For a moment or two Gerald stood in the total silence of amazement, his pistol up and pointing, aware that Hilary was likewise stunned, standing with half-drawn sword. And then amusement crept into Alderley’s chest and he let his pistol hand fall.
‘So this is Pottiswick’s French spy.’
‘Gad, but she’s a beauty,’ gasped Hilary, and slammed his sword back in its scabbard.
The lady, who was indeed stunning, Gerald suddenly realised, said never a word. A pair of long-lashed blue eyes studied them both as she slowly brought her hands down to rest by her sides. The pouting cherry lips were slightly parted and the very faintest of panting breaths, together with the quick rise and fall of an alluring bosom, betrayed her fear. Raven locks fell to her shoulders from under the feathered beaver hat, and curled away down her back.
It struck the major that she was very young. But although startled and clearly afraid, there was no self-consciousness in her gaze and she was standing her ground. A tinge of admiration rose in his breast.
Gerald raised his cockaded hat, and smiled. ‘Forgive this intrusion, ma’am, I beg. We were expecting rather to find a male antagonist.’
Still the girl said nothing.
‘Perhaps she don’t understand English,’ suggested Roding.
Gerald switched to French. ‘Étes-vous Francais?’
Her eyes, he noted, followed from himself to Hilary and back again, but she did not speak. Her gaze flickered down to his pistol. Gerald caught the look and slipped the weapon into his pocket. One did not use pistols against a female.
‘We mean you no harm,’ he said reassuringly. ‘You have no need to be afraid of us.’
Still no response. Gerald exchanged a puzzled glance with his friend. Was she so fearful still?
Roding shrugged and grimaced. ‘What do we do now?’
Gerald took a pace towards the girl. She moved then, fast, taking refuge behind a Chinese screen that was set beside the four-poster at the back of the room.
Gerald swore. ‘She’s terrified.’
Hilary’s gaze was raking the room. ‘She ought to be. Been making herself at home all right.’
Alderley glanced round the bedchamber. Strewn across the bed was a multitude of jumbled garments. A long chest under one of the windows was open, some of its contents dragged out and spilling onto the floor. He drew an awed breath.
‘Was she planning to make away with all this stuff?’
‘What’s this?’
Hilary pounced on a black item slung on the floor by the dresser. His gaze drawn, Gerald watched him dip to pick up a crushed square of white linen and a starched object that resembled a helmet. Then he lifted the black cloak-like garment from the floor.
‘Gerald, this is a nun’s habit.’
Before the major could verify this, the lady reappeared. To his consternation, she was holding an unwieldy, ugly-looking pistol, all wood and tarnished steel, with both hands about the butt. Coldly she spoke, in a distinctly accented voice.
‘Do not move, messieurs, or I shall be compelled to blow off your head.’
Hilary’s jaw dropped open, and he stood stupidly staring, the nun’s clothing dangling from his hand.
Gerald lifted an eyebrow. ‘Odd sort of a nun.’
The lady uttered a scornful sound. ‘Certainly I am not a nun. But one must disguise oneself. To be jeune demoiselle, it is not always convenient.’
Gerald controlled a quivering lip. ‘So it would appear.’ He nodded in the direction of her pistol.
The lady grasped it more firmly and turned it upon Hilary. ‘Move, you. Back, that you may be close together.’
‘I should do as she says if I were you, Hilary,’ observed Gerald, noting the fierce determination in the girl’s lovely face.
‘Never trust a gun in female hands,’ grumbled Hilary, dropping the nun’s habit and backing to join his friend. ‘That’s what comes of disarming yourself.’
‘A mistake, I agree.’ Gerald’s eyes never left the girl. ‘What are the chances, do you think, of that thing being already cocked?’
‘Probably not even loaded,’ suggested Hilary hopefully.
‘Parbleu,’ came indignantly from the lady. ‘Am I a fool? Can I blow off a head with a pistol which is not loaded?’
‘She has a point,’ conceded Alderley, relaxing a little as amusement burgeoned again
‘Ten to one she is a French spy,’ burst from Roding.
The pistol was lowered slightly. ‘I find you excessively rude, both of you,’ said the lady crossly. ‘You talk together of me as if I am not there. “She”, you say. But I am here.’
‘You are perfectly correct,’ agreed Gerald at once. ‘You are there. Why, is the question I would like answered.’
‘I do not tell you why,’ the lady uttered flatly. ‘But a spy I am not.’
‘Can you prove it?’ demanded Hilary.
‘Certainly I can prove it. That is easy. I am not French in the least.’
