Page 42 of A Sense of Paradise
She was right to suggest that Luke’s feelings needed to be taken into consideration. Flora most definitely didn’t want to cause a rift between Archie and his oldest friend. If ever a situation called for tact…
‘Lord Riley will find Avery soon enough,’ Pawson said, misinterpreting Archie’s unsettled mood.
‘Perhaps, but I’m still uncomfortable about Maurice, and about Eloise’s insistence that she remain in England.’ Archie thumped one clenched fist against his opposite palm. ‘Something isn’t right, but I’m damned if I can see the wood for the trees.’
‘You think Eloise deliberately misled you?’
‘I think she came with expectations that were not limited to finding her brother.’
‘Did she now?’ Pawson grinned. ‘Can’t see what the attraction is myself.’
Archie sent his man a droll look. ‘I wish Flora hadn’t offered to accommodate her. I’m not comfortable thinking of the two of them beneath the same roof. What the devil will they find to talk about? They don’t have anything in common.’
‘Other than you.’ Pawson flexed a brow in his customary impertinent manner. ‘Afraid she’ll give away a few trade secrets and put Flora off the idea of marriage?’
‘Terrified,’ he replied shortly.
‘If you’re right about Eloise wanting to get her hooks back into you, then Flora did you a service.’
Archie’s head shot round. ‘What the devil do you mean by that?’
‘She couldn’t come to England unescorted, but Louis offered—just as she knew he would. She’s always treated him like an unpaid lackey, and shamelessly exploits his weakness for her. Louis probably hates you, by the way, and thinks you took her away from him.’
Archie shrugged. ‘That’s not how it was.’
‘I know that, but he doesn’t. Or else he chooses to ignore the fact that she offered herself to you.’
Archie waved Pawson’s suggestion aside. ‘This is all speculation.’
‘Some of it perhaps, but not Louis’s devotion to Eloise.’ He paused. ‘Have you ever asked yourself who went before you?’
‘Because I wasn’t Eloise’s first?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Archie lifted one negligent shoulder. ‘I confess that I have not.’
‘You put it down to the more casual French approach toamourand I never set you straight on the point. But I did hear gossip in the village that Louis had been on the point of proposing to her until you came along and her priorities changed. I encountered Louis on more than one occasion, drinking himself into a stupor in the local tavern. I got the impression that he’d been turning the air blue with insults directed towards you prior to my arrival. Of course, all that stopped when I walked in.’
‘Why am I only just hearing about this now?’
Pawson shrugged. ‘It didn’t seem relevant.’
‘I don’t poach on other men’s territory.’
Pawson cleared his throat and fixed Archie’s injured left side with a significant look.
‘That was different,’ he said impatiently. ‘Magda was already married and looking for a distraction. I wouldn’t have knowingly got in the way of Louis’s aspirations.’ Archie thought back to his months of torment, the acute pain, self-hatred and lack of any kind of will to live and wondered if that was the truth. ‘Well, probably not.’
‘My point is, guv’nor, that either circumstances or a more sinister hand has played a part in the timing, given that her arrival coincided with the preparations for the grape harvest.’
Archie nodded. ‘She was aware when asking him to accompany her that Louis couldn’t be spared for very long at such a vital time.’
‘Precisely. But there again, perhaps I’m doing her a disservice. It’s not as though she could have chosen when Maurice took it upon himself to scarper.’
Archie firmed his jaw as he nodded. ‘Eloise couldn’t have stayed at the Stag unaccompanied after Louis’s departure.’
‘Precisely, so you would have felt duty bound to offer her a room here.’
