Few approached the émigrés directly, preferring to stare covertly from behind their fans, while pretending to admire the simple elegance of Lady Bicknacre’s neo-classical refurbishments. To Gerald’s eye, the refugees therefore presented a rather forlorn little group, almost huddling together and chattering in low tones in their own tongue.
The future Mrs Roding turned bright, laughing eyes on the major. ‘Dare I guess at the reason for your sudden interest in émigrés, Gerald?’
‘Lucilla,’ barked Hilary warningly. ‘Not here.’
‘Don’t be stuffy, Hilary,’ admonished his betrothed.
She was a small blonde, not handsome, but with a flair for fashion demonstrated by her elegant chemise gown in the very latest Canterbury muslin, with its low décolletage barely concealed under a fine lawn handkerchief set about her shoulders, and decorated with a mauve satin sash at the waist. She had a warm, fun-loving personality, and an unflattering disrespect for her future husband’s authority. Gerald liked her enormously.
‘If you did not want me to talk of it,’ she told him with characteristic insouciance, ‘you should not have mentioned the matter to me.’
‘Are we to infer that he had a choice?’ enquired Gerald.
‘Of course not,’ snapped his friend. ‘She wormed it out of me, the little fiend.’
Gerald tutted. ‘The cat’s foot, Hilary. You’re going to live under the cat’s foot.’
‘Fiddle,’ scoffed Miss Froxfield. ‘I am perfectly devoted to him, as well he knows.’
She bestowed a dazzling smile on Roding, who had reddened to the gills at these words. Which were perfectly true, as Gerald was aware. Lucilla clearly adored her betrothed, anyone could see that. If there was such a thing as love at first sight, these two must epitomise it. And his scarlet coat had nothing to do with it, as Hilary was fond of recounting, for he had been in civilian clothes when they met, as he was tonight. Neither he nor Gerald chose to attire themselves in full military rig on fashionable occasions such as this. Alderley’s company of militia being his own, he was able to choose duty periods convenient to himself and his captain, and was under no obligation to wear dress uniform.
With a rustle of her full lilac petticoats, Miss Froxfield turned back to Alderley. ‘Would you like me to enquire for your mystery lady, Gerald? I know the Comte and Comtesse de St Erme quite well.’
‘How can you possibly enquire for her?’ demanded Hilary acidly. ‘We don’t know who she is.’ He threw a fulminating glance at Gerald. ‘Though we might have done, if a certain addlepated clothhead hadn’t let her get away.’
‘Addlepated imbecile, Hilary,’ corrected Gerald calmly.
‘Did she call you that?’ asked Lucilla, amused. ‘How famous. I shall borrow it and apply it to you, Hilary.’
‘Don’t you dare. In any event, I would not have let her escape me so easily.’
‘Yes, she duped me finely,’ agreed Gerald.
‘And then vanished into thin air,’ rejoined Hilary on a sardonic note.
‘No, no, I am convinced your very first theory was right. She walked through the walls.’
Lucilla Froxfield laughed gaily. ‘Fiddle, Gerald. Hilary could not have suggested such a thing.’
‘He did, you know,’ grinned Gerald. ‘Though he didn’t mean it. I do, however.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘Gerald is convinced there is a secret passage into the house,’ explained Roding. ‘And since the entire company and Pottiswick himself were unable to find hide nor hair of the infernal French female—’
‘English, Hilary,’ Gerald reminded him.
‘Gammon. She is no more English than that set of beggars over there.’
‘For shame, Hilary,’ admonished his fiancée, casting a pitying glance at the refugees. ‘They cannot help it. But, Gerald, do you believe there is a secret passage indeed?’
‘Well, we covered every inch of the house and grounds, and I swear she never left that room by way of the door. I would have heard her.’
‘How exciting.’ A sudden thought brought a frown to her brow. ‘But if there is one, how in the world did this mystery lady of yours know of it?’
‘That, Lucy, is precisely the point that has been exercising my mind,’ Gerald said, turning his eyes once more to the group of French exiles in the alcove.
‘Can’t have been a common housebreaker, you see,’ Hilary explained to Lucilla, quite unnecessarily.
‘Of course I see that,’ she said impatiently. ‘Could she have been a spy, after all?’
‘Oh, she’s not a spy,’ Gerald answered, almost absently.
‘How do you know?’
‘Exactly,’ pounced Roding bitterly. ‘Ask him. All he will say is that she said so—as if anyone could believe a word the girl said.’
Gerald grinned. ‘Difficult, I grant you. But though she lied about pretty much everything else, she didn’t lie about that.’
‘How do you know?’ Lucilla repeated, almost as sceptical as her intended spouse.
‘If you had met her, you’d understand.’ With an unexpected flush of pleasure, he recalled the girl’s antics. ‘When she lies outright, she thinks about it. It’s the feinting tricks you have to watch for. Wily little devil she is.’
Miss Froxfield regarded him in some interest. ‘You speak as if you expected to meet her again, Gerald.’
Hilary exploded. ‘Expect? He’s had a twenty-four hour watch on Remenham House these two days. The men have never had so much work to do since they banded. You’d think he wanted to meet the wretch again.’
‘To be sure I do,’ said Gerald swiftly. ‘I haven’t been so much entertained since I left the Army.’
