Mademoiselle at Arms Page 7

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Oh, my God,’ burst from Gerald. He jumped back, wrenching the sword away. It fell with a clatter to the floor.

  He heard Melusine cry out, but his attention was all for the nick he had made in her neck. Diving towards it, he tried to press against the rivulet that was seeping from it, hampered mightily by Melusine’s fingers, which were grasping at his other hand.

  ‘For God’s sake, let go my hand,’ he begged. ‘I must get a handkerchief.’

  ‘But you are bleeding like a pig,’ came the frantic response.

  Gerald glanced down and saw her dash at a spread of blood on his own hand, only now realising that her dagger had found its mark. Lord above, had they wounded each other? But Melusine’s need was paramount with Gerald and he tried to shake off her clinging fingers.

  ‘Will you let be?’

  Instead she grasped his hand tighter. ‘Laisse-moi!’

  Impatience swamped him. ‘You’re only making things worse, you little idiot.’

  ‘Parbleu, it is I who am the idiot?’ she scolded furiously, removing one hand and digging it into her sleeve. ‘Who has begun this but you?’

  Gerald barely heard her. ‘Melusine, if you don’t let go my hand—’ He broke off as she dragged a pocket handkerchief from her sleeve. ‘Give me that!’

  He took his finger away from her neck and made a grab at the handkerchief.

  ‘No!’ Melusine snapped as he tugged at the thing. ‘Leave it, imbecile.’

  ‘Damn you, I should have beaten you,’ Gerald swore, holding fast to his corner of the little square of linen. ‘Only you made me lose my temper, and—’

  ‘I made you do so? Pah!’

  Gerald at last succeeded in ripping the handkerchief from her grasp, and swiftly held it to her neck, oblivious to her now bloodied fingers clawing at his hand.

  ‘What in God’s name is going on?’

  Glancing swiftly towards the doorway, Gerald saw his friend’s disbelieving face and burst out, speaking over the top of Melusine as she made another grab for the little square of linen.

  ‘This idiotic female—’

  ‘This imbecile has made me—’

  ‘—made me lose my temper, and I—’

  ‘—cut him with my dagger, and he is—’

  ‘—damn near slit her throat!’

  ‘—bleeding like a pig!’

  ‘Whoa, whoa!’ stormed the captain, starting forward.

  Next instant, Gerald felt his wrist seized in an iron grip. It was wrenched away from Melusine’s clutching hands.

  ‘Gad, what a mess!’

  Gerald pulled free, and Melusine broke back, staring at him. Her neck was smeared with red and remorse flooded him.

  ‘Oh, my God, Melusine, what have I done?’

  Melusine shook her head. ‘No. It is what I have done.’

  ‘Don’t start arguing again, for God’s sake,’ snapped Roding irritably, dragging out his own large pocket-handkerchief. ‘If ever I met such a pair of lunatics!’

  ‘Give me that, Hilary,’ Gerald said at once, ignoring his remark and reaching out for the handkerchief. ‘She’s still bleeding.’

  His friend held it out of the way. ‘So are you.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You’ll get her all over blood again. Let me bind you up, and then you can attend to her.’

  To Gerald’s chagrin, Melusine regarded Hilary with approval.

  ‘That is very sensible, mon capitaine. But I do not need that Gérard attend. I will be very well without him.’

  ‘Which is exactly what started us off,’ Gerald said to his friend with a grin, as he gave up his injured hand to the other’s ministrations.

  ‘What started you off, you madman,’ Roding told him frankly, as he set about tying his handkerchief around the wound, ‘was being born at all.’

  ‘That wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘No, but you’ve made up for it since.’

  Gerald laughed. ‘This from a man who calls himself my friend.’

  ‘Yes, well, I was too young to see it,’ the captain said, tying a knot in his makeshift bandage. ‘Too late by the time I realised to what a dunderhead I’d pledged my friendship.’

  ‘You mean imbecile, don’t you?’ Gerald said, and turned his head to share the joke with Melusine.

  She was no longer there.

  Consternation gripped him. ‘Oh, my God, she’s gone!’

  Wrenching his hand from his friend’s slackened grasp, he darted for the door, Roding behind him.

  ‘How the deuce did she get out without me seeing her?’

  ‘Took advantage of the distraction, cunning little devil,’ Gerald snapped, racing down the corridor.

  ‘But you know everything now,’ protested Hilary, keeping pace as Gerald took the stairs two at a time. ‘Where’s the sense in running away?’

  ‘Doesn’t trust me,’ Gerald said briefly.

  He reached the top floor and ran down the corridor to the little dressing room at the end where he had lost her before. It was empty. Gerald kicked the panelled wall in frustration.

  ‘Damnation! Too late.’

  ‘Wait!’ Leaning forward, Hilary tapped on the panel. ‘Hollow.’

  Triumph leapt in Gerald’s chest. ‘The secret passage!’

  It did not take long to find the mechanism of the candlesconce that opened the door. Gerald studied the darkness beyond the aperture.

  ‘Think it’s worth getting some sort of light and following her down there?’ asked Roding. ‘That is, if she’s gone that way.’

  Gerald considered. ‘I doubt it. Though I’ll wager she used this passage, and we certainly ought to investigate it.’

  ‘What about the lad?’ said the captain suddenly. ‘Must be still downstairs.’

  ‘She will have taken him with her. And it’s no use thinking he’d stop her. The boy’s besotted.’ He thought Roding gave him an odd look, but his next question was already in his head. ‘What did you tell Valade?’

  ‘Well, when I asked him what he wanted, he told me straight out that he had been told his wife was related to Jarvis Remenham, and he had come to see whoever lived here now that Jarvis was dead.’

  ‘So Charvill did tell him,’ Gerald said, once more staring into the hole in the wall.

  ‘Looks like it. In any event, I explained that no one lived here and that we’d been called in because of suspected intruders.’ Roding’s voice changed. ‘That piece of information seemed to interest him very much.’

  Gerald looked round. ‘Did it indeed?’

  ‘I should think he’s guessed, don’t you?’

  ‘Without any doubt at all.’

  ‘Oh, she’ll be safe enough, Gerald. He doesn’t know where she is, and I told him he’d have to apply to Remenham’s lawyers if he wanted anything to do with this place.’

  Gerald’s jaw tightened. ‘That’s not much comfort. He must know she’ll be at a convent. Where else could she go?’

  ‘And there aren’t too many of them around,’ agreed Hilary on a gloomy note.

  ‘She hasn’t said so, but I presume Valade had got hold of all the useful papers,’ Gerald went on. ‘Which means if he goes to the lawyers, he’ll get in ahead of Melusine. She has no proof—yet.’ He sighed. ‘No, I don’t see much future in pursuing her down this passage. We’ll have Trodger check it out later.’

  He closed the panel and came slowly out of the little dressing-room, Roding at his heels.

  ‘Suppose you don’t know what sort of proof she was after?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s what started the fracas,’ Gerald admitted ruefully, nursing his injured hand as he recalled it. ‘She wouldn’t tell me.’

  ‘Take care,’ warned Hilary, his eyes on his improvised bandage. ‘Don’t want it to break out bleeding again.’

  ‘Lord, man, it’s only a scratch!’ Suddenly Gerald snapped his fingers. ‘Wait a minute, though. Proof? There is someone who might be willing to help. Why in heaven’s name
didn’t I think of that before?’

  ‘What are you talking of?’

  ‘Never mind that now. I’ll have to make a visit out of town. But first, we’ve got to secure the convent. I’ll need you to go back to the barracks and fetch more men up to town. Not Trodger. We’ll leave him here, with a couple of others.’

  ‘Think Valade will come back here then?’

  ‘Melusine thinks so,’ Gerald said, pausing at the top of the stairs. He looked at his friend. ‘What would you do in Valade’s place?’

  ‘You mean, knowing that the girl was here and liable to queer my pitch?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Get rid of the wench,’ Roding said brutally.

  Gerald’s chest tightened. ‘Yes, I thought you’d say that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘In Valade’s place, with so much at stake—and more perhaps than he thought, for if he goes to the lawyers he’s bound to find out about this house—’

  Hilary said it for him. ‘You’d do the same.’

  There was a silence. Abruptly, Gerald turned. ‘Come on. I’ve to collect my sword and hat, and then we must get back to London. Fast.’

  Speeding down the two flights of stairs, Gerald mentally thanked God that it was the practice of himself and Roding—in case of emergency, of which this was a prime example—to stable their horses at the posting inns all the way to London. He had got here at speed by that means. By now the horses would be rested and he might go as swiftly back again.

  But on arriving in the tattered saloon where he and Melusine had hidden, a shock awaited Gerald. One swift glance about the room, and a sensation of grim foreboding swept through him.

  ‘She knows what she’s up against. She’s taken my sword.’

  The tapping for which Melusine had been waiting came at last. She sighed with relief. It was cramped even at the end of the passage. It was also cold, and dark, for there had been no time to light the lantern.

  ‘Jacques?’ she called.

  ‘They’ve gone, miss,’ came the answer, muffled through the panel door.

  ‘Then open it quickly.’

  It was a wait of several minutes while Melusine chafed. She guessed Jack was having trouble finding the right piece of carving. At last the panel swung back into the library. Melusine grasped the hilt of the sword she had been carefully holding, and came out into the light.

  ‘Parbleu, but it is not comfortable in the least in there. Such a time that it takes for them to go.’

  ‘Only a few minutes, miss. I waited for them to get right out of the grounds. They went to the gate and stopped there, gabbed with their men, and didn’t even dismount. Then they rode off at speed.’

  Melusine nodded. ‘Gérard will think that I have gone back to London. That is good.’

  ‘I still think you ought to have waited, miss. That there Frenchie didn’t look any too friendly to me.’

  ‘Certainly he is not a friend,’ Melusine agreed, ‘but he has gone, after all.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, miss, but I think as how you ought to go back to London,’ Jack ventured.

  ‘I will do so. But first,’ said Melusine with determination, ‘I will find that which I came to find. Everyone has gone away again, so that I can do so all alone.’

  ‘Alone, miss?’

  ‘Certainly alone. Do you not remember that this capitaine has heard us talking? You may believe that Gérard will not let the soldiers leave from the gate. If they come here to walk around, they will hear us. So you, Jacques, must go and wait for me with the horse. Only first you must find the lantern and light it again and leave it here, near the door, for me to find.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Do not argue with me, but go at once,’ ordered Melusine swiftly, taking a high tone intended to subdue the independent spirit Kimble had lately shown himself to possess. She held out the foil. ‘And take you this sword. Stow it in the saddle, for I will take it with me.’

  Kimble frowned direfully, staring at the weapon with its gold hilt and decorative pattern down the blade. Suspicion was in his face.

  ‘Where did you get that, miss?’

  ‘It is the sword of monsieur le major.’

  ‘How did you come by it? You didn’t steal it, did you?’

  ‘Certainly I did not steal it,’ said Melusine indignantly. ‘I have only borrowed it.’

  ‘What?’ squeaked Kimble. ‘But the major—’

  ‘The major can say nothing at all. Has he not himself taken my daggers and my pistol and my knife? Alors, he has given me back my pistol and one dagger,’ she conceded conscientiously, ‘which is a very good thing. And you need not fear that I shall not give back the sword when I have finished using it.’

  ‘But what do you want it for, miss?’

  ‘But to protect myself. Do not be a fool, Jacques. And go quickly that I may finish to search.’

  She thrust him into the aperture, and pushed the hilt of the sword into his hand. Next moment, she had shut the bookshelf panel upon him.

  Melusine sighed with relief at being alone at last and free to resume her search among the portraits. Leaving the library by the same door she had first used to enter it earlier that day, she crossed the two little antechambers and moved on through the rooms. She made a slow tour of the front of the house without success, and then started back along the rooms behind, dragging open the drapes each time to get just enough light to recognise what was on the walls.

  As time went on, she began to think Martha had been mistaken. When she judged that she must be nearly back at the library, she began to feel somewhat dispirited. Would she ever find it?

  Sighing, she opened the door to the next room, and drew back the drapes. One of the shutters was a trifle damaged, letting in added light. Melusine turned to look at the walls, and saw, immediately opposite, set between two candelabra above a marquetry side table, a gilded mirror.

  ‘Ah, now I may see what damage Gérard has done to me,’ she muttered, crossing to the table and putting her hand to the sore place at her neck.

  The image in the glass was not clear, for the light was not bright enough to see properly, but the shadows of her riding habit and the hat with its waving plumes framed a countenance that gazed serenely back at her out of long-lashed blue eyes.

  Melusine tilted her head to catch sight of her neck, and froze, staring at the image. The image did not move. Her pulses began to race.

  ‘Comment? This is not a mirror!’

  It was a portrait. Melusine stepped back a pace, her gaze fixed on the vision before her. She had thought it a mirror, because it was her. It had her raven locks, her pouting lips. And the fact that it was dressed in riding gear had fooled her into thinking it was her own image.

  ‘But it is entirely myself,’ she exclaimed aloud. Martha was quite right. Mary Remenham had passed on her every feature to the daughter whose advent had taken her from this world.

  Melusine came close again, and reached up a finger tentatively to the face depicted there.

  ‘Maman?’

  ‘How touching,’ said a sarcastic voice behind her in French.

  Melusine whirled.

  At the door through which she had entered the room stood the so-called Monsieur Valade. He was alone, hatless and without his boots, and he held a wicked-looking French-made duelling pistol, covered in silver and gold—property no doubt, was Melusine’s fleeting thought, of the late vicomte.

  ‘You!’

  ‘Yes, it is I, mademoiselle,’ he continued in his own tongue. ‘I knew I should find you still here.’

  ‘Emile Gosse,’ Melusine said flatly, in the same language.

  ‘Valade, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Pah! You can never be Valade. Gosse were you born, and Gosse will you remain to your death. Which, let me assure you, villain, will not be so far away.’

  ‘That,’ said Gosse, ‘is a matter of opinion. Indeed, it is rather a matter of whose death is close.’ He glanced at the portrait behind
her. ‘And that object confirms me in the belief that it is not I who will shortly meet my maker.’

  Melusine edged a little away from the portrait. ‘That is my mother.’

  ‘So I infer. A pity you did not think to tell me that part of the tale at the outset.’

  ‘I had never the intention to tell you anything, pig!’

  Gosse moved forward a little. ‘No, for you had your own selfish plans already made, that is now seen. You wanted to play a lone hand. Eh bien, you have now the opportunity. You really are extremely stupid, Melusine.’

  ‘Don’t call me by name,’ she snapped. ‘You have not the right.’

  ‘Because I was a servant in the vicomte’s house? Things have changed. Or had you not noticed?’ He sneered. ‘You have made a serious mistake, Melusine.’

  She edged sideways a little more, her eyes on the pistol in his hand. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You should have gone to Charvill.’

  ‘Nothing would make me do so, except to tell him how you have cheated me.’

  He nodded. ‘As I said, a mistake. Too late now. Neither Charvill nor his heir know anything of your presence in England.’

  ‘But Gérard knows. He knows everything. That you are not Valade at all, and that I am Melusine Charvill, the granddaughter of monsieur le baron, the general.’

  Gosse smiled and Melusine read triumph there. ‘But Gérard—if you mean the fellow Alderley who was making eyes at Yolande—is not here. I saw him ride away with that other fellow.’

  ‘You saw? Where were you? How did you see?’

  ‘Your heroic milice are not as clever as they thought. Easy enough to look as if one rides away. I did so.’

  ‘Then Gérard may come back,’ Melusine cried involuntarily on a sudden rising hope.

  ‘Not if I heard him aright. Shouting to his companion, even as they passed by where I hid myself, he called out that he thought to find you at the convent.’

  Melusine bit her lip. Now the pig knew where to find her—for it would not take long for a Catholic to locate the convent in Golden Square—even if she escaped him here.

  ‘And so you sneak back,’ she threw at him, ‘like the jackal that you are. How did you get into this house?’

  He shrugged. ‘I broke in. Easy enough. It is a big house and there are many rooms in which to hide.’

  Her flesh crept. He must have been following her from room to room, silent in his stockinged feet. Too intent on her search, and convinced besides that she was quite alone, she had been an easy prey. She recalled that she had heard nothing that first time when Gerald and the captain had burst in upon her. Parbleu, but she was a fool. And now she had sent Jack away. She was alone with a deadly enemy.

  As if he read her thought, he spoke it aloud. ‘No one is here, Melusine, except you and I.’ He laughed. ‘You see now how dangerous it is to play this lone hand. You should have confided in me, and fallen in with my plan at the beginning.’

  ‘I spit on your plan,’ Melusine told him furiously. ‘Rather would I die than fall in with such a plan.’

  The expression on Emile Gosse’s face was vicious under the smile. ‘A convenient desire, Mademoiselle Charvill.’

  Melusine looked from his coarse red features to the pistol, and froze inside as she recognised his intention. Gerald’s voice came back to her, saying that she could not hope to outwit “a man who means business”. The challenge gave her courage. Eh bien, they would see about this.

  She must weigh her situation. She was, she guessed, close to the library. But how close? She glanced about at the shrouded furnishings for possible cover. None this end. A couple of gilt straight-backed chairs only. The fireplace was at the other end, with the sheeted shapes of two sofas either side. The soi-disant Valade held the centre of the room now, only an uncovered but closed card-table, its surface dusty, between him and the suite at the fireplace.

  There were three exit doors. The one nearest to her, which must lead to the library. The one through which she had come and Gosse had entered behind her. A third that joined this to the chambers at the front of the house. The man could put a bullet through her before she could hope to reach any one of them. Eh bien, she must use her tongue against him.

  ‘You do not use your head, Emile,’ she said flatly.

  ‘How so?’ he asked, and she noted that he allowed his pistol to dangle a little from his fingers. So confident, Emile?

  ‘You fire the gun and you make one big noise. Immediately the soldiers of the major will come from the gate. They will find me dead, yes. But they will also find you. And this is not France, you understand. You cannot do a murder and expect that you will not be punished. En tout cas, Gérard will very likely kill you before the hangman has the chance.’

  ‘Why should Gérard care?’ sneered Gosse.

  ‘Because he knows you for an imposter,’ Melusine flashed. She pointed suddenly at the portrait. ‘Moreover, no one will believe any more that Yolande is me when they see this.’

  Gosse’s eyes went to the portrait, and evidently took in the uncanny resemblance, looking from it to Melusine and back again. A snarl contorted his features, and he marched up to it, laying his pistol down on the marquetry table so that his hands were free to grab the picture off the wall.

  Melusine seized her chance. Turning, she flew for the nearest door. She had just managed to reach it, grabbing for the handle, when the enemy’s cracked command halted her.

  ‘Stand where you are, or I shoot!’

  Like lightning, thoughts zipped through her mind. He might miss at this distance. He had not had time to aim the pistol. If she kept on, would she make it out of the door? Then what? He could come after her before she could reach the secret passage. She dare not risk it.

  Keeping hold of the doorhandle, she turned slowly. The decision had been sound. Gosse had moved forward, his pistol arm out straight, his aim true, the gun cocked. The picture of Mary Remenham was still on the wall.

  ‘Very wise,’ he commented, slightly relaxing his arm. He laughed lightly. ‘Do you know, Mademoiselle Charvill, you are a thought too clever for your own good.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You must be got rid of, that is seen. And this damning evidence―’ with a brusque gesture at the portrait ‘―must also be destroyed. But to draw the attention of the milice, no, that is not at all desirable.’

  Dieu du ciel, but she was a fool. Now he would take her away from the house before killing her, and no one would find her body at all. But at least it gave her more time.

  Gosse was backing towards the table. His eyes on Melusine, he uncocked the pistol, and then reached out to the portrait, grasping it by one edge. He grunted a little with effort, and she realised the gilt frame must be heavy. It dropped sideways and fell with a bang to the table. But in a moment, it was tucked under his arm and, raising the pistol again, he gestured towards the door opposite the one where Melusine stood.

  ‘That way. Move.’

  Melusine hesitated. What could she do? Reluctantly, at a second curt command, she began to step across the uncarpeted floor, her eyes never leaving the threatening pistol. Gosse took a step or two towards the centre of the room.

  All of a sudden, there was movement behind him. Melusine’s eyes shifted. The door leading to the front of the house was stealthily opening. Her heartbeat quickened. Who? Could it be Gerald? Quickly, she looked back at Gosse’s face, and found him frowning. Her steps slowed.

  In the periphery of her vision, she saw the door pulled back. A black-garbed figure crept forward, noiselessly, towards Gosse’s back. Jack! Mon dieu, but he was unarmed. She must not show anything. The flicker of an eyelash might betray his presence. Her mouth dry, she made her feet walk on, not daring to utter a word.

  As Melusine approached the door, she saw Kimble speed up. Her heart in her mouth, she heard his foot scrape on the floorboard and knew from his expression that Gosse had heard it too. She saw his finger pull back on the hammer of the gun and shri
eked a warning just as Jack launched himself forward and Gosse turned and fired.

  The deafening report froze time. As in a dream, Melusine saw her faithful footman struck, his headlong progress checked. His hands came up, his face broke apart. He reeled, and crashed to the floor.