Lady in the Stray

by Maggie MacKeever

  “And you could not resist his offer.” Casually, Lionel inspected “his sleeve.

  “Voyons!” retorted Minette, indignantly. “I could resist it very well. But Edouard has unpleasant ways of revenging himself. I thought it prudent to pretend to believe his taradiddles. Had I truly been taken in by Edouard, I would hardly have told you about him!”

  “Perhaps.” Lionel was cool. “You needn’t look at me with those great sad eyes; I won’t be so easily cozened another time! You’ve told me nothing that I didn’t already know.”

  “How very masterful you are this evening, M’sieur Heath!” Minette dimpled. “I do not complain, mind you; I like it very well! Tout de même, you do not wish me to flirt with you, so I shall be good. Ask me anything. I will tell you what you wish to know.”

  What Lionel wished more than anything to ask was the truth of young Charlot’s earlier provocative remark, but his trained legal mind forbade the reintroduction of betrothals into the conversation until more pressing details were dealt with. “You mentioned that there was a great deal of blood.”

  “Blood? Of a certainty! It was affreux!” Minette wrinkled her pretty nose. “Frightful! Had you been present, mon cher, you too would have thought Edouard was dead. And I freely admit I was not sorry for it, because it was the first time in weeks that I felt free from alarm. Except that we couldn’t decide what to do with him, and I knew you wouldn’t like it very much.”

  “Like it?” echoed Lionel. “Good God!”

  “I was correct; you disapprove!” Minette wrung her plump little hands. “But it was a very fortuitous event, because Edouard had a pistol, and he was convinced Vashti had the memorandum, and he had just said he would break both our necks! It was the greatest stroke of good fortune that a vase was broken over his head, because if it hadn’t been, we would very likely be dead. And then Charlot came home, and we put Edouard in the hidden room, which was very fair, because that’s just what he did when he knocked Vashti over the head! Not that I expect you to enter into my feelings on this matter, M’sieur Heath—but you might, had Edouard bullied and threatened you, and forced you to become betrothed to him, and held you at gunpoint! Oui, and when I surprised him in Vashti’s bedchamber, he was asking her if she’d like to go with him to France!” Minette frowned. “Rather, he had asked her. Just then he was trying to take away her towel.”

  “Her towel?” Despite himself, Lionel was fascinated by this account.

  “Mais oui.” Minette was very earnest. “It was all she was wearing. That is why Vashti has taken a chill, you see, because it was very damp, and Edouard kept her standing about in it for an unconscionable long time. Did I not tell you he was canaille?”

  “Good God,” said Lionel once again, and sat down on the green sofa, first glancing cautiously about to insure all the wildlife had departed the library in Charlot’s wake. He stared at Minette, who looked simultaneously hopeful and penitent. “How did you mean to dispose of the, er—”

  “Corpse,” supplied Minette. “I had thought of dressing in his clothing so that he might appear to leave the house, but Vashti pointed out there was a great deal of blood, and therefore suspicions might be aroused. Charlot thought we should dump Edouard in the Thames, which was a very good idea, because bodies are frequently found floating in the river, n’est-çe pas? Except we could not decide how we were to transport Edouard’s body without attracting attention. It was a very large difficulty!” She sighed. “I decided to say I had realized Edouard and I would not suit, and had sent him about his business, which would explain why he suddenly ceased to call at Mountjoy House. It would have been only the tiniest of rappers, Lionel, because the prospect of marriage to Edouard turned me perfectly sick, and I would very much have liked to bid him go and be damned!”

  Still, Lionel refused to be beguiled. Resolutely he transferred his gaze from Minette’s huge tearful eyes and trembling lips to his own booted foot. “And you had no interest in this memorandum yourself,” he said skeptically. “Or in the profit it might turn.”

  “La vache! I am not so avaricious as that!” Minette’s lips trembled all the harder, and she twisted her fingers in the fabric of her gown. “All I wished was to discover Marmaduke’s treasure, so that we might not be cast penniless out into the world. He always said he had a treasure, and that it would be worth a fortune in the right hands. Oh! I do not expect you to understand. You have never been a young woman forced to make her own way!”

  “True,” Lionel said wryly. “Even had I been, I doubt I would exhibit your, er, resourcefulness.”

  “Hélas!” wailed Minette. “You’ve taken me in disgust! I knew you would, once the truth was known. You think I am very fickle, because I no sooner told you you were épris than I betrothed myself to someone else!”

  This accusation, delivered in highly indignant tones, inspired Lionel to leave off contemplating his boot. “What else was I to think?” he inquired.

  “You might have thought there was more to the matter than met the eye! You might have known I’m not the sort of female who blows both hot and cold! But no! Instead you assume it was for my amusement that I cast out lures—amusement! Mon dieu, I have never been less amused about anything in all my life. No matter what I did I was bound to put my foot wrong, and it has all been for nothing, because you have taken me in dislike, and Edouard isn’t dead—and oh! I wish I were!” Upon which dramatic pronouncement, Minette flung herself on the floor, grasped Lionel about the knees and burst into tears.

  Lionel stared down upon her dark curls, appalled. “Minette! There is no need—”

  “And now I compound my sins by wetting your breeches, for which you will never forgive me, eh?” Minette raised her furious, tear-streaked face. “You think I should exhibit more restraint. Merde! I have been exhibiting a great deal of restraint these last weeks, and look what it has got me. You think I am a lightskirt, and Edouard wants to break my neck, and all I ever wanted was to be your petite amie!” She dissolved anew into sobs.

  Lionel felt singularly helpless before this onslaught. “I don’t think you’re a lightskirt,” he protested, and proffered his handkerchief.

  “Non? But you think I treated you in a cavalier fashion—you must, because I have! But I did not wish to, only Edouard had made a dead-set at me, and I dared not tell him that I regarded him with abhorrence—” She wept all the harder. “And then there is the letter I wrote Vashti!”

  Since Minette put his handkerchief to no good use, Lionel placed a hand beneath her chin, and the handkerchief to her nose, and adjured her to blow. Minette obeyed. “What letter?” he inquired.

  Minette looked very guilty. “The letter that I pretended Marmaduke had written, telling Vashti that she must care for Orphanstrange and me! It was so that we might continue to search for the treasure, tu comprends. Yes, and if I had found it, I would have kept it, so you see that I am as bad as bad can be. It is little wonder that you have a contempt of me. Additionally, I am behaving very badly, damping your breeches and making a dreadful fuss. It is just that I am worn quite to the bone!” She made as if to rise.

  “I don’t care a fig for my breeches!” uttered Lionel, and caught her shoulders.

  Minette sank back down on her knees, wide-eyed. “What—”

  In a very businesslike manner, Lionel picked her up and set her on his lap. “Voyons!” cried Minette. “Mon cher, I have just been telling you that I have been very, very bad!”

  “So you have,” Lionel said cheerfully. “Your remorse does you credit. I have no illusions about you, Minette, so you need not seek so hard to rid me of them. Are you comfortable? Good. There is still one matter I require you to explain.”

  Indeed, Minette was comfortable, snuggled against the solicitor’s shoulder—more comfortable than she had ever been before in all her life. One could not expect such contentment to last, of course. “Oh? What have I failed to explain to you?” she cautiously inquired.

  Lionel’s voice was gruff. “Is it true what yo
ung Charlot said? That you wish to be betrothed to me?”

  So enchanted was Minette by this inquiry that she sat bolt upright, the better to observe the solicitor’s face. As she had anticipated, his cheeks were pink. “I have never wished anything else, M’sieur Heath. But I promised not to speak of the matter again until you said I might. You have accustomed yourself to the notion, eh?”

  Lionel smiled. “I have.”

  Minette’s green eyes sparkled. “And?”

  Lionel grasped one of her hands, kissed it. “And I think I like it very well.”

  “Ah!” Blissfully, Minette sighed. Then her triumph faded. “You cannot have such feelings for a female who is not respectable.”

  “Can I not?” Lionel tousled her dark curls. “I had such feelings for you even when I thought you were a French agent.”

  “An agent?” Minette chortled. “You thought that, and still you were épris? Then I perceive that what I have done is not so very dreadful in comparison. All the same, I think—”

  “Then don’t!” With tender fingers, Lionel traced the contour of her pretty cheek.

  Minette shivered, deliciously. “One of us must! I have been very foolish and deserve that you should never speak to me again. I would be heartbroken if you didn’t, naturellement—” Hopefully, she paused.

  Minette was not doomed to disappointment; the solicitor bade her cease talking such skimble-skamble stuff. “In that case, M’sieur Heath—” she giggled. “I wish you would kiss me!”

  M’sieur Heath obliged, very thoroughly. Some moments later, when he released her, it was Minette who blushed. “Tiens!” Minette gasped admiringly. “Never have I been kissed like that!”

  “Nor will you be again, unless it is by me,” responded Lionel, and promptly embarked upon an encore.

  “Mon dieu, Mon dieu!” murmured Minette, later still. “I assure you that I will wish no other embraces but yours, Lionel!”

  The solicitor roused sufficiently from his own contentment to assert himself. “There will be no more conniving and contriving,” he sternly announced.

  To Lionel’s sternness Minette paid little heed; even as he scolded, he rained kisses on her cheeks. “D’accord. I do not like to contrive, mon chou—but is this a declaration, M’sieur Heath?”

  “It is,” said Lionel.

  “And I thought I was destined to wear the willow!” Minette flung her arms around his neck. “Darling, darling Lionel! I shall make you very happy I vow! It is merely that I need someone to look after me, and you will do that very well, although there is not so much need now that Edouard—” Abruptly she released him. “Edouard! I had quite forgot that he is not a corpse!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Slowly, Vashti opened her eyes. She was in her cousin Marmaduke’s opulent bedchamber, stretched out upon the huge tent bed. The gauzy draperies were partially drawn, giving the illusion of a gold-fringed gabled tent.

  Within that cozy haven, Vashti was not alone. Lord Stirling sprawled comfortably on one side of the bed, propped up against a post. Even in the shadows of the drawn draperies, his lordship’s expression was unmistakable. He was looking like a thundercloud.

  Quickly, Vashti squeezed her eyes shut. “What happened?” she asked, then winced with pain. Her jaw ached abominably. For a moment, she could not remember why.

  “Well you may ask what happened!” retorted his lordship. “I’m damned curious on that point myself. You came bursting through the bookshelves and announced that Edouard isn’t dead and then took a fainting fit.”

  “Dear heaven.” Memory returned, and Vashti wished it had not. “I ducked into the passageway to avoid seeing you, and encountered Edouard instead. I guess I should be grateful he was in such a great hurry that he only struck me down, instead of murdering me outright! Although Edouard cannot be feeling all the thing himself, after losing so much blood, poor man.”

  “ ‘Poor man’!” echoed Lord Stirling. “You are prodigious tolerant. There’s no keeping pace with you, Mademoiselle Beaufils.”

  Vashti admitted to herself that her concern over Edouard must sound a bit bizarre. “Edouard had been hit over the head with a vase!” she protested. “We thought he was dead. That’s why Minette hid him in the secret room, so that we might have time to decide what to do—and that’s why I didn’t wish to see you, sir, because I thought you’d take one look at me and know! You had better hear the whole of it, I suppose.”

  “Yes, I had better.” Yves frowned. “What the devil is that noise?”

  Vashti paused to listen, then with an effort smiled. “It’s only Calliope—my cat, you know! Calliope startled Edouard, and he was going to shoot her, and I fell on her when the ghost broke the vase over Edouard’s head. Since then Calliope has refused to come out from under the bed.”

  Lord Stirling had only a transient interest in loudly purring cats, and even less in ghosts, just then. “What was Edouard doing here?” he asked.

  Vashti decided that she did indeed wish to look at his lordship. She pulled herself up amid the pillows and gave him an indignant stare. “What do you think he was doing here? I conjecture, the worst! You said that you wished I might trust you, but it is you who don’t trust me. Edouard was looking for the memorandum, of course. He decided I had hidden it away. Yes, and if ever I do find it, I’m likely to do just that—or destroy the accursed thing!”

  Yves experienced some difficulty concentrating on the memorandum; as Minette had predicted, his thoughts were prone to wander in other directions as result of sharing a comfortable bed with a lady clad in her dressing gown. Currently, that lady was regarding him in a very hostile manner. “Umm?” he said.

  “The memorandum!” Vashti snapped. “Have you taken leave of your wits, sir?”

  On the contrary, Yves thought he had just regained them. “You needn’t concern yourself further with the memorandum, Vashti. I have just—”

  “Need not concern myself!” As is the way sometimes with ladies who long suppress their tempers, Vashti erupted into a long-tardy rage. “Thank you, sir! But being as I have been knocked over the head because of that wretched memorandum, and held at gunpoint and threatened, and very nearly ravished, I think I am entitled to a little concern!” Though Vashti could have said a great deal more along those lines, she was prevented by an untimely sneeze.

  “Very nearly what?” Lord Stirling’s brows snapped down. “By whom?”

  “By whom do you think?” retorted Vashti. “I’m not in the habit of entertaining gentlemen in my bedchamber—at least, I wasn’t before this night! Edouard didn’t harm me, because Minette interrupted—but I’m not so green I don’t know what was in his mind!”

  The villainous Edouard was not alone in harboring improper thoughts. “That is what you get, my girl,” Lord Stirling said severely, “when you go about clad in a dressing gown!”

  “I wasn’t clad in a dressing gown,” protested Vashti, “I was wearing a towel, having just stepped out of my bath. And do you not presume to scold me for it;

  Charlot has already done that. Not that I deserve to be raked over the coals for what I choose to do in my own chamber. I didn’t invite Edouard to come in and plague me; the door was locked!” Again, she sneezed. “Nor, for that matter, did I invite you!”

  “Nonetheless, I’m not leaving just yet.” The villainous Edouard had been privileged to see Vashti clad only in a towel? In comparison, her dressing gown must seem the height of propriety. So envious was Yves that he was tempted to call the blackguard out. “You might not be so anxious to be alone, had you stopped to think Edouard might still be in the house. He has been very anxious to gain possession of the memorandum, and will think—rightly—this is his last chance. Too, if he is wounded as badly as you say, he won’t be feeling well enough to travel far. Not that he is necessarily badly hurt. Head wounds tend to bleed like the very devil, even when they aren’t serious.”

  “In the house—oh, no!” Vashti turned pale. “You don’t think—we must do someth
ing!”

  “I am doing something.” Yves crossed his long legs at the knee. “I’m protecting you.”

  Vashti wasn’t especially grateful. “Is that what you call it? I’d be more inclined to say you’re trying to drive me into a fever of the brain! After all the time you’ve spent plaguing me about the memorandum, you now give Edouard leave to make off with the thing? My first assessment of you was correct, Lord Stirling: you are a madman!”

  “Was that what you thought?” Yves looked interested. “Why?”

  Vashti frowned. “Largely because you had just plucked me off the library steps and kissed me, sir!”

  His lordship looked even more intrigued. “The ladies whom I have previously kissed have made no complaint. Perhaps I am losing my touch.”

  Vashti wished the ghost might once again pop out of the mantelpiece, this time to award his lordship a vastly merited setdown. “And then you said the queerest things to me. I did not realize then, of course, that you thought I was Valérie.”

  “I didn’t think so—or not for long. The girl I knew would never have cowered behind a chair when I was, ah, feeling ardent; or have preferred to kiss a frog. And though her character might have considerably altered in the intervening years, she wouldn’t have forgotten me, I think.” Lord Stirling smiled.

  Vashti couldn’t imagine anyone forgetting his provoking lordship. “You hold a high opinion of yourself! I anticipate no difficulty whatsoever in putting you out of my mind.”

  “Do you not?” This Parthian shot left Yves unperturbed. “We shall see about that. To continue: I decided you were either a very clever actress or an impostor of some sort. My darling, you can hardly blame me for it. I did know another woman with your name.”