Page 1 of The Winter Husband
CHAPTER ONE
Marie was never going to marry. No matter how many men her jailors threw at her.
“I’m sorry, sir.” She dropped her gaze from the bearded young man standing before her. “You honor me with your proposal, but I must decline.”
The suitor mumbled a polite word and then shuffled to the next girl. Marie took a hurried sip from a pewter cup and struggled to gather her wits. If the wine weren’t so sharp, her blue brocade dress so itchy, and her ears ringing with voices, she’d think this was a mad, mad dream. The candlelit room swarmed with deerskin-clad men, many with knives shoved beneath their belts. Among them stood a dozen women, scrubbed pink, wearing ribbons in their hair. It felt like a bawdy house, not the home of Quebec’s most respected hostess, where unmarried men had been invited to select a bride, fresh off the boat from France.
By all that was holy, how did she ever get to this strange place? She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing herself back in the Paris orphanage where she grew up, sitting in a quiet nook, reading sonnets…until the reek of wig pomade and clearing of a male throat broke the spell.
She braced herself as two suitors stepped up dressed in coats of velvet and silver braid. The younger one coolly perused the room. The elder fixed an eye on her.
“My dear lady,” the elder began, jutting out a foot as he bowed, “dare I ask such a goddess for an introduction?”
“I am honored, sir.” After five proposals, she’d written herself a script. “But I beg you to find a kinder welcome among the more worthy women in this room.”
“But it is you who intrigues me,belle petite.” His smile stretched. “I speak with Mademoiselle Marie-Suzanne Duplessis, I presume?”
She dipped a weary nod.
“Excellent, I have found you.” He placed a hand on his chest. “I am Hugo Landry, and this is my cousin, Claude Fortin.”
The younger man shifted his attention. One eye was milky and blind, the other as sharp as a dagger. She suppressed a flinch. Madame Bourdon had warned her: Everything was wild in this new country, the flowers as well as the men.
“Sirs,” she ventured through a tight throat, “I must recommend you to the other ladies, where your honorable attentions will be most welcome—”
“No need to play the coy maiden, my dear.” Mr. Landry’s lips split to show a blackened canine. “I assure you, we are not triflers, nor settlers in one-room huts like so many of the men in this room. My cousin and I are businessmen here in Quebec, with interests also in Montreal. We soon expect to be granted a large landholding of our own.”
“Which makes it all the more urgent that you speak to the others.” She might as well have a tag on her wrist, a price written in ink. “And quickly, before they’re all spoken for.”
“My, my.” Landry reared back, pointing one toe to show off his fine leather boots. “Do I look like a farmer with dirt under my fingernails, seeking a common cow to milk?”
To milk?
“In my home,” he persisted, “I will need a woman of good blood and fine breeding. From what our dear hostess Madame Bourdon has told me, the only woman in this room who matches that description is you.”
“Oh, but you are mistaken.” She tightened her grip on the cup. “Quite misinformed.”
“Are you not the grand-niece of a baron?”
Ah, Madame Bourdon, you couldn’t keep that to yourself?
“I’m a twig far from the root of the tree, sir. I never met the baron.” He’d never bothered with her, not even after her father died. “I grew up far from his barony, in a common orphanage.”
“Yet the blood runs strong. I see it in the delicacy of your features.”
“The delicacy of my features will not bring any wealth to your landholding. For cows…or anything else.”
He barked a laugh. “And yetyouare the only wealth I seek.”
“Spoken like a true gentleman.” And yet it seemed every word slid slick off his tongue. “Please understand, sir. You look at me and see a King’s Daughter. So you assume that I, like every other woman here, has a dowry granted by the king. But the fortune the king gave me is forever lost.”
“Mademoiselle, I would take a baron’s grand-niece as a wife if you brought nothing more than the clothing on your back.” He paused, snickered. “Even better without.”
She examined the wine swirling in the bottom in her cup, irritation rising. Most suitors would have sensed her resolve and moved on. This Mr. Landry was leaving her no choice but to speak her shame. “Don’t put much faith in my good blood, sir. Surely, you know I spent the last week in a Quebec jail.”
“Indeed.” His smile went sly. “We have heard much about your troubles with the law.”
“Troubles” hardly described her situation. She was no longer wearing iron restraints, but even now, in this lovely, perfume-scented room, she was just as good as shackled.
