Simply Shameless by Kate Pearce Page A

forehead, where a headache threatened. "I find your ability to believe the worst of me quite depressing."
    "The man Marguerite married is an English lord. We thought you might have sent him to Paris to meet her." Christian's gaze wandered around the room, his curiosity almost palpable. "Since she completed her education and flirted with the idea of taking vows, she's been helping the nuns teach the rest of us."
    "I know that. It's the only reason I allowed her to stay at the school and not come to England as I wanted."
    "You wanted Marguerite and not us?"
    Helene sighed. "Marguerite is older than you. I wanted you two to complete your education before I made any decisions about your future."
    Christian continued to talk as if Helene hadn't spoken. "Lisette and I noticed a change in her a few weeks ago. She was very distracted but not as if she were frightened, more that she was in her own little world. Then she stopped turning up for the lessons at all."
    "Did she tell you she was leaving?"
    Lisette shrugged. "The last time I saw her, she told me not to worry and that she was going to be very happy. The next day she was gone."
    Helene smoothed the leather cover of the massive book in front of her. "I certainly didn't send Justin Lockwood to France. I was just checking my records to see if he was a client here, and I found his name as a guest. But he doesn't know of my connection to Marguerite. And why on earth would I want to encourage my own daughter to elope?"
    "To relieve you of one of your burdens?" Christian said.
    Helene bit down on her lip to prevent a hasty retort. The twins had a right to their grievances. She had allowed others to bring them up and had never been a proper mother to them. She always tried to remember that when they treated her with such contempt.
    Sometimes it was hard. Today, it was almost impossible.
    "I was intending to leave for France today and find your sister." Helene stood up. "If you wish to accompany me, I would enjoy your company."
    Lisette smiled for the first time. "We're not going anywhere."
    "I beg your pardon?"
    Christian stood, too, and looked down at her. "We've decided to stay and see the sights of London. I'm sure you'll allow us to live here with you, won't you, Maman}"
    "But I'm going to France to search for Marguerite."
    Christian shrugged. "We'll be here when you get back." He looked at her plain dress. "Do you double as the housekeeper as well as the brothel keeper?"
    ; Helene stared straight into his eyes, hoped he could see the Janger building in hers. To her relief, he was the first to look away. She opened her desk drawer and sorted through the neatly labeled keys.
    "I have some guest suites in the other house. You are welcome to stay there for the night.
    Tomorrow I'll instruct one of my staff to put you up at a decent hotel and to find you a chap-erone, Lisette."
    Christian frowned. "What do you mean, the other house? We want to stay here, not in a hotel."
    Helene moved toward the door, her head held high. "Despite appearances, this house is actually two buildings knocked into one. The back part is actually the house on the square directly behind us."
    She nodded calmly at Judd, who had remained in the hallway, and walked down the staircase to the basement. She didn't wait to see if the twins followed her. The smell of roasting pork from the kitchen made her feel nauseous.
    "This area joins the two houses together. Today you may eat in the kitchen or be served in your rooms." She passed the kitchen door, moved into the small dark courtyard that was lit by oil lamps, and opened another door into the rear section of the building.
    "The guest rooms are up two flights of stairs. My private apartments are on the lower level. You also have your own private entrance at the front of this house, which faces onto Bar-rington Square."
    She paused at the top of the stairs in the wide cream-carpeted hallway. "I'll assume you wish to be next door to each other." Helene checked her key