French Leave (17 page)

His wife had certainly opened her budget to her cousin, silent as she might be now. And that cousin dared to criticize his conduct now? Her criticism was all the more unforgivable because it contained just enough of the truth to sting. Conor grasped her arms. He felt like shaking her, a not unusual reaction toward his wife, but this woman
wasn’t
his wife. His wife lay on the divan with Edouard. “I wish you would be reasonable,” he said. “It is obvious that something must be done about this muddle before the police return.”

Tibble thought this the most practical suggestion he’d heard in the past hour. If nothing else, he might offer the police some chocolate. He retired to the stove. Where was the bottle of laudanum?

“I
am
reasonable!” retorted Barbary, on the verge of tears. “And I don’t see what it accomplishes at all, your shaking me!”

Neither did Conor, except that he enjoyed it. Apparently she did not. Conor released her and strode around the studio, paused in front of the easel. Mab thought to carry on her papa’s work? If this was a fair example, she would do better to confine herself to politics.

Barbary watched him, marveling anew at how gracefully he moved. She dreaded the moment when she must tell him the truth, that she had allowed him to seduce her only to secure revenge. What would he think of her then? What sort of creature would pretend to be someone else in order to involve her own husband in an intrigue?

Edouard had watched the preceding exchange with interest. He was feeling much more himself, and considered the proceedings quite as entertaining as anything one might see in the Theatre Francais. More so perhaps, because in a stage piece one could generally anticipate how things might turn out. “Come, come, let us not quarrel. There must be a solution—there is always a solution—one merely has to search for it.”

This observation did not cheer Barbary, whose state of mind may fairly be judged by the fact that she didn’t even mourn the fact that Mab had bled all over her pretty gown. Nor did it divert Conor, who had decided that his wife’s lover was in love with his wife’s cousin, who had no doubt led him on to that reckless state. Tibble, however, looked up from the pan of chocolate. Miss Barbary must know her own business best, but he thought she should confess the truth. “I wish you could fix it up all right and tight, sir,” he said. “Because I don’t mind admitting it’s brought us to a standstill.”

Edouard arranged himself more comfortably among the pillows. “Do not be of such a faint heart. Let us put our heads together. We shall devise a plan.”

Mab was glad the Duc felt inspired to add his finger to the pie. So far as she was concerned, everything was going as badly as possible. How everything had come to be bungled completely, she would have liked to ask, but Barbary refused to let her speak.

As well, perhaps; Mab couldn’t have answered the questions that Barbary’s husband asked. An ill-tempered brute he was, moreover, not at all to Mab’s taste, although she could see how he and Barbary might suit. Might have suited, since a reconciliation was clearly out of the question, or so Mab judged from the embarrassing revelations which she had been forced to hear.

“Ma’mselle!” called Edouard, and patted the divan. “Come. We must plan.”

“I don’t know what good may come of it,” said Barbary, but still obeyed. En route to the divan she paused to pick up a feathered headdress from the floor. “We just go from bad to worse.”

Edouard disliked to see anyone so unhappy. “Such a sad expression on such a pretty face. I assure you, we shall contrive.”

Barbary could not help but appreciate this optimism. She sat down on the divan, lending to the togaed Edouard the aspect of some Roman potentate lounging with a golden-haired beauty on each side. If the grapes were real, thought Conor, one or the other of the ladies would be dropping them one by one into the devil’s mouth.

Naturally Conor wasn’t jealous. He joined Tibble at the stove. “What is that mess you’re making?” he inquired.

Had he burned the chocolate? Tibble removed the pan from the flame. He could not betray Miss Barbary, of course, but— “Master Conor, there’s more to this than meets the eye.”

Conor didn’t imagine for a moment that there wasn’t. His wife thrived on intrigue. “You came here with Barbary, didn’t you? No one sent you to look after Mab.”

“Yes, sir. That is, no, sir.” Conor looked impatient, and Tibble retreated a prudent step. “Miss Mab was rubbing on well enough by herself until we came along.” He thought then of the Duc and glanced in that direction. “Or almost!”

Conor, too, looked at the divan. Edouard was full of plans, although of what precise nature it would have been difficult to say. Reference was made to
le genie de l’amour
and
les forces vitales,
and to various ingenuous schemes for smuggling the invalids down the stairs. Edouard thought he could merely fling the borrowed cloak about himself and claim to be Ma’mselle Foliot’s model; if anyone had failed to see him arrive, why, they must have been looking the other way. M’sieur Conor could simply pretend to be himself, and Tibble could be sent out on an errand. As for the ladies— “It is a problem,” he admitted. “Since there is supposed to be only one of you. Give me a moment and I shall arrive at a solution, I am sure of it.”

Conor was sure of nothing but that Edouard had contrived a farrago of nonsense. “Then what?” he inquired. “Suppose you did manage to leave here without being apprehended, where would you go?”

Edouard pondered. “How do you have it? We would lie low until the coast she is clear.”

Conor didn’t think he had it in quite that manner. “Where do you propose to, er, lie low? You don’t even remember who you are.”

“Ah.” Edouard looked thoughtful. “There is that. You
Anglais
are so practical.”

Had he been complimented? Conor did not think so. “Since you have lost your memory, you cannot tell me how you met my wife.” His gaze moved to-the lady in the blue gown. “Still, I think I would like to know.”

Curse Conor and his questions! Barbary could think of no good answers. “Why?” she asked.

“Why not?” retorted Conor, irritated anew by his wife’s poor-spirited refusal to utter one word. “It is a husband’s right to ask questions.”

Barbary glanced at her cousin. “And a wife’s prerogative to refuse to reply.”

Mab shifted positions. She was not at all comfortable, a fact which had less to do with the divan than with the proximity of the Duc. She had seen how he looked at Barbary. Apparently Edouard liked Mab’s cousin very well. Nor was she cheered by the hostile glances Barbary’s husband cast in her direction. She scowled back at him and reached behind her for a pillow. The movement caused her injured arm to twinge, and she winced.

Immediately, the Duc was all solicitude. He plumped up the pillow behind her back. Then he looked from her to Barbary.
“Incroyable! As
like, the two of you, as two peas in a pod.”

Mab had borne a great deal lately, from unexpected cousins on her doorstep to pistol shots. This allegation that she and Barbary were interchangeable caught her on the raw. Mab did not go about dallying with estranged husbands, not to mention wealthy lordlings, and alienating the affections of dues and handsome young dragoons.

For reasons unclear even to herself, Mab felt it imperative that the Duc should understand that there were great differences between her and her cousin. “We are not all
that
alike!” she snapped.

Conor’s eyes narrowed. He knew his wife’s voice in all its various nuances; had heard it murmur endearments and shout unflattering epithets, as well as every mood in between. He had never heard it sound like the voice of the lady in the blue gown.

No wonder the self-proclaimed Mab had reminded him of his wife. “It was you all along!” he said to her. “I never even spoke to your cousin. Damned clever of you—but
why?”

Barbary did not answer; she could not, being on the verge of tears. Mab attempted explanations, which were largely ignored. Tibble, too, added his voice to the fray.

The Duc cleared his throat.
“À propos de bottes,”
he said, a statement that caught everyone’s attention, because nobody had mentioned boots at all. In the resulting silence came a scratching at the door.

Chapter Twenty

Conor stood at the easel, this time, when Tibble opened the door; and gave a very good imitation of painting the group upon the divan. An interesting study that group made, consisting of a togaed gentleman in a laurel wreath flanked by two golden-haired ladies in contemporary garb, one of whom wore a feather head-dress, and the other of whom had a bandage round her arm. No police were at the door this time, however. The newcomer wore a blue peasant’s smock, and a floppy hat was perched low on his brow.

Tibble felt himself under no obligation to allow this bizarre stranger admittance. “No one’s at home. Go away!” he said, which is admittedly hardly the proper manner to greet a guest, but even so superior a servant as Tibble may sometimes be prone to afflictions of the nerves.

The newcomer did not oblige Tibble. Instead, he stuck his foot in the door. “Your mistress will wish to see me!” he snapped.

She would, would she? Over his shoulder Tibble cast Barbary an admonitory glance. He stepped aside.

The man entered. He looked from Conor to the group posed upon the divan. Barbary recognized both his costume and his confused expression. “Oh, mercy! It’s the man from the cafè.”

So it was. Mab set down the pistol that she’d clutched. Useless as the thing might be, it still lent her a feeling of security. “Gabriel! You here?”

“Gabriel.” Barbary looked at her cousin. “You know him, then?”

“Oh, yes, I know him.” Mab’s voice was grim. “The last time I saw him, he called me a
putain.”

The Duc looked offended. “That is no way in which to address Miss Mab.”

Gabriel hurried forward. “A thousand
excuses
,
ma’mselle! I misjudged you, I know it now. But it seemed so opportune, the arrival of the Gendarmerie. You had just given me the packet—”

“The packet!” Barbary was reminded of her responsibilities. After all, it
was
her to whom the wretched packet had been entrusted. “What did you do with it?”

“Nothing. There was no time. I have it right here.” Gabriel patted his smock, looked from Barbary to Mab, decided it must be the lady with the bandaged arm who had given him the packet.
“Pardon,
but which of you is which?”

“I am which!” said Mab before Barbary could try to play off her airs on another of Mab’s beaux. Not that Gabriel was a beau precisely, but for whatever reasons, he had come to call. “That is, I am Jean-Paul’s daughter, and this is my cousin Barbary, and that is her husband over there with the paintbrush in his hand.” Having, she thought, thrust a spoke into her cousin’s wheel, Mab completed the introductions. “That is Tibble, there by the door. And this is Edouard.”

Edouard nodded to the newcomer.
“Bonjour!”
he said.

Gabriel had been so amazed to see two beautiful golden-haired ladies that he had paid scant heed to the gentleman between them on the divan. Now he stared. It was not the gentleman’s costume that amazed him, although Gabriel was hardly used to rubbing shoulders with persons clad in togas and laurel wreaths, but his resemblance to a likeness that had appeared in the newspapers for the past several days.

He looked back at Mab. “How mistaken I have been! First I thought you were a beautiful spy sent to tempt me to indiscretion, then I decided you were not; and then, when I met your cousin in the cafè and she bid me go to blazes, I didn’t know what to think! It occurred to me she might be an impostor, and that you might be being held prisoner as part of a royalist plot.”

Barbary had told Gabriel to go to blazes? That did not sound at all like her. “A royalist plot?” Mab echoed. “Me?”

“Yes, you!” Gabriel sat down also on the divan, which was growing a trifle crowded at this point. “Do not be so modest, ma’mselle. First you bring to me the packet, and now”—he gestured toward Edouard— “this!”

Edouard was interested. “This? I am a this?” he inquired.

Edouard’s charm was evident only to the ladies; Gabriel as well as Conor was entirely immune. “Don’t play the fool, m’sieur. You know you are the Duc de Gascoigne.”

A hushed silence descended upon the studio after this announcement. Gabriel wondered why everyone was watching the Duc—everyone, that is, save Tibble, who had slipped out into the hallway either to escape the worst of the inevitable contretemps or to stand guard against further interruption.

Edouard looked thoughtful. “Must I be a duc?” he inquired, plaintively. “I had just grown accustomed to being a Jacobin.”

“Son of fools!” said Gabriel rudely. “You cannot be a Jacobin when you are already a duc.
We
have a large hatred of unmerited privilege.
You
and your gouty Louis honor the marshals, put their juniors on half pay, and treat the rest of the army like
canaille.
Then when the men complain, you either throw them into prison or discharge them without full arrears of pay. Under Napoleon, honors had to be won. A serving officer might win a marshal’s bâton, or even a throne.”

The Duc looked bewildered by this spate of information. “I’m not entirely certain, but I don’t think I did any of those things.”

“I suppose,” Gabriel retorted scathingly, “that you have been living in exile. Perhaps your parents died on the guillotine.
My
father fought for the Revolution under the Tricolor that your Louis refuses to maintain. So you see that we are sworn enemies, m’sieur.”

“Indeed!” marveled the Duc. “Does this mean we must fight the duel?”

“You dare mock me.” Gabriel’s green eyes flashed. “Were you not a wounded man, I would make you eat your words, m’sieur Duc. We shall see who laughs when the Son of the Revolution returns from Elba!”

Conor added a few daubs of color to the painting on the easel, then set down his palette and brush. “Son of the Revolution?” he repeated. “Can you be referring to Buonaparte? The Brigand, the Monster, the Outlaw, the Bloody Miscreant, the Impious Wretch?”