Lady in the Stray (11 page)

Vashti dropped her hands to her lap. This wasn’t the way she would have chosen to ascertain if her speculations had been correct. “We met here in London, several years back,” she ventured, and held her breath.

Impostor or no, she knew that much. “Approximately ten years back,” remarked Lord Stirling irritably.

Lionel glanced from one of his companions to the other, and then at the crumbs of the buttered oatcakes. Perhaps it was the lack of an adequate breakfast that caused him to feel such unease. That, and the growling cat, and the noises in the walls. He frowned in the direction of the sound.

Vashti followed his glance. “Rats,” she gloomily observed. Calliope snarled all the louder. Vashti picked up the cat and dropped it on the floor. Calliope withdrew beneath the table, tail a-lash.

“Ah, yes, rats.” Lord Stirling leaned back in his chair. “I failed to take the presence of vermin into consideration when I set my price.”

“Your price?” Again, Vashti wore that bewildered expression which left his lordship quite unreasonably enraged. “What price, sir?”

“Moonshine! The old house is just settling,” Lionel interrupted. Could he but get this business settled, he might yet contrive to break his fast before afternoon. “Lord Stirling has made a very generous offer for Mountjoy House, Mademoiselle Beaufils.”

“Very
generous! I am prepared to come across handsomely.” Yves quirked a golden brow. “Why so are silent, Vashti? Perhaps you are speechless with delight that you’ve have landed a buyer. Now you must take care I don’t wriggle off your hook!”

What abominable timing! Vashti contemplated the table top. If only she were free to accept. But Lord Stirling knew she was not. He played cat and mouse with her, the wretch. “I can’t imagine why you would want Mountjoy House,” she said.

At last a sign of spirit! Yves raised the other brow. “You wound me, Vashti. Or perhaps you’ve forgotten my love for the grotesque.”

He was deliberately baiting her, Vashti decided. If she was to play a
rôle,
it was past time to start.

What would Valérie have done in response to such provocation? Vashti attempted a sultry look. “I’ve forgotten nothing—Yves.”

Lord Stirling’s mocking expression was succeeded by a thunderous scowl, which in turn was replaced with a rueful smile.
“Touché!”
he murmured. “Then you will also remember our expedition to Vauxhall.”

“Vauxhall?” Vashti wondered what she was agreeing to. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Assuredly.” Lord Stirling made no rejoinder, to her great relief.

Still hopeful of eventually being allowed his breakfast, Lionel took advantage of the conversational lapse. “It is my duty to urge you to take advantage of Lord Stirling’s generous offer, Mademoiselle Beaufils. Perhaps you don’t wholly appreciate the delicacy of your position. No respectable young woman—” It occurred to Lionel that, from all the tales he’d heard of her, Vashti Beaufils had scant interest in respectability. “That is to say, your association with a gaming hell is a most improper thing.”

Obviously, the solicitor was also acquainted with some of Valérie’s exploits. Vashti wished to sink. “So you’ve already pointed out, Mr. Heath. As I told you then, there are reasons why I am unwilling, just yet, to sell the house. Despite Lord Stirling’s handsome offer, those reasons remain unchanged.”

Yves roused from contemplation of why Vashti should have claimed to remember an expedition that had never taken place, none of their shared larks having included the pleasure gardens at Vauxhall.  “Ah, yes, the treasure!” he murmured. “You still wish to find it. But you haven’t yet heard to what tune I am prepared to put myself out of pocket.”

How tempting was thought of escape from this horrid muddle! Vashti thrust her dreams of freedom aside. “No matter what the sum, my answer must remain the same. Don’t press me further, I beg of you! My mind is quite made up.”

“Do you know, I thought it might be?” Lord Stirling derived no little satisfaction from the slight trembling of his victim’s hand as she poured coffee into her cup. “But if you wish to style yourself one of faro’s daughters, it’s none of my affair.”

Faro’s daughter? Was that what the world would think? Vashti sought to mask her consternation with her coffee cup, thereby burning her tongue.

Lionel understood neither why Mademoiselle Beaufils stared so determinedly into her coffee cup nor why there was a satiric curl to Lord Stirling’s handsome mouth. Nor did he understand Vashti’s determination to retain possession of this great grotesque house. As Stirling had so correctly pointed out, no young woman who valued her reputation would in any wise associate herself with a gaming hell. Not that Vashti Beaufils
had
any concern for her reputation, were half the tales Marmaduke told of her true. Still, Lionel’s conscience bothered him, even more so since Stirling had served up a few harshly critical remarks.

How he was to control so headstrong a young woman, Lionel had no notion. As her solicitor he was obliged to make the effort, nonetheless. Lionel sought once more to represent the voice of reason, with little noticeable success.

“It distresses me beyond description to refuse you,” Vashti retorted, pushing away her coffee cup. “But upon the most serious reflection, I have determined to keep the house. Pray let us say no more of it—else I will think you gentlemen accuse me of being incapable of managing my own affairs.” Neither gentleman, she thought as she glanced from one to the other, appeared willing to accede to her request. On the contrary, Lord Stirling seemed on the verge of argument.

That Yves did not voice these arguments was because of Calliope. The cat had spent several moments stalking the pretty tassels that dangled from his lordship’s calf-length Hessian boots. Hunting instincts all alerted, Calliope now pounced. Lord Stirling swore mightily and leapt backwards, overturning his own chair. Vashti hastened forward to detach the snarling, bristling feline from his lordship’s knee.

“I’m so sorry!” she gasped, seeking to restrain the irate cat and at the same time struggling to avoid succumbing to whoops.

Yves looked down at his white trousers, one knee adorned now with bloody claw pricks. He didn’t trust himself to comment. Calliope leapt out of Vashti’s arms and sat down on Lionel’s shoe to make an indignant toilette. Lest he find himself similarly attacked, the solicitor dared not move.

Came a commotion at the doorway. Charlot strolled into the dining room, accompanied by his menagerie. With a great canine groan, Mohammed collapsed upon the hearth. Bacchus scrambled up a table leg and set about feasting upon oatcake crumbs. “Hallo!” said Charlot cheerfully.

Lord Stirling’s emotions, upon witnessing this spectacle, are impossible to describe. Amber eyes, honey-colored curls, delicately classical features—save for the disparity in age and sex, and the snake coiled loosely around his neck, this boy was as like to Vashti as two peas in the same pod.

Good manners deserted him. “Who the devil is
this?”
Yves inquired.

Charlot cocked his head to one side, scrutinized the tall, angry-looking gentleman in green frock coat, tasseled Hessian boots, white trousers that were oddly red-flecked. “You must be Vashti’s madman,” he remarked. “You look like you’d show to good advantage, sir. I’m glad she said I needn’t mill you down.”

“Charlot!” Vashti touched her brother’s shoulder, wary of what he next might say. “My brother, Lord Stirling.”

His lordship’s blue eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t aware you
had
a brother,” he said.

“Why should you have been aware of it?” And why was he regarding her so suspiciously? One answer occurred to Vashti. “Oh!” she gasped.

An altercation at this point occurred, Greensleeves having hopped smack into the butter dish. Gingerly, Lionel retrieved the frog. Diplomatically, the solicitor suggested that Charlot might wish to bathe his pet. “And while we are at it, have you broken your fast? Alas, I have not! Might there be something for us in the kitchen, do you suppose?” Though Charlot would obviously have preferred to remain in the dining room, Lionel inexorably ushered him out.

Lord Stirling frowned at Vashti, demureness personified in her high-waisted cotton dress. Could
Charlot be—surely she would have said something— Yves didn’t know what to think. Therefore, he grew all the more irritable. “What in
blazes
have you been about?”

Whatever Stirling and Valérie had been to each other, he regarded her with no lingering affection, Vashti thought. Prudently, she withdrew behind a chair. “Are you referring to the memorandum? I’ve already told you I know nothing of that,” she responded, her voice faint.

“The devil with the memorandum.” Lord Stirling flung the chair out of his pathway. “There are other matters which concern me more just now, mademoiselle.” He grasped Vashti’s shoulders. Bereft of speech, she could only stare.

How fearfully she regarded him. Her slender body trembled beneath his hands. Surely even the most accomplished actress could not perform so well. Yves succumbed to temptation, bent his golden head, drew her close into his arms. It was an exquisitely satisfying undertaking—but Yves hadn’t hitherto been aware that even the amatory arts grew rusty with disuse.

He released her, stepped back. Her wide amber eyes flew searchingly to his face. More than ever, Yves was convinced that this Vashti Beaufils was not the Vashti he had known.

Yet if not, who was she? Yves thought he must find out. “Let us cry friends!” he said, and smiled. “On the matter of the dratted memorandum, we will declare a truce. As for the other, I mean to renew our old acquaintance—and to continue my efforts to persuade you to sell me Mountjoy House. You must resign yourself to seeing a great deal of me.” He lifted her ungloved hand and pressed it to his lips. Her fingers quivered in his grasp.

With a queer reluctance, he released her, took a polite leave. If an actress, she was a consummate one. Not since his salad days had a simple kiss—and she had returned his embrace, however inexpertly— left Yves Santander tingling all the way down into his toes.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Minette could not recall when she last enjoyed a good night’s rest. Even now, with the gaming rooms left temporarily in Orphanstrange’s capable hands, she dared not relax her guard. Edouard’s search must be confined to those areas where others had already been.

At the moment, he was perched atop the library steps, amusing himself with an illustrated edition of
Tom Jones.
Minette closed the volume she had been leafing through in a desultory manner.
“Voyons!”
she sighed, placing the book back on its shelf. “We will never find your memorandum in this manner, I think. It would help immensely, Edouard, if you had some notion where it was hid.”

He marked his place with his finger, cast her a brief disinterested glance. “You are looking somewhat hagged,
ma cocotte.
Such effort you have been expending—in my behalf.”

The only effort Minette would willingly expend upon her kinsman would entail shoving over the library steps in the hope that he might break his neck. Lest she succumb to the violence of her feelings, she moved to the library table supported by intertwined dolphins. “You would look somewhat hagged yourself, had you as little sleep as I. If this memorandum doesn’t soon come to light—” She shrugged. “Are you certain it’s here, Edouard?”

He returned
Tom Jones
to the bookshelf, raised his quizzing glass to contemplate the remaining volumes. “There’s no place else it
could
be, by my reckoning.” The quizzing glass swung toward Minette. “Let us understand each other! You think you may turn the missing memorandum to your good advantage. I should be very sorry if you were so foolish as to try.”

Minette suspected she would be even sorrier than her kinsman, if he learned her plans. She wrinkled her pretty little nose. “Me, I’m not one to bet against a dark horse.”

“You relieve me,
petite.”
Gracefully, Edouard descended the library steps. “I shouldn’t like to resort to harsh measures—but make no mistake, I
will
resort to them, do you give me cause. No matter how it goes against the grain.”

It meant so much to him as that? Minette’s gaze was curious. “Reassure yourself, Edouard. I will make no
faux pas.
Just what do you intend to do with this so-important memorandum—
if
it’s ever found?”

He did not reply directly, but with quizzing glass upraised sauntered around the room. No detail was too minute to receive Edouard’s attention, not even the chimneypiece inspired by tombs, or the sofa and chairs. Any other man would have looked ludicrous bent over to closely scrutinize the apple-green damask. Edouard, as always, looked perfectly correct, his evening attire enlivened by a fifteen-guinea embroidered waistcoat, bamboo walking stick and quizzing glass.

Abruptly, he straightened, turned toward Minette— who, if not perfectly correct, looked absolutely luscious in an evening dress of light voile over flesh-colored tights, damped to cling even more closely to her opulent little person, belted under the breasts. “Fireworks begin in Paris now, each night at ten,” Edouard said. “The Théâtre Français has been reopened as the Odeon. Every morning the First Consul is provided with bulletins by his police, who are everywhere. He is presented with a digest of everything of importance in the newspapers, with analyses of books and pamphlets and plays. Hotel and innkeepers supply daily lists of everyone beneath their roofs. No detail escapes Bonaparte. For details such as are set out in this memorandum—” He spread his hands. “The reward would not be inconsiderable,
ma petite.”

“The rewards for you,
hein?”
Edouard would be angry if he knew the library had already been searched, and to no avail. Naturally Minette would not divulge that information. She moved from the library table to a window seat. “You mean to use this memorandum as your ticket back to France. With it, you will curry favor. Life in Paris is expensive, eh? You will wish to hire a spacious
hotel
and decorate it in style. You’ll rig yourself out in the highest kick of fashion, and visit the Opera and the play, and wangle an invitation to one of Madame Bonaparte’s Sunday receptions at St. Cloud. But what of me? I lose my sleep—and grow hagged!—for what? You’ve told me only what will happen do I fail to obey your instructions. I would hear more of this shared reward,
enfin!”