Mademoiselle At Arms (4 page)

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 remarks 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.’