“People are frightened when there’s a war that they themselves will go hungry,” he said to Zoia. “I can’t have the Master gettin’ ill, or you, m’mselle, for that matter.”
He did not include the Duke in his solicitude and Zoia knew without being told that Jacques almost resented the strange man who, he felt, had intruded on the family atmosphere that had been so evident in their small household before the Duke had joined it.
“You must not forget our invalid, Jacques,” she said aloud.
“We’ll not do that, m’mselle,” Jacques nodded.
But his voice was cold and had none of the warmth in it that she would have liked to hear.
Maria, however, thought that the Duke was the finest man she had ever seen and, when he thanked her in his quiet voice for dressing his wounds and knowing that he was su
