Mademoiselle at Arms Read online

  Chapter Two

  ‘Our French friends are beginning to form quite a little coterie,’ remarked Gerald, covertly studying the group gathered in an alcove at the other side of Lady Bicknacre’s ballroom.

  The vast mirrored chamber, with its four little square window bays, two either side of the large raised dais that led to the French doors, was very full of company for the start of the Little Season. The clever hostess having let fall that several distinguished guests from France would be present, the world had flocked to her doors to catch, like the gossip-hungry vultures they were, a glimpse of them.

  Few approached the émigrés directly, preferring to stare covertly from behind their fans, while pretending to admire the simple elegance of Lady Bicknacre’s neo-classical refurbishments. To Gerald’s eye, the refugees therefore presented a rather forlorn little group, almost huddling together and chattering in low tones in their own tongue.

  The future Mrs Roding turned bright, laughing eyes on the major. ‘Dare I guess at the reason for your sudden interest in émigrés, Gerald?’

  ‘Lucilla,’ barked Hilary warningly. ‘Not here.’

  ‘Don’t be stuffy, Hilary,’ admonished his betrothed.

  She was a small blonde, not handsome, but with a flair for fashion demonstrated by her elegant chemise gown in the very latest Canterbury muslin, with its low décolletage barely concealed under a fine lawn handkerchief set about her shoulders, and decorated with a mauve satin sash at the waist. She had a warm, fun-loving personality, and an unflattering disrespect for her future husband’s authority. Gerald liked her enormously.

  ‘If you did not want me to talk of it,’ she told him with characteristic insouciance, ‘you should not have mentioned the matter to me.’

  ‘Are we to infer that he had a choice?’ enquired Gerald.

  ‘Of course not,’ snapped his friend. ‘She wormed it out of me, the little fiend.’

  Gerald tutted. ‘The cat’s foot, Hilary. You’re going to live under the cat’s foot.’

  ‘Fiddle,’ scoffed Miss Froxfield. ‘I am perfectly devoted to him, as well he knows.’

  She bestowed a dazzling smile on Roding, who had reddened to the gills at these words. Which were perfectly true, as Gerald was aware. Lucilla clearly adored her betrothed, anyone could see that. If there was such a thing as love at first sight, these two must epitomise it. And his scarlet coat had nothing to do with it, as Hilary was fond of recounting, for he had been in civilian clothes when they met, as he was tonight. Neither he nor Gerald chose to attire themselves in full military rig on fashionable occasions such as this. Alderley’s company of militia being his own, he was able to choose duty periods convenient to himself and his captain, and was under no obligation to wear dress uniform.

  With a rustle of her full lilac petticoats, Miss Froxfield turned back to Alderley. ‘Would you like me to enquire for your mystery lady, Gerald? I know the Comte and Comtesse de St Erme quite well.’

  ‘How can you possibly enquire for her?’ demanded Hilary acidly. ‘We don’t know who she is.’ He threw a fulminating glance at Gerald. ‘Though we might have done, if a certain addlepated clothhead hadn’t let her get away.’

  ‘Addlepated imbecile, Hilary,’ corrected Gerald calmly.

  ‘Did she call you that?’ asked Lucilla, amused. ‘How famous. I shall borrow it and apply it to you, Hilary.’

  ‘Don’t you dare. In any event, I would not have let her escape me so easily.’

  ‘Yes, she duped me finely,’ agreed Gerald.

  ‘And then vanished into thin air,’ rejoined Hilary on a sardonic note.

  ‘No, no, I am convinced your very first theory was right. She walked through the walls.’

  Lucilla Froxfield laughed gaily. ‘Fiddle, Gerald. Hilary could not have suggested such a thing.’

  ‘He did, you know,’ grinned Gerald. ‘Though he didn’t mean it. I do, however.’

  ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘Gerald is convinced there is a secret passage into the house,’ explained Roding. ‘And since the entire company and Pottiswick himself were unable to find hide nor hair of the infernal French female—’

  ‘English, Hilary,’ Gerald reminded him.

  ‘Gammon. She is no more English than that set of beggars over there.’

  ‘For shame, Hilary,’ admonished his fiancée, casting a pitying glance at the refugees. ‘They cannot help it. But, Gerald, do you believe there is a secret passage indeed?’

  ‘Well, we covered every inch of the house and grounds, and I swear she never left that room by way of the door. I would have heard her.’

  ‘How exciting.’ A sudden thought brought a frown to her brow. ‘But if there is one, how in the world did this mystery lady of yours know of it?’

  ‘That, Lucy, is precisely the point that has been exercising my mind,’ Gerald said, turning his eyes once more to the group of French exiles in the alcove.

  ‘Can’t have been a common housebreaker, you see,’ Hilary explained to Lucilla, quite unnecessarily.

  ‘Of course I see that,’ she said impatiently. ‘Could she have been a spy, after all?’

  ‘Oh, she’s not a spy,’ Gerald answered, almost absently.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Exactly,’ pounced Roding bitterly. ‘Ask him. All he will say is that she said so—as if anyone could believe a word the girl said.’

  Gerald grinned. ‘Difficult, I grant you. But though she lied about pretty much everything else, she didn’t lie about that.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Lucilla repeated, almost as sceptical as her intended spouse.

  ‘If you had met her, you’d understand.’ With an unexpected flush of pleasure, he recalled the girl’s antics. ‘When she lies outright, she thinks about it. It’s the feinting tricks you have to watch for. Wily little devil she is.’

  Miss Froxfield regarded him in some interest. ‘You speak as if you expected to meet her again, Gerald.’

  Hilary exploded. ‘Expect? He’s had a twenty-four hour watch on Remenham House these two days. The men have never had so much work to do since they banded. You’d think he wanted to meet the wretch again.’

  ‘To be sure I do,’ said Gerald swiftly. ‘I haven’t been so much entertained since I left the Army.’

  ‘Entertained, he says!’

  ‘Intrigued, then,’ amended Gerald equably, although truth to tell he was enjoying the mystery enormously. He grasped Lucilla’s elbow. ‘What you can do, Lucy, rather than make enquiries, is introduce me to this comte and comtesse.’

  ‘By all means,’ agreed Lucy at once, and ignoring the automatic protest that issued from Roding’s lips, she threw a command over her shoulder as she turned to go. ‘Come on, Hilary. You don’t want to miss the sport.’

  ‘Sport!’ grumbled her betrothed, but he accompanied them across the ballroom all the same.

  Madame la Comtesse de St Erme regarded the English major with a lacklustre eye, Gerald thought. Did she suppose him a possible pretender to her daughter’s hand? The girl—Dorothée, if memory served—was clearly marriageable, but he imagined most of these unhappy exiles were all but penniless. Gerald doubted there would be many eager suitors, even assuming the comtesse was keen to marry off her daughter to a foreign protestant.

  According to Lucilla, this comtesse had constituted herself something of a social leader in the rapidly growing assemblage of refugees, and would undoubtedly be ready to introduce an eligible bachelor appropriately.

  Mesdames Thierry and Poussaint appeared delighted to meet Gerald, and he was obliged to do the pretty to their daughters too. If the young ladies were dowerless, which seemed likely, their attire at least—so Lucilla assured him in a whisper—was of the first stare. Silken open robes over full tiffany petticoats in a contrasting colour were, Lucy assured him, of the very latest Parisian design, cut by the finest French tailors.

  Gerald, whose French was adequate from his military service abroad, was able to respond suitably to such re
marks as the ladies addressed to him, but was less exercised by their fashionable dress than their decidedly careworn appearance. Both girls looked pale and listless. There was little fighting spirit here. He could not see these two shrinking misses capering about in a nun’s habit and brandishing a defiant pistol.

  There was a third lady among the younger set. A buxom piece, who looked, Gerald decided, as if she would be more at home in an amorous engagement in a hayloft than sitting demurely in a ballroom. She occupied a small sofa, a little apart, a ruddy-complexioned gentleman some years her senior beside her, and glanced about with an air of considerable unease.

  Briefly, with a careless wave towards the couple, the comtesse presented them as Monsieur and Madame Valade.

  ‘Who have lately joined us,’ she said, adding sotto voce, ‘A very great tragedy. The entire family massacred. Wiped out, but for these. A lucky escape.’

  ‘Lucky indeed,’ answered Gerald, glancing at the pair again.

  Such stories were increasingly heard in English society. There were some deepseated fears of the rot spreading to England, if the simmering discontent of the peasantry of France were to erupt any further. The gulf between rich and poor was perhaps greater in France, but by all accounts it was not the canaille who were responsible for the present turmoil. It was the incendiary intellectuals of the bourgeoisie, with their militant ideas of revolution, who had raised the populace to a pitch of violence resulting in cases of wholesale slaughter—such as had overtaken the Valades. Families had seen their lands seized, their chateaux ransacked or burned, and those unlucky enough to have failed to anticipate disaster, had been murdered or dragged away to gaol. In Paris, in July, a raging mob had stormed the Bastille, provoking circumspect aristocrats to uproot themselves and take refuge abroad. Also from the capital came news of grave fears for the safety of the royal family, who had moved there from Versailles.

  These things were common knowledge among the bon ton, who were generously welcoming these unfortunate escapees. They had not so far been of much personal interest to Gerald, but tonight was different.

  He eyed the young couple with the tragic history behind them, and could only suppose that familiarity had dulled their senses. The man had favoured him with a brief nod, but the girl had gone so far as to offer a tiny smile, and a look under her lashes with which not even Gerald, for all his scant interest in female society, could fail to be familiar. It was a look that accorded very well with the hayloft setting that had come to mind.

  Now, however, as Gerald watched them, their heads were together and they were murmuring in French. The female’s words caught at his attention, and he no longer heard what the young Poussaint girl was saying to him.

  ‘I was not born to this. I am not comfortable,’ complained Madame Valade.

  ‘Courage,’ urged her spouse.

  ‘It is not easy.’

  ‘It will be worth the pain, you will see. Hist!’ he added, as he turned his head and noticed Alderley’s glance.

  Gerald smiled and excused himself with the Poussaint girl, whose mouth pinched together as she threw a dagger glance at the voluptuous Madame Valade. Gerald, intent on his trail, ignored it.

  ‘I understand you have not been in England very long,’ he said in English, noting that Madame raised her fan and lowered her gaze demurely.

  ‘But a week and some days,’ answered Valade.

  ‘It must seem strange to you at first.’

  ‘Oui, mais—safe. It is safe.’

  ‘I imagine it must be a relief to you, after so lucky an escape.’ Gerald infused sympathy into his voice, and deliberately addressed himself to Madame. ‘I am sorry to hear of your misfortunes.’

  Madame ventured a glance up at his face, and fluttered her lashes. Her English was halting. ‘But we—mon mari and myself—we have the bonne chance. The rest...’ She shrugged fatalistically.

  Monsieur Valade heaved a gusty sigh, and Gerald, with heavy diplomacy and a forced heartiness of manner, turned the subject. ‘How do you like England?’

  ‘People have been very kind,’ Valade said, answering for them both.

  ‘More, I think,’ put in Madame, soulfully regarding the major, ‘because I have English, a little.’

  ‘You speak it very well,’ Gerald said encouragingly.

  ‘Ah, non,’ exclaimed the husband. ‘My wife would say she is English a little.’

  ‘Oh, she is English?’ repeated Alderley, interest perking up. He was aware of Hilary, in company with Lucilla and the comtesse’s daughter some few yards away, listening in suddenly. ‘How fascinating. Were you born here, madame?’

  ‘Mais non.’ The lady shook her head, contriving at the same moment to utter a breathy little laugh. ‘C’est à dire, I would say from my father only comes the English.’

  ‘Oh,’ Gerald uttered, disappointed. ‘Not entirely English then.’

  He heard Roding snort, and suppressed a grin as he bowed, taking the trouble to salute Madame’s hand and cast her a provocative look as he did so. He would pursue that little pastime on some other occasion. It might prove rewarding. For the present, he murmured his farewells, and turning, caught Hilary’s eye and walked away, crossing the ballroom to move into the less opulent, and less crowded, saloon next door where servants were dispensing refreshments.

  In a moment, Roding and Lucilla joined him.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Miss Froxfield, accepting a glass of lemonade proffered by a passing lackey.

  ‘Well, nothing,’ uttered her betrothed crossly, before Gerald could answer. ‘Playing games to tease me, that’s all he can think of doing.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort,’ Gerald said calmly, sipping at his burgundy.

  ‘It looked to me as if he was playing games with Madame Valade,’ Lucilla said frankly. Her eyes quizzed the major. ‘Flirting, Gerald? A new come-out for you.’

  Gerald grinned. ‘Merely making a useful contact. Interrogation takes many forms, you know, Lucy.’

  ‘Some of them more pleasurable than others, I take it.’

  ‘Gammon,’ interrupted Hilary scornfully. ‘Hates doing the pretty. I can vouch for that.’

  ‘But in pursuit of information, Hilary, I am prepared to sacrifice my preferences,’ Gerald told him.

  ‘Don’t tell me. I know you. That “entirely English” comment was said just to provoke me.’

  ‘I was merely drawing your attention to the odd prevalence of French émigrés claiming English antecedents.’

  ‘So you think she is an émigré?’ Lucilla put in before the incensed Roding could respond. ‘Your mystery lady, I mean.’

  ‘I don’t, as a matter of fact,’ Gerald said decidedly, a frown creasing his brow. ‘She didn’t behave in the least like an émigré, if these people are anything to go by.’

  ‘She behaved like a madwoman,’ Hilary declared roundly. ‘It’s my belief she is a nun.’

  ‘Now why didn’t I make that connection?’ Gerald asked of the air in a tone of regret. ‘Quite mad, nuns are. They are often to be found dashing about secret passages in strange houses, armed to the teeth. After all, where prayer fails, a pistol is bound to succeed.’

  ‘You know, Gerald,’ Lucilla put in thoughtfully, forestalling a withering rejoinder from the captain, ‘there may be something in that. After all, it is not long since that a Catholic nun in this country would have had to remain in hiding. And their monasteries and convents are still not officially permitted to exist here. Though they do, in secret, I believe.’

  Gerald was staring at her, an arrested expression on his face. ‘Now I see why you’re marrying this woman, Hilary. You can give up thinking and leave all the brain work to her.’

  ‘She’s as clothheaded as you,’ Roding retorted, but he slipped an arm about the lady’s waist and gave her a quick squeeze.

  ‘But only think, Hilary,’ Lucy protested, evidently too involved in her theory to waste time in scolding. ‘It is all too probable that she would wish to change into lay clothing to es
cape recognition.’

  ‘Yes, a pretty theory, Lucy,’ Gerald said evenly, ‘but for one thing. She told us that it was a disguise.’

  ‘She told you!’

  ‘And,’ pursued Gerald, ignoring his friend’s scornful interjection, ‘that it was not always convenient to be dressed as a young girl.’

  ‘And you believe her?’ asked Lucilla, raising her brows.

  ‘I believe that. Though there is something to be said for your idea of a secret convent, at least as a hiding place.’ He frowned again. ‘Which presupposes that she needs to hide at all. And if she is not a nun, nor a refugee, and yet is entirely English, I’m hanged if I know what she is.’

  ‘Why should you care?’ demanded Roding, exasperated. ‘Obsessed, that’s what you are.’

  Gerald grinned. ‘Yes, but I’m probably chasing moonbeams. The likelihood is that I shan’t see the wench again.’

  It must have been fate, Gerald decided, near an hour later, staring intently at the closed French windows on the raised alcove that led out to the terrace. Or else he was indeed obsessed. But there was a face pressed to the glass. The features were indistinct, but was that not a halo of white about it? And the dark shadow below, was that a cloak, or the habit of a nun?

  Skirting the dancing, from which he had taken a breather—not from lack of energy, but to escape the inanities of the young ladies he had partnered—Gerald made his way to a side door in the saloon and opened it.

  Cautiously stepping outside, he looked up towards the terrace. Yes, there was someone there. Keeping to the shadow of the house, he crept forward until he could see better without, he hoped, being seen. But the figure was evidently too intent on peering within the ballroom to pay any attention to what might be occurring outside.

  It moved a trifle, stepping back and lifting an arm to rub the sleeve against the glass. Lord, but it was a nun! Just as he had suspected. He smothered a laugh. What in the world was the wench up to now? For it must be she. How many nuns were there in England who might have occasion to spy on Lady Bicknacre’s ballroom? The presence of the French refugees took on greater significance.

  Gerald began to ease forward, deciding just how he would accost her. Then he paused. She was shifting, moving back. Turning now, and running down the terrace.

  The noise of a bolt came to Alderley’s ears. Someone was coming out of the house. Either she had been seen, or they were seeking the air. Probably the latter, for the thronging ballroom was insufferably hot.

  The thought passed through his mind even as he started to cross the terrace at a jogtrot, moving to head her off. He leapt down into the haha surrounding the terrace, and saw that the nun was there also and backing towards him, anxiously checking now and then above the level of the terrace. Voices floated down, but there was no sound of pursuit.

  Crouching down, Gerald waited, hands at the ready. There was no way to warn her of his presence without startling her. Whatever he did, she was bound to scream. He would have to make sure of her silence.

  As she came close, he took a pace forward and seized her from behind, one strong arm clamping her tight against his chest, the free hand seizing her about the mouth, stifling the cry that gurgled in her throat.

  But he reckoned without his host. His only warning was a gleam of silver in the faint spill of light from the house above. Then the dagger’s point came in a whirling arc towards his face.

  By a miracle, he averted its path, his hold on the girl’s mouth shifting fast to grasp her wrist. He forced her arm back, away, stretching it out to keep the weapon at bay.

  ‘Desist, you little devil,’ he growled in her ear. ‘Let it fall!’

  ‘Brute!’ she spat, struggling, and he knew at once he had guessed aright. ‘Moi, je vais vous tuer!’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Gerald said through his teeth. ‘You’re not going to kill me this time. Let—it—fall.’

  The command was accompanied by an increase of pressure on the wrist he held. She gasped with pain, but she did not release her grip.

  ‘Laisse-moi,’ she panted, shifting wildly in his hold, so that he had all to do to keep her thus imprisoned.

  ‘Damn you, what’s the matter with you?’ he snapped in frustration. ‘I don’t want to hurt you any more. Listen, it is I. The imbecile. Remember?’

  ‘Parbleu,’ came from his still struggling victim. ‘You will release me at once, imbecile.’

  ‘Not until you release that dagger. Now drop it.’

  A strangled sob escaped her as his thumb dug cruelly into the soft flesh of her wrist. Her fingers opened and the weapon fell from her nerveless grasp.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Gerald, and let her go.

  In an instant, she turned on him. The struggle had dislodged the white wimple, which was evidently too large for her, and her black hair broke free, whirling like a whiplash about her head as her hands curled into fists, coming up to beat at his chest, her little teeth bared for attack.

  ‘Espèce de bête,’ she snarled. ‘Idiot!’

  ‘Enough, now! Softly, you little termagant,’ he ordered, seizing her wrists to hold her off. But his own ferocity was less now that she was disarmed.

  ‘Softly, you say?’ she uttered, raging. ‘Is it soft, the way you seize me from behind? Parbleu, my heart it is flown from my chest! Boom, boom, it goes, even now. Imbecile.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry about that,’ Gerald uttered in a rueful tone. ‘It could not be helped, whichever way I made my presence known. And I guessed you would attack if I startled you.’

  ‘You should be happy that you are not dead,’ she retorted, but with a diminution of the venom and fright in her voice.

  He felt her relaxation and let go of her wrists. She grasped at the right one, massaging where his grip had been and Gerald hoped he had not bruised her.

  ‘How could I know that it is you?’ She peered at him in the darkness. ‘It is in truth you?’

  ‘Of course it is I.’

  ‘Where then is your uniform?’

  ‘I don’t wear it to balls.’

  ‘Eh bien, it is your fault entirely in this case. Easily I could have killed you. Just as I might have killed another, if he had come out.’

  ‘Ah, so you did come here to find someone,’ Gerald responded eagerly. ‘One of your countrymen, perhaps?’

  The girl clammed up, the moon of her white face staring up at him in the darkness. Then she spoke, with a carelessness he instantly suspected.

  ‘I do not understand you.’

  ‘I think you understand me very well.’

  He could just see the glare.

  ‘What do you want with me? Why did you catch me?’

  ‘You intrigue me,’ he told her frankly. His gaze dropped to the black garment that covered her. ‘For instance, why have you reverted to your nun’s habit for this particular adventure?’

  ‘That is easy. For a nun at night it is less dangerous than for the jeune demoiselle.’

  Gerald eyed her. His vision was becoming accustomed to the faint light now and her features were clearer. She was trying to adjust the wimple, dragging at it and fighting with her loosened hair. The white veil had fallen to the ground and Gerald retrieved it for her.

  ‘And how is it that you have acquired this garb of a religieuse?’ he asked as she fitted the veil over her head.

  ‘From the convent, where else?’

  ‘It does not strike me that you can possibly have been in a convent.’

  ‘Ah, non?’ Her voice was neutral. ‘And why not?’

  ‘Because,’ Gerald said matter of factly, ‘convent-bred jeune demoiselles do not commonly know how to handle either pistols or daggers. You did not learn that in a convent.’

  A giggle answered him. ‘Not from the nuns, no. But there are ways to learn more than a nun would teach.’

  Fresh suspicion kindled in his breast. ‘Oh, are there? You are not quite alone in these adventures of yours, I take it.’ He thought a wary look came into her face, but it
was difficult to be sure. ‘Come, I am concerned merely for your safety, you know. I am not prying for my own amusement.’

  ‘Then leave me to guard myself, and do not ask me questions any more,’ she snapped, and crouched down suddenly, 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.’