Minuet (34 page)
“Very large. Large enough to get her a good parti.”
This was welcome news, but still Minou loved the incomprehensible Degan, and he must be made to have her. “You will speak to Degan all the same,” she told him.
Before he was required to seek out Degan, Degan came to him. After a short talk about the adventure, Degan cleared his throat and said, “I have decided, that is Minou and I have decided, that we ought to get married.”
“Not in the least necessary,” Harlock informed him in an apologetic way. “Never mind what Marie says. You’ve done more than enough to cover the girl’s shame, but there’s no reason you should be stuck for life with a girl that’s half French, when all’s said and done.”
“You don’t understand, John. We have been traveling together in France, unaccompanied. There are a few things we thought it best not to tell your wife. For several nights it was necessary, due to conditions you understand, for us to share a room.”
“Yes, well, there’s no need anyone should know that, and I’m sure you didn’t share a bed.”
“Not exactly, but I do feel it would be best for Minou to be married as soon as possible. There are bound to be questions in London, and if she were already my wife—”
“Pooh. Nonsense. You worry too much about what people will say. I mean to announce that Henri is Marie’s son, and it will be known he was with you both. As far as that goes, no one knows either you or Sal was out of town at all. I put out she had a cold, and you was gone to the country.”
“When your wife and son show up, things are bound to leak out. Best to be prepared.”
“I appreciate your scruples, Rob, but it ain’t necessary. You two wouldn’t suit in the least. A divorce won’t add much to the family’s respectability, will it?”
“There will be no divorce. I
want
to marry her. I love her.”
“No, you don’t,” Harlock answered conclusively. “You’re infatuated. Give yourself a week. It will pass.”
“I’ve had more than a week. It does not pass. I’m going to marry her, and I would prefer to do it with your consent.”
For Degan to take such a high hand, hint even at—what? a runaway match?—was inexplicable. “Marry her if you like, but I warn you, you make a mistake.”
“Thank you. The mistake was in not marrying her before we left. We wish to do it before returning to London.”
“Damme, we’re leaving as soon as may be.”
“Édouard must recuperate a few days.”
“Édouard ?
Did you call my son
Édouard?”
Harlock bellowed. “Damme, I begin to think you’ve suffered an injury to the brain over there in that foreign place.”
“You must blame the Butcher of Lozère for it,” Degan replied enigmatically, confirming Harlock in his opinion. He then went off to make his offer to his bride, for the tenth or eleventh time.
John was convinced the lad had run mad, and shook his own head ruefully. This match would come to no good end.
Lady Harlock was standing guard over her daughter in the girl’s chamber. “I want to see Minou alone,” Degan said brazenly.
“I’m afraid it is impossible for you to see a young lady alone in her bedchamber,” she pointed out stiffly.
“I have seen her alone in several other bedchambers, Lady Harlock. A bit late in the day for this concern. But if you wish to hear my proposal, by all means stay. I wish you to take your hand off my elbow, however.”
The hand flew from his elbow, only to grab his upper arm. “An offer, you say? You mean to marry her?” she asked eagerly. “It must be done at once.”
“The sooner the better,” he agreed, and with a delighted gurgle of laughter, Minou bounded forward to throw herself into his arms.
“Now you are caught, Pierre!” she cautioned him.
Silly chit, to be revealing her schemes.
Lord Harlock, determined to save his cousin from the fate he had suffered himself, went after him up the stairs, just as Henri came out of Edward’s room. He too joined the party.
“Now see here, Marie,” Harlock began, suspecting the hand of his wife in the affair. “I don’t want you pestering Rob to marry Sal. He don’t want to marry her. He only wants to wrap this mess up in clean linen. I daresay Sal ain’t in favor of it either.”
“Oh, but I am, Papa!” his daughter told him at once.
“No you ain’t. Heard you call him a dull old stick times out of mind.”
“I was mistaken,” she said, with a mischievous smile at Degan. “He is not at all dull.”
“I have been jostled out of all that complacency and dullness,” Degan explained to his cousin.
“You’ve let the women talk you into it, in other words, but you’ll live to regret it,” John warned him.
“You are being
très stupide,
Papa!” Minou shouted angrily, while Marie lowered her brows at him in a minatory fashion.
“Suit yourself,” the father said, tossing up his hands. “But I take leave to tell you, Degan, you’re making a bad mistake. This hussy will lead you a merry dance.”
“I mean to take up dancing, John. I have felt the lack of it in France.”
Mérigot, with his usual savoir-faire, summed up the situation and came to the rescue, piloting his mother and stepfather out the door, suggesting they all go below and order dinner.
“That’s settled then,” Degan said, sweeping Minou into his arms. “Now may I know when you took upon yourself to castigate me publicly as a dull stick?”
“When you
were
one,” she answered saucily. “Before you came to Paris, and also I think before you got your maroon jacket. Then you looked less like a stick.”
“I have felt very unlike a stick ever since meeting you. Sunshine and rain to my withering limbs. I’ll be bursting into leaf any minute.”
“Blooms,
Pierre. You will blossom into flowers for me.”
He blossomed into a very young smile instead, and soon into embraces that were not at all dull, or very proper either. “Do you realize this is the first time I’ve kissed you?” he asked between embraces.
“Pierre! What a shocking memory! You kissed me first at Amiens, then at Beauvais, and Paris and—”
“No, I kissed Agnès Maillard at some of those places, and a proper forward wench she was too. To my shame, François Blanchard at others, but since your mother came along and got you into that shroud, I haven’t been allowed within ten yards of you without an audience. Let us make up for lost time, mademoiselle.”
He kissed her so competently she suspected he had a few other persons than Agnès and Franéois on his list of partners, but he assured her it was a natural aptitude on his part, hitherto undeveloped. He was so bent on improving this new talent that it was necessary for Harlock to send Mérigot upstairs to summon them to dinner.
A discreet tap on the door separated them, and Henri peeped his head in, smiling broadly. “Welcome to the family, Père Degan,” he said. “You had nearly as much trouble entering it as I had myself. A rum touch, our papa,
hein?
He asked me to address him as Papa,
imaginez!
Mama had a hand in that, I think.”
“I wish you could bring yourself to call me
frère
rather than
père,”
Degan suggested, “as we will soon be connected.”
“Me, I think I shall continue to call you Taureau.” He laughed. “But you must take it easy on my little sister, or I’ll tell the Butcher on you. At the moment, Le Taureau’s presence is requested belowstairs for dinner. You as well, heifer. The meat smells delicious. I hope they haven’t ruined it by trying to make a ragoût.”
“Oh, and the bread is so good here!” Minou said, her eyes shining. “We can make love anytime, Pierre. Let us go and eat.”
Pierre was not at all hungry for bread and meat, but as Henri took possessive charge of Minou’s elbow, he hastened after them.
Copyright © 1980 by Joan Smith
Originally published by Fawcett Coventry in September, 1980
Electronically published in 2006 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.