Mademoiselle At Arms (2 page)

Someone, it appeared, was trying to profit from that fact. Gerald’s
task was to stop him from doing so. In this spy theory, however, he had no
faith whatsoever. It was his belief that the French had enough troubles of
their own in these difficult times without bothering to nose out British
business.

Noiselessly, his booted feet stepping with careful restraint,
he started forward, signalling to Roding to follow. Together they crept through
the erstwhile drawing room and entered the massive flagged hall.

‘No sense in snooping about down here,’ Gerald whispered.

‘Of course the fellow has doubtless stayed put to wait for
you,’ retorted Hilary.

‘Maybe not,’ Gerald conceded, ‘but I’m damned if I herald my
approach with a lot of unnecessary blundering about in the dark.’

Roding allowed that he had a point, and followed him as he
began to mount the stairs. The odd creak was not to be avoided in an old house
such as this. But it seemed that their presence was not even suspected. For on
reaching the second floor, a swishing sound came to Gerald’s ears, as of
someone moving about.

He halted and put out a hand to stop Hilary. Finger to his
lips, Gerald pointed in the direction of the noise. Listening on the dimlit
landing, he saw Roding’s face muscles tighten. He was conscious of a quickening
of his heartbeat and the familiar rise of adrenalin that sent his senses
soaring in anticipation.

This was what he missed. This was the reason he had raised
his little independent Company of Light Infantry and joined the West Kent
Militia. Selling out of the Army to take up his inheritance had spelled boredom
to Gerald Alderley. The militia offered little in the way of relief. This was
just what he needed. God send the fellow did turn out to be a spy!

Beckoning Roding on, Gerald crept down the corridor towards
the source of the swishing he had heard. It had ceased now, but as he closed in
on the area, a faint muttering came to his ears. Pottiswick had mentioned
muttering. Perhaps the old fool was not as fanciful as they had thought.

The door to the room in question was closed. Gerald pressed
against the wall, and signalled Roding to go to the other side of the door. His
hand went to his pocket and extracted a neat silver-mounted pistol. Like most
officers, he’d had it especially made, for a man who loved danger had need of a
precision instrument of defence.

Hilary Roding was all soldier now, his earlier grievances
laid aside. His fingers cherished the hilt of his sword and his eyes were on
his friend and superior, ready at his back to do whatever was needed.

Very gently indeed, Alderley grasped the handle of the door
and stealthily turned it. A minute pressure inwards showed him that it was not
locked.

He glanced up at Roding and met his eyes. A nod was exchanged.
Taking a firm grasp of his pistol, Gerald eased back, let go the handle of the
door, and at the same instant, swung his booted foot.

The door crashed back against the wall inside and both men
hurtled into the room, weapons at the ready—and stopped dead.

Standing before a mirror set on a dresser between the
windows, two hands frozen in the act of adjusting a wide-brimmed hat on her
head, stood a lady in a dark riding habit, her startled features turned towards
the door.

For a moment or two Gerald stood in the total silence of
amazement, his pistol up and pointing, aware that Hilary was likewise stunned,
standing with half-drawn sword. And then amusement crept into Alderley’s chest
and he let his pistol hand fall.

‘So this is Pottiswick’s French spy.’

‘Gad, but she’s a beauty,’ gasped Hilary, and slammed his
sword back in its scabbard.

The lady, who was indeed stunning, Gerald suddenly realised, said
never a word. A pair of long-lashed blue eyes studied them both as she slowly
brought her hands down to rest by her sides. The pouting cherry lips were
slightly parted and the very faintest of panting breaths, together with the
quick rise and fall of an alluring bosom, betrayed her fear. Raven locks fell
to her shoulders from under the feathered beaver hat, and curled away down her
back.

It struck the major that she was very young. But although
startled and clearly afraid, there was no self-consciousness in her gaze and
she was standing her ground. A tinge of admiration rose in his breast.

Gerald raised his cockaded hat, and smiled. ‘Forgive this
intrusion, ma’am, I beg. We were expecting rather to find a male antagonist.’

Still the girl said nothing.

‘Perhaps she don’t understand English,’ suggested Roding.

Gerald switched to French. ‘
Étes-vous Francais
?’

Her eyes, he noted, followed from himself to Hilary and back
again, but she did not speak. Her gaze flickered down to his pistol. Gerald
caught the look and slipped the weapon into his pocket. One did not use pistols
against a female.

‘We mean you no harm,’ he said reassuringly. ‘You have no
need to be afraid of us.’

Still no response. Gerald exchanged a puzzled glance with his
friend. Was she so fearful still?

Roding shrugged and grimaced. ‘What do we do now?’

Gerald took a pace towards the girl. She moved then, fast,
taking refuge behind a Chinese screen that was set beside the four-poster at
the back of the room.

Gerald swore. ‘She’s terrified.’

Hilary’s gaze was raking the room. ‘She ought to be. Been
making herself at home all right.’

Alderley glanced round the bedchamber. Strewn across the bed
was a multitude of jumbled garments. A long chest under one of the windows was
open, some of its contents dragged out and spilling onto the floor. He drew an
awed breath.

‘Was she planning to make away with all this stuff?’

‘What’s this?’

Hilary pounced on a black item slung on the floor by the
dresser. His gaze drawn, Gerald watched him dip to pick up a crushed square of
white linen and a starched object that resembled a helmet. Then he lifted the
black cloak-like garment from the floor.

‘Gerald, this is a nun’s habit.’

Before the major could verify this, the lady reappeared. To
his consternation, she was holding an unwieldy, ugly-looking pistol, all wood
and tarnished steel, with both hands about the butt. Coldly she spoke, in a
distinctly accented voice.

‘Do not move,
messieurs
, or I shall be compelled to
blow off your head.’

Hilary’s jaw dropped open, and he stood stupidly staring, the
nun’s clothing dangling from his hand.

Gerald lifted an eyebrow. ‘Odd sort of a nun.’

The lady uttered a scornful sound. ‘Certainly I am not a nun.
But one must disguise oneself. To be
jeune demoiselle
, it is not always
convenient.’

Gerald controlled a quivering lip. ‘So it would appear.’ He
nodded in the direction of her pistol.

The lady grasped it more firmly and turned it upon Hilary. ‘Move,
you. Back, that you may be close together.’

‘I should do as she says if I were you, Hilary,’ observed Gerald,
noting the fierce determination in the girl’s lovely face.

‘Never trust a gun in female hands,’ grumbled Hilary,
dropping the nun’s habit and backing to join his friend. ‘That’s what comes of
disarming yourself.’

‘A mistake, I agree.’ Gerald’s eyes never left the girl. ‘What
are the chances, do you think, of that thing being already cocked?’

‘Probably not even loaded,’ suggested Hilary hopefully.

‘
Parbleu
,’ came indignantly from the lady. ‘Am I a
fool? Can I blow off a head with a pistol which is not loaded?’

‘She has a point,’ conceded Alderley, relaxing a little as amusement
burgeoned again

‘Ten to one she is a French spy,’ burst from Roding.

The pistol was lowered slightly. ‘I find you excessively
rude, both of you,’ said the lady crossly. ‘You talk together of me as if I am
not there. “She”, you say. But I am here.’

‘You are perfectly correct,’ agreed Gerald at once. ‘You are
there. Why, is the question I would like answered.’

‘I do not tell you why,’ the lady uttered flatly. ‘But a spy
I am not.’

‘Can you prove it?’ demanded Hilary.

‘Certainly I can prove it. That is easy. I am not French in
the least.’

‘Not French?’ echoed Hilary. ‘That’s a loud one.’

‘It is true,’ insisted the lady. ‘I am entirely English.’

‘Entirely
English
,’ said Gerald as one making a
discovery. ‘Of course. Why did I not realise it at once? It just shows how one
should not judge by appearances. The little matter of an accent may be misleading,
I grant you, but—’

He was interrupted, and with impatience. ‘
Alors
, you
make a game with me, I see that. It is better that you go away now, I think.’

‘Ah, but there’s the little matter of your presence here,’
said Gerald on a note of apology.

‘This is a private house,’ Hilary said severely, ‘and you are
trespassing.’

‘Also stealing,’ added Gerald, with a gesture at the clothes
on the bed.

‘I do not steal,’ declared the lady hotly. ‘
Parbleu
,
but what a person you make me! One who spies. One who steals. One who—who—tres...’
She paused, struggling for the word.

‘Trespasses,’ supplied Gerald.

‘And, if this was not enough,’ went on the lady furiously, ‘you
dare to say I am French. Pah!’

She flounced about and, crossing to the bed, plonked down on
it, pointedly averting her face and resting the large pistol in her lap.

Hilary made a movement as if he would seize the opportunity
to disarm the girl, but Gerald stopped him.

‘I think,’ he said pleasantly, ‘that it would be as well if
you, Hilary, were to go and fetch the troops. And Pottiswick, of course. He
will wish to have his fears laid to rest.’

The lady’s face came round, a puzzled frown on her brow. ‘Troops?’

‘Go, man,’ urged the major in an undervoice. ‘I’ll handle her
better alone.’

‘You certain? She’s a thought too volatile for my money.’

‘
She
once more,’ came in disgust from the girl on the
bed. Her heavy pistol came up again, although she did not rise. ‘What do you
say of these troops?’

‘You see, we’re militia.
Milice
,’ Gerald translated. ‘Civilian
peace-keeping forces, you know. That’s why we are here.’

A scowl crossed the lady’s face. ‘You will arrest me? For—for—’

‘Trespass, theft and spying,’ snapped Hilary.

‘And housebreaking,’ added Gerald calmly.

At that, the girl jumped up. ‘
Parbleu
, the house, is
it broken in the least? I do not think so.’

‘As a matter of fact, it isn’t,’ conceded Gerald. ‘We were
wondering about that.’ With an air of real interest, he asked, ‘I suppose you
did not dig a tunnel or fly in by balloon?’

The lady gazed at him blankly. ‘That is
imbecile
.’

‘Well, she didn’t walk through the walls, that’s certain,’
said Hilary acidly. ‘How did you get in? The house is all locked up.’

The lady looked unexpectedly smug. ‘Assuredly it is locked up.
Alors
, how did
you
get in?’

‘Oh, we broke in,’ Gerald told her cheerfully.

She stared. Then her eyes flashed. ‘And it is me you dare
accuse? It is yourself you should arrest.’

Gerald could not resist. He looked at Hilary and nodded. ‘She’s
perfectly right.’ He threw one arm across his own chest and clapped himself on
the shoulder. ‘Major Gerald Alderley, I arrest you in the name of the King.’

A peal of laughter came from the girl. ‘It is
imbecile
that you are. You cannot arrest yourself.’

‘Will you have done, Gerald?’ demanded Hilary, exasperated. ‘What
in God’s name do you think you’re playing at?’

‘Let me alone, man,’ Gerald muttered under his breath. ‘I
told you I could handle her.’

‘Well, don’t blame me if you get your head blown off.’

‘It is you who will get the head blown off,’ threatened the
young lady fiercely. ‘It will suit me very well that you go away, because you
are a person without sense and I do not wish to talk to you.’

‘Eh?’

Gerald grinned at Hilary’s blank expression, and was
gratified when the girl turned a brilliant smile upon himself.

‘But you,’ she said in the friendliest way imaginable, ‘are a
person
tout à fait
sympathique
, I think. I will permit you to
rescue me.’

‘It will give me the greatest of pleasure,’ Gerald said at
once, making an elegant leg. ‘Only perhaps I can more readily do so if you will
put down that pistol.’

The lady frowned suspiciously. ‘I think it is better if I
hold the pistol. Then, if you are bad to me, I can more easily blow off your
head.’

‘You see? Not to be trusted,’ Hilary uttered disgustedly. ‘And
what is it you’re to rescue her from, I should like to know.’