‘Don’t count on it. You’ll end there one day, mark my words.’ Then Hilary became serious again. ‘Well, I can see you won’t let it alone, so what do you propose to do about the wench?’
‘I’ll die before I let it alone,’ Gerald vowed. ‘As for what to do, I wonder if young Charvill would be worth a visit. And I think I must pursue my acquaintance with the fulsome Madame Valade.’
***
Mrs Chalkney, a long-time friend of the late Mrs Alderley, had been delighted to oblige that lady’s son. ‘Get you invited to a party where the French émigrés will be present? Nothing easier, dear boy. I am having them to my own soirée on Monday.’
‘Excellent,’ Gerald had approved.
‘I did not send you a card because in the normal way of things you rarely attend such affairs.’
‘Ah, but I have a special reason for doing so this time.’
Mrs Chalkney lifted her brows. ‘Indeed?’
Gerald grinned. ‘Yes, dear Nan, a flirtation. But don’t run away with the idea that I’m hanging out for a wife at last, because I’m not.’
‘Gracious heaven, Gerald! If your dear mama could not drag you to the altar, I am hardly likely to succeed.’
‘In any event,’ Gerald told her, with a grin, ‘I can’t marry this one. She’s already spoken for.’
He endured the inevitable scold with patience, saluted Mrs Chalkney’s faded cheek, and went off to endure the necessary delay with what patience he could muster. What more was to be done? Frith’s investigations had proved fruitful, and the man was now keeping an eye on Valade. Gerald hoped he had covered all options and had resisted the temptation to pay mademoiselle a visit. In any case, there was no doing anything on a Sunday and Brewis Charvill, his main quarry, had gone out of town unexpectedly. An action which gave Gerald furiously to think. Had Valade been to see him? Possibly even yesterday when he was followed by some young lad—and the girl, of course. It was all highly intriguing.
On Monday Charvill had still not returned, and the major duly presented himself at Mrs Chalkney’s house in Grosvenor Square, thanking his stars that his friend Roding would not be there to spoil sport.
Madame Valade was looking heartily bored, he noted, as his searching eyes found out the couple. He could scarcely blame her. Valade, who was standing by her chair, glancing around the packed pink-papered saloon with a heavy frown on his face, was a thickset man of coarse, reddened feature, with a discontented air. Or was that perhaps because his business in Piccadilly the other day had gone awry? Perhaps Brewis Charvill had not welcomed him with open arms.
Gerald noted the lady’s eyes brighten as she caught sight of him making his way through the throng towards her. Now how in the world was he to get rid of the husband?
His luck was in. Just as he reached them, the Comte de St Erme drew Valade a little apart and began to converse with him in rapid French. Valade accorded the major’s greeting a brief nod and gave his attention back to St Erme.
Gerald took Madame’s hand and kissed the fingers with a little more warmth than punctilio demanded. ‘Madame, I trust I see you well?’
‘Merci.’ She inclined her head, looking up at him through her lashes, and passing a tongue lightly over her lips.
Gerald smiled and crooked his elbow. ‘A little promenade, madame?’
Madame Valade rose from the chintz-covered chair with alacrity and a little rustle of her silken petticoats. The close-fitting round gown, if a little old-fashioned with its very narrow waist and wide skirts, was becoming on a full figure, and the low décolletage, unencumbered by any form of covering, exposed a good deal of bosom. The lady murmured briefly to her husband, and then tucked her hand into Alderley’s arm.
‘We will converse in your own tongue,’ he said in French as he led her away. ‘And I trust you will pardon my inadequacies.’
Madame gave one of those breathy laughs. ‘They cannot be worse than mine in English, monsieur.’
While he trod a deliberate path through the pink saloon towards the door, Gerald encouraged a flow of harmless chatter about the people Madame had met and the parties she had attended. But once he had steered the lady down the hall and along a passage to a window seat at the end, he abandoned the subject of society.
‘And now,’ he said, drawing Madame to the seat, and contriving to sit close enough that his anatomy touched hers at several points, ‘let us talk about you, madame.’
‘About me?’ The lady’s lashes fluttered and her fan came up. ‘You would know more of me?’
‘I would know everything about you,’ Gerald told her, his tone at once provocative and inviting.
The major might not indulge in this sort of flirtation in the ordinary way, but he had seen enough among his army colleagues to know just how to go about it.
She responded at once, rapping him on the knuckles with her fan. ‘I hope I do not understand you.’
You mean you hope you do, thought Gerald cynically. But he seized the chance to entrap her fingers, fan and all, and look deeply into her eyes. They were a dull grey, but the dark frizzed hair that framed her face was attractive.
‘To begin with,’ he said, ‘allow me a very tiny intimacy. Your name.’
‘Ah, that is easy,’ she began, laughing.
‘No, let me guess,’ he interrupted. ‘Let me see if our minds are attuned.’
The lashes fluttered demurely. ‘You would read my mind?’
Gerald was pretty certain he already had, but he did not say so. This was unscrupulous, he admitted, because he had no intention of following through on the seductive promise in his conduct. But if not himself, there would be another soon enough. Madame Valade was that kind of woman.
‘I would read your body,’ he whispered, and lifted her fingers to his lips. Then he released her hand, and sat back a little, appearing to concentrate his thoughts on her face. She waited expectantly.
‘Let’s see now. Would it be Thérèse?’
She shook her head. ‘Quite wrong, monsieur.’
‘Alas. Then perhaps it is Prudence?’
‘Oh la la! That is not me at all.’
‘No, perhaps not,’ Gerald agreed with a smile. ‘Léonore, then?’ She shook her head animatedly, enjoying his attention. ‘Then it must certainly be Eugénie.’
