Mademoiselle At Arms by Elizabeth Bailey (ebook reader online .TXT) 📖

would condemn her to the vengeance of the mob all for refusing to marry him. But she did not believe he would do that. It hardly served his interests.

‘And then you will be obliged to remain in France,’ she pointed out. ‘You cannot be André Valade if you tell them I am one of this family.’

For a moment he looked daunted. Then he rallied, smiling a little. ‘Come, mademoiselle. You have not considered the advantages.’

Melusine bit her lip on a sharp retort. That would not help her. The man was dangerous. She prevaricated.

‘Alors, what advantages?’

‘But think,’ he said earnestly, moving a little closer. ‘As Madame Valade, you will be an émigré, not a nun. That is what they call these aristocratic refugees, the English. As such, you may command the sympathies of the gentry. I hear they are very much affected by the tragedies of their neighbours in France. You will join a world of fashion, a world of wealth, a life of ease.’

‘A life of ease?’ repeated Melusine. ‘When one is penniless, one does not expect a life of ease.’

‘Ah, but why remain penniless? After all, your grandfather Charvill—’

‘Again with the grandfather? Mon ami, if you imagine that this grandfather will welcome a daughter of Nicholas Charvill, whom he has never forgiven that he married a Frenchwoman, then you have an imagination entirely wrong.’

‘But it was not your fault,’ protested Gosse, shocked.

‘That is true,’ Melusine conceded. ‘Nevertheless, he will neither help me, nor will I seek his help.’

‘But if I am with you, as André Valade, as your husband, an émigré—’

‘Pah!’ Melusine spat. ‘Never. This is a plot entirely abominable, and I scorn to be part of it.’

‘Then you will die at the hands of the canaille.’

‘Better than to live at the hands of a villainous blackmailer,’ Melusine threw at him.

‘Sapristi,’ he shouted angrily. ‘Obstinate fool!’

She saw Gosse raise a hand, and dug into her nun’s habit for the knife she had not thought to need. Too late. Emile’s fist crashed into her temple and stars exploded in her vision.

When she came to, she was lying with her head in Martha’s lap, and a livid bruise was forming at the point of a raging headache.

‘The man’s gone,’ her old nurse told her, when she had recovered a little. ‘Taken the girl with him.’

‘Yolande, my maid?’

‘You don’t need a maid,’ Martha said stoutly. ‘Not where we’re going.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Back to Blaye, my girl. Can’t travel alone, a pair of nuns.’

‘Back?’ Melusine put a hand to her aching temple. ‘No, I do not go back. Never. You may go back, Marthe. But me, I am going to England.’

‘Don’t talk soft,’ begged Martha. ‘You can’t go to England. Leastways, not on your own. How will we get there, I’d like to know? We’ve no money. The rogue took everything we had.’

Melusine cursed Emile roundly, but raised a defiant head. ‘Then we will beg. We are nuns. At least, you are one, and I am disguised like one. We will beg our bread and our shelter, and our passage on a boat. But to England we will go.’

Not all the arguments Martha advanced, and they were many and varied, had the power to move Melusine. Although Martha did not know it, she had her pistol and her daggers, and her knife. More importantly, she had her wits. Vitally, she had the letter that proved her identity as a Charvill: the one her father had written to the Abbess when he sent her to the convent.

Only she hadn’t. When her shock and the headache subsided, and she remembered that she had been reading the letter when Gosse had accosted her, she looked for it in vain. It had gone with the rest.

She had not thought anything could equal her despair at that moment. Almost had Martha won out. But Melusine had overcome the weakness, calling the loss but a temporary setback. She had braved all obstacles to pursue her dream. Arrived in England, she had sought out Gosse, to keep an eye on his activities and thus keep one step ahead of him, meanwhile hoping that she might find herself another means of proof at Remenham House.

Melusine came back to the present to discover that tears were rolling down her cheeks. She had found that proof. And now the fiend Gosse had taken even that away from her. This time she was indeed beaten.

The tears flowed faster. Melusine dashed them away, but they kept on coming. Peste, where was her handkerchief? She remembered then that it had been lost in the struggle with Gerald. At the thought of the major, her tears redoubled and she was obliged to rip off a piece from the remnants of her already maltreated under-petticoats with which to blow her nose and soak the damp from her cheeks.

If only Gerald would come. Even that he was an interfering person, if he walked through that door this moment, she would fling herself at him and weep all over his chest.

Bête, she told herself fiercely. Imbecile. Idiote. What need had she of Gerald, or anyone? Yet, if he was here, would he not make some foolish game with her and make her laugh? Instead of behaving in this fashion so stupide, and crying, crying, crying.

She had recourse to the torn off strip of petticoat again, and blowing her nose with an air of determination, sniffed back the tears.

A sudden knock at the door startled her. Gerald? But could he be here so quickly?

She hastily dabbed at her eyes, thankful for the darkness that she saw had come on outside unnoticed, dimming the room.

‘Come,’ she called.

The door opened. A stout female stood in the aperture, an oil lamp in her hand. She came into the room. A middle-aged countrywoman, plump of cheek, and a little shy. She held up the lamp.

‘Beg pardon, miss, but I’m told as how—’ She broke off, her eyes widening, her jaw dropping open.

All at once Melusine remembered Pottiswick, and the errand he had run.

‘You are Mrs Ibstock, I think,’ she said eagerly.

Pottiswick’s daughter found her tongue. ‘Lawks-a-mussy! It’s Miss Mary. Miss Mary to the life.’