The Making of a Duchess by Shana Galen Read Free Book Online

expected, and Julien had seen her lingering about the vestibule and conferring with Cook, undoubtedly on the best time to serve dinner.
       Julien's library faced the back of the town house, but it opened into a small parlor his mother often used for correspondence in the mornings. It was a feminine room with pastel paintings on the walls, delicately carved molding on the walls and ceiling, small chairs upholstered in pink and white silk, and fresh flowers in fragile vases.
       Julien felt big and cumbersome in this parlor, but it had the advantage of facing the street. Thus, he had found reason to occupy himself there most of the afternoon.
       Not because he wanted to see this Mademoiselle Serafina. It was just that his library was… too dark, and he had several documents to review.
       He was at the window, document in hand, when the much-anticipated Serafina arrived. He almost dropped the papers when she stepped down from the carriage, assisted by a footman. He took her in quickly. She was tall and slim and wearing a fashionable blue gown with a large hat that obscured her face. But then she glanced up, and Julien took a half step back. She did not look at all as he had expected. She was fresh and wide-eyed and innocent. He caught a quick impression of chocolate eyes and strawberry lips before he registered the expression on her face. Astonishment.
       At her reaction, Julien had the urge to step outside himself. The town house had looked quite normal when he had stumbled in this morning. Had something happened to it in the meantime?
       As he watched, Mademoiselle Serafina retreated and appeared as though she were going to climb back into the carriage. But behind her a maidservant was emerging, and so Mademoiselle Serafina had no place to go but forward.
    Interesting.
       Julien allowed the drapes to fall, retrieved his papers, and returned to his library. The comte's daughter had actually looked a little scared and… what was that other expression?
       Intimidated. Yes, intimidated by the town house.
       Perhaps after they had fled France, the family had grown up in poverty. But if that were the case, how had they afforded travel to London? Passage from Italy was expensive, especially with the war.
       Julien heard Grimsby open the door and greet the lady. Using a measure of the self-control for which he was known, Julien stayed moored to his seat. He would see the lady at dinner. If his first impressions were not amiss, he would have no difficulty finding some feature—physical or otherwise—to spark an attraction. And unless she were an ugly shrew, Julien planned to propose.
       Julien was the last in his line, and his family name would die—as had been the fate of so many French aristocratic families—without an heir. Mademoiselle Serafina's family faced the same predicament, but they had no son. The best they could hope for was to join their only daughter to another old noble French family—even if the scion was half English.
       At five and twenty, Julien had yet to form an interest in marriage, but he did like the idea of thumbing his nose at the revolutionaries who had tried to snuff out the Valères.
       He had vowed vengeance, and he would have it. He slid a panel in his desk aside and, using a key he always kept on him, opened the secret drawer there. He extracted the servant's letter from his breast pocket, the letter that had given him hope for Armand, and held it, felt its weight, then secured it back in his desk.
       Armand was alive. He knew it. And he would stop at nothing to find him.
    ***
    Sarah's stomach was in turmoil. Seeing the duc's town house had sent a surge of panic through her. She had not expected something so grand for a French émigré and his mother. This was most definitely a duc's house. Not an English duke, true, but she could not imagine their houses were any grander. This house was huge, enormous, mammoth, in fact. Outside, the façade