Read Online French Leave by Maggie MacKeever - Free Book Online

“What a small world we live in—if you will forgive me so unoriginal an observation.”
    Forgive her husband? Barbary thought not. It was his offhand, unheeding conduct that had driven her into Lord Grafton’s arms, and look how that had turned out. Doubly cruel now to realize that Grafton had been much the lesser man.
    Yes, and where was Conor’s opera dancer? Barbary looked around the room. “Are you alone, m’sieur?”
    “Quite alone.” Conor quirked a brow. “Do you expect all Englishmen to travel with an entourage? I am a mere subject, not a diplomat or a general or a head of state.”
    Conor Dennison had never been a mere anything in all his life. “I thought perhaps my cousin might be with you,” Barbary said wickedly. “Your wife.”
    Conor looked profoundly disinterested. “I’ve no notion where my wife may be. Apparently you are unaware that we live apart.”
    He truly didn’t care. Barbary found it very difficult to accept this facer with good grace.
    She decided to award Conor with a dose of his own medicine. “I will confess I heard something of the sort. Barbary threw her hat over the windmill and ran off with a duke?”
    Conor gave no indication that his own lack of title bothered him one whit. “It was something of the sort.”
    It was nothing of the sort; Conor had run off with his opera dancer first. “I also heard that she was very happy,” Barbary said spitefully. “What woman wouldn’t be, riding off into the sunset with her own true love?”
    “Is that what she did?” Conor crossed his elegantly trousered legs at the knee. “I was under the impression that she’d run off from her creditors, since a great number of tradesmen seem eager to get in touch with me. Now you tell me she eloped. One wonders with whom, since her inamorato has just betrothed himself to some whey-faced chit.”
    So Grafton’s heiress was an antidote. And Barbary’s creditors irate. Conor was certainly well informed of the latest news from England. Barbary suffered a sharp pang of homesickness.
    Conor must not be allowed to think her an object of his pity. “That is not the story that I heard. Barbary eloped with a handsome, wealthy gentleman of fashion. Even now he is probably strewing rose petals in her path. I believe he was a foreigner. Perhaps that’s why you didn’t know.”
    Conor looked amused. “You sound envious.”
    “Of course I am envious. What woman wouldn’t be envious of such a fate?” Barbary remembered, then, who she had claimed to be. Best to try for realism, in case Conor made inquiries about Mab. “Not that I would wish such a thing for myself, you understand. Me, I am an artist’s model. I wish only—” What did Mab wish? Barbary hadn’t the slightest clue. She thought of the cluttered studio. “Er, to carry on my papa’s work!”
    “An admirable ambition,” Conor said gravely. “I applaud your dedication. Since we can hardly consider ourselves strangers, do you think I might know your name?”
    Conor was showing a marked interest in his wife’s own cousin. Was no woman safe from the profligate? “Amabel Foliot. What brings you to Paris, m’sieur? Perhaps you are in search of your wife?”
    “My wife, here?” Conor looked curious. “Why should you think that?”
    Barbary was not so easily tripped up. “You said she had fled from her creditors.”
    “Ah.” Conor smiled. “But you said she had not.”
    “Yes, but you thought she had.” Barbary had forgotten how much she enjoyed sparring with her spouse. “And therefore might have been sufficiently concerned—”
    “You misunderstand, Miss Foliot—it is miss?” Conor was not amused now, but very cool. “I have no concern for my wife.”
    “Ah.” Of course the brute did not, or his wife would hardly have been in the pickle that she was. “It was a mésalliance. I see.”
    “Do you?” Conor looked her over, head to toe. “You are a very unusual woman, Miss Foliot. Now that I speak with you, I realize