The Man in the Green Coat (24 page)

The girls curtsied. Dorothea seemed too quashed to speak, so Gabrielle said, “How do you do, ma’am. I am Gabrielle Darcy and this is Dorothea. We are looking forward to staying here. Lord Charing has told me how pretty the village is, and about the ruins of the archbishop’s palace, and I quite long to see them.”

Lady Sarah shrugged helplessly. “Yes, of course,” she murmured. "We must hope the weather improves. I expect you will want to rest after your journey. Mrs Hunney shall bring you down to the drawing room when you are ready.” She drifted out again.

It was an inauspicious start to their visit, but things improved thereafter. The water was hot, the drawing room warm and comfortable, and Lady Sarah pulled herself together enough to make polite, if insipid, conversation.

Lord Charing appeared at dinner, a plain but lavish and well-cooked meal. He drew their attention to the pastries and jellies and creams, saying that they must thank his daughter-in-law, for they did not usually eat such kickshaws and he had not thought to provide for the tastes of young ladies. Dorothea, who was partial to sweets, took a second plum turnover and thanked Lady Sarah so prettily that she brought a smile to the melancholy face.

“Ha!” said his lordship triumphantly.

By the next morning the rain had ceased. Gabrielle succeeded in persuading Lady Sarah to accompany them in exploring the surroundings. She turned out to have a fund of anecdotes about the history of the area which greatly enlivened their tour of the village and their scramble through the archbishop’s palace. By the time they returned to the house, her pale cheeks held a hint of pink and her eyes, though still mournful, had lost the look of being constantly about to spill over.

A few days later, Lady Sarah took them on a tour of Canterbury. Again her historical knowledge much increased their enjoyment of the ancient town, and she was plainly gratified when they told her so.

A signpost pointing to Dover caught Gabrielle’s eye. They were only sixteen miles from the place where she had made her dramatic entrance into England. It was about the time of the month when Luke generally went there to take up his role as the Man in the Green Coat, and she wondered if he was there now, waiting at the King’s Head for news from France.

Did he know she was no longer at Wrotham? Had he perhaps called in at his home on the way to Dover and found her gone? Suddenly she wished she had stayed, though she was sure by now that her visit was doing Lady Sarah a world of good. It would be beyond bearing if Luke thought she had cheerfully abandoned his family, but after all, she reminded herself, she had only come as a companion to Dorothea. Lady Cecilia would be certain to tell him so.

When they got back to Charing, Luke was there.

* * * *

Luke had had a frustrating week. First Georges Cadoudal announced that he would be leaving for France by the end of the month. No argument succeeded in convincing the fiery young warrior that such a course would endanger not only himself but his anticipated allies. Lord Hawkesbury ordered Mr Everett to give him every assistance.

Mr Everett spent several days in Dover arranging to have Cadoudal smuggled across the Channel. The courier who arrived in search of the Man in the Green Coat brought new confirmation that de la Touche was an agent provocateur, but no evidence different enough to change minds.

Stopping in Wrotham on his way back to London, hoping for twenty-four hours respite from the exigencies of his work, Luke discovered Gabrielle and his sister both gone.

Before he mentioned that he was returning from Dover, not on his way there, his stepmother had asked him to call in at Charing.

“Dorothea writes cheerfully,” she said, “but I should like to be sure that she and Gabrielle are quite comfortable. It is such an odd household, just Lord Charing and Lady Sarah Darcy.”

“The family name is Darcy, then! I thought so. How does this come about, ma’am?”

Lady Cecilia explained the marquis’s stay at Wrotham and his invitation to the girls to cheer up his daughter-in-law. “He asked Dorothea to go, and Gabrielle as her companion, but it is my opinion that it was Gabrielle he really wanted. Your father noticed a distinct resemblance, and it is unlikely that it could have escaped his lordship’s eye.

“Then Gabrielle has found her family!” The thought made Luke distinctly uneasy. It was an excellent family to be related to, to be sure, but she would no longer need to turn to him in times of trouble. In spite of all his efforts at self-persuasion, he still loved her.

“Not necessarily. Henry thinks the connection is likely on the wrong side of the blanket. Since Lord Charing has gone so far, I daresay he will be willing to help them even so. But we have no reason to suppose that Gabrielle is aware of the relationship. The resemblance is more a matter of the way the marquis looked many years ago, and as for the name, it is quite possible that she has not heard it. He is always referred to as Lord Charing, and she as Lady Sarah.”

“Then she has left you and gone off to Charing without even the excuse of knowing that she is related to the marquis!” exclaimed Luke, seizing eagerly on this evidence of imperfection to support his fight against his own feelings. “I had thought her more capable of gratitude than that!”

“Fustian! She has gone to accompany Dorothea and to try to comfort Lady Sarah.”

Luke was not listening. Already resentful at Hawkesbury and Cadoudal’s refusal to accept his warnings, his smothered anger flared at Gabrielle’s apparent slight to his family.

“I must leave at once if I am to call at Charing, ma’am,” he announced. “I will let you know how Dorothea fares.”

Calling for Baxter, he strode out.

* * * *

Gabrielle and Dorothea were delighted to see Luke, until they saw his expression. The drive, thirty miles in the wrong direction when he had hoped to be relaxing at home, had not improved his temper. Nor had the realisation that his actions were totally illogical, that he should simply have told his stepmother that he was headed the other way and put Gabrielle’s misdeeds out of his mind.

Lady Sarah welcomed him with quiet courtesy, and invited him to stay to dinner and for the night.

“Thank you,” he responded, “but I must refuse. I but called in passing and must be on my way presently.”

“Then I shall leave you to talk to your sister in peace,” she said with a sweet smile. Drawn out of her sorrow, she had proved a gentle, kindly hostess, somewhat lacking in humour but very ready to please and be pleased. “No one will interrupt you here in the drawing room,” she went on. “I will tell Mrs Hunney to bring refreshments, for I am sure the girls need something if you do not.” She went out, a little wearily after the unwonted exertions of the day.

Dorothea, easily alarmed, had retired to the shelter of a window seat at the far end of the room. Luke turned to Gabrielle.

“I had thought better of you,” he said bitterly. “I may once have suspected you of spying, but I never considered that you might be a mere adventuress. First you insinuate yourself into my family, and then, as soon as a better chance offers, you abandon them and cozen Charing into taking you in. Oh yes, he is much richer than we are—childless, doting! Do you hope to marry him, I wonder? It would suit you, I daresay, to be a wealthy widow. To think that I once considered marrying you myself, penniless as I am!”

“How prodigious kind of you! I am sure you need not have troubled, since I should not marry you if you were rich as Croesus! Of all the arrogant, overbearing, self-satisfied coxcombs is has ever been my misfortune to meet--”

“Enough, Miss Darcy!”

“So set up in your own conceit you cannot see beyond the end of your nose.”

“You are distressing my sister!”

Gabrielle ran to Dorothea, who was weeping in silent misery.

“I’m sorry, Dorrie darling. Don’t heed him. Your brother is the most provoking wretch on the face of the earth!”

“Dorothea, you will pack your bags and return to Wrotham with me at once.”

“No, I shan’t. I am to stay here another week and I will not be dragged home as if I were in disgrace.”

He turned on Gabrielle again. “Until she knew you, my sister was a docile creature who always did as she was bid. What a disastrous influence you have had upon her! How you must be laughing up your sleeve at the misery you have brought upon my family!"

“Go away, Luke,” pleaded Dorothea, hiccupping. “You are being quite ridiculous. I’m sure I hope you do not know what you are saying!”

With a look of baffled fury, Luke stalked out.

Equally furious, Gabrielle paced up and down the room, fists clenched, cheeks pink with indignation.

“You were magnificent, Dorrie!” she exclaimed. “I never thought you had it in you to stand up to a bully like that.”

“He was right about one thing,” Dorothea admitted regretfully. “I should never have dared until I met you, and saw how you make your own decisions.”

“Oh, dear!” Gabrielle bit her lip and went to join her friend on the window seat. “Am I really your pattern-card? I am no paragon, you know, and my decisions are sometimes wrong. Besides, our upbringings were quite different. I have had to think for myself for years, because much of the time there was no one to turn to. Believe me, I have learned from my mistakes.”

“I have led a very sheltered life, I know. But if I am never allowed to make mistakes, how am I to learn? At all events, I will not give up Alain only because Luke says I must! He is not my father, after all, only my half-brother.”

“He has an unfortunate habit of laying down the law. His reasons may be excellent, but as he does not give them, one cannot judge. Dorrie, I do not care to be the cause of a breach with your brother. I appreciate your defence, but perhaps you ought to go with him, and I will go to Madame in London.”

“No.” Dorothea was adamant, her delicate features suffused with determination. “If he wishes me to do as he says, he must explain himself, tell me why I should, and let me decide. You do not want me to go, do you? Pray do not hold his dreadful words against me!”

Gabrielle hugged her. “Of course not, goose. Now dry your eyes and let us go and change, or we shall be late for dinner.”

The evening seemed endless. All Gabrielle wanted was to be alone so that she could consider Luke’s outburst without distraction. At last she retired to her chamber, only to fall asleep as soon as she blew out her candle, tired from walking about Canterbury, and emotionally exhausted.

* * * *

Though both Gabrielle and Dorothea were subdued the next day, their friendship had deepened. Dorothea’s nature was not confiding, but her brother’s behaviour had inadvertently broken down the barriers to intimacy, in part because his intention was so manifestly the reverse.

If Luke had thought, he might have supposed that after ten days at Charing it was impossible that Gabrielle should not know her hosts’ surname. He would have been wrong. There were no visitors to reveal it. The late Lord Darcy was rarely referred to, and then as “my husband,” or “my son.” All the servants were as well trained and as little given to gossip about their betters as had been those who travelled with his lordship. Naturally Lady Sarah was aware of the coincidence, but her father-in-law had most strictly forbidden any reference to it.

And the family crest sported an ornate C for Charing, so that Gabrielle was even unaware of sharing an initial.

She had, indeed, received an unusually incoherent letter from Lady Harrison, upon first informing her of her destination. It was so full of heavily underlined phrases in French as to be practically unreadable. All she learned from it was that: Madame was distraught about something indecipherable but that the redecoration of the house was proceeding according to plan.

September came. The pears ripened in the marquis’s orchards and swallows gathered in huge flocks, ready to fly south. A date was set for Dorothea to return to Wrotham. Gabrielle was to go with her, to pick up Gerard and go on to London to await her father’s arrival.

She felt oddly nervous at the thought. It was so long since she had seen him! She had changed, and their relationship must change likewise, but how she could not tell. At last she would find out who she really was, and she was not at all sure she wanted to know. She recognised that she had been floating in a vague and comforting belief that all her problems would vanish with his appearance. Closely examined, that belief faded beyond resuscitation.

On their last day at Charing, restless and dissatisfied with herself, Gabrielle went for a long ride on the mare his lordship had provided for her use, followed at a discreet distance by the groom insisted upon by Lady Sarah. When she returned at dusk, Mrs Hunney was hovering in the entrance hall, waiting for her.

“Oh miss, I'm that glad you’re back!” the housekeeper exclaimed, her usual calmness in tatters at the edges. “My lady’d like to see you in the drawing room, if you please, right away.”

Gabrielle looked down at her soiled riding habit. “I’d best change first,” she said.

“Please don't, miss. Her ladyship said soon as you come in.”

Alarmed, Gabrielle hurried to the drawing room. Lady Sarah was sitting in the twilight, twisting a handkerchief in her agitated hands. She started up as Gabrielle entered.

“My dear, I don’t know what to do! Thank heaven you are come.”

“What is it, ma’am? Have you had bad news? Where is Dorothea?”

“A gentleman came to see her. An excessively good-looking young man, with the very faintest hint of a foreign accent. I ought not to have left them alone, I know, particularly as he would not give his name, but I did not think any harm could come of it, just for a few moments.”

“Alain! What happened? Oh, do not tell me she has run off with him!”

“No, no. I should have known what to do in such a case. No, he said he was come to make a final farewell, so I left them. He was here for perhaps fifteen minutes, and when he departed Dorothea ran up to her room in a fit of weeping. She will not open her door, or answer when I speak to her. But I can hear that she is still crying, and it has been over an hour now. Surely she will talk to you?”