It was stalemate, Gerald thought, irrepressible amusement leaping into his chest. They confronted each other, barely feet apart, neither apparently any longer aware of anyone else in the room. An old man and a young girl, the one as stubbornly offensive as the other.
‘I’m damned if I see what you have to complain of,’ uttered Charvill, a faintly bewildered note underlying his irascibility. ‘What could either of us have done?’
To Gerald’s acute consternation, Melusine’s lip trembled suddenly, and her eyes filled. In a voice husky with suppressed despair, she answered.
‘You could have fetched me home.’
Pierced to the heart by the poignancy of this utterance, Gerald could neither move nor speak. It was a moment before he recognised that the effect had been similar on all those present, including General Lord Charvill. With astonishment, Gerald saw a rheumy film rimming his old commander’s eyes. Swiftly he looked back to Melusine and found she had whisked to the window, dragging a pocket handkerchief from her sleeve and hastily blowing her nose.
For an instant, Gerald wished the rest of the world away that he might go to her and administer appropriate comfort. But the general was turning on him, the hint of emotion wiped from his lined features.
‘I wish you joy of the wench. If you ask me, you’ll have to beat her regularly if you don’t want to live a dog’s life.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Mrs Sindlesham loudly, casting an anxious glance upon Melusine.
Well might she do so, Gerald thought in irritation. He caught the elderly dame’s eye, throwing her a desperate message. To his relief, she nodded.
‘The truth is, Everett,’ she said brightly, limping up to the general and tucking a hand in his arm, ‘that the girl is you all over again. I’ve been wondering where she got her dogged will, and that hot-headed adventurous spirit, for it wasn’t from either Mary or Nicholas, that’s sure. No one seeing you together could doubt that she is your granddaughter.’
Gerald was relieved to hear the loud guffaw issuing from the old man’s lips. ‘You think so? Well, if that’s so, I know where she gets her impudence, Prudence Sindlesham.’
‘Do you indeed?’ rejoined the old lady, twinkling at him, and urging him towards the door. ‘Let us go elsewhere and discuss the matter. I loathe this room. Much too formal for a cosy chat between old friends.’
So saying, she threw a meaning look over her shoulder at Lucilla, much to Gerald’s approval. Then she passed from the room on the arm of General Lord Charvill, chatting animatedly to him.
Gerald realised Lucy had taken the hint, for she dragged her betrothed towards the door. ‘Come, Hilary. Mama will be expecting me. I will come later to see you, Melusine.’
‘Yes, but I need a word with Gerald,’ protested the captain, hanging back.
‘Oh no, you don’t,’ said Gerald in a low tone. ‘Talk to me another time.’
‘What?’ Hilary glanced from Gerald to Melusine, and coloured up. ‘Oh, ah. Yes, of course. Later.’
The door closed behind them both and Gerald was alone with Melusine.
***
From the corner of her eye, Melusine saw Gerald move towards her and she turned to confront him, the confused turmoil in her mind causing her chest to tighten unbearably. She gave tongue to the most urgent of her plaints.
‘Why did you bring him? I hate him.’
‘Yes, that rather leapt to the eye,’ Gerald said, and the faint smile sent a lick of warmth down inside her. ‘I went to see him because I thought he ought to know about you, having already been imposed upon by our friend Gosse. He had to know the truth, Melusine.’
She eyed him, all her uncertainty surfacing. ‘And this is where you have been all the time?’
‘I would have been back in a day, I promise you. Only your horror of a grandfather insisted on coming with me, so I had to wait for him to be ready and travel at his pace. What could I do?’
‘Anything but to bring him to me,’ Melusine threw at him. ‘If you had told him that I would rather die than see him, he would not have come.’
Gerald grinned. ‘You don’t know him.’
‘No, and I do not wish to do so,’ Melusine pointed out.
His face changed and she saw, with a stab at her heart, the dawning of irritation in his eyes.
‘Hang it all, Mrs Sindlesham is right! You are two of a kind.’
Melusine took refuge in defiance. ‘But I find you excessively rude, Gérard. First you do not come to see me since three days, and me, I know nothing of what happens with Gosse until this capitaine of yours has come today. And now, when you come at last, you bring me this grandfather, and you dare to tell me I am like him.’
He sighed elaborately. ‘I know, Melusine. I am altogether a person of a disposition extremely interfering, as you have so often told me.’
‘Do not make a game with me,’ she interrupted, gripping her underlip firmly between her teeth to stop the threatening laughter.
‘But I am perfectly serious,’ he returned in a voice of protest. ‘Here were you patiently waiting, without uttering one word of complaint the entire time, which of course you never do, being yourself a female altogether of a disposition extremely sweet and charming without the least vestige of a temper—’
‘Gérard,’ Melusine uttered on a warning note, desperately trying to control the quiver at her lip.
‘—and what do I do? Well, we know what I do. Yes, yes, there is no doubt about it. I see that I am a beast—I beg your pardon, bête—and an imbecile, and an idiot.’
Melusine stifled a giggle. ‘Certainly this is true,’ she managed.
Gerald shook his head. ‘I can’t think how I’ve tolerated myself all these years. And I suppose it is too much to expect that any entirely English young lady would be prepared to tolerate me for the remainder of my life.’
‘You say—what?’ gasped Melusine. Her amusement fled and she stared at him, as a slow thump began beating at her breast.
There was question in Gerald’s gaze as it met hers, and apology in his voice. ‘You see, I had another reason for visiting your grandfather.’
Melusine hardly dared believe she had heard him aright. He was apt to play so many games, she was afraid she might have misunderstood. Eh bien, why did he not repeat it? What was she to say?
