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

me now?’

The captain lowered the pistol. His tone changed, becoming a little more moderate. ‘I don’t propose doing anything with you. The thing is, Miss Charvill—’

‘He told you my name?’ cut in Melusine, surprised.

‘He told me everything, if you mean Gerald.’

Impatience overtook Melusine’s resolve momentarily. ‘Do you think it is the man in the moon that I mean? What is it that Gérard has told you?’

‘That you need help.’

Melusine sat slowly down again, looking him over thoughtfully. This became very interesting. Let her see what she could make here. She watched the captain tuck the pistol back in his pocket, and perch on the edge of the big desk. Very good. He became a little less en garde.

‘I do not know how you think you may help me,’ she said slowly.

‘Neither do I,’ he responded, frowning, ‘but for Gerald’s sake, I’ll do anything I can.’

Mischief overtook Melusine. She ran her gaze over him, and allowed her eyelashes to flutter down.

To her satisfaction, the captain reddened a trifle. ‘No need to upset yourself. Happy to do anything in my power.’

Melusine sighed deeply. ‘You see, it is that I have a plan to marry an Englishman.’

His brows rose. ‘So that’s true, is it?’

‘Certainly it is true,’ Melusine said, opening her eyes wide. ‘And I am thinking now that you may be very suitable.’

‘Eh?’

Almost Melusine betrayed herself at his startled look. But she must not laugh.

‘You will like to marry me, yes?’ she pursued. ‘That will be very helpful to me.’

‘Marry you!’

He shot off the desk, such horror in his face that Melusine felt a little irritated. Was she so bad a prospect?

‘No good, Melusine,’ said a new voice from the doorway.

Melusine jumped up, turning swiftly. ‘Gérard!’

Before she could react to this new menace, the captain spun round. ‘She wants me to marry her.’

‘So I heard.’ Gerald came into the room as he spoke, his eyes on the stormclouds rapidly gathering in Melusine’s face. ‘He’s already spoken for, Melusine. You’ll have to find someone else.’

‘You, perhaps?’ she flung at him furiously, stepping out from behind the desk.

He uttered a short laugh. ‘Lord, no! I’ve a better regard for my skin, I thank you.’

‘Parbleu, but I find you excessively rude,’ she snapped, marching to meet him.

‘You usually do,’ he said lightly.

‘Do not smile at me and try to make me not angry any more,’ Melusine warned, ‘for I am very angry indeed with you.’

‘What, for not wanting to marry you?’

‘Imbecile. Do you think I would marry you? Rather would I marry the pig in the convent.’

‘You mean the one that you refused to feed?’ demanded Gerald, seizing this promising cue and adopting a mournful note. ‘But that is excessively unkind of you, Melusine. To compare me to a starving pig.’

She bit her lip, but her eyes betrayed her. ‘Do not say such things, you—you imbecile.’

With satisfaction, Gerald noted that her voice was hopelessly unsteady and drove home his advantage.

‘I will not, if you will assure me that an imbecile is a better marriage prospect than a starving pig.’

Melusine bubbled over and warmth rose in Gerald’s chest.

‘Idiot. Near as idiot as this capitaine of yours. He believed me when I asked him to marry me. You would not have believed me, I know well.’

Gerald eyed her with interest. ‘Did you sigh and flutter your eyelashes?’

‘Certainly I did.’

‘No, I wouldn’t have believed you.’ He glanced at Roding. ‘Don’t concern yourself, Hilary. She was only trying to distract you so that she might escape.’

‘Distract me? She nigh on gave me an apoplexy.’

Gerald laughed, and turned back to Melusine, who was frowning again. ‘What now?’

‘Now,’ she answered flatly, ‘you will please to tell me at once why you have come here.’

‘That’s easy. You’re trespassing again, and I’ve come to arrest you,’ Gerald said promptly.

‘I do not believe you. En tout cas, I am not trespassing at all. This—’ waving an imperious hand in a sweeping arc about the library ‘—is my house.’

So that was it. Gerald glanced at Hilary and saw the stunned look on his face. The fellow Kimble, to whom Gerald was indebted, was gaping.

‘You will have to prove it, you know,’ Gerald said quietly.

‘Do you think I do not know? What am I doing here, do you think?’

‘That’s just exactly what I’ve been asking myself,’ he returned. ‘Are you going to tell me?’

‘But looking for proof,’ Melusine uttered impatiently. ‘Have I not said so?’

‘No, as it happens.’ He smiled down at her. ‘But that will do for a start. Now I’d like the rest of your story.’

Melusine’s eyes flashed. ‘You would like? And do you imagine that I will tell you?’

‘Won’t you?’

‘No, a thousand times.’

‘Damnation!’

‘What the devil ails you?’ demanded his friend, striding forward. ‘You know pretty much everything you need to know.’

Melusine swung round and stared at him, while Gerald silently cursed.

‘How much does he know?’ Without waiting for a reply, she turned narrowed eyes on Gerald. ‘So it is that you have made Jacques betray me.’

‘No, miss,’ cut in Kimble.

She glanced at him and made a dismissive gesture. ‘Do not be alarmed, Jacques. I am not angry with you, but with this—this—’

‘Idiot? Imbecile?’ offered Gerald in a helpful tone.

Melusine choked on a laugh, and Gerald at once seized the initiative, speaking in a tone deliberately soothing.

‘You have every right to be angry with me. You see, I kidnapped poor Jack and made him promise to send me word if you went careering off anywhere. He was extremely loyal to you. Indeed, he told me nothing at all. But he was at last persuaded that I mean you no harm, and that I might—just possibly, since I am both a gentleman and a major of militia—be able to be of more assistance to you than he himself. So, you see—’

‘Do not say any more,’ Melusine uttered, flinging away and moving to the fireplace. She turned there, clasped her hands behind her back and put up her chin. ‘I see that Leonardo was right. One cannot trust any man at all.’

The lad Kimble moved swiftly to the door and walked out of the room. Disappointment flickered in Gerald’s chest, and he did not hesitate to speak his mind, unable to help a reproachful note.

‘I don’t think he deserved that, Melusine.’

Quick remorse raced through Melusine’s veins, but she hit back strongly. ‘It needs not that you tell me.’ Then she ran swiftly out of the library, calling out as her cavalier was almost at the front door. ‘Jacques!’

He stopped, but he did not turn. Melusine ran to catch at his arm.

‘Jacques, do not go!’

Jack gazed steadfastly at the floor. ‘You were right, miss. I didn’t ought to have sent for him.’

Melusine’s heart twisted. ‘Jacques, you have been very much my friend. I have had no one but for you. But it is that I have a very bad temper, you understand.’

She sighed relief to see a faint grin as he ventured to raise his head.

‘I know that, miss. I don’t mind it.’

‘But you mind that I say I do not trust you. This is not true at all.’

Melusine put her arm through his in a friendly way and moved with him outside to stand on the porch, leaning into him in a confidential way.

‘Even the nuns they say I am like a devil. But you have looked after me very well, and we will not allow this Gérard, who makes me all the time excessively angry, you understand, to make trouble between us.’

‘I think he only wants to help you, miss,’ offered Jack. ‘He don’t mean you no harm.’

Melusine withdrew her hand. ‘Yes, but I do not know why he should wish to do so, and therefore I cannot permit that he interferes.’

She was about to develop this theme, when Jack’s gaze became fixed, and his expression changed. ‘Inside, miss!’

‘But what is it?’

‘Quick! We need the major.’

Before she could object, Melusine found herself hustled back into the house and dragged willy-nilly towards the library door, where Jack called softly.

‘Major, sir!’

The major appeared so swiftly that Melusine was instantly suspicious. Had he been listening inside?

‘What is amiss?’

‘That Frenchie, sir. He’s riding down the drive.’

‘Valade?’

‘Aye, sir.’

Shock threw Melusine’s heart out of kilter and she looked instinctively towards the major. ‘But―but how can he know?’

His soldier’s instinct overtook Gerald and he dropped all his insouciance in a bang, becoming brisk.

‘Never mind that now.’ He called through the library door. ‘Hilary!’

The captain appeared, alert at the note in his major’s voice as Gerald had known he would be.

‘What’s to do?’

‘Valade is here. Go out there and head him off, will you? Tell him anything you like, but don’t let him in, and don’t tell him Melusine is here.’

Roding left the house instantly, not even pausing to nod.

Gerald seized Melusine by the hand and drew her towards the stairs, throwing a command at Kimble as he did so. ‘Keep watch, Jack! If Captain Roding fails to keep the man out of the house, run upstairs and warn me quickly. We’ll be somewhere on the floor above.’

‘Aye, sir,’ Kimble said at once, and took up his stance at the bottom of the stairs as Gerald dragged Melusine up them.

‘But, Gérard—’

‘Don’t start arguing,’ he said in a tone that brooked no defiance. ‘We’ll have you right out of the way, just in case. And don’t talk until we’re well out of earshot.’

Rather to his surprise, she obeyed this injunction as he led her up two flights of stairs to the first floor. Moving swiftly to the end of the corridor, he pushed open a door at random and entered a large room, which looked to have been a saloon, judging from the faded gilt and crimson wall-paper, a mirror above the fireplace which was surrounded by an ornate gilded frame, now sadly tarnished, and a worn Chippendale sofa with striped upholstery and tasselled cushions.

Gerald closed the door and released Melusine, and then went to open the shutters on a window that faced the side of the house. Light flooded the uncarpeted chamber, revealing the decayed state of the place.

‘Lord,’ he uttered, glancing about with a disparaging eye. ‘One would take it that the house had been ransacked.’

Melusine had crossed to the window that overlooked the front of the house, and was trying to peep through a crack in the shutters. Cursing under his breath, Gerald moved swiftly across and dragged her away.

‘You’ll make shadows.’

She allowed herself to be pulled to the centre of the room, but uttered in a low tone, full of suppressed anxiety, ‘How can he know? How can he know?’

‘You mean how can he know that this is your house?’

Melusine looked up at him, distress in her eyes. ‘There is no one who could have told him this. No one.’

‘What of your grandfather?’

Her lips parted in surprise. ‘You know?’

‘Come, come, Melusine. Remember that I’ve seen Brewis Charvill, and I’m well aware of your identity. You told me yourself you are not half French, which means the girl calling herself Madame Valade is completely misinformed, so Valade himself cannot know. But they’ve just been to see General Charvill.’

Fury was in her face. ‘Alors, I see how is this. He will not help them—and I told Emile so—and thus he sends them to my other grandpére, even that he knows he is dead. Pah! What a pig is this générale.’