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

searching about for her dagger.

‘No, you don’t.’

Gerald dropped down to join her just as her hand came up, clutching the handle. He grabbed her wrist and prised the weapon from her fingers, ignoring her other hand that clawed at his to try to retain the trophy. As he pocketed it, her open palm reached out and slapped his cheek.

‘Bête!’

Gerald caught her hand as she pulled it back to deliver another blow. Next instant he had her immobilised, her hands behind her back, her chest crushed to his, the white veil slipping once again.

‘Do that again,’ he said softly, ‘and I’ll make you sorry you ever came to England.’

‘And me,’ came the guttural response, ‘I will certainly murder you the very next time I am compelled to see your face.’

Sheer exasperation made Gerald release her as he broke into reluctant laughter. ‘There’s no controlling you, is there?’ He held up his hands. ‘Come, cry a truce.’

There was a pause. Then the lady smiled and her radiance, even in the darkness, warmed Gerald unexpectedly.

‘I said you were sympathique,’ she told him.

‘As a matter of fact, I’m not at all sympathique. I’m a soldier, you see.’ He bowed. ‘Major Gerald Alderley, mademoiselle, quite at your service.’

‘Gérard,’ she said, giving the French version with a soft “g” and not quite managing the “l”. ‘That is a very English name.’

‘I am a very English man,’ Gerald said.

‘And you mean this? Truly?’

‘Entirely.’

‘Idiot. I do not ask if you are entirely English, but if you say truly when you say you are at my service.’

‘Oh, that,’ Gerald said cautiously. ‘Well, that depends.’ He sat on the low wall of the haha and invited her to do the same. ‘You see, it’s difficult to do a service for someone when you don’t know who they are, or what they’re up to. Tell me. Who were you looking for tonight? One of the émigrés? There were several in there.’

‘Assuredly there are many escaping from France at this time.’

Was there a careful note in her voice? Gerald gave no sign, keeping his own tone light.

‘Like you?’

‘But I am not French. I have told you. I am—’

‘Like me, entirely English. Yes, I think we have thoroughly thrashed that one out.’

‘Who were they?’ she asked abruptly.

‘Who, the émigrés?’

‘Do I speak of the English, imbecile? Certainly the émigrés.’

Gerald tutted. ‘Don’t lose your temper again. Let me see now.’ He scratched his chin as if he thought about it, but covertly kept a careful study of what he could see of her face. ‘There were the Comte and Comtesse de St Erme. A Madame Valade and her husband. And two other ladies. I forget. Ah, Thierry and Poussaint, if my memory serves me.’

She had given nothing away. Now what? There was an interest, or why ask him who they were. He added, ‘Also others, but I don’t recall them.’

‘Eh bien.’ She shrugged. ‘Me also I do not recall them.’

‘Indeed?’ said Gerald, surprised. ‘None of them means anything to you at all? How odd. I was ready to wager that your name would have marched with one of them.’

‘Comment?’ she demanded with some heat. ‘You think I am like that Valade? No, a thousand times.’

At last. But Gerald kept to a casual note. ‘Did I say so? When last heard from you were claiming some good English name. Brown or Jones, I dare say.’

A laugh escaped her. ‘Certainly those are names of the most undistinguished, and I would scorn to have them.’

‘What name would you like, then?’

Her shadowed features turned in his direction. ‘I am not a fool. You wish another name? Eh bien. Lee-o-no-ra.’

‘I thank you,’ Gerald said drily. ‘And I suppose I shall be obliged to endure another nonsensical tale about your husband.’

‘What husband?’

‘Precisely.’

The lady sighed and spread her hands. Here we go, thought Gerald.

‘You see, it is that my papa, he is without sympathy,’ said the lady sadly.

‘Indeed?’ Gerald said politely.

‘Yes, like you,’ she snapped, with a venomous glance, her role evidently forgotten for the moment.

‘Do please continue,’ Gerald begged, deceptively docile. ‘I am fascinated.’

She bit her lip, and then turning her face away, emitted another sigh. ‘My papa he does not wish me to marry the man I choose, and thus he places me in the convent that the nuns may lock me up and I cannot escape.’

‘As we see.’

‘Yes, but they did do so.’

‘But you managed to escape nevertheless,’ Gerald said calmly, ‘disguising yourself as a nun. And who is the man you are not allowed to marry? Valade, perhaps?’

‘Dieu du ciel,’ exclaimed the girl, jumping up. ‘That—that—why do you speak of him?’

‘Because I feel you ought to know,’ Gerald said calmly, but rising and watching her closely, ‘that all your trouble may be in vain. He is already married.’

‘Married?’

‘I did mention Madame Valade, did I not?’

At that, a growl of startling ferocity escaped her lips. ‘She? Sa femme? That is the game then? That she could dare to take my place, that salope. This is altogether insupportable. Eh bien, we shall see.’ She focused on Gerald’s face. ‘And for you, monsieur le major, it will be well if you do not make me a shock like this again.’

Turning, she climbed over the low haha wall. Gerald reached out a hand to stop her.

‘Wait! At least tell me where I can find you.’

‘So that you may interest yourself in my affairs even more?’

‘Then I will go with you,’ he offered.

‘No! Let me alone!’

‘It is not safe!’

‘That is entirely my affair, and not your affair in the least,’ she told him haughtily. ‘En tout cas, I have waiting for me a cavalier.’

‘Oh, have you?’ grunted Gerald, surprising in himself a surge of some odd emotion at these words. ‘Damnation!’

Confused, he released her, and in an instant she had darted away and was running down the garden.

Gerald watched her vanish into the darkness, unusually incensed. Hang the wench! Roding was right. He was mad. Lord knew why he had any interest in an impertinent girl who would certainly have spit him with that dagger! He reached into his pocket and brought it out, examining it in the increasing light as he slowly made his way back up the terrace. A pretty piece. Gold-handled, too. Small, but eminently serviceable. For whom had its sharp point been intended?

Valade? Or perhaps his wife now that the girl had word of their marriage. What a heat that news had wrought. Had she expected to wed Valade herself? Had the fellow broken a vow of betrothal, or abandoned her? He must find out more.

Forgetting the dark thoughts of his last brush with the girl, he dropped the dagger back in his pocket, quickened his pace, and went back into the house to look for his hostess.

He was halfway across the ballroom, where the dancing had ceased for the musicians to take a well-earned rest, when Roding pounced on him.

‘Where the devil have you been?’

‘Consorting with a nun in the gardens.’

Hilary stared. ‘You don’t mean to say she’s here?’

‘Was,’ Gerald corrected. ‘She’s gone. This time she tried to kill me with a dagger.’

‘What?’

‘Neat little toy. I’ll show it to you later.’ He glanced about and saw his quarry holding court at one end of the vast mirrored chamber. ‘At this present, I must appropriate Lady Bicknacre.’

‘You’re going?’ asked his friend, and the note of relief was marked.

‘No, my poor guardian,’ Gerald mocked. ‘I’m following a scent.’

Lady Bicknacre, resplendent in purple satin, and basking in her triumphantly full rooms—for it was obvious that her patronage of the refugees had set a quickly to be followed fashion—was all sorrow and sympathy when Gerald spoke of them. He had adroitly captured her and led her away from her other guests on the pretext of feigning an interest in her charitable attitude to the newly arrived French.

Her motherly features creased into anxious wrinkles. ‘Poor things. Can you imagine how dreadful it must be for them? Most of them arrive here almost penniless.’

‘Gather their bankers are still able to transfer funds,’ remarked Hilary, who had tagged along, apparently determined not to leave Gerald to make even more of a fool of himself. He had already spoken his mind on the folly of allowing a clearly dangerous female to escape a second time.

‘But for how long?’ Lady Bicknacre asked apprehensively. ‘Their lawyers are working tirelessly, but they report that the situation is daily worsening.’

‘Some, of course,’ put in Gerald, ‘have been unable to recover anything. Like the Valades, I imagine.’

‘Oh, that tragic pair,’ uttered her ladyship in saddened tones.

‘Yes, a very sad story,’ agreed the major.

‘Still, the comtesse has them well in hand. She has even found them accommodation in the house where she is putting up herself. In Paddington. They are tending to congregate, our poor French friends.’ She shook her head. ‘Pitiful.’

‘Very much so,’ Gerald said, matching her tone, and at once forced the discussion back to his own point of interest by adding, ‘I was particularly struck by those poor Valades. Do you know much of his background?’

‘Only that he is, or was, related to the Vicomte de Valade. It seems he does not inherit the title.’

‘Well for him,’ remarked Captain Roding.

‘He could have little comfort there, indeed. But it is not entirely without hope, for perhaps they may find some succour with Charvill. Personally, however, I doubt if—’

‘Charvill?’ interrupted Gerald without ceremony, all his senses at once on the alert. ‘You cannot mean General Charvill?’

‘That old martinet?’ exclaimed Roding. ‘He was our first commander, and a more stiff-necked—’

‘Exactly so,’ concurred Lady Bicknacre. ‘Which is why I feel sure he will utterly repulse the girl, even if she is his granddaughter.’

‘What, Madame Valade?’ demanded Gerald. ‘His granddaughter?’

‘Yes, his son’s daughter.’

‘What son?’ asked Roding.

‘Precisely,’ agreed Gerald. ‘I thought it was his great-nephew, young Brewis Charvill, who is his heir.’

‘Oh yes, yes. But this was long ago. Nicholas is dead. At least I imagine so, if what Madame Valade claims is true. Not that it would make any difference if he was alive still.’

‘Why not?’ Gerald asked straightly.

‘Because,’ said Lady Bicknacre in the confidential manner of all matrons when passing on a tidbit of scandal, ‘Nicholas married against his father’s wishes and ran away. General Lord Charvill disinherited him for his pains. I cannot think he will welcome a French émigré for his granddaughter.’