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

in the French way, ‘has said that she will help me to—to marry an Englishman.’

‘Yes, that’s what I’m talking about,’ Gerald said. ‘I, on the other hand, want to help you to marry this Englishman.’

Melusine’s heart leapt, raced for a moment, and suddenly dropped again. Just this? Parbleu, did he think this was enough? She did not wish to marry him—at least, not just because he was an Englishman.

‘You have said you do not wish to marry me,’ she accused.

‘Oh, I don’t wish to marry you. I’d need to be out of my senses.’

Quick anger flared, surpassing the fluttering hope.

‘Dieu du ciel, is this a way to have me say yes? If it is that you do not wish to, why do you ask me?’

‘Ah.’ Much to Melusine’s chagrin, Gerald folded his arms and leaned back, as if wholly at his ease. ‘I can answer that. Of all the entirely English women I know, you’re the only one with a French accent.’

She was too distressed to bear this. ‘Imbecile. Is this a reason?’

‘Not good enough? Now I had every hope that it would appeal to you. I’ll have to think of something else.’

‘Do not hope it,’ returned Melusine, snapping uncontrollably. ‘I do not wish to hear any more reasons so foolish, so do not trouble to think of them. I see now that you make a game with me indeed. You do not wish to marry me at all, that is seen.’

Gerald unfolded his arms and threw his hands in the air. ‘But I have been perfectly honest about that. I don’t wish to marry you at all.’

‘In this case, I do not at all wish to marry you,’ Melusine threw at him furiously. ‘And I have a very good mind to kill you.’

‘But you must,’ Gerald said, quite as if he meant it. ‘Not kill me, I mean. Marry me.’

‘I will not.’

‘But the general gave his permission.’

‘Je m’en moque. And it is not at all his affair.’

‘But it’s my affair, Melusine. You have to marry me.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because I can’t live without you!’

‘That is your own affair, and—’

Melusine broke off, staring at him, shocked realisation kicking in her gut. Reaction set in and she leapt at him, beating at his chest with her fists.

‘This is the way you tell me that you love me? You English idiot, you!’

He seized her wrists to hold her off, actually daring to laugh, much to Melusine’s increased fury.

‘What else do you expect? It’s the penalty you pay for marrying an Englishman.’

Melusine wrenched her wrists out of his hold and stepped back, digging into her skirts, which she had adequately prepared some days ago. ‘But I do not pay this penalty.’

‘Uh-oh,’ came from her infuriating suitor and his eyes dropped to the weapon she was dragging from the holster under her petticoat. ‘Here we go again.’

Both hands about the butt of her unwieldy pistol, Melusine glared at him.

‘If you love me, you will say it, or else I will blow off your head.’

‘Will you indeed? Truly?’

His smile held so much tenderness, she was tempted to surrender at once. But, no. This she would not endure. She infused menace into her voice.

‘Say it.’

Gerald remained infuriatingly calm. ‘I’ve never before made love at pistol point.’

‘But you do not make love,’ Melusine pointed out.

‘I kissed you once, didn’t I?’

Her pulses jumped and she stared. ‘You would say that already then you love me?’

His glance was a caress and Melusine’s resolve weakened.

‘When we met probably, and you threatened me at the first. But it was only when that damned scoundrel nearly spitted you in the chapel—’ He broke off and, to her intense satisfaction she saw he was not as much in command of himself as he would have her believe. ‘It must have been so, Melusine, or I wouldn’t have kissed you.’

A tiny giggle escaped her, and she lowered the pistol a trifle. ‘Eh bien, you are not like Leonardo.’

His face changed, all the humour and tenderness leaving it in an instant. Something like a snarl crossed his face, and ignoring the pistol, he moved forward, seizing her shoulders.

‘Leonardo again,’ he growled. ‘What was Leonardo to you?’

Melusine was instantly on the defensive. ‘Laisse-moi.’

‘Damn you, answer me!’

Her eyes flashed. ‘It is not your affair.’

‘Was it yours?’

Insulted beyond bearing, Melusine lost her temper. ‘Dieu du ciel, for what do you take me?’

‘I don’t know,’ he threw at her. ‘That’s why I’m asking.’

The fury welled. ‘You wish a reason for jealousy? Eh bien, you may have it. Leonardo he was my—’

‘Don’t say it,’ Gerald cut in hoarsely. There was a pause, while the steel grey eyes sliced at her. Then pain entered their depths. ‘You wound me to the heart, Melusine.’

Releasing her, he turned and walked swiftly towards the door. For an instant, Melusine watched him go. Then instinct took over. With a cry of distress, she dropped the pistol and flew after him, racing past him to the door. Flinging her back against it, she put her hands out, barring his way.

‘Gérard, do not go,’ she cried, breathless. ‘Me, I am tout à fait stupide. You make me angry, and I lie. Voilà tout. Leonardo was to me nothing at all.’

There was a kind of aching hunger in Gerald’s gaze. ‘Do you swear it? There’s no knowing if one can believe you.’

‘I do not lie to you now,’ she said, near frantic at the thought of losing him. Yet her hands dropped, and she sighed deeply. ‘You do not understand, Gérard. Leonardo was to me perhaps like a father, not a lover as you think.’

‘I don’t want to think it,’ he said, and she thrilled to the savagery in his tone.

‘You are jealous!’

‘Yes,’ he agreed simply. ‘Because I love you. I can’t help it.’

Melusine’s eyes misted. ‘You said it. And I have no more the pistol.’

She was seized by two strong hands and drawn close. Gerald’s gaze bored into hers.

‘Tell me the truth, Melusine.’

‘Of Leonardo? Yes, I will tell you.’ She spoke with difficulty, holding down the rising emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. ‘He was very kind to me. Not like my father. Nor my grandfathers both. To them all I am nothing. They do not come for me, to find me and bring me home. And for Suzanne and the vicomte, I am nothing. I am no one, Gérard.’

Gerald did not speak, but there was a look in his face that made Melusine glad she had at last had the courage to confide in him. The jealous burn at his eyes subsided and his finger came up. She felt the softest touch caress her cheek, and a wave of tenderness engulfed Melusine. Her hand came up and she laced her fingers with his.

‘That is why I have come to England, you understand. To—to find myself. Because Leonardo, he made me see that I can be someone.’

‘You were always someone, Melusine. Even if you didn’t know it.’

The gentleness in his voice nearly overset her. ‘It did not seem to me that it was so. Until Leonardo.’ Then all at once remembrance made her smile. ‘En tout cas, it is not reasonable that I could be at all in love with him. He is extremely old—forty at least—and he has a belly excessively fat. Also he is ugly. And I was altogether disgusted when he kissed me.’

‘How shocking,’ Gerald returned, grinning. ‘I trust you were not altogether disgusted when I kissed you.’

‘But I have told you not,’ she protested. ‘And if it is true that you love me, I do not know why it is that you do not kiss me again at once.’

‘I would have done, only you threatened to blow off my head,’ Gerald reminded her, laughing.

‘Do not be imbecile. Do I blow off the head of a man with whom I am in love?’

‘That,’ said Gerald, disengaging his hand and at last drawing her into his arms, ‘deserves a reward.’

Melusine drowned in his kiss. Her heartbeat raced, her limbs turned to water, and it was only by a miracle and the strength of the arms that held her that she remained standing on her feet.

It was some time later, after a series of these devastating assaults, that Melusine found herself seated on the sofa lately vacated by Lucilla and Captain Roding, cuddled firmly in the arms of a major of militia reduced quite to idiocy.

‘—and I love your raven hair, and your bright blue eyes, and your very kissable lips—’ suiting the action to the words ‘—and I love the crazy way you speak English, and the way you curse at me. I love you calling me Gérard and idiot, and I love you when you threaten me with every weapon under the sun, and—’

‘Pah!’ interrupted Melusine, scorn in her voice. ‘I do not believe you. You make a game with me, imbecile.’

‘And I love the way you call me imbecile,’ finished Gerald.

Melusine giggled, and tucked her hand into his. ‘Certainly you are imbecile. If I did not love you en désespoir, I would assuredly blow off your head.’

‘That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. Why do you think I’m indulging in all this very un-English love talk?’

‘But you are idiot, Gérard. The pistol, it was not loaded.’

‘You mean I need not have said it? Damnation.’

‘But I have still a dagger,’ Melusine warned.

‘Oh, have you? Well, in that case, I love your little booted feet, and your ridiculously long eyelashes, and—’