written while Imo lived in Paris. Imo could only imagine the surprise on Mary’s face when Imo had written her first letter, after Pierre had paid for her schooling with a sadistically disciplined instructor who’d required she practice writing until her hand ached.

  Everyone, those liars, had told her reading was a great joy. She found it useful but tortuous—she’d much rather hear a well-told story than subject her impatient self to the mind-numbing effort it took to read two pages of a novel.

  Mrs. FitzPatrick had been the hub of the Farrells’ world until they’d been scattered to the four winds. They had made a pact—no matter what, they would make sure Mary knew what was happening with the Farrells, so they wouldn’t inadvertently lose track of each other. Except for Frank, lost to them forever.

  As orphans, they had no place to call home. No anchor to hold them to one place, only each other, but here they were, over five years later, still standing. Mostly.

  Danny lived in Deal and worked for some rich land baron. Charlie was at seminary and about to take orders, after which his benefactor would provide a desirable living.

  And Frank.

  They’d not heard from Frank since he’d been transported over five years ago. She sent a letter once a month to Botany Bay. Of all of them, Frank would somehow land on his feet even though his circumstance was the worst. She couldn’t bear to think of his suffering there. Of him being alone.

  Imogene walked on, turning west, away from Seven Dials and toward Hyde Park. The day was a perfect blend of friendly sunshine and companionable warmth. The breeze carried familiar London odors, but Imo didn’t care. They’d had no house to call home, but they had London. The docks, the streets, the shabby room in the attic of Mrs. Bunton’s boarding house.

  London paled in comparison to Paris. The streets were dirtier, the people less sophisticated, the homes more blockish. In London, she would never have been anything but an orphan and a whore.

  In Paris, she’d become something more than a simple, uneducated woman. She had learned from Pierre. All the lack that had held her back and had caused her misery had been replaced by confidence and education and poise. And Pierre’s money.

  The polish, the veneer still hid the real Imogene—she was as tough and no nonsense as she’d ever been. Only now she wasn’t fighting for her life.

  She would have taken great pleasure in knocking on Jack’s door, but as Pierre often said, revenge was a poor man’s tool. What he meant was revenge was an uneducated man’s tool. It would have been petty and spiteful to appear on Jack’s doorstep when he was married, with two sons and an earldom. Was he happy? She didn’t know. She suspected not, knowing Catherine.

  Jack’s decisions had been bred into him. Honoring family and tradition was a way of life. What kind of future would a child of theirs have had if Jack had agreed to marry her? She a child of the streets, a girl with no morals? Nothing to bring to a marriage?

  Who would have respected them? How many would have sneered behind their backs or disassociated themselves from Jack? She would have always been an embarrassment to him. The more she’d learned, the more she’d realized the depth to which he’d stooped in order to have her as his mistress. Lust of the heart, as Pierre had said.

  If so, she suffered from the same disease and the cure had happened only with time and distance and the love of an old man.

  And the more she realized what an idiotic little girl she’d been to think they could have had any kind of future, the more she appreciated their affair had ended on the day he’d gotten married.

  The few times she thought of that day, she wondered if she might have stayed with Jack had she not encountered that bastard Shiffington.

  Still, Jack had started her on this brighter path, starting with a quill and the scroll of her name. Without him, she would have been less than nothing. She wanted him to know she’d made it. That she’d succeeded against all odds.

  She was grateful for what he had done, not angry for what he could not do.

  Imogene heard the high-pitched bark before she saw the white poodle charge onto the path where she walked. A leather leash dragged along behind the odious mutt. And why should the little beast approach her? There were plenty of fashionable people about whom the pup could harass. Maybe it knew she was the one woman who didn’t belong amongst the well-dressed group.

  She stopped when the little beast decided to block her path. It set to growling in between the shrill yapping, attempting its best to be ferocious in the face of perceived danger. Her parasol, perhaps?

  Bending down, she lowered one hand, which the mutt did not like, and she spoke with a soft voice with which dogs were supposed to respond. “Bonjour, le petit chiot. Etes-vous perdu?”

  With renewed intent, the dog snapped back with a bark that said, No, I am not lost.

  “Well, so you don’t speak French. Would you cease this noise if I promised you a thick piece of fatty meat, which of course I don’t have, so you’ll just have to believe me?” She forced a smile, sure the dog interpreted it as false.

  Imogene tapped her foot. The mutt heard and then started darting toward her leg, threatening to bite. She kicked out, her skirt flaring, all the while hoping to scare him away. She also hoped the owner of this misbegotten son of Satan would soon appear. There were plenty of people walking in the park. To whom did this beast belong?

  She noticed the couple who were taking a seat on a park bench. They were approached by another woman who sat on the bench too. The man turned toward Imo, seeming to notice the fiendish dilemma at her feet. Perhaps it was their dog, and perhaps she’d give the London gent a piece of her mind.

  She threatened the mongrel one more time, using her best street voice. “Little mutt, if you don’t stop this racket and let me pass at once, you’re going to get a very fine French parasol up your arse.”

  The brim of her hat was tilted at a perfectly seductive angle, but it only allowed her to see the finely polished boots of the gentleman who came near.

  “Do you need help, ma’am?” He swooped down and grabbed the nuisance, placing his strong hand on the mutt’s head and stroking. The little demon hushed.

  The large demon of her dreams stood tall in front of her.

  Imogene lowered her parasol, her arm too weak to hold it steady. She lifted her gaze and stared into the equally surprised gaze of Jack Davenport.

  “Jack,” she whispered.

  He stared for a stilted moment, but his manners were impeccable as he used his free hand to remove his hat. “As always, you snatch the very words from my brain.”

  “English education for you,” she said. “How have you been, Lord Prescott?” He was the earl now. Tidbits seemed to find their way to her, which is why she was careful about what she said to Mary and Charlie and Danny. She did not want gossip getting back to Jack. Or truth.

  “Imogene Farrell,” he said. She wanted to deny his voice caressed her skin like a summer breeze on a sultry night, but denials were useless. Jack had always been the cadence to which her heart beat. Her love was both wide and deep. She had known those simple feelings as a street orphan and regularly professed her affection for him, ignorantly believing dreams of always being together could come true.

  He had never come close to uttering such a dramatic and binding phrase.

  “In the flesh,” she said, a little more composed after the initial shock.

  He cleared his voice and waved a hand toward the park bench he had just departed. “Might I introduce you to my wife?
And an acquaintance?”

  Imogene leaned slightly, squelching emotion and jealousy, to see she was pregnant, his wife of five years. Catherine.

  Under most circumstances, his manners were perfectly acceptable. He was clearly flustered if he thought it was a good idea to introduce her to his wife. She had no doubt the lovely Lady Prescott would proceed directly into childbirth if Jack actually introduced her properly. Lady Prescott. My former whore, Imogene.

  “The beautiful, winsome, heavy-with-child Madonna there? That’s your wife?” Imogene pretended saintly surprise, but she had never forgotten Catherine.

  Imo had always felt guilty for not blurting out the truth of Catherine’s inconstancy. Perhaps their lives would have all turned out differently. Then again, perhaps not. She would still have been Jack’s whore, a woman who did not belong in his world.

  And was Shiffington still part of their lives? Could his secret, his betrayal have remained hidden during the past five years? Gah, nearly six years! She’d never planned to be away for so long.

  “Yes. That’s her.”

  “You know it has never been a sound idea to introduce me to anyone, but I thank you for the pretend courtesy.”

  He blushed a bit. The dog licked at his finger. Imo could almost envy the mutt.

  “Under different circumstances, perhaps. I’m sorry, I should have thought more clearly.”

  Imo examined his wife a second time, consumed with a jealousy she’d thought long conquered. Catherine. Of course, Jack was unaware of the secrets Imogene carried inside her memory about the cruel and heartless woman he’d married. Or the duplicity of his supposed best friend.

  His wife was still astoundingly beautiful, perhaps more so, burdened with impending motherhood as she was.

  “You must get bored with such perfection. Does she birth archangels?” Imogene asked.

  Jack laughed, low and discreet. “I’d like to think so.”

  “Hmm,” she said and then stared at him. “Strange that would be the case, since she’s married to a devil.”

  “You haven’t changed a bit, Imogene.”

  “Madame Pierre LeClerc, if you please.” She held out her hand as she would for the most exalted personage. A bit of self-satisfaction coursed through her middle. She’d wed a respectable man in spite of her past.