A Reformed Rake (29 page)

She stared straight ahead. “Since the problem does not arise, I’ll not worry about it.”

Sir Frederick said, his tone thoughtful, “Then I see no choice but to become a bore.”

It took Harriet a moment to work out his meaning, but when she realized he referred again to kidnapping her and marrying her out of hand, she gasped. “You wouldn’t!”

“Not yet, anyway. You see, I’ve not given up hope I’ll bring you to admitting you love me as much as I love you and, once you’ve done so, I don’t think you’ll argue that an early marriage is much to be desired. So, as I see it, my problem is that I must discover a way to make you admit it.”

“This is a nonsensical discussion and, anyway, there comes Lord Winthrop. Please do not embarrass me before him.”

“Have I ever embarrassed you before strangers?”

Harriet frowned slightly. She thought back over their relationship. “If I cannot think of an occasion, it is surely only because I have managed to put it from my mind with true Christian generosity.”

“Vixen,” he whispered and pulled up to introduce her to Lord Winthrop.

That night on the way home from one of the more frustrating evenings she had ever experienced, Harriet was a trifle irked to discover Frederick was not interested in discussing how difficult it had been for her. Why, he didn’t seem to care she’d had to face down the whole of the
ton!
Instead he and Robert avidly discussed an imminent prizefight between the current champion and an up-and-coming young bruiser. The meeting was planned for two days hence, and Robert was not about to miss it. From his suppressed excitement, neither would Frederick.

Nor, it was discovered the next day, were Monsieur de Bartigues or Pierce Reston willing to be absent from what was touted as the fight of the decade. All, it seemed, had heavy wagers on the outcome and each was determined to see every left cross and cross buttock and knockdown and every drop of blood.

The women shuddered and frowned and expressed their disgust with the whole thing, but it did no good. The men were going. That fact was quite clear. The site was near enough to London they could ride out in the morning and return immediately following the bout. They would not dawdle afterward, but they
would
attend. It was quite decided.

The morning on which they left for the fight saw the arrival of a message from Madame’s French acquaintance, Marie de Daunay. Madame la Comtesse grimaced and frowned.

“What is it, Madame?” asked Harriet, seating herself at the breakfast table. “Surely not more trouble?”

“Not trouble,” said Madame, holding the folded invitation at arm’s length and squinting very slightly as she reread the spidery writing. “Not that. Only a minor irritation, really.” Madame sighed. “I will go, of course, but it will be a dead bore—as Elizabeth would say.” The slight frown, which had called Harriet’s attention to her troubled mind, deepened.

“I don’t think I should if it is bound to be a bore,” teased Harriet.

Madame smiled. “Yes you would. It’s Madame de Daunay.”

“The lady who came to see you a week or two ago?”

“Yes. A very old acquaintance, one I knew in my youth.”

“I seem to remember you spent the afternoon reminiscing.”

The frown returned. “And that is the problem, Harri. Remembering the days which once were is all very well in its way, but she
lives
in what she believes was a glorious past. She will not think of the realities of today. She can talk and talk and talk about a ball at Versailles forty years ago but doesn’t know Napoleon did the unspeakable and divorced his first wife, or that Fat Louis was chased from Paris when the monster returned from Elba for the Hundred Days!” Madame lowered her voice. “One understands, of course ...
Her gloves were darned
,” she explained in almost sepulchral tones.

“I see,” said Harriet and did. Madame de Daunay lived in the past for the simple reason that poverty made the present too terrible to admit to. She sighed. “When is the invitation for?”

“This afternoon. It is such short notice I wonder if she thought perhaps I’d not accept?”

“More likely her life is so restricted she doesn’t think in terms of having a score of invitations from which to choose. Not that we do today, but that is unusual, is it not? A visit won’t tire you too much, will it? You’ve only begun to go out again.”

“I’ve quite recovered myself, Harriet. Don’t hover. I cannot bear to feel smothered.”

Harriet studied her mistress surreptitiously. She decided the lady would do—assuming nothing new happened to overset her. A quiet afternoon with an old friend might actually do her good.

Madame wrote a note of polite acceptance. Then, too late, she discovered the town carriage had been ordered by Lady Halford and her granddaughter for a trip to the shops in the Royal Opera Arcade where, they had heard, one could find the most marvelous silks and, if one were careful, bargains in the way of gloves and stockings, as well as elegant trifles such as fans and feathers and music boxes. They’d left half an hour earlier.

For a time the problem seemed unsolvable, but Madame, having made up her mind to go, was not to be thwarted. “Marks may send a footman to find me a hack which is not too dirty and with a horse which is not too decrepit and a driver whom he believes may be trusted to take me where I wish to go. I will then make my way by hired carriage. It will be a little adventure, you see.” And so it was arranged.

Fifteen

Madame la Comtesse’s quiet afternoon began that way: she rode to her appointment in a hired hack as planned and found it uncomfortable but not so much so as she’d expected. As a result she cheerfully overpaid the driver, although she chided him for requesting such a sum. He gave her a cheeky grin and drove off happily pocketing the outrageous amount for which he’d asked—and gotten.

Madame entered the small house, finding much what she expected: well-worn drugget on the hall floor and, glimpsed through a door, carefully repaired upholstery oh the chairs and settees in the small sitting room in which the drapes had been pulled nearly closed—very likely in the hopes it would make the room too dim for the visitor to see how badly in need of replacement most everything was.

Madame entered the room at Marie de Daunay’s invitation—and peace and quiet were abruptly at an end.

“You!” said Madame, an expression of distaste crossing her face.

“You know each other?” asked Madame de Daunay brightly. “How very nice.”

“Be quiet,” said de Cheviot to the spinster in sneering tones. “You’ve played your part. It is done now.”

Madame de Daunay looked from one to the other. “But I don’t understand. What is this?” Her voice rose, shrilling. “Why do you have that gun?” Still shriller: “What game is this you play with us?”

“I said for you to be quiet! Well, Madame? It has taken many months but I have won, have I not?”

“I doubt it.” Hortense de St. Onge, Comtesse de Beaupre raised a hand and yawned.

Vauton-Cheviot stamped his foot. “You will not sneer at me. You will admit I have tricked you finely.”

Madame la Comtesse eyed him much as she’d study a bug. “A coward’s trick, of course, to use an unsuspecting old woman.”

Vauton-Cheviot struck her and then looked appalled. “I didn’t do that.” His voice rose. “
I didn’t do that
.”

“Then why do I feel as if the last of my teeth had been loosened?” asked Madame, touching her jaw gently.

“What is this? What is happening?” whispered her hostess. She looked from one to the other, her eyes huge in her thin old face. She clutched a hand to her throat, fear of the comte and dismay that her old friend should be so badly treated warring within her.

“You have been tricked by this evil man,” said Madame kindly, “You have helped him to trap my granddaughter, you see. For so very long now, he has tried to achieve his goal of a marriage to her ... I wonder what will happen to foil him this time?” she said, watching him thoughtfully and forced a chuckle.

“You are a fool.
Nothing
can interfere.
Nothing.
I will succeed. I will have her!”

“I doubt it,” said Madame once again. She glanced around. “Are we to await her here?”

“No. Never.” Vauton-Cheviot motioned with the gun. “Forward. Up the stairs with you. With
both
of you!”

“But we have not had our tea,” wailed the confused old woman. “I do not understand why you behave in this so odd fashion, Comte. It is rude. And...”

“You will be still!” screamed the harassed comte. “Up the stairs.”

Regally, as if climbing the steps in her own home, Madame swept upward and up again. At the very top of the house, built under the roof, was a small room, obviously meant for a maidservant. Madame dipped her head under the low lintel and entered it. She looked around: a narrow bed covered by a dust sheet; a chest of drawers; a small table on which a cracked washbowl sat—and nothing else. There wasn’t even a curtain at the small dormer window set high where the roof slanted down and made much of the room too low to be used. There wasn’t even a small rug by the bed.

“You will not succeed, Comte,” said Madame, turning to stare at him. “You should stop this before you find yourself in the hands of the English law. Your rank, such as it is, will not help you, I believe. Nor, I think, will the French Embassy, which would find you something of an embarrassment just at this time, would it not?”

The comte blanched. “No. It will not happen. You will be quiet. And you,” he said turning on his landlady and raising his voice, “you may stop that whining and sniveling. It will do you no good.” The comte recovered his high hopes when he saw how cowed the one woman was. “All will go as I wish. There is nothing which can stop me this time. I know, you see, that your host and his friends have gone to Croydon to a prizefight. Men excited by watching the violence of a fight have a need to
relieve their
high spirits. They will not return until late, and I will be long gone.
With Mademoiselle Françoise!

“Nor will it do to follow me,” he said with an evil look. “I will long since have made sure of the mademoiselle, you see.” His eyes were hot and his hands perspiring at the thought, so much so he had to change the gun from one hand to the other as he wiped his damp palms along his trousers. “Oh yes. I’ll make quite sure of her. I do not wish to force
ma petite,
but I will. Oh yes. I will if I must to be certain she is mine.”

“It will not happen,” said Madame serenely although inside she quailed. “You should have learned by now that my granddaughter is not for you.”

“It will come to pass. It
will.
Just as I have planned!” Cheviot’s eyes narrowed and a sinister little smile played around his mouth. “You may relieve your boredom, Madame, by imagining what comes to
you.
I’ll not leave before achieving some small revenge for your slights to me, I assure you.”

With a laugh which sent shivers up Madame’s spine, he shut the door and locked it. When the sound of his steps receded to the lower floor, Madame la Comtesse rose from the bed on which she’d seated herself and tried the door. It was solid and far too heavy for two old women to break open. She turned to the window.

Pulling the bed away from the wall and into position, she climbed onto it and peered through the grimy pane. The window looked out over a narrow yard, across the neighboring yard, and on to a row of houses which had been abandoned. The windows had been boarded up, several displaying charred wood from the fire which had swept along from one house to the next some weeks earlier. Also, the window through which Madame peered was far too small to climb through even if it would open—which it would not.

Having made her survey, Madame decided there was nothing to do but await rescue. She seated herself. “My old friend,” she said kindly to the poor woman who had thought to be her hostess, “as the dreadful comte has said, it will do no good to snivel and weep. Sit down now and quiet yourself. Please do.”

But the de Daunay woman would not be soothed and Madame la Comtesse resigned herself to the unpleasant company of a woman permanently on the verge of hysterics.

Françoise followed Elizabeth into the elegant, chandelier-lit passage along which lighted shop windows stretched on and on to the far end. Among such wonderful temptations, it would be simple to amuse oneself for an hour or two. A perfumery immediately caught Elizabeth’s eye just as Françoise saw a window draped with a rainbow of ribbons. They separated without a thought in their heads regarding all the lectures given them concerning Françoise’s safety.

The young French woman was debating between two blue ribbons of almost, but not quite, the same shade when she heard, just behind her, a softly feminine, lilting voice speaking in French. “Mademoiselle, I have a message for you. No, do not turn,” insisted the hidden woman. Françoise froze, clutching the ribbons in her hand. “I will slip a note into your reticule, chère,” said the soft voice. “You will look at those oh-so-beautiful ribbons for several minutes more before you read the note. Do not look for me. I am nothing more than a message carrier in any case and quite unimportant.”

Françoise shivered. “Who—”

“Remember,” cautioned the woman. “Wait some minutes...”

“Who are you?”

There was no response. For a long moment Françoise didn’t dare to move. Then she turned and scanned the small shop, struggling against other patrons who crowded her close to the table. No one paid the least attention to her. No one looked as if they’d had a thing to do with her—but someone had recognized her, had accosted her, had given her a note. Someone, Françoise knew instinctively, who meant her no good.

Her hands shaking, she searched her reticule and found the folded bit of paper. The message was short and to the point:
Come without delay to the address below if you wish to see your grandmother alive. Tell no one. You are watched, and it will go badly with your friend if you do not obey.
Françoise shuddered. Again, still more surreptitiously, she looked around. Still she saw no one with any obvious interest in her. What could she do?
What could she do?

Françoise scrambled through her mind for a way out of the trap which had been sprung. Oh, it was so terrible she could barely think. But, first, she must do nothing which would harm Elizabeth. That was very important. So how? Perhaps if she were to pretend to be ill, and they were to go home—perhaps she could find help there? Harriet? Harriet would know what to do.

Françoise pushed away from the table, wanting a bit of room where she would not be jostled from all sides, somewhere where she could
think,
but the Arcade was overly full that day, and there was no room to be had. Home. She pushed through the crowd until she reached the shop door. She had to go home. Frantic, Frani searched faces for Elizabeth’s. She saw Big John, whose tall frame stood head and shoulders above everyone else. She threaded a way toward him, scattering apologies here and there as she stepped on a toe here or stumbled against someone there. She reached her quarry and, her eyes big with fright, stared up at him.

“John?” she said. “Where is Lady Halford, John? I do not feel well. I must go. At once, John.”

The gentle servant frowned down at her, saw how white and pulled about she looked and then, raising his gaze, scanned the shoppers. He peered through the window of the shop his mistress had entered. She wasn’t there. He looked into the next. “She is here, Mam’zelle, looking at silk stockings, I think. Follow me, little one.”

Thankfully Françoise dropped in behind Big John and was swept along in his wake. “Elizabeth...” she began upon reaching her.

“Françoise? Do look. I cannot believe the price! They seem first quality, do they not?” She turned. “I think I’ll have a dozen pair—Françoise? What...?”

“I do not feel well. I am sorry, but may we go home? Now?”

“Of course, we may. Why did you not tell me? We should never have come if you were not well.”

Françoise allowed herself to be scolded and petted and herded back to the carriage which awaited them near the entrance. She was silent on the drive back to Halford House and, after an attempt or two to find out what was wrong with her guest, Elizabeth, too fell silent.

I will have gotten Elizabeth out of it. She’ll be safe at home,
thought Françoise frantically.
But what next? Oh, if only the men had not gone away today. Why today of all days? Or,
she wondered, not being exactly stupid,
is that why today was chosen? Because, with them away, it was a good day in which to abduct me again? I get so tired of abductions. They are such a bore.
She closed her eyes and turned her head against the squabs first one way and then the other.
No. They are not a bore. They frighten me, I think. Oh Harriet what must I do? Grand-mere ... Dear God nothing must happen to Grand-mere...

The carriage pulled up in front of the house. As Big John opened the low door and put down the steps, it occurred to Françoise that the friend mentioned in the note might mean Harriet and not Elizabeth as she’d first assumed. She opened her eyes wide, her flesh losing still more color. She mustn’t, couldn’t, ask Harriet for help. She mustn’t endanger Harriet. The evil comte would kill without compunction as he’d once tried to kill grand-mere with his poisons. It must not happen. Françoise shuddered and reached for Big John as her knees buckled.

The huge man caught her, picked her up and, at a nod from Elizabeth, carried his slight burden into the house and straight up to the bedroom she still shared with Harriet. Harriet was there and, taking one look at her charge’s white pinched features said Françoise must go to bed. Frani, thinking of the order that she come immediately, grew very nearly hysterical, accusing Harri of smothering her, mothering her—demanded that she be left alone, that all she needed was to sleep and not be disturbed.
Not at all.

“Go away, Harri. Just go away and leave me alone,” she wailed, deeply worried as it became obvious Harriet meant to stay with her. “I don’t want anybody. I don’t want
you.
”

That’s true enough,
thought Françoise,
but I don’t mean it as an insult, Harri
—
don’t take it that way. Please don’t look so cold. Oh, Harri, if only I could tell you, could explain...

Huge tears dripped down Françoise’s face as her beloved Harri turned away. Hungrily, Frani’s huge eyes devoured the tall slim form of the woman she loved and admired so much. They’d never again see each other, and Harriet would never understand why she’d had to be so nasty, why she’d tricked her so...

Françoise’s mind raced, but she turned her face away when Harriet looked back from the doorway. With a chilly reminder that she would stop in later, Harriet finally left, and Frani was alone. All alone.