Mademoiselle At Arms, Elizabeth Bailey [bearly read books txt] 📗

>‘What? But—’

‘Precisely, Hilary. That was supposed to be Madame Valade. Only she is not Madame Valade at all. Who she is I have not discovered, but she is masquerading as Melusine, and for all I know, is not even married to the man who calls himself Valade.’

‘But what a perfectly famous adventure. And so your Melusine is busy trying to prove that she is the real one.’ Lucilla frowned. ‘But what in the world was she doing at Remenham House?’

‘Your quickness is astounding, Lucy,’ Gerald told her admiringly. ‘It is precisely that point over which Melusine and I fell out.’ Reminiscence made him smile. ‘Because she, naturally enough, does not consider that it is in any way my affair.’

‘What about this Leonardo fellow?’ Hilary asked, still frowning heavily.

Gerald was conscious of that sliver of irritation again at mention of the name. ‘That,’ he said stonily, ‘is yet another point over which we fell out.’

Lucilla eyed him with one of those particularly feminine looks it was difficult for a mere male to interpret.

‘But who was he, Gerald?’

‘A damned condottiere,’ exploded Gerald, forgetting his company.

‘Good God!’ uttered Roding.

‘What in the world is that?’ demanded Miss Froxfield.

‘Italian adventurer,’ explained her fiance briefly. ‘Soldier of fortune. You know the sort of thing. Lives by his wits and gambling. Likely as not outside the law, too.’

Lucilla gaped. ‘But how did she meet such a person in a convent?’

‘He was wounded and came there for sanctuary,’ Gerald explained, adding almost through his teeth. ‘Thanks to him, Hilary and I nearly had our heads blown off. I might forgive him that, for he obviously taught her a good deal that she has found useful. But what else he saw fit to teach her I do not care to stipulate.’

Lucy was silent for a space, once again wearing that inscrutable expression. Faintly bothered by what it might mean, Gerald rose from his seat and crossed to the tray to pour himself a glass of wine. He turned just in time to see Lucilla exchange an amused look with Hilary. Just what in the world was that about? Before he could hazard a guess, Lucy looked back at him.

‘What are you going to do now, Gerald?’

He sipped his wine and shrugged. ‘There is little I can do at present. I’ve made an ally of her champion.’

Hilary’s brows shot up. ‘Champion?’

‘The lad you saw following her. Jack Kimble. He’s a footman who works for the nuns and has taken up the cudgels on her behalf.’ He glanced at the captain. ‘By the by, get Trodger to send up one of our best men, will you? Someone discreet. I want him immediately, so you can send Frith with my phaeton if you like. And I want him out of uniform.’

Roding blinked. ‘What the devil for?’

‘Messenger,’ Gerald explained. ‘I don’t want that girl running her head into any more danger.’

‘As if you could stop her.’

‘Probably not. But, whether she likes it or not, I aim to be on hand to get her out of it.’

‘Quite right, Gerald,’ approved Lucilla.

‘She won’t like it,’ prophesied the captain gloomily. ‘And nor do I. You’ll end up dead, that’s what.’

‘Nonsense. I’ll have to wait here, of course, which means you, Hilary—’

‘Will have to do tomorrow’s patrol. Yes, very well. Better check on Remenham House, I suppose.’

‘Yes, do. I’ve seen Brewis Charvill, by the by.’

‘Eh? Why did you not say so, man?’ demanded Hilary crossly.

‘I am saying so,’ protested Gerald mildly.

‘Dunderhead. Get on with it, then. I suppose you came right out and asked him about his family?’

‘Nothing of the sort. I was extremely subtle—in fact, as devious as Melusine. I told him Valade had tried to borrow money off me and asked if he could vouch for the fellow. It seems Valade visited him that day to present his credentials, and Charvill posted straight off to inform his great-uncle. Which is why I wasn’t able to see him until today. He gave Valade the go-ahead and they’ve gone off to visit him.’

‘Well? Well? What did the fellow have to add to this rigmarole?’

‘He confirmed that Nicholas Charvill—presumably Melusine’s father—had been disinherited for marrying Suzanne Valade.’

‘Ah, so that’s where Valade comes in,’ nodded Lucy.

‘Precisely. Madame Valade—for want of any other name to call her by—told me that she, in her character of Melusine, was the daughter of Suzanne Valade and Nicholas Charvill.’

‘But that would make her half French,’ Hilary pointed out.

‘Whereas Melusine insists she is entirely English,’ agreed Gerald. ‘Therefore she cannot be the daughter of Suzanne Valade. Voilà tout, as Melusine herself would say.’

‘Oh, this is becoming nonsensical,’ exclaimed Lucilla.

‘Of course it is,’ corroborated Hilary. ‘Must be another of her lies.’

‘Or she imagines that being half English is the same as being completely English,’ suggested Lucilla.

‘Parbleu,’ said Gerald. ‘I borrow the expression from Melusine. She may be an infuriating little devil, but she is far from stupid. Moreover, she claims that this whole enterprise of hers is purely for the purpose of marrying an Englishman.’

‘That’s fortunate,’ murmured Lucilla.

Gerald frowned. ‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ snapped Roding, with an odd look at his bride to be that Gerald could not interpret. ‘Does Charvill know that this Melusine of yours is here?’

The question distracted Gerald. ‘You mean that there is a rival Melusine to the one he has heard about? He does not. At least, I frustrated her design in calling upon him this morning. I can’t but feel it’s an undesirable complication to drag in the Charvills at this point. Time enough to do so when she has her affairs settled—if she can settle them.’

‘And if she can’t?’ asked Lucy.

‘We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.’

‘What if she goes back to Charvill?’ demanded Roding.

‘Why do you think I want a man ready to run to me with every move she makes?’ countered Gerald. ‘She may well try to go back. She says she will have to, though she does not wish to. Which is also puzzling.’ Gerald frowned. ‘I only wish I might have won her confidence.’

Lucilla sat up. ‘She won’t confide in you? Now, why?’

‘Because that scoundrel Leonardo drummed it into her head that no man was to be trusted,’ Gerald announced viciously.

‘The more I hear about this Leonardo,’ Lucy said severely, ‘the more I want to meet your Melusine. I daresay you have the whole thing wrong, Gerald. Men usually do.’

‘It’s immaterial, in any event,’ Roding put in. ‘What we have to find out is whether or not the wretched female is in fact Lord Charvill’s granddaughter. What had Brewis Charvill to say to that, Gerald?’

‘He had nothing to say to it. It does not matter to him either way. But what he did say is that he thinks the Valades will receive very short shrift from his great-uncle the general.’

***

 

Everett, General Lord Charvill, master of a barony stretching over a wide estate that encroached on the hundreds of Witham, Thurstable and Dengy, stood before his own fireplace, glaring at his visitors from under bushy white brows from a head held necessarily low above a back painfully bent by rheumatism. He was a thin old man, a wreck in a ruined body, but nothing would induce him to stand in any other way than as stiffly erect as possible like the soldier he had always been, even though he was obliged to lean on his silver-handled cane to do so.

That he received guests of the name of Valade at all would have surprised anyone who knew his history. But he had been forewarned by his great-nephew. His first reaction had been explosive as the hurts of the past rose up to taunt him. Lord Charvill’s sense of justice would not, however, allow him to repudiate his granddaughter, if indeed this female proved to be the infant lost to the family so many years ago.

To be confronted with the girl’s damned Frenchman of a husband was another matter altogether. Particularly when it was obvious the fellow was one of these pitiful wretches weak enough to allow themselves to be ousted from their inheritances and thus obliged to come seeking succour of their neighbours. The general had little doubt he was going to be asked to provide for the fellow as well as for his legitimate descendant.

Five minutes ago, his butler had entered the green saloon, an austere apartment, with dark forest-green wallpaper flocked with a swirling design, and heavy mahogany furniture. The news that his granddaughter desired an audience Lord Charvill had greeted with merely a grunt, which turned into a roar as his gorge rose when he heard that she was accompanied by her husband.

The visitors, when they entered, looked thoroughly intimidated and Everett concealed a grim smile. Just so had his subordinates shown their apprehension. It suited him to dampen the spirits of any who sought to impose upon him, as these relics of the loathed family of Valade seemed like to do.

Charvill did nothing to ease their path and it was left to the man to open negotiations, which he did by producing a set of folded papers, slowly approaching the general, and holding them out at arms’ length.

‘The credentials, milor’,’ he ventured.

Without a word, the general reached out and took them, but his glance searched the girl’s face. Under this unnerving scrutiny, a slow flush mounted to the woman’s cheeks. She fidgeted and looked away. Everett’s gaze dropped to the papers in his hand.

He passed but a cursory glance over the formal certificate that identified the Frenchman before him as one André Valade, distant cousin to the Vicomte Valade. The marriage lines that confirmed a union between the said André Valade and Mademoiselle Melusine Charvill touched the old scars and he gave vent to a muttered expletive. But the letter, written in his son’s own hand, and addressed to the Mother Abbess of the Convent of the Sisters of Wisdom near Blaye in the district of Santonge, dated a little over five years previously, exercised a powerful effect upon him.

Recognising the handwriting, he glanced swiftly at the signature, and uttering an explosive curse, cast the paper from him. That it provided proof of the girl’s identity was one thing. Charvill’s command of French was enough to tell him that, for its entire content was devoted to commending Nicholas Charvill’s fourteen year old daughter into the care of the Abbess. But the mere recognition of his son’s signature was enough to stoke the fires of his long-held rage. Proof that the scoundrel had risen from the dead—for he was dead to his father!

He glared at the female whose appearance in England had revived those painful memories—churning unbearably since Brewis Charvill had brought him the news and put him in the worst of tempers—and the fury spilled out.

‘Tchah! So you’re the whelp’s girl, are you? Suppose you’ve nothing but that villainous French in your tongue.’

‘I have English a little,’ the girl offered, her voice shaking as she essayed a smile and sank into a curtsy.

English a little! ‘You ought to have English only.’

Her lashes fluttered. ‘But this is not to my blame, grandpére.’

A burning at his chest, the general ground his teeth. ‘Don’t dare address me by such a title.’

The girl bit her lip and backed a little, while her husband shifted to stand at her side.

‘Monsieur, my wife intended not to anger you,’ he said in a tone of apology.

‘Then let her keep her Frenchified titles to herself. She may address me as “Grandfather” if she chooses, since I’m obliged to accept her in that capacity. But I don’t wish to hear that abomination on her lips again.’

‘Please forgive, milor’, but my wife, and even I myself, have yet very much trouble with English.’

Charvill eyed the girl with resentment. ‘Well, she’d better learn fast if she wants any truck with me. I won’t