French Leave (18 page)

Barbary gazed appreciatively upon her spouse. “You forgot the Flagitious Tyrant, and—my own favorite—the Fiend from the Bottomless Abyss.”

Gabriel was shocked by this irreverence. “Blasphemy!” he cried.

“Enough!” Mab found she liked Gabriel a great deal less when he was unkind to the Duc. “I’m sure Edouard may be anything he pleases, especially since he doesn’t remember
what
he is, as result of an injury to his head.”

Ma’mselle Foliot defended the Duc despite her republican principles? Unaccustomed to being scolded, Gabriel sought to reinstate himself with what might prove to be a valuable ally. “Again I underestimate you, ma’mselle. Even your papa would never have thought of holding a duc to ransom. It is a masterstroke.”

“Ransom?” Mab scowled.

Did she think he would condemn her? How absurd! “It is a stroke of genius. M’sieur le Duc’s disappearance is generally thought to be part of a Buonapartist plot.”

“Buonapartists,” said Barbary to herself. “Ransoms. No offense, Edouard, but I knew we should have written a letter to your friends.”

“No offense taken.” Edouard looked thoughtful. “I can see that a ransom would solve a great many problems, especially since it seems I am a duc. As for that
,
we could write the letter still.”

Mab stared at him. “You would do that?”

Edouard smiled. “And why not? Are you not also my friends?”

This was a very liberal attitude for a hostage to take. During his long association with various members of the aristocracy, Gabriel had never encountered anyone like the Duc de Gascoigne. Granted, Gabriel was more accustomed to hurling epithets at
aristos
, and sometimes rotten vegetables or stones, as opposed to making conversation, but he considered himself something of an expert all the same. “How
do
you come to be here, m’sieur?”

“Ah, that I can answer.” Edouard was pleased to do so. “Three of them there were. Brigands. They set upon me near the Palais Royale in broad daylight. Miss Mab rescued me.” He glanced at her. “It had something to do with the removal of your Emperor from Elba, I believe. You see that you misjudge me. We are after all brothers beneath the skin, m’sieur.”

“M’sieur,” retorted Gabriel, “you must think me an
imbécile
. Or perhaps you are one yourself.” For emphasis, he poked an ink-stained finger against the Duc’s chest. “You are no more a Jacobin than I am a pig who can fly!”

A silence followed this statement, Gabriel’s choice of words having prompted his auditors one and all to envision a black-haired green-eyed winged pig. Barbary felt threatened by an imminent attack of giggles. “Oh, dear!” she said and removed herself from the divan.

“And you, Ma’mselle Foliot!” continued Gabriel. “Perhaps you are not as ardent a Jacobin as you have claimed. I have not forgot that I thought you meant to seduce me. Now I find you sharing with M’sieur Le Duc a divan.”

Man of action Gabriel might be, and possessor of high ideals, but Mab was beginning to cherish a very low opinion of his common sense. “I was shot in the arm while giving you that packet,” she pointed out, “or have you forgot? You say you came here because you thought I was the victim of some plot. Since you have now seen that I am not, you are free to depart.”

“I would depart in an instant,” Gabriel said stiffly, “except for the small matter of M’sieur le Duc.”

Was she never to be left in peace? “I don’t see what M’sieur Le Duc has to do with anything!” Mab snapped.

“Of course you do not.” Gabriel said with an air of superiority. “That is why I must not depart. You have not the least notion of the proper way in which to hold a Duc to ransom. It is very foolish to attempt these things without a proper plan.”

Had Mab full use of both her arms, she might well have boxed Gabriel’s ears. As it was, however, she contented herself with a particularly ferocious scowl. “I don’t know where you get your bird-witted notions! I am not holding Edouard to ransom—that is, the Duc!”

The Duc glanced at her. “Edouard will do quite well. You reassure me, Miss Mab. I have decided that I would not like at all to be held for ransom by that man.”

Gabriel snorted. “It is not of the least consequence what you might like. Ma’mselle, you surely do not mean to keep on with this fiction that you saved M’sieur Le Duc from assault. It is absurd. Come, admit that you have kidnapped him.”

Merde!
In persistence at least Gabriel must be awarded high marks. “Very well, if you must have it: I didn’t kidnap Edouard, I knocked him unconscious with a pot, and when he wakened he had lost his memory, and I made up the other story so he wouldn’t have me arrested and thrown into jail.”

By no leap of his somewhat limited imagination could Gabriel have anticipated this explanation. He wondered if he believed it.
“Dieu!”
he said.

The Duc regarded Mab. “If I swear that I shan’t have you arrested, will you tell me why you felt compelled to assault me with a pot?”

Mab’s cheeks burned. She contemplated her hands. “You were a great deal too forward, m’sieur.”

“Ah,” said Edouard. “That explains it. What a pity that I cannot recall.”

Gabriel sneered. “So now you share a divan together. What a pretty tale.”

How had Gabriel, even briefly, excited her admiration? The man was a toad. “Given a choice in the matter, M’sieur Le Duc would much rather share a divan with my cousin,” she said.

The Duc regarded her. “Why should you think that?”

Barbary had moved to the easel and picked up palette and paintbrush. Conor watched her apply a streak of color. She appeared oblivious to all but paint and canvas, but of course she could not be. Conor found himself reluctantly admiring her fortitude in the face of adversity. Granted, upon Gabriel’s first appearance Conor had thought him to be another of his wife’s conquests, had condemned her not only for perseverance in loose morality but for execrably bad taste.

The ensuing conversation had made things clear. Some things, at least. About his wife’s relationship with Edouard, Conor remained confused. Clearly, Edouard must be the own true love with which Barbary had ridden off into the sunset, whether he be Jacobin or Duc. And apparently he had paid somewhat too pointed attentions to Mab, which had resulted in the blow that
had lost him his memory. If Barbary had known of
her lover’s faithlessness, it would explain why she had made love to Conor: in a fit of jealous rage. Now she sought to hide her true feelings by dabbing at that wretched painting. Conor could only guess at the enormity of those feelings. The sight of her lover and her cousin lolling about happily together on the divan could cause only excruciating pain.

Though Conor had frequently expressed a desire to lay violent hands upon his wife—to see her tarred and feathered and boiled in hot oil—he had never wished to see her made unhappy. “My poor darling!” he murmured.

Chapter Twenty-One

His poor darling? Conor called her his poor darling? Barbary turned to him, perplexed.

Conor smiled at her. “Were you to appear in that costume in London, you would make feathers all the vogue.”

Feathers! Barbary had forgot the headdress. She snatched it off her disheveled curls. “It is not kind of you to tease me,” she said.

“Tease you?” Conor looked startled. “Why do you say that?”

Barbary plucked at the headdress. “You know I cannot return to London. Not after making a byword of myself. I would be an object of ridicule, and I could not bear that. Beside, you know very well that I would soon would find myself at point non plus again.”

Conor did know of his wife’s financial condition, having been called upon to settle her debts. What he didn’t know was how she’d landed herself in the basket. “What happened to the settlement I made on you?” he asked.

Barbary’s fingers worked even harder at the feathers, to their detriment. “What settlement?”

Was she trying to pull the wool over his eyes? Conor could not be certain. “I arranged it with your father—Ah. I see.”

Barbary also saw, and experienced some very un-Christian feelings toward her parents as a result. “I suppose Papa thought I would admit my error all the sooner were I without funds.”

Here was a queer business. The Duc was wealthy enough to hold to ransom, but too niggardly to assist his
petite amie?
“Error?” Conor asked. “Is that what it was?”

Of course it had been an error. Naturally Barbary would not tell Conor so. It was with some relief that she heard a commotion outside the door. Had the police returned? She grabbed the paintbrush and palette.

The door was flung open. Tibble stumbled across the threshold. “Oh, Miss Barbary!” he gasped, and crumpled into a heap upon the floor.

Shocked comments were voiced by everyone. Conor was heard to curse, and Gabriel expressed concern. Barbary thrust paintbrush and palette at Conor, hurried across the studio, and knelt beside her servant.

He did not seem to be damaged, so far as she could tell. Where was the vinaigrette? Ah, there on the table, beside the oil and paraffin, varnish and siccative. Barbary hurried to fetch it. What the devil had inspired Tibble to faint?

Even as that thought crossed Barbary’s mind, she had her answer. “So! The English miss!” came a voice from behind her.

Slowly, Barbary turned. Jacques stood in the doorway. Filled the doorway, rather, he was so tall and broad. He entered the room and kicked the door shut. In his hand was a large and very businesslike pistol.

Barbary was glad she’d found the vinaigrette, else at that moment she would definitely have joined Tibble on the floor. She unstoppered the container and inhaled.

Jacques was not looking at Barbary, but at Mab, on the divan. “A devil of a time we had tracking you down. Why didn’t you deliver the packet as you were told?”

Understandable, why Jacques should think Mab the female to whom he had entrusted the packet; in the blue gown Mab looked a great deal more like Barbary than Barbary herself. Understandable, that is, to Barbary. Mab gazed upon this fierce apparition with disapproval. “Don’t wave your gun at me!” she snapped. “It was Gabriel who failed to deliver the packet, not I.”

 Gabriel was stunned by this accusation. “That may be true, but you of all people should see that I could not deliver it, Ma’mselle Foliot. If you will recall—the Gendarmerie!”

Mab recalled the Gendarmerie all too clearly. She looked at Jacques’s large gun. “Explain to him, not me,” she suggested. “Whomever he may be.”

“You pretend you do not know me?” Jacques brandished the pistol. “I think you play a deep game, English miss. What has this peasant to do with my packet, eh?”

Peasant, was it? Perhaps there was some justification for the appellation in that Gabriel wore a blue peasant’s smock. Egalitarian as he was, however, Gabriel found he did not care to be called a peasant by an individual who obviously was one. “You were very careless with your packet, m’sieur! It is hardly the sort of thing to leave lying about.”

“I did not leave it lying about!” Jacques bared his teeth in a snarl. “I entrusted it to the English miss. When plans did not march as they were arranged, I came looking for her
ventre à terre.
And now I find her. So where is the packet, eh?”

“One moment.” Mab held up her hand. “You are mistaken, m’sieur. You entrusted nothing to me.” She looked meaningfully at Barbary.

Jacques also looked. “Two of you?
Nom de Dieu!"

“Ah. The universal response,” murmured the Duc.

Conor contemplated his wife’s expression. “Another admirer, my sweet?”

Conor must think her little better than a light-skirt. Barbary inhaled her vinaigrette. She would fall into hysterics at any moment, she knew it.

Jacques was a man of great single-mindedness, and he was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. “One of you knows the password,” he said.

Password? What password? Barbary knew nothing of the sort. “I assure you, m’sieur, neither of us has the least notion of what you’re talking about!”

Jacques thought otherwise. He recognized that voice.

“ 'Tis done—but yesterday a King!

And arm’d with kings to strive—

And now thou art a nameless thing:

So abject—yet alive!’ ”

The man chose the strangest moments in which to quote poetry. Barbary sighed, dropped the bedraggled feather headdress to the floor, and recited:

“ ‘Is this the man of thousand thrones,

Who strew’d our earth with hostile      bones,

And can he thus survive?

Since he, miscall’d the Morning Star,

Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.’ ”

“Voilà!”
Jacques’s smile was unpleasant. “The password.”

“That is your password?” Barbary stared at him. “You’ll encounter few English misses who do not know that poem, m’sieur.”

Jacques did not wish to discuss the matter of the password, which had been the subject of several acrimonious debates with his fellow Jacobins. “You are not the English miss?” he inquired, chagrined.

“The one you were expecting?” Barbary was pleased to have the mystery cleared up. “I must not have been.”

Jacques was less delighted. “If you were the wrong English miss, you should not have taken the packet!” he said sternly. “You have caused no end of trouble. You will return to me the packet now, although perhaps it is already too late!”

Barbary could not care for Jacques’s tone of voice, or the fanatic gleam in his eye, or the very practiced manner in which he held his gun. “You gave me no choice but to take your packet!” she retorted. “If you will recall. And I would be happy to return it to you if I had it, which I do not. However, that gentleman
does,
or so he says, so I suggest you address yourself to him.”

Gabriel’s glance spoke volumes. He felt he had been betrayed. No one would think Gabriel Beaumont a coward. He squared his shoulders in the blue peasant’s smock.

Jacques contemplated Gabriel. His lip curled. “You have the document, eh? Hand it over,
coquin
.”

“Yes, do!” said Mab, whose head had come inexplicably to rest upon the Duc’s shoulder. “Give him the packet so he will go away and leave us in peace.”