Mademoiselle At Arms (14 page)

‘Precisely, Hilary. That was supposed to be Madame Valade. Only
she is not Madame Valade at all. Who she is I have not discovered, but she is
masquerading as Melusine, and for all I know, is not even married to the man
who calls himself Valade.’

‘But what a perfectly famous adventure. And so your Melusine
is busy trying to prove that she is the real one.’ Lucilla frowned. ‘But what
in the world was she doing at Remenham House?’

‘Your quickness is astounding, Lucy,’ Gerald told her
admiringly. ‘It is precisely that point over which Melusine and I fell out.’ Reminiscence
made him smile. ‘Because she, naturally enough, does not consider that it is in
any way my affair.’

‘What about this Leonardo fellow?’ Hilary asked, still
frowning heavily.

Gerald was conscious of that sliver of irritation again at
mention of the name. ‘That,’ he said stonily, ‘is yet another point over which
we fell out.’

Lucilla eyed him with one of those particularly feminine
looks it was difficult for a mere male to interpret.

‘But who was he, Gerald?’

‘A damned
condottiere
,’ exploded Gerald, forgetting
his company.

‘Good God!’ uttered Roding.

‘What in the world is that?’ demanded Miss Froxfield.

‘Italian adventurer,’ explained her fiance briefly. ‘Soldier
of fortune. You know the sort of thing. Lives by his wits and gambling. Likely
as not outside the law, too.’

Lucilla gaped. ‘But how did she meet such a person in a
convent?’

‘He was wounded and came there for sanctuary,’ Gerald
explained, adding almost through his teeth. ‘Thanks to him, Hilary and I nearly
had our heads blown off. I might forgive him that, for he obviously taught her
a good deal that she has found useful. But what else he saw fit to teach her I
do not care to stipulate.’

Lucy was silent for a space, once again wearing that
inscrutable expression. Faintly bothered by what it might mean, Gerald rose
from his seat and crossed to the tray to pour himself a glass of wine. He
turned just in time to see Lucilla exchange an amused look with Hilary. Just
what in the world was that about? Before he could hazard a guess, Lucy looked
back at him.

‘What are you going to do now, Gerald?’

He sipped his wine and shrugged. ‘There is little I can do at
present. I’ve made an ally of her champion.’

Hilary’s brows shot up. ‘Champion?’

‘The lad you saw following her. Jack Kimble. He’s a footman
who works for the nuns and has taken up the cudgels on her behalf.’ He glanced
at the captain. ‘By the by, get Trodger to send up one of our best men, will
you? Someone discreet. I want him immediately, so you can send Frith with my
phaeton if you like. And I want him out of uniform.’

Roding blinked. ‘What the devil for?’

‘Messenger,’ Gerald explained. ‘I don’t want that girl
running her head into any more danger.’

‘As if you could stop her.’

‘Probably not. But, whether she likes it or not, I aim to be
on hand to get her out of it.’

‘Quite right, Gerald,’ approved Lucilla.

‘She won’t like it,’ prophesied the captain gloomily. ‘And
nor do I. You’ll end up dead, that’s what.’

‘Nonsense. I’ll have to wait here, of course, which means
you, Hilary—’

‘Will have to do tomorrow’s patrol. Yes, very well. Better
check on Remenham House, I suppose.’

‘Yes, do. I’ve seen Brewis Charvill, by the by.’

‘Eh? Why did you not say so, man?’ demanded Hilary crossly.

‘I am saying so,’ protested Gerald mildly.

‘Dunderhead. Get on with it, then. I suppose you came right
out and asked him about his family?’

‘Nothing of the sort. I was extremely subtle—in fact, as
devious as Melusine. I told him Valade had tried to borrow money off me and
asked if he could vouch for the fellow. It seems Valade visited him that day to
present his credentials, and Charvill posted straight off to inform his
great-uncle. Which is why I wasn’t able to see him until today. He gave Valade
the go-ahead and they’ve gone off to visit him.’

‘Well? Well? What did the fellow have to add to this
rigmarole?’

‘He confirmed that Nicholas Charvill—presumably Melusine’s
father—had been disinherited for marrying Suzanne Valade.’

‘Ah, so that’s where Valade comes in,’ nodded Lucy.

‘Precisely. Madame Valade—for want of any other name to call
her by—told me that she, in her character of Melusine, was the daughter of
Suzanne Valade and Nicholas Charvill.’

‘But that would make her half French,’ Hilary pointed out.

‘Whereas Melusine insists she is entirely English,’ agreed
Gerald. ‘Therefore she cannot be the daughter of Suzanne Valade.
Voilà tout
,
as Melusine herself would say.’

‘Oh, this is becoming nonsensical,’ exclaimed Lucilla.

‘Of course it is,’ corroborated Hilary. ‘Must be another of
her lies.’

‘Or she imagines that being half English is the same as being
completely English,’ suggested Lucilla.

‘
Parbleu
,’ said Gerald. ‘I borrow the expression from
Melusine. She may be an infuriating little devil, but she is far from stupid.
Moreover, she claims that this whole enterprise of hers is purely for the
purpose of marrying an Englishman.’

‘That’s fortunate,’ murmured Lucilla.

Gerald frowned. ‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ snapped Roding, with an odd look at his bride to
be that Gerald could not interpret. ‘Does Charvill know that this Melusine of
yours is here?’

The question distracted Gerald. ‘You mean that there is a
rival Melusine to the one he has heard about? He does not. At least, I
frustrated her design in calling upon him this morning. I can’t but feel it’s
an undesirable complication to drag in the Charvills at this point. Time enough
to do so when she has her affairs settled—if she can settle them.’

‘And if she can’t?’ asked Lucy.

‘We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.’

‘What if she goes back to Charvill?’ demanded Roding.

‘Why do you think I want a man ready to run to me with every
move she makes?’ countered Gerald. ‘She may well try to go back. She says she
will have to, though she does not wish to. Which is also puzzling.’ Gerald
frowned. ‘I only wish I might have won her confidence.’

Lucilla sat up. ‘She won’t confide in you? Now, why?’

‘Because that scoundrel Leonardo drummed it into her head
that no man was to be trusted,’ Gerald announced viciously.

‘The more I hear about this Leonardo,’ Lucy said severely, ‘the
more I want to meet your Melusine. I daresay you have the whole thing wrong,
Gerald. Men usually do.’

‘It’s immaterial, in any event,’ Roding put in. ‘What we have
to find out is whether or not the wretched female is in fact Lord Charvill’s
granddaughter. What had Brewis Charvill to say to that, Gerald?’

‘He had nothing to say to it. It does not matter to him
either way. But what he did say is that he thinks the Valades will receive very
short shrift from his great-uncle the general.’

Everett, General Lord Charvill, master of a barony stretching
over a wide estate that encroached on the hundreds of Witham, Thurstable and
Dengy, stood before his own fireplace, glaring at his visitors from under bushy
white brows from a head held necessarily low above a back painfully bent by
rheumatism. He was a thin old man, a wreck in a ruined body, but nothing would
induce him to stand in any other way than as stiffly erect as possible like the
soldier he had always been, even though he was obliged to lean on his
silver-handled cane to do so.

That he received guests of the name of Valade at all would
have surprised anyone who knew his history. But he had been forewarned by his
great-nephew. His first reaction had been explosive as the hurts of the past
rose up to taunt him. Lord Charvill’s sense of justice would not, however,
allow him to repudiate his granddaughter, if indeed this female proved to be
the infant lost to the family so many years ago.

To be confronted with the girl’s damned Frenchman of a
husband was another matter altogether. Particularly when it was obvious the
fellow was one of these pitiful wretches weak enough to allow themselves to be
ousted from their inheritances and thus obliged to come seeking succour of
their neighbours. The general had little doubt he was going to be asked to
provide for the fellow as well as for his legitimate descendant.

Five minutes ago, his butler had entered the green saloon, an
austere apartment, with dark forest-green wallpaper flocked with a swirling
design, and heavy mahogany furniture. The news that his granddaughter desired
an audience Lord Charvill had greeted with merely a grunt, which turned into a
roar as his gorge rose when he heard that she was accompanied by her husband.

The visitors, when they entered, looked thoroughly intimidated
and Everett concealed a grim smile. Just so had his subordinates shown their
apprehension. It suited him to dampen the spirits of any who sought to impose
upon him, as these relics of the loathed family of Valade seemed like to do.

Charvill did nothing to ease their path and it was left to
the man to open negotiations, which he did by producing a set of folded papers,
slowly approaching the general, and holding them out at arms’ length.

‘The credentials,
milor’
,’ he ventured.

Without a word, the general reached out and took them, but
his glance searched the girl’s face. Under this unnerving scrutiny, a slow
flush mounted to the woman’s cheeks. She fidgeted and looked away. Everett’s gaze dropped to the papers in his hand.

He passed but a cursory glance over the formal certificate
that identified the Frenchman before him as one André Valade, distant cousin to
the Vicomte Valade. The marriage lines that confirmed a union between the said
André Valade and Mademoiselle Melusine Charvill touched the old scars and he
gave vent to a muttered expletive. But the letter, written in his son’s own
hand, and addressed to the Mother Abbess of the Convent of the Sisters of
Wisdom near Blaye in the district of Santonge, dated a little over five years
previously, exercised a powerful effect upon him.

Recognising the handwriting, he glanced swiftly at the
signature, and uttering an explosive curse, cast the paper from him. That it
provided proof of the girl’s identity was one thing. Charvill’s command of French
was enough to tell him that, for its entire content was devoted to commending
Nicholas Charvill’s fourteen year old daughter into the care of the Abbess. But
the mere recognition of his son’s signature was enough to stoke the fires of
his long-held rage. Proof that the scoundrel had risen from the dead—for he was
dead to his father!

He glared at the female whose appearance in England had
revived those painful memories—churning unbearably since Brewis Charvill had
brought him the news and put him in the worst of tempers—and the fury spilled
out.

‘Tchah! So you’re the whelp’s girl, are you? Suppose you’ve
nothing but that villainous French in your tongue.’

‘I have English a little,’ the girl offered, her voice
shaking as she essayed a smile and sank into a curtsy.

English a little! ‘You ought to have English only.’

Her lashes fluttered. ‘But this is not to my blame,
grandpére
.’

A burning at his chest, the general ground his teeth. ‘Don’t dare
address me by such a title.’

The girl bit her lip and backed a little, while her husband
shifted to stand at her side.

‘Monsieur, my wife intended not to anger you,’ he said in a
tone of apology.

‘Then let her keep her Frenchified titles to herself. She may
address me as “Grandfather” if she chooses, since I’m obliged to accept her in
that capacity. But I don’t wish to hear that abomination on her lips again.’

‘Please forgive,
milor’
, but my wife, and even I
myself, have yet very much trouble with English.’

Charvill eyed the girl with resentment. ‘Well, she’d better
learn fast if she wants any truck with me. I won’t tolerate any foreign tongue
in this house, least of all that confounded French.’

The fellow seized on this. ‘Then it is that you will have
pity? Here we have come, we poor, for aid. Pardon! I wish to say, for your
granddaughter, we seek succour.’

‘I dare say you do,’ said the general, grim satisfaction
overtaking his anger as his prophesy proved accurate.

‘It is not for myself, you understand,’ pursued the man, in
an unctuous tone that sickened the general, ‘but for this poor one. Lost from
all protection, all her family dead—as are mine.’

Shock ripped through Charvill’s chest. ‘What, is Nicholas
dead?’

He saw the two of them exchange glances and an instinct of
danger rose up. What was the fellow about? Was he being imposed upon? He
watched as the man Valade turned back, spreading his hands in the French way.

‘General, we do not know. The last that is known of Monsieur
Charvill is when he departed the Valade estate.’