Five minutes ago, his butler had entered the green saloon, an austere apartment, with dark forest-green wallpaper flocked with a swirling design, and heavy mahogany furniture. The news that his granddaughter desired an audience Lord Charvill had greeted with merely a grunt, which turned into a roar as his gorge rose when he heard that she was accompanied by her husband.
The visitors, when they entered, looked thoroughly intimidated and Everett concealed a grim smile. Just so had his subordinates shown their apprehension. It suited him to dampen the spirits of any who sought to impose upon him, as these relics of the loathed family of Valade seemed like to do.
Charvill did nothing to ease their path and it was left to the man to open negotiations, which he did by producing a set of folded papers, slowly approaching the general, and holding them out at arms’ length.
‘The credentials, milor’,’ he ventured.
Without a word, the general reached out and took them, but his glance searched the girl’s face. Under this unnerving scrutiny, a slow flush mounted to the woman’s cheeks. She fidgeted and looked away. Everett’s gaze dropped to the papers in his hand.
He passed but a cursory glance over the formal certificate that identified the Frenchman before him as one André Valade, distant cousin to the Vicomte Valade. The marriage lines that confirmed a union between the said André Valade and Mademoiselle Melusine Charvill touched the old scars and he gave vent to a muttered expletive. But the letter, written in his son’s own hand, and addressed to the Mother Abbess of the Convent of the Sisters of Wisdom near Blaye in the district of Santonge, dated a little over five years previously, exercised a powerful effect upon him.
Recognising the handwriting, he glanced swiftly at the signature, and uttering an explosive curse, cast the paper from him. That it provided proof of the girl’s identity was one thing. Charvill’s command of French was enough to tell him that, for its entire content was devoted to commending Nicholas Charvill’s fourteen year old daughter into the care of the Abbess. But the mere recognition of his son’s signature was enough to stoke the fires of his long-held rage. Proof that the scoundrel had risen from the dead—for he was dead to his father!
He glared at the female whose appearance in England had revived those painful memories—churning unbearably since Brewis Charvill had brought him the news and put him in the worst of tempers—and the fury spilled out.
‘Tchah! So you’re the whelp’s girl, are you? Suppose you’ve nothing but that villainous French in your tongue.’
‘I have English a little,’ the girl offered, her voice shaking as she essayed a smile and sank into a curtsy.
English a little! ‘You ought to have English only.’
Her lashes fluttered. ‘But this is not to my blame, grandpére.’
A burning at his chest, the general ground his teeth. ‘Don’t dare address me by such a title.’
The girl bit her lip and backed a little, while her husband shifted to stand at her side.
‘Monsieur, my wife intended not to anger you,’ he said in a tone of apology.
‘Then let her keep her Frenchified titles to herself. She may address me as “Grandfather” if she chooses, since I’m obliged to accept her in that capacity. But I don’t wish to hear that abomination on her lips again.’
‘Please forgive, milor’, but my wife, and even I myself, have yet very much trouble with English.’
Charvill eyed the girl with resentment. ‘Well, she’d better learn fast if she wants any truck with me. I won’t tolerate any foreign tongue in this house, least of all that confounded French.’
The fellow seized on this. ‘Then it is that you will have pity? Here we have come, we poor, for aid. Pardon! I wish to say, for your granddaughter, we seek succour.’
‘I dare say you do,’ said the general, grim satisfaction overtaking his anger as his prophesy proved accurate.
‘It is not for myself, you understand,’ pursued the man, in an unctuous tone that sickened the general, ‘but for this poor one. Lost from all protection, all her family dead—as are mine.’
Shock ripped through Charvill’s chest. ‘What, is Nicholas dead?’
He saw the two of them exchange glances and an instinct of danger rose up. What was the fellow about? Was he being imposed upon? He watched as the man Valade turned back, spreading his hands in the French way.
‘General, we do not know. The last that is known of Monsieur Charvill is when he departed the Valade estate.’
Departed? ‘Tchah! I suppose the vicomte threw him out?’
Watching the fellow’s face, Everett felt his suspicion growing. Was the man debating whether or no to tell the truth? A grimace played about Valade’s mouth and the general waited, maintaining his own rigid pose.
‘It is, you understand, that Monsieur Charvill did not—how do you say in English?—having an eye to an eye—’
‘Didn’t see eye to eye with the Vicomte Valade? That I can well believe.’
‘It was so,’ said Valade, becoming a trifle more fluent. ‘And that Suzanne, the sister of my cousin the vicomte, must choose between Monsieur Charvill and her brother. For a pity, she has chosen to remain, and it has been her death.’
‘Slaughtered with the rest, was she?’
Despite his hatred of the woman who had caused so much grief, the general found he could not rejoice as he wanted to. Brewis had told him the Valade family had been victim to wholesale murder, and a twinge of compassion had wrung even his deliberately hardened heart. Well, let him be honest. Had this not been the case, he must have refused even to see his Frenchified granddaughter.
‘Monsieur Charvill,’ pursued Valade, ‘has left the chateau, and since we have heard from him nothing at all, but for the letters to his daughter from Italy.’
‘But two letters,’ put in the woman. ‘And if he is dead I know not.’
A question leapt into Everett’s head and he recalled the letter to the Abbess. ‘Was this when Nicholas commended you to this Abbess?’
‘But, yes. Papa has sent me to be religieuse.’
Fury rippled again. ‘That rascally knave sent you to become a French nun?’
Looking positively terrified, the girl nodded dumbly.
‘Dolt! Muttonheaded oaf! Why the deuce couldn’t he have sent you home?’
Valade cut in at that. ‘Monsieur Charvill thought perhaps that his daughter would find not a welcome.’
‘Tchah! Better a doubtful welcome here than a confounded French convent. The fellow is little better than a lunatic. How the deuce did I ever manage to father such a brainless nincompoop? A nun, for God’s sake! A confounded Catholic nun. A granddaughter of mine!’
