Kimble chewed his lip, but his hostility was visibly lessening. ‘Seems to me like you know just about as much as me.’
He had abandoned the “sir”, Gerald noted, realising that the footman’s respect for him had dropped sharply.
‘Possibly,’ he said. ‘But then again, possibly not. I have not found the secret way into the house, for instance.’
Jack gasped. ‘You know about that?’
‘It was the only possible deduction. Now tell me, if you can, something about the man who calls himself Valade.’
‘The Frenchie? I only knows as how Miss says he will ruin everything. She calls him a pig, and she says he ain’t Valade. But I swear she ain’t told me nothing more, sir.’
Authority had won again, Gerald thought with satisfaction. But it looked as if the boy was not going to be of much use. He tried again.
‘Do you at least know how he came to be in a position to cheat Miss Charvill, and to pass off his wife in her place?’
‘In her place?’ There was no mistaking the boy’s ignorance of this part of the tale. ‘You mean that his missus is pretending to be my mistress? Lord-a-mercy!’
‘Precisely. And I have no doubt at all that there is a great deal of money in the case. Which, if we are not all of us very careful indeed, will be stolen from Miss Charvill.’
Jack Kimble took a deep breath. ‘I knowed he were a wrong ’un, but that.’ He clenched his fists and grew red in the face. ‘Well, sir, if I’ve to choose betwixt him and you, I’ll take you, no question.’
‘I thank you,’ Gerald said drily. ‘Would that your mistress were as trusting.’
‘Aye, but she don’t reckon to militiamen. Thinks they’re the same as soldiers. Seems as she don’t trust soldiers easy.’
‘That was hardly the impression I got,’ Gerald murmured, remembering Melusine’s attitude to Leonardo.
‘Sir?’ enquired the lad.
‘Nothing. Listen, Jack. If you can tell me nothing I don’t already know, so be it. Only promise me this. If Miss Charvill should take it into her head to dash off on some foolish errand, go with her by all means. In fact, I order you to do so. But send me word. Do you understand?’
‘Aye, sir. But—but how?’
‘Can you write?’ Gerald asked, digging into one of his capacious pockets and bringing out a leather ring purse.
‘Only me name,’ Kimble said apologetically.
‘Very well, never mind.’ He opened the purse and extracted a couple of guineas. ‘I’ll send one of my men to see you here this very evening.’ He added, as alarm spread over the lad’s face, ‘Don’t concern yourself. He won’t be in uniform. He’ll appoint a meeting place with you and be ready at any time to bring a message to me.’ Handing over the guineas, he added, ‘For you.’
An expression of livid fury contorted the young man’s face and he thrust the coins back at the major. ‘I don’t want no gold! Not for serving my mistress.’
Gerald raised his brows. ‘I can see why you lost your place, young Kimble. Pity you aren’t under my command. We’d soon cool that temper of yours.’ He paused for the effect of his words to sink in, and then added, ‘Don’t be so ready to show hackle. The guineas are not for serving your mistress. They are for serving me. Are you satisfied?’
Grudgingly, Jack Kimble took back the coins. Had he but known it, his outburst had done him no harm in the major’s eyes. He might not condone it, but the feelings that had prompted it augured well for Melusine’s safety.
Having accomplished his intent, Gerald let the lad go and had himself driven back to Stratton Street. He had barely settled at his desk in his library, when he was disturbed by two morning callers. Captain Hilary Roding and his inamorata, Miss Lucilla Froxfield.
‘Nothing would do for her but to come here,’ grumbled Hilary, wiping his heated brow with a pocket handkerchief dragged from his immaculate white uniform breeches.
‘Naturally I had to come,’ confirmed the lively blonde, her eyes twinkling up at Alderley. ‘Gerald, what have you been about? Dorothée tells me that you were flirting outrageously with Madame Valade on Monday night.’
‘And who, may I ask, is Dorothée?’ asked Gerald.
‘Don’t try to turn it off,’ ordered Miss Froxfield. ‘You know perfectly well that she is the daughter of the Comtesse de St Erme.’
‘It’s no use blaming me, Gerald,’ uttered Roding, shrugging helplessly as his senior turned questioning eyes on him. ‘I told her you couldn’t have been flirting, but she wouldn’t believe me.’
‘Do you take me for a fool, Hilary?’ demanded his betrothed. ‘I know just what he was doing. For heaven’s sake, give him some Madeira or something, Gerald! Anything to calm him down.’
Alderley grinned as his incensed friend refuted the suggestion that he was in need of a pacifier, and moved to the tray which his butler had just a short time past brought into the room and laid on the desk.
‘Something for you, Lucy?’ he asked, interrupting a heated argument that had obviously been in progress for some little time before their arrival.
‘I’ll take wine,’ the lady said briefly, turning back instantly to Hilary. ‘It is of no use to try to stop me. I know very well Gerald has been fishing for information about that girl, and I am determined to find out what he knows.’
‘Why the devil should you be interested, I should like to know?’ rejoined Roding.
‘Because I’m a female,’ declared Lucilla unanswerably. With a swirl of her floral chintz petticoats, she placed herself in the capacious window seat, accepted the glass Gerald handed to her, and smiled mischievously up at him. ‘Now then, Gerald, out with it.’
He took his seat next to her, waving the fulminating captain towards the tray. ‘Help yourself, Hilary.’
‘I’ve a good mind to leave the pair of you to it and take myself off,’ threatened his junior, marching across the room and snatching up a decanter.
‘Don’t be silly. You cannot possibly leave me here alone with Gerald. Only think how compromising.’
‘Lord, yes,’ agreed Gerald, in mock horror. ‘Don’t put me at the necessity of marrying the abominable little wretch.’
‘You traitor, Gerald,’ laughed Lucilla, her yellow curls bouncing under a huge straw bonnet all over flowers. ‘For that I shall certainly not leave until you have told me every tiny detail.’
