Upon arrival, the medical man ascertained the shot had passed straight through Avers’ upper arm. Miraculously it had missed the bone. If Avers hadn’t been lunging past Dartois to get to Emilie, he might have got the bullet straight in his chest.
Immediately after the wound was dressed, Avers announced his intention of leaving to follow Mademoiselle Cadeaux. He was argued back into bed by both the physician and his valet Simmonds who had arrived with Wakeford to help. The fact that Lutin then took up residence across Avers’ legs on his sick bed, went some way to keeping him stationary. Simmonds apologised about bringing the dog, explaining the Tremaine servants had refused to look after the lively animal without the valet’s supervision.
Proving one of the worst patients the physician had ever treated, Avers’ bed rest lasted only a day. The following morning insisted on setting off in pursuit of Mademoiselle Cadeaux. The physician cast his hands up in despair and then reluctantly gave Avers’ valet fresh dressings and laudanum to aid with his master’s recovery. Avers paid the fisherwoman handsomely for saving his life, and then quit Cherbourg for London with his servant and furry companion in tow.
The journey proved tedious and uncomfortable, and he arrived back at his London lodgings late the following afternoon to find them cold and the only greeting one of despair. His arm was painful and the lack of sleep getting to him.
Laying down for half an hour, he listened to the activity of the servants, who were all energy setting the apartments to rights after his Lordship’s unexpected return. After a fitful sleep, he left his room in search of some brandy only to find two of his footman whispering together at the end of the hall. They broke off on seeing their master and the latter asked if he might fetch his Lordship something to eat or drink.
Avers felt an unreasonable irritation at their tittle tattling, wondering what intrigue they spoke of, if it was about their injured master, his unexpected return to London and… he had a sudden epiphany.
Gossip.
Servants knew everything that happened in the noble houses of London. And his aunt had at least one from each residence on her payroll. Lady Goring—an insufferable busybody who prided herself on curating a plethora of the most infamous gossip—might just be his salvation.
Normally limiting his exposure to his relative, Avers decided—for the first time in his life—that there was no one he’d rather see. Her vices were the very thing which might bring Mademoiselle Cadeaux’s whereabouts in reach.
“No,” Avers said. “I am going out to pay a call on my aunt.”
He took a hackney from his apartments to Lady Goring’s residence and strode into her dining room without ceremony.
“Aunt,” he said, observing his stout relative sat down to a rather generous and varied repast for a single individual.
“John!” she exclaimed, pulling her silk open robe closed and touching a hand to the matching turban on her head.
Clearly she had no engagements this evening and had been expecting to spend a rich dinner alone in a state of casual dress. She was even naked of the customary powder and rouge which she so often overdid. For once, she looked human and Avers was shocked to find he felt a little comforted by the sight of his relative.
“I have just sat down to eat,” she said in irritated tones. “If you were not my nephew recently returned from France, I would send you away to come back tomorrow at the correct hour for visiting.”
“Then I am indebted to you.” Avers bowed low.
“Oh, do stop being horrid! Your sardonic words do you no favours. It’s exactly why you are not yet married, mark my words, dear boy.”
“Thank you for your sharp insight, madam. I shall endeavour to take note.” He straightened, grimacing a little as the tightness of his jacket sleeves pressed on his wound. “I am only just back from the Continent and wished to pay my respects to you first and foremost, my Lady Aunt.”
Lady Goring huffed at his insincerity. “First you interrupt my repast and now you mock me. I am more and more inclined to cast you out.”
Avers did not respond to this last comment. He knew for a fact—attested to by her bright, beady eyes—that she would no more turn him away than she would a stranger if she thought them in possession of a Societal secret she had yet to hear. And a nephew lately arrived from the Continent, one who had not apprised her of what he had intended to do in Paris and from which she had received no letters while he was gone, was a veritable vein of potential information for her to bleed.
“Though,” she said at length, placing a miniscule piece of pheasant in her mouth and chewing it thoughtfully before swallowing and carrying on as though she’d come to a large-scale epiphany, “I confess, it has been quiet without my dear Sophia to keep me company.” His aunt was referring to Avers’ cousin who had lately married a Mr Malvon. “And I am a little touched you came to call so soon after your return—which was when exactly?” She motioned for another place to be set for her nephew.
The questioning had already begun.
“This morning, aunt. I have barely stopped at home to change before running to your side.”
She huffed again and frowned. “Do stop being sycophantic, John. I know very well you say those sweet words in jest at my expense.”
“Never.”
He meant it in humour, but she took it as earnestness and her expression transformed to one of gratification. “Well, now that your mood is settled,” she said smugly, “how was Paris?”
“Interesting,” was all he offered. He knew it would vex Lady Goring, but he needed to find news of Mademoiselle Cadeaux as soon as possible. He refused to be drawn into long explanations of a trip he could not in all honesty discuss with her and gave no space in which she might complain. “But I hear some of my new acquaintances have lately arrived in London.”
“Bah!” Lady Goring exclaimed, throwing her cutlery down with a horrid clatter and casting her gaze away from him. “So, that is why you have returned. Not for your poor lonely aunt, but to chase your friends. I should have known you were gallivanting on the Continent with no thought to familial responsibility.” She paused, looking back at him with narrowing eyes. “Friends? Or perhaps… a female friend? Am I to think you have finally banished the Curshaw girl from your head?”
Avers masked a grimace, the only sign of it the tell-tale muscle jerking at the corner of his jaw. His aunt could be so dreadfully blunt at times.
“It’s just as well,” Lady Goring continued, not bothering to wait for his response. “For she’s taken London by storm since returning from her honeymoon as the Duchess of Gravesend. She’s hosted no less than three balls and two routs already. The routs were nothing special, I would say, but the balls—even I have to admit the girl has flare—no expense spared. Do you know she even had an array of exotic birds in the gardens of Gravesend House?
“She would have made an excellent wife for you, John, but I doubt you would have had pockets deep enough to keep her satisfied. The girl has ambition.”
And Avers did not. His lack of desire for social mobility, the antithesis of both the new Duchess and his aunt, continued to frustrate and bewilder the Dowager Countess.
He might have cracked a sardonic smile at his aunt’s unknowing astuteness had he not been surprised by the sudden onset of painful emotions. It had been some time since he’d considered his heartbreak at the hands of the beautiful Duchess of Gravesend, and while the pain had dulled, he still felt it twinge at his aunt’s sharp words. The same repulsion at the weakness such pain engendered reared its head. How he loathed to be subject to it.
“I couldn’t agree more, aunt,” he said, regaining some of the power he’d lost. “We were not well-suited. I am pleased to hear she is doing so well as Her Grace, the Duchess of Gravesend.”
That was odd.
Avers really meant those words.
Since Emilie had thrown out that challenge of forgiveness to him at Dartois’ hunting lodge, Avers had chosen to take it up. He had realised it was a choice. He could choose to continue to be a slave to the hurt of the past or to forgive and look to the future.
It did not mean Miss Curshaw had not hurt him, nor did it mean his feelings would change immediately and he would no longer carry the wound of that previous heartbreak. But the seed of bitterness which had taken root in his heart had been pulled out and now the hurt he carried was healing. Instead of an open injury, it was a scar that when poked—as his aunt had just done—might provoke discomfort.
“I am sure you are,” Lady Goring replied in less than convinced tones. “As for your new French friends, I’ve had it from one of my footmen who went out on an errand for me yesterday, that the French consul’s residence has some new arrivals. A man named the Marquis de Dartois—I have not heard of him before, so I doubt he is of much consequence—and a woman. An unmarried woman. That has caused quite a stir.” She raised her brows, or at least what she had of eyebrows without her usual use of khol pencil to fill them in. “Is that your friend—the gentleman named Dartois?”
“Your connections and sources never cease to amaze me,” Avers replied, ignoring her question and playing for time as his mind raced. He could not believe his fortune in finding out so easily where Dartois and Emilie resided in London and yet how was he to get to her when she was in the French consul’s residence? Dartois truly did have connections in high places.
