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

very good mind to do so, imbecile.’

Gerald turned and came back to her. ‘That’s better. Come now, I am very glad to see you again so soon, mademoiselle whatever-your-name-is. We have a great deal to discuss, you and I.’

A wary look came over her face, and Roding intervened. ‘You won’t get a thing out of her. Not if I read her aright.’

‘Perhaps you don’t, Hilary,’ Gerald said mildly, smiling at the young lady and indicating one of the wide window seats. ‘Sit down, won’t you?’ He crossed back to Roding and said low-voiced. ‘A word, if you please, my friend.’

They moved to the door, while the lady shrugged, and then seated herself, glancing from the window into the street below, and then turning again to watch them in their huddle at the other side of the library.

‘What is it?’ asked Roding. ‘What do you mean to do with her?’

‘Just keep her talking, that’s all,’ Gerald said quickly. ‘Long enough for you to see Frith for me.’

‘Your groom? What for?’

‘Get him to wait outside. Sooner or later she’s going to run away again, and I want Frith to follow her and find out where she’s living.’

Roding gave him a look of respect. ‘For once, you’re talking like a sensible man. I’ll do it. Seems you were right about Valade. She was definitely following him. Mark you, she wasn’t the only one. There was a young lad ahead of her. Footman or some such.’

‘Indeed? Interesting.’

‘Ain’t it? Want me to give you some time with her? Not that I think she’ll tell you anything.’

‘Yes, she will. But probably not the truth.’

Roding gave a bark of derisive laughter and left the room. Gerald crossed back to the window.

‘Would you care for some refreshment? A glass of wine, perhaps?’

‘Nothing, merci, I do not remain,’ she answered, although she did not rise. Under the plumed hat, her eye kindled. ‘And I do not know why you are so polite, when you have been bad to me last night, and have taken my dagger.’

‘You were quite as bad to me as I was to you,’ Gerald protested mildly, sitting down beside her. ‘As for your dagger—’

She held out her hand palm up, as if she expected him to give her the weapon. As she did so, the ruffles to the jacket of her riding habit fell away, exposing livid blue bruises about her wrist, ugly in the light of day from the window at their back.

‘Lord in heaven, did I do that?’ exclaimed Gerald remorsefully. He took her hand in his, raising it closer, and gently touched the maltreated skin. She hissed in a breath and his eyes met hers. ‘It must be painful. I’m sorry. Forgive me.’

Her lips parted, but she did not speak. Only sat, staring at him, a puzzled look in her face. It was a moment or two before Gerald realised that he could feel the fluttering of her pulse beneath the light touch he had on her wrist, and that her fingers were trembling in his.

‘I didn’t mean to hurt you so badly,’ he said, still meeting her eyes, unaware that his hold about her hand had tightened a little.

‘R-rien. It—it is nothing,’ she said, although with a tremor in her voice.

‘On the contrary,’ Gerald argued, frowning. ‘But if you must fight so furiously, I don’t see how I can promise not to do it again.’

At that, a flush drenched her cheeks and she snatched her hand away. ‘I will fight to the death, if it needs.’

A faint smile crossed Gerald’s lips. ‘I am sure you will. My death, probably.’

‘This, monsieur le major, is entirely your own affair,’ said the lady, haughty again. ‘Do not mix yourself in mine, and perhaps you will not die.’

‘Yes, but I’m afraid I am far too interested to stop mixing myself in your affairs,’ Gerald said ruefully. ‘I’m determined to find out all about you, mademoiselle. If I am to die in the attempt, then so be it.’

‘Dieu du ciel,’ burst from mademoiselle as she jumped up. ‘Do you not understand that I can trust no one—no one?’

‘That is a pity,’ Gerald said, rising to face her. ‘Perhaps I could indeed rescue you if only you would confide in me.’

The girl shook her head violently, setting the feathers on her hat bobbing. ‘It is not possible.’

‘That we shall see. Why were you following Valade?’

She shrugged and turned away, moving as if to seek escape among the bookshelves all about one corner of the room. ‘I do not know of whom you speak. As to following, there was no one.’

‘Don’t be a little fool,’ Gerald snapped irritably.

‘It is you who is the fool,’ she threw at him, whipping round again. ‘I have said that I will tell you nothing of this soi-disant Valade.’

Gerald seized on this. ‘Soi-disant? Then he is not Valade?’

‘How can I know?’ she countered crossly. ‘I do not know him.’

‘I am not the imbecile you take me for,’ Gerald said with dangerous calm. ‘If you will not tell me about Valade, so be it. What of madame, his wife?’

‘You know more of her than me,’ the girl said with a look of scorn. ‘His wife? Pah!’

‘You’re saying she is not his wife?’

‘I am saying nothing.’

Gerald eyed her. She knew the truth of it all right. ‘Word has it that she is English on her father’s side.’

‘The word of whom?’ came scoffingly from the pretty lips.

‘Her own,’ Gerald replied.

‘Exactement.’

‘Damnation!’ Gerald burst out, crossing towards her. ‘Will you stop hedging? I’m hanged if I go on with this ridiculous cat and mouse game. Give me your name, girl!’

‘Again?’ Mademoiselle rolled her eyes. ‘Eh bien, Eugénie. Or I should say—’

‘Eugenia,’ cut in Gerald grimly. ‘I thank you. I daresay that is one of the names of the nuns in your convent.’

‘The nuns?’ she said, gazing at him innocently. ‘Certainly, if I was a nun, I know of many good names.’ She counted off on her fingers. ‘There is Bernadette, Marie-Thérèse, Marie-Joséphine, Marie-Claire, Henriette—’

Exasperated, Gerald seized her by the shoulders. ‘I don’t want a list of all the nuns resident in your wretched convent. I am aware that you ran away from there, but—’

‘Certainly I ran away,’ she said, meeting his gaze with defiance in her own. ‘And if you like, I will tell you why.’

For the space of half a minute, Gerald continued to scowl in silent frustration. But the sheer tenacity of the girl defeated him. He laughed suddenly, and released her.

‘You had better kill me, mademoiselle, because otherwise I shall end by strangling you.’

‘Comment? You wish to murder me?’

‘No, I wish to beat you,’ he retorted. ‘In fact, I’ve never met anyone who goaded me to so much violence.’

The girl nodded understandingly. ‘Yes, that is what the nuns they said of me.’

‘You surprise me.’ Relaxing back, Gerald folded his arms. ‘Very well, then. Tell me why you ran away from the convent.’

‘So would you run away,’ she uttered impulsively. ‘I do not mind to pray, no. Even, I do not mind to study this Latin so abominable. But this is not sufficient. In a convent, you understand, one is like a servant, even if one is a lady.’

‘How shocking.’

‘Yes, but I do not like to scrub the floor and peel the vegetables and feed the pig. So it is that I do not do these things. But I must, they say, and try to make me with the punishments.’

‘Poor little devil,’ said Gerald, genuinely sorry for her.

A radiant smile astonished him. ‘As to that, I am a devil, say the nuns. Because for the punishments je m’en moque.’

‘You didn’t care. Yes, I can readily believe it.’

‘In one little minute,’ she said, snapping her fingers, ‘it is over and voilà tout.’

‘Forgive me, but if that is the case, I don’t quite see why you should run away.’

‘Ah, that was an affair altogether different,’ she explained and fluttered her long lashes at him. The by now familiar dramatic sigh came. ‘There was a priest, the father confessor, you understand. He tried to make love to me. Oh, it was very bad.’ She spread her hands. ‘What would you? The nuns they would not believe me, and so it was not possible for me to stay. I was compelled to run away.’

‘All the way to England?’

She opened wide eyes. ‘But it is entirely natural that I choose my own country.’

Footsteps sounded just outside, and Captain Roding walked in. The major hailed him with a show of relief.

‘Hilary, thank God! Have you a pistol about you? Or better yet, your sword.’ He moved to his friend and grasped his hand in a gesture as deliberately dramatic as the storytelling of mademoiselle. ‘If you care for me at all, shoot me. Or run me through. I’d rather die than hear any more fairytales.’

‘Dieu du ciel,’ came from the lady in a furious tone, before the astonished Roding could respond. ‘This is insupportable. There is no need of your friend to kill you, imbecile, because I shall do so this minute.’

Leaning down, she raised the hem of the petticoat of her habit to reveal a neat little pair of boots on her feet. Gerald saw her extract something and leapt aside, calling a warning to Hilary.

There was just time for the girl to raise her arm to chest height and draw it back before Roding seized her. The slim knife was wrested from her grasp, and she was flung backwards, towards the bookcases. She threw out a hand to stop herself from cannoning into them and, losing balance, tripped over her own petticoats and fell to the carpeted floor, her hat falling off as she did so.

‘Oh, Lord,’ muttered Gerald, going instantly to her aid.

Furiously, she dashed his hands away. ‘Bête. I will arise myself.’

Ignoring this, the major slipped his hands about her waist and lifted her to her feet.

‘What the devil do you think you’re doing?’ protested Hilary angrily. ‘You should rather be arresting the girl and throwing her into gaol for attempted murder.’

‘For God’s sake, don’t accuse her of murder,’ begged Gerald, retrieving the lady’s hat and handing it to her, ‘or she’ll be challenging me to a duel again.’

‘You,’ announced the lady, throwing an explosive glare at the captain, ‘are a person entirely without sense. Certainly I would not murder monsieur le major, even that he has made a threat to beat me.’

‘I like that,’ Gerald protested. ‘After all the threats you’ve made, that is hardly fair.’

‘I’m hanged if I can make out either of you,’ complained Hilary. ‘Mad as hatters!’

‘It is you who is mad,’ mademoiselle told him crossly. ‘Gérard is not mad, only of a disposition entirely interfering.’

‘And you are of a disposition entirely untruthful,’ retorted Gerald. ‘Have you any more pretty toys like that knife about you?’

‘The girl’s a regular arsenal,’ Hilary snapped, giving up into his senior’s hand the nasty little weapon he had snatched.

‘It is necessary that one is at all times ready to protect oneself,’ explained the young lady flatly. ‘So Leonardo has taught me.’

‘Leonardo?’ An abrupt sensation of severe irritation attacked Gerald.

‘Who the devil is Leonardo?’ demanded Roding impatiently, asking the question that had leapt into the major’s mind.

‘Oh, peste,’ she cried out in distressed tones. ‘You make me talk, you make me talk. Diable.’

Then she jammed her hat on her head all anyhow and ran from the room.

Hilary started after her, but Gerald stopped him.

‘Let her go. Did you warn Frith?’

‘Yes. He’s waiting.’

‘Good. When he’s found out where she’s staying, I’ll