A Reformed Rake (27 page)

His words were cut off by a scream. One quick look at Harriet, and an expression of sudden anticipation crossed his face. He was off at a run, Harriet after him.

“
Non,
but
non,
you will not! You will not kill him,” screamed Françoise.

Her voice came from the far side of the moss-covered stones tumbling from a half-destroyed wall, which had been carefully made to look as if it would fall in the next wind. Harriet noted a stake as big around as two thumbs which had been driven into the ground to support a young tree. After pulling it out, she lifted her skirts and raced toward the end of the folly nearest the road.

As Harriet rounded the ruin’s end, she found, immediately in front of her, a struggling Françoise held high in the arms of the comte. Without thinking, she raised the stake and swung it, hard, at the comte’s legs. He dropped Françoise, who crawled away, climbed to her feet and, without looking to see how Harriet fared, ran back the way she’d come. The comte had fallen to one knee. He rose, a vicious, hateful look contorting his face, and reached toward Harriet’s throat. She pulled the stake back, preparing to swing again, and he turned, limping away into the shrubbery.

For a long moment she listened, heard snapping twigs and swishing branches and, finally, silence. Slowly she let go of the stake, one finger loosening at a time. Slowly, she allowed herself to slide down the side of the folly until she was sitting on the ground, her head bowed over her knees, her hands holding her bent legs close to her body.

So it was that Françoise and Yves found her some minutes later. Yves had a blood-stained handkerchief wound around his forehead, and Françoise was chiding him for insisting they find Harriet, convinced he should rest, should take care of himself...

“But, oh, Harri,” she said when they came upon her. “I didn’t
think.
You! Are you hurt, too? Are you dead, maybe?” Françoise asked the last in a small voice as she dropped to her knees. She put her hand tentatively on Harriet’s shoulder. “Oh, surely you are not dead!”

“Not dead. I can’t quit shaking,” murmured Harriet, her voice so low Françoise had to bend to hear her. “You were so brave,” said Frani.

“I did what I had to do.” Harriet straightened, laid her head back against the sun-warmed wall. “Where’s the footman? Was he of no use?”

“I sent him back for help,” said Yves, a trifle ruefully. “I didn’t know you’d sent the oh-so-dear comte off all by yourself with his tail between his legs.”

“I couldn’t have done it, if he hadn’t been so surprised by my sudden appearance.” She described what had happened from her point of view. Yves, recovering consciousness, had immediately had the presence of mind to ask Françoise how she’d escaped the comte’s trap and had heard the younger girl’s story then.

Just then Joanna, a gun in her hand, arrived, guided by the footman, who was looking young and excited and obviously feeling important to have had a hand in rescuing the pretty young miss, even if it hadn’t been a very heroic one. Françoise and Harriet had to explain all over again. “Then,” said Joanna, “the fight by the river was merely a diversion to draw the men away.”

“And he was lucky, the comte, that I had decided to explore instead of eat luncheon. Poor Monsieur de Bartigues is not so lucky. His poor head,” said Frani, looking sad. “It is broken.”

“Merely scratched. Don’t make so much of it, mademoiselle.”

“The last I looked,” said Jo, “the fight was about over. The men will return to the terrace with what captives they’ve taken and will want to know where we are. Especially, mademoiselle, they will wish to know that
you
are safe. We must return, if it is not too much for you, monsieur—or for you, Harri?”

“I’ll make it back to the house, but if you don’t mind, I think I’ll lie down for a bit.”

“When we leave, you must come with me in my carriage,” said Joanna soothingly. “I will like to have the company,” she added, knowing how excellent a horsewoman Harriet was and fearing she might feel insulted by the offer.

“I’ll gladly join you,” was the quiet response. “I was tired before from the ride, but now I feel utterly exhausted. Françoise,” added Harriet in a stronger tone, “I swear if something like this happens again, I’ll leave you to your fate. I don’t think I could survive, again, the horror I felt when I rounded that corner and saw you in that evil man’s arms!”

They arrived at the side door through which Harriet had come a surprisingly few minutes earlier and found Sir Frederick just inside, a black eye coming up nicely and a frown of major proportions drawing his brows together. Pierce followed on his heels, a bruised jaw and scraped knuckles indicating his part in the recent melee. Behind
him
were Elizabeth and Robert. Robert, except for an open shoulder seam, looked unmarked, but Elizabeth was hanging on him as if she’d never let him out of her sight again.

Sir Frederick glowered. “So,” he said. “We cannot leave you for more than a moment, and you find mischief to make us prematurely grey! How dare you all disappear like that. A gun, Your Grace?” he asked, seeing it for the first time.

Françoise and Yves appeared from between the hedges, and the bloodstained bandage brought more words of concern. Finally the men quieted down enough to hear the tale and, with no thought to whom might be watching, Frederick pulled Harriet into his arms and held her close. “Don’t you ever do anything so foolish ever again, do you hear me?”

“I am not allowed to be foolish, but it is quite all right for you to remain alone, where more than a dozen men intend to start a fight? Men who are the henchmen of a man who wishes you dead?”

“Men are born with the right to be foolish,” soothed Frederick, but he was not unhappy with her sharp comment because of the caring he heard behind her words. “Women are supposed to have more sense!” When he thought again of what might have happened to her, he pushed her away enough to look into her eyes. “Harri, love, you
are
all right? He didn’t hurt you?”

“He didn’t have time. I came upon him so suddenly we were neither prepared for it. But he had his arms full of Françoise and could do little. I, on the other hand, had a weapon and used it.” She shuddered again as, in memory, she felt the heavy stick thud against human flesh. It was a moment she’d long remember, very likely in nightmares. It had been awful, the sound and feel of it.

Pierce, who had been quietly talking to Joanna, broke in on them. “No one will be satisfied with a rural idyll after all the excitement so I fear the day is ruined. Robert and I will organize the homeward trek. I think we should return now to the parlor where some sort of explanation must be made, and then the horses must be brought around. Harriet, do you think you can put a good face on things for just a little longer? Joanna and I have come up with a tale we think will cover everything and not result in scandal for Mademoiselle Françoise.”

“I’ve been unable to see how we may avoid scandal, so if you’ve a notion, do let us hear it,” said Frederick.

“If we suggest those men were a rabble roused by the high cost of bread and upset by our romping, we may assert that they wished to make a statement of sorts and may convince everyone it was merely an accident of time and place that they chose our particular party to attack. We’ll say nothing of you women and your
trifling
adventure, of course,” he added on a dry note, “but I don’t know where we can say Monsieur de Bartigues was fighting, because no one will have seen him by the river. Perhaps no one will think to ask, but, if they do, we must say something which will explain his bruised head.”

“They will soon notice it was caused by a knife and not by fists,” said Françoise, clutching at Yves’ arm.

“A knife? That leaves a distinctive scar. Blast. Some of those men carried bludgeons, but none were armed otherwise so far as I know.”

“Perhaps a small mob arrived from the front? Perhaps I and a few footmen managed to run them off?”

“Yes. We can say one of them pulled a knife on you. Good. Shall we join the rest?”

The rest had lost the edge of hysteria, but were babbling about what had happened and were drinking more than might have been expected at a garden party. Any man who had been hurt in the fighting was basking in the attention of some young woman—except for those few with more serious hurts. These were dealt with by more practical older women, who allowed a younger female the important role of soothing the wounded male by holding his hand and telling him how wonderful he was.

The duke soon took control of the noisy throng. He called for quiet, told the story they’d concocted for public consumption, and suggested that, since the day had been spoiled, perhaps they should leave as soon as horses and carriages could be brought around. They’d plan another party when there was no more danger of the sort that had ruined this one.

Not, of course, that most of the adventurous young men felt it had been ruined! They, much to their womenfolk’s disgust, had enjoyed themselves hugely and said so.

“Men,” decided Françoise, “are exceedingly strange creatures indeed, are they not?”

Harriet was prone to agree.

Fourteen

When Madame was told of the latest attempt to take her granddaughter, she went off into a long tirade in such rapid French that even Harriet could not follow her thoughts. Everyone listened in awed silence. Françoise, who did understand, was the most silent of all until at last, agitated, she exclaimed, “No no, Grand-mere.
Mais non!
It is impossible that you do as you say!”

“What is it?” asked a bewildered Elizabeth. “What
did
she say?”

Ignoring her hostess, Françoise continued. “You cannot take a sword and run him through and through and through!” She put her arm around her grandmother and leaned her head into the old woman’s rigid shoulder. “Nor, I think, can you shoot him and shoot him or give him over to be guillotined! Me, I think the English do not have Madame Guillotine, is that not so? So it would be best,” she finished with a certain insouciance, “if you were to have him arrested. They could just hang him until he was dead.”

The tension broke and everyone, including Madame la Comtesse, laughed. “An excellent notion, little one,” said His Grace, Pierce Reston, grinning broadly. “Unfortunately, under English law, that would require a trial, and you and Miss Cole would have to give evidence before the court. I think you’d not enjoy that, my child, so, although it is a very good idea, arresting the comte, I think we must come up with another.” The duke looked around the group. “Robert? Frederick?”

Both men sighed and shook their heads. Robert spoke slowly. “All we can do is as we’ve been doing. The women must go nowhere without protection. Big John will be warned the comte is now hiring bravos to aid him; and he must, therefore, have assistance as well. Are you listening, Elizabeth? You are to go nowhere unprotected. Françoise?”

“I do not wish the evil comte to have me. I will be good,” promised Françoise. Then she shuddered. “I am afraid of him. He makes my flesh crawl, and when he touched me today, picked me up, I thought I would faint it was so awful—but I was worried about poor Yves so I didn’t. Is it so very bad, Monsieur de Bartigues’ head?” she asked with a pretty hesitancy.

Yves had developed a very slight fever by the time they approached London and had been sent on, under protest, to Frederick’s rooms. Françoise was not easy to reassure, but a promise that the young man would visit her the next morning finally did the trick.

Harriet had only just arisen from her sickbed, had ridden out to the party and there she’d undergone emotional ups and downs which had worn her to a thread. Frederick noticed how she drooped and went to her side. “You mustn’t worry about the minx, my dear. We’ll see your charge comes to no harm. You must trust us.”

“I know you’ll do your best, but today proved one cannot foresee everything. If I had been only a few moments later, he’d have been gone and Françoise as well.” She trembled much as Françoise had done. “Frederick, it was awful, finding her in his arms, that way!”

“At least you gave him something by which to remember his failure.” Frederick tipped up her chin, stared seriously into her eyes. “From what you said, he’ll be limping for several days! It was very well done of you!”

Harriet shuddered. “I will never forget how it felt to hit him that way. It was terrible, Sir Frederick.”

Since his joshing didn’t ease her, Frederick suggested she retire to her room and ask the housekeeper give her a mild dose of laudanum which would compose her for sleep. She must not make herself ill again. Harriet, agreeing her bed would be welcome, excused herself. The party broke up soon after and, after sending off a note of regret to the hostess to whom they were promised, the household had a quiet night.

Frederick, on the other hand, strolled first to his rooms and then, once he knew Yves was sleeping under Cob’s watchful eye, on to White’s. The porter at the door stared at his black eye but asked no questions. Members of the club were not so polite. The story of the fight by the river was already making the rounds. It had grown to a tale of a veritable riot, but Frederick laughed that to scorn. A handful of bully boys out on a spree, he insisted.

“A handful?” asked Cleary. “I heard boat’s full—three, at least.”

“Yes, but such very small boats,” said Frederick, not looking at the speaker but scanning the room as if for someone special. “Veritable teacups of the boat family.”

“Life is always so interesting wherever you are, Sir Frederick,” said the man, an oily note Frederick didn’t like in his voice.

“You think it interesting to find yourself sporting this?” Frederick pointed to his face. “I can think of many far more interesting ways to spend an afternoon than fighting with river rats. They weren’t even
clean
,” he added on a pensive note.

“I wasn’t thinking of the fight. I was thinking of your latest, er, lady. Quite a talented piece of work, is she not?”

The tone had changed from oily to biting and Cleary now had Frederick’s foil attention. “She plays far better than one’s average amateur, as she proved at Lady Cowper’s not long ago, but she has had the benefit of tutoring by some of the best musicians of our time, and she loves her music.”

“There’s that
as well
,” agreed his tormentor, nodding judiciously. “Perhaps the lady is a trifle
too
talented. Tell me, has she published her satires on the continent? Were they well-received? When does she intend to publish here?”

“So far as I know, she has no such plans and has never had an ambition to earn a living by her pen,” said Frederick, wishing he had at least a glimmering of what was in the wind.

“Tom Moore says she could,” said a kinder voice, chuckling. “Quite a way with words, he says.”

Sir Frederick looked around to see who spoke. He immediately pulled himself together. This man was not one he could fob off. “Moore was so complimentary?” he asked, feeling his way. Then he remembered Harriet’s story about the woman who had snubbed her, the biting wit when she’d described the role of the diamond necklace that defined where cleanliness stopped. Surely Harriet hadn’t been so foolish as to write up bits and pieces describing important members of the
ton!

“Moore laughed himself silly,” said Lord Winthrop, an amateur poet of some status and an aristocratic light in London’s literary circles. “Said he couldn’t wait to meet the author.”

Oh, Lord, she’s done it now. She must actually have written about the ton!
thought Frederick ruefully. “I see no reason why he may not—assuming he’s sober at the time!” he said, and the group’s laughter at the caveat broke the tension. Most drifted off to games of chance or to other conversations, but not Winthrop and not Frederick’s tormentor, Cleary.

“Don’t think everyone’s so tolerant,” said the latter suggestively.

“No, there are some,” said Winthrop, “who feel she went too far when she said the Regent’s generation was too fond of Maraschino and tended to creak when they bowed. It is felt to be too clearly a dig at Prinny himself.” Winthrop met Frederick’s eyes. It was a warning.

“I can see where some might think that, particularly those who found themselves showing to a disadvantage elsewhere in her words, perhaps?” asked Frederick with still more caution.

Winthrop’s eyes twinkled. “You have never been a stupid man. I’ve always wanted an opportunity to tell you how much I admired the facility with which you pulled the wool over most everyone’s eyes during the war.”

Frederick glanced at Cleary, who listened avidly. “Not yours?” he asked.

“No,” said Winthrop gently. “You see, I remember how you jumped into a fight to trounce that Gooderson bully at Eton when he was determined to bring one of the new boys to heel. Gooderson weighed a good twenty pounds more than you did and must have been three inches taller.”

Frederick looked sharply at Winthrop. “I’d forgotten that ... was that
you
?”

“Yes. I was very nearly ready to give in to the bully’s demands when you took over. Thank you. I’ve been meaning to say that for years.”

Frederick’s ears felt hot. “Forget it. It was nothing, a trifle.”

“It wasn’t a trifle to a very young boy who was homesick and very much out of place amongst such very male society.” Winthrop grimaced. “You see, my father died when I was but a babe. I was raised by my mother, my aunt, my grandmother, and four older sisters. Needless to say, I’d not had much contact with the rougher side of life.”

“It was a very long time ago.”

“What did he mean, you pulled the wool over our eyes during the war?” asked Cleary belligerently.

Frederick had been ignoring the man who hovered near. “Nothing. Nothing at all,” he insisted, holding Winthrop’s eyes and silently insisting the subject be dropped. After a moment Winthrop shrugged.

When Cleary got no response to his demand for information, he suggested, “Still think you should do something about your latest lady. Drop her, maybe?” Again he got no verbal response to a suggestion, but Winthrop looked at him as if he were a toad. Cleary, his ears burning, stalked off.

“Don’t think you have a friend there,” said Winthrop thoughtfully.

“No, he’s never been a friend. I don’t know why he’d change at this late date. Winthrop,” added Frederick, “will you do what you can if you hear more talk of her writing?”

“I’ll help gladly,” said the younger man warmly. “You haven’t seen it?”

“No. I suspect, from what I know of Miss Cole, it wasn’t supposed to have been seen by anyone. I’ll find out tomorrow.”

He joined a table and played late. Because of that he slept in, so that Joanna was the first visitor to enter Halford House the next morning and inquire about Harriet’s health. “So she spent a good night and is feeling more the thing? In that case, please announce me,” she said.

Harriet was not only up but had eaten and was now in the music room. “... with as many servants as can manage to find jobs nearby, doing more listening than working,” added the butler a trifle acidly.

Joanna gave him a commiserating smile and suggested gently that if she were to be announced, perhaps Harriet would stop practicing and perhaps the servants would return to the work for which they were hired. She was announced with alacrity.

“Joanna, you should not be out and about so early!”

“I, too, went to sleep at a ridiculous hour last night and couldn’t lay abed this morning.” Joanna fiddled with the slim roll of paper. “Besides, I had an early morning caller.”

“It must have been a true early bird.”

“No,” chuckled Jo, “merely a bluestocking who actually believes that proverb about early to bed. She’s already wealthy enough to suit her and has her health, I’m sure, but she has a great desire to be wise ... which, come to think of it, she may very well be. Harriet, do you think the adage may have something to recommend it? Ah, but forget that nonsense. Were you aware some of your scribbles have become all the rage—except where you are being taken to task by people who feel the pinch of your words?”

Harriet paled to an ashy tint. She dropped into the chair behind her, staring at her old friend from painfully wide eyes. “My ... scribbles...?”

“You didn’t know. I thought as much.”

“I wondered yesterday, and then forgot when ... but surely not...”

“I tell you they have spread far and wide.” Jo handed Harriet the pages. “See for yourself, my friend. These are copies, of course, but I recognize the style from the letters we’ve exchanged. You give yourself away in every line.” Harriet was afraid to unroll the stiff paper. She didn’t want to find her own words staring at her from the sheets. Jo took them back, untied the ribbon, and spread out the top one.

“Well?” she asked.

Harriet read a handful of words, turned her head. “Mine.”

“How did they come to circulate in the
ton
?”

“If you think...!”

“Relax, Harriet. I know very well you’d not do it yourself. Who knew of them?”

“So far as I know, no one.”

“Where did you keep them?”

“In a wooden chest I’ve carried with me everywhere for many years now. It’s upstairs in the back of my armoire.”

“Shall we go see if your work is still there?”

Harriet, reluctantly, led the way. They found the chest unlocked, and Harriet noticed the scar running off at an angle from the keyhole. She ran her finger along it. “Someone forced this.”

“But who would do such a thing?”

Harriet began emptying the case. She reached the bottom and hadn’t found the satire. “Could the comte have had my papers searched and those vignettes stolen in order to discredit me? Maybe to force Madame to rid herself of my contaminating presence?” she asked.

“How could he guess there would be something so damaging? You appear to the world as an intelligent and perfectly respectable female—except, of course, for your predilection for Frederick’s company!”

Harriet blushed. “Don’t. Please. Jo, what am I to do?”

“You’ll stare blankly at anyone who asks about your writing and change the subject.”

“I’m afraid that won’t do,” said Frederick from the doorway. “The word is too firmly established that Harriet is the author.”

Harriet, involuntarily, took a step toward him. Then she remembered herself, remembered she had no right to ask for his comfort or his care—in fact, had forbidden him the right to offer such. Frederick, however, had no scruples. At the hint she wished it, he came to her and drew her into his embrace, pressing her head against his shoulder.