Minuet (5 page)

It was eleven o’clock when the door knocker sounded. Minou expected it would be Henri Mérigot responding to her summons, and was disappointed when Lord Degan was shown in. “Oh, it is only you,” she said, her eager smile fading. “I was hoping it was Henri. He is slow in coming to me.”

Degan looked with relief to see the young lady wore a gown that had some likelihood of remaining on her body during his visit. “You had better call the housekeeper,” was his first comment upon taking a seat.

“What for? I have already eaten. Gammon and three eggs—all fresh. How lovely! Do you want some breakfast?”

“No, thank you. Young ladies in England do not entertain a gentleman without a chaperon,” he said punctiliously.

“Yes? Are the English gentlemen such fast flirts too then?” she asked with lively interest.

“Not so fast as the French, I daresay. It is the custom all the same, however. As I am a gentleman, you had better call the housekeeper.”

“You?
There is no danger in you,” she said, looking at him in blank astonishment.

“Still, I would prefer you call a chaperon.”

“If you are afraid of me, monsieur, then
you
bring your own chaperon. The housekeeper has better things to do than waste her time watching us.”

“I am not afraid of you, and it would be more correct for you to call me Lord Degan.”

“That makes the blood run cold,” she said with a shiver. “In France, it is an invitation to the Conciergerie. We are all
citoyens
there together.”

“You are no longer in France, ma’am, and titled ladies and gentlemen will take it amiss to be called
citoyen.
And you may as well become accustomed to hearing yourself addressed as Lady Céleste, too. Now about the chaperon, the housekeeper—”

“Until Mademoiselle Marion arrives from Harlock Hall, I do without a chaperon, monsieur. If you dislike it, I can live without your attentions.”

Degan took a deep breath and bethought of various ways to convince the lady she was in error. Looking into her defiant topaz eyes, he decided to broach the matter with Lord Harlock instead. “Where is your father?” he asked.

“He is sending the modiste to me, and arranging for Mama and Édouard to get out of France. Would you care for a glass of brandy, monsieur?”

“No, Lady Céleste,” he said, emphasizing her title in the hope it would call to her mind his own, “I do not care for brandy, nor does any person interested in his health take it before noon. It has a deleterious effect on the constitution, and I wish you would use your influence to moderate your father’s drinking of the stuff.”

“Qu’ est-ce que c’est que
deleterious?” she asked.

“Bad. Harmful. It is bad for the health.”

“C’est absurde!
It is excellent for the health. It warms the blood. Do you know Henri Mérigot?” she asked suddenly.

“I believe I have had him pointed out to me. A relative of your mother’s, I understand.”

“Yes. He should be here by now. I don’t know why he does not come. You don’t think he has forgotten me?”

“I have no idea,” Degan confessed, in a little confusion. “Was he a close friend of yours?”

“Ah,
oui!
Very close! You mean Papa has told you nothing about Henri?” she asked, a measuring, angry light in her eyes.

“I don’t recall he ever mentioned the name.”

Her chin jutted forward at a pugnacious angle. If it were possible for a kitten to look angry, she would have looked very angry indeed. “We are extremely close friends, Henri and I, and if Papa thinks...” She suddenly stopped speaking, as if she had said too much. “Has he got a woman friend?”

“I couldn’t say. I don’t know the fellow at all well,” Degan replied, his eyes narrowing slightly as it occurred to him that Lady Céleste was interested in Mérigot as a beau. He would institute inquiries and see if it would do. He felt, for some indefinable reason, that what the girl needed was a husband. Whether this was for her protection or the safety of such gentlemen as himself did not occur to him.

“Soon he will come,” she assured herself. Then she stretched out her arms in a feline way that made Degan minutely aware of her body, and yawned daintily behind her fingers.

“Am I by any chance boring you?” he asked, piqued.

“Boring?” She frowned at the word. “No, monsieur, you are not sharp enough to bore a hole in anyone. Ah—
ennuyé—
boring. Yes, I see,” she said, then looked at him with a bold smile.
“Non,
monsieur, you have not begun boring me yet. I have some interest, you must know, to regard a specimen of English gentleman. I think in perhaps five minutes I shall become
ennuyée,
however, unless you say something very clever.”

Not a clever word occurred to him. “You will want to brush up on your English, that you not fall into misunderstandings that will embarrass you,” he said.

“It comes back to me quickly. You are Papa’s cousin?”

“Yes, a second cousin only. We are not closely related,” he answered, feeling a strong inclination to give the girl a stern lecture.

“Good. Why do you come here if you are not close?”

“I am here at your father’s specific invitation, ma’am.”

“Papa will not return till afternoon. Four o’clock. You might as well go,” she said, picking up a fashion magazine. As this appeared to be the end of her somewhat dubious civility, Degan arose and took a polite leave, using her title once again in the deluded hope of inciting her to propriety.

“À bientôt,
Citoyen Degan,” she answered, the playful sparkle of her smile concealed by her downcast head, which did not raise from the pages of her magazine, even to dismiss him.

“Quel imbécile,”
she said to the empty archway, and forgot him the minute he was gone.

The fashions she found less easy to forget, and even less acceptable than Citoyen Degan. Having grown accustomed to the ease and comfort of cropped, unpowdered hair and simple gowns, the extreme fashions still prevailing in England struck her as inordinately clumsy and unflattering. No, she would not again stick flour in her cropped curls, nor wear a hot, itchy wig. Nor would she encumber her perfectly good figure with panniers or crinolines or any other artificially deforming contraptions of English fashion. She would go about as what she was, a Frenchwoman. Not a
sans-culotte,
of course—no rosettes on her shoes, no ridiculous
bonnet rouge.
She would dress as the French aristocracy and upper gentility dressed. Not to the point of donning black like some aristos for the death of their France, but in the simple mode of her own
pays.
She would wear her hair
à la victime,
she might at some ball wear the narrow red ribbon around her throat as a reminder to these complacent Englishmen of the fate of so many of her friends and relatives, and as it seemed to bother Lord Degan so very much, she might continue using the preferred mode of address of
citoyen
upon occasion as well. Truth to tell, that habit would be difficult to break. One dare not utter the word
duc
or
duchesse
at home for fear of attracting the unwanted attention of the ubiquitous
gardes
with their pikes. Even chez Belhomme titles were abandoned.

The modiste arrived, and was set back to discover her services were to be rendered in the supplying to her ladyship of such a bizarre wardrobe. But the materials chosen were of the finest; the figure was good enough to carry off the outré gowns selected; and most of all, Lady Céleste was from that upper echelon whose patronage was invaluable. It could set one’s business back severely if the young lady should choose one of the several French modistes presently rivals in the trade. All things considered, Miss Brown decided to humor the lady, and as the exchange between livres and pounds caused some little confusion, the price exacted for the wardrobe was satisfactory to both. Miss Brown even agreed to sit up half the night that one of the outfits might be ready for the next day.

When Papa returned at four, Sally was still in her blue dimity frock. “What do they say? How are you going to get Mama and Édouard home?” was her first question.

“It is going to be extremely difficult,” he said sadly. “I took the matter to Pitt himself. With the war on, no official letter would receive any generous attention. It’s the worst thing in the world to call attention to this Belhomme place, he says. We have a barricade on trade with France as well, because of the war. I begin to think it is Fox, a Whig, who might be our man. He never was in favor of the war at all, and says a little trade of a nonstrategic sort is carried on well enough, while the Tories wink their eye at it. The odd ship gets through. Fox is looking into it for me.”

“We cannot long delay. Five thousand livres a week now they must pay, with me gone. The money runs short.”

“How short exactly?” he asked.

“Till the end of July they are safe.”

“That gives them three weeks, then,” he said, rubbing his chin. “I’ll keep hounding Fox and bend his ear till he comes up with something.”

“Maybe the best thing to do would be to send money with someone we know and trust.... No, it would be better to get them out. The asylum may fall under suspicion at any time. Henri would go, Papa,” she suggested.

“Has he been to call?”

“No, he hasn’t come yet. Soon he will. He cannot have received my letter.”

“Henri is not the one to send. He left Paris seven years ago, and was only a boy at the time. We must have someone who has left more recently, and will be able to find his way to this asylum.”

“Henri was back once, Papa.”

“You never mean it!”

“Yes, he came once, but was nearly caught.”

“Good God! He shouldn’t have done it. You know how dangerous it is for him. Being a Mérigot...”

“He will know someone he trusts. I can give an exact map of how to reach Belhomme’s place. I have it all in my head.”

“There are no guards there, you say? Visitors are allowed?”

“Yes, but still some precautions are taken. Belhomme would be held to account if his prisoners took to vanishing, and he does a check every night.”

“We’ll get to work on it. I’ll suggest this to Fox. He is the more helpful of the two. I will do something, my pet. Now I want you to put it out of your head and relax. How have you amused yourself today, eh?”

She entertained him with her decision to confound English society by wearing the French style. A mere man, he had no idea what an uproar this would cause, and lauded her patriotism.

“It will set them to thinking, to take this revolution seriously, and back the government in the war effort,” he agreed, not thinking what he was saying, but only bathing in the joy of having at least one of his family back with him.

Chapter Four

Lord Harlock put off all appointments and dined at home alone with his daughter. After dinner, he did not take brandy, or even port, but went with her to the saloon to hear more details of life in France. They had not long been sitting together when the knocker sounded, and Lord Degan was admitted, again wearing a plain dark outfit and an expression not so far from a frown.

He bowed to Lady Céleste, but made it known that his call was upon the father, who had asked him to come. Sally was sorry to see that this dull person ran tame in her father’s house, but his conversation on this occasion was all with Lord Harlock. He sat listening and nodding his head while hearing of the lack of success in making any immediate arrangement to rescue Marie and Edward. He gained a little favor with the lady when he said, “Official arrangements would take forever. What you must do is get together a private raiding party, John. Hire a couple of clever émigrés and send them over. Lady Céleste can give us the rundown on how precautions stand in France and at the asylum in particular. That is your best bet. Indeed, your only chance, if their money will not last longer than the end of the month. It doesn’t give you much time. Shall I look into it for you?”

“I’m speaking to Fox tomorrow.”

There was another knock on the door, and soon Monsieur Henri Mérigot was being admitted. Degan didn’t remember him as being quite so handsome, or tall, or well formed. He was a six-foot Adonis with black hair and eyes, the gallant, easy manners of the French gentleman, and no doubt their total lack of morals as well. He wore a maroon velvet jacket, and at his neck a spotless fall of white Mechlin lace cascaded, highlighted with a ruby of medium size. His delicate hands were as white as a lady’s, and as sinuous and strong as a masseur’s.

He made a graceful bow to the gentlemen, but was soon dashing to Lady Céleste to embrace her with both arms, holding her tightly against him, while he muttered French endearments in her ear. “
Ma
mie”
and
“ma chérie”
were heard with impatience by Degan, who looked with exasperation to Lord Harlock to put an end to this spectacle. Harlock only looked embarrassed.

“French, you know,” was his explanation. To Degan there was a clearer explanation. The two were lovers. How could it possibly have come about, when Céleste had been in France the past ten years? Mérigot, though... had not he been in France too for part of that time?

He asked Harlock this, but was told Mérigot had been in London for seven years. Céleste would have been only twelve, thirteen at the most, when he left France. The French were all unprincipled, of course, and unnaturally precocious, but surely a girl of twelve years had not been carrying on an affair. She was certainly doing so now, and in front of her father and a third party. Degan arose abruptly and went to them. “I don’t believe I have had the pleasure of your relative’s acquaintance, Lady Céleste ,” he said.

She performed the introduction, then, still holding onto Henri’s hand, she led him to a sofa a little apart from the others and entered into close discussion with him, in French. Degan returned to her father, and while he talked to the older man, he regarded the other. It was hard to keep his eyes off the pair in the corner. They were both outstandingly handsome, and in the same manner, which he supposed vaguely was the French manner—lively, with hands moving about freely, eyes flashing, smiles bright and gay, the air frequently rippling with merry bursts of laughter. And they kept touching each other. This bothered him more than the rest, to see Sally’s fingers actually stroking the man’s cheek. Once the jackanapes had the impertinence to grab the fingers and kiss them. One would think they were in a boudoir. Such carryings-on ought to have been restricted to one, in Degan’s view.