The Frenchman's Bride

“No broken bones. Only concussion. In a few days he’ll be able to travel. The problem right now is, he thinks he hates me, and he has every right.

“Before we spend the night with him, I want to hear all about Hallie Linn. Don’t leave anything out. And don’t worry, I’m not asking because I suspect her of something sinister.

“However I do need to know about your relationship with her so I can understand what’s going on inside of Paul. I love your brother. But until I hear all the facts, I won’t be able to truly apologize to him in a way that he’ll accept as genuine. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“I don’t think this is something you can fix, mon pere.”

Coming on the heels of Dr. Maurois’s gut wrenching news, her opinion alarmed him. She sounded too grave and final about it.

Some time during the last nine months, his children had grown up. He hadn’t been there to see it happen and felt searing pain. Not only for what he’d missed, but for what he’d caused to happen.

“I have to try.”

“Paul’s been in love with her since the first day she waited on us at Tati’s. I could see why. She’s perfect! I totally approve of her for my future sister-in-law.”

“What makes her so special?”

“She’s the only person I feel is worthy of Paul’s love.”

Worthy?

Coming from Monique who was a twin and crazy about her brother almost to the point of being possessive of him, those were powerful words. He needed to tread carefully.

Since Vincent had married at eighteen, right now wasn’t the time to raise the issue that Paul was too young to know the difference between infatuation and love.

Without sounding like a hypocrite, how could he tell his daughter that Paul would probably be in love four or five times until he’d reached his mid to late twenties?

A man needed to be that age before he became a responsible adult with a viable career. Only then could he hope to find the kind of stability needed to achieve a happy marriage with the right woman.

“Paul would have told you about her a lot sooner, but he was afraid you wouldn’t approve of his falling in love with an American. He asked me not to say anything about her until he was ready.”

Vincent knew in his gut that wasn’t the reason his son had kept him in the dark. He shifted gears to pass a car. “I have no bias against Americans. I admit there was one client who came here a few years ago I didn’t particularly care for, but on the whole I find most of my American acquaintances quite charming.”

He sucked in his breath. “My reaction to Ms. Linn had nothing to do with her nationality. I was in shock to think Paul had spent the money on a ring rather than a car designated for your graduation gift.”

His daughter lowered her head. “He was determined to get engaged by the end of the school year. I told him I didn’t care about a car. If he wanted to spend that money on her, it was fine with me.

“In case you’re worried, he plans to pay you back in monthly installments. His headmaster gave him a reference and he used that to get an entry level job at a bank in Montparnasse. He’s supposed to start his training on Monday.”

Incredible.

Tomorrow Vincent would go over to Paul’s school for his things. While there he would phone the bank and let the manager know about Paul’s accident.

“I had a talk with Ms. Linn after you two left the apartment, petite. Though she looks younger to me, she says she’s twenty-five.”

“She is. Paul saw the inside of her passport.”

“Don’t you think a woman seven years older than your brother is too old for him?”

“Of course not,” she answered back, but it was a little too fast even for Monique. “Paul finds her totally fascinating.”

And because you love your twin, you’re not about to sabotage his plans.

Vincent rubbed the back of his neck in consternation. He wagered there weren’t too many females in all of Paris with Ms. Linn’s fascinating feminine attributes. With those long legs, she had a voluptuous physical allure that didn’t require expensive clothes to draw a man’s attention.

As far as he could tell, she wore no makeup. After she’d removed the scarf, he’d noticed a small cross hanging around her neck, but he’d seen no other jewelry.

Except for the ring she’d removed in his presence.

“Paul thinks my girlfriends at school are shallow and boring. I happen to agree with him. Hallie has had experiences that make her different from other people. She’s the best listener in the world.”

With a woman who looked like Ms. Linn hanging on Paul’s every word, he never stood a chance.

“Does she have family here in Paris?”

“No. She was born in California, but she’s all alone in the world now.”

“I see.” He pursed his lips. “Tell me about these experiences that have made her so unique in your eyes.”

“I don’t know the details because it’s hard for her to talk about them, but she was in a plane crash a few years ago. It made her reassess her values. She decided she wanted to help people.”

“That’s an admirable desire,” he murmured, trying to keep the condescension out of his voice.

Out of all the people his children could have met in Paris, how did they happen to run into this particular woman?

“What brought her to Paris?”

“Her work.”

“You mean there’s a Tati’s in California, and she was transferred here?”

Monique shook her head. “No.”

Vincent gripped the steering wheel tighter. He’d played at this conversation long enough. “Why do I get the feeling you’re afraid to answer my question?”

“Paul asked me not to tell you.”

“If she’s so perfect, then why the concern?”

“Because he knows the answer will make you happy.”

His daughter was speaking in riddles. More puzzled than ever, Vincent pulled into the hospital parking and shut off the engine.

“Am I such an awful ogre you can no longer trust me with the truth?” He needed all the truth his daughter could give him in order to work with Dr. Maurois.

She slowly turned her head toward him. The tortured brown eyes so dear to him seemed to take up her whole face.

“In two weeks Hallie’s going back to California to enter a convent.”

A convent.

Ms. Linn?

“Paul can’t bear it,” her voice trembled. “That’s why he gave her the ring, so she’d know he was serious about getting married one day. He’d do anything to stop her from making a decision that will prevent him from seeing her again. If you knew how wonderful Hallie was yo—”

“Just a minute,” he cut her off. “Back up.” Vincent’s mind was reeling. “She told you she intends to become a nun?”

Talk about dangling forbidden fruit in front of Paul! Could anything the opportunistic Ms. Linn have dreamed up to bring him to his knees have worked better than a fabrication like that?

“Papa— Hallie already is a lay nun.”

“Then she’s been lying to you,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

“No,” Monique protested in a calm voice. “She’s been doing church service for the last year and a half through the Dominicans. First in California, then at Clairemont Abbey not far from Tati’s.

“Nowadays more and more women are working as lay nuns in ordinary clothes while they mingle with the public. They hold day jobs to pay for their own housing and expenses.”

This was the first Vincent had heard of it. Whether it was true or not, Monique firmly believed Ms. Linn’s story. Until he could check it out, he didn’t dare alienate his daughter any further.

He took a fortifying breath. “All right. Assuming everything she’s told you is true, why is she suddenly leaving Paris?”

His daughter looked crestfallen. “She has plans to take her vows at the motherhouse in San Diego in June. The only problem is, once she’s professed we’ll never see her again.” The tremor in her voice revealed such deep affection, it stunned Vincent.

“Paul’s desperate to keep her here. He loves her so much. It isn’t like he has a few years to work on her and get her to change her mind before proposing. He had to do it now, today, before it was too late! It’s taken him months to get up the courage.

“We planned the birthday fete in order to bring her to the apartment where he could have privacy when he asked her to marry him. Since he needed time alone, I left them long enough to buy Etvige a dress with the last of the money I’d been saving. She’s always wanted something stylish from Paris.”

His daughter’s explanation plunged him further into the black hole engulfing him since his conversation with Dr. Maurois. While she was talking, he could hear another voice from another conversation, drowning out her words.

“I’m not pregnant. But if I were, are you telling me you would bribe me into going away knowing I was carrying your grandchild inside my body? You would deprive Paul of his own child to love and raise?”

A harsh laugh came out of him. “Who said anything about it being Paul’s?”

“Be careful before you say anything else you’ll live to regret. Paul took us both by surprise today, but since you were incapable of listening to reason, I fear your reaction has caused irrevocable harm to your relationship with him.

“Promise me you’ll work things out with him tonight before it’s too late. He’s trying hard to be a man. Go to him and explain why you were so upset. Paul’s very sweet and sensitive inside. He’ll understand and forgive you.”

Vincent groaned. His assessment of the situation had been so completely off the mark, he felt like he’d entered the twilight zone with no exit.

In reality there was no exit, not after what the psychiatrist had told him.

Paul’s mental health was in grave jeopardy. Furthermore Vincent had permanently destroyed the bond with his son, a bond he’d once thought to be indestructible. What made things even more hopeless—he couldn’t help Paul if he wanted to where Ms. Linn was concerned.

She wasn’t in love with his son.

If Vincent recalled her words correctly, she’d said she loved Paul like a younger brother. Before leaving the dining room she’d murmured “Goodbye forever. May God bless you.”

Something about those parting words convinced Vincent she’d been telling his children the truth. She’d meant what she’d said in the literal sense because she would be turning her back on the world when she took her vows.

Everything that had transpired at his apartment was starting to make a horrible kind of sense. The Rolland household had been turned inside out.

Monique was barely speaking to him. His son was in hell because Vincent had insulted the love of his life, a woman who was about to become cloistered and permanently unavailable to him.

Everything Vincent had done since the twins’ birth to make sure they didn’t repeat his mistakes had blown up in his face.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

Had it only been twelve hours since he’d awakened in his hotel room in London, excited because he was going to fly to Paris to surprise his beloved children?

Tonight despair made him feel a thousand years old.

“Let’s go inside, petite. Paul needs us, even if he wishes I were drawing my last breath in the middle of the Sahara.” Even if my son wishes he’d left this earth…

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS five o’clock on Saturday evening. Hallie took care of her last customer, rang up the receipts and left Tati’s.

Two days had passed since she’d hurried out of Monsieur Rolland’s apartment in pain. The terrible situation she’d unwittingly created by becoming friends with his children had been haunting her until she had to do something about the awful limbo she was in.

Last night she’d started a fast after her prayers. Tonight she had an appointment to talk with Mother Marie-Claire about the twins. By now they were home with their father in St. Genes. Hallie feared that any attempt on her part to talk to him or his children by phone would prove unsuccessful.

The only thing she could think to do was send him a letter conveying her sorrow, and hope he wouldn’t tear it up without reading what was in her heart first. But before she put her thoughts to paper, Hallie wanted to know her Superior’s opinion on the problem.

In the beginning Hallie had perceived she could fill a need for the twins while they were away from home. Tragically it had backfired with shattering consequences.

The painful encounter with their father had caused Hallie to lose confidence in her judgment as a human being, let alone as a nun. Where had the inspiration been to prevent this disaster?

Was she such a prideful person it had gotten in the way because she’d believed it was her mission to comfort the motherless twins? Had it blinded her to signs of trouble?

Or was it some latent maternal instinct that had suddenly sprung to life, thus preventing her common sense from surfacing?

In either case, what kind of a nun was she going to make in the future working with young people?

This was one of the questions she needed answers to. If she didn’t find some peace on the matter soon, Hallie feared she wouldn’t be good for the order. Sick at heart, she started walking faster.

“Ms. Linn?”

Hallie knew that deep, masculine voice. She spun around in surprise that the twins’ father was still here in Paris. Her heart skipped several beats.

She’d wanted another chance to talk to him and try to make things right. His presence meant that one of her wishes had been granted at least.

He’d pulled his car up to the curb not far from Tati’s. It was like déjà vu if she remembered Monique waiting for her in the same spot two nights ago. Except that he got out of his vehicle to approach her.

This evening he was dressed in a lightweight gray suit. It provided the perfect foil for his dark, handsome looks. But as he drew closer, she felt he’d aged since their confrontation.

Lines bracketed his mouth. His olive complexion seemed paler. She glimpsed pain in those deep set brown eyes made more remarkable by lashes black as jet.

Though he didn’t stare at her with the same contemptuous disdain as before, she had no sense that his feelings were any friendlier toward her. More, it was a case of enough time having passed for the first white heat of anger to dissipate.

“Paul’s in the hospital,” he began without preamble.

Those were the last words she expected to hear. “What’s wrong with him?” she cried in dismay.

“My son’s not dying if that’s what you’re worried about. At least not from anything physical,” came the muttered aside.

“Then what is it?”

She heard his sharp intake of breath. “He ran in front of a truck after he left the apartment the other evening.”

“Oh no—” A shudder rocked her body.

“As I told you, he’s going to be fine. All he sustained was a concussion and some bruises.”

Her eyes closed tightly. “Thank heaven he’s alive. He was so upset it doesn’t surprise me he didn’t watch where he was going.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he fired back. “When the paramedics brought him to the hospital, he was unconscious. He woke up in the emergency room thinking he’d died and had awakened on the other side.

“When the doctor told him he hadn’t been killed and was very much alive, Paul didn’t want to believe it. That’s when he admitted he’d run in front of the truck on purpose.”

“What?” Hallie couldn’t bear it. “Paul really wanted to die?”

His tortured gaze reflected her horror. She felt his hand close over her elbow. “We need to talk, but we can’t do it here. I presume you’re off work?”

“Yes,” she answered, feeling light-headed. “I was on my way…home.” She would reschedule her visit with Mother Marie-Claire later. This was more important.

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