The Man in the Green Coat (26 page)

The reflected bedpost obliterated the French spy’s face and bisected his body, but all too clearly she could see that he held a pistol in each hand.

She raised her own gun uselessly. There was nothing to shoot at but a reflection. She could not aim at the man without stepping out into the room, and he would have plenty of time to fire before she could. She was not even sure whether she would be able to fire at a human being. She had once killed a rabbit when her father was teaching her to shoot, and the memory had haunted her for weeks.

Luke’s life was at stake! He was a provoking, overweening wretch and he despised her, but she could not let him be shot down in cold blood. The Frenchman was no harmless, inoffensive creature, and if she had to kill him she would not regret it, she assured herself.

“Gabrielle!” Dorothea’s tiny whisper just reached her.

She turned, finger to her lips, and the other door to the chamber caught her eye. Of course, how stupid of her! She could go out into the corridor and come round behind the spy. She looked again, to ascertain his position.

He had moved into the room three or four feet; otherwise the scene was frozen. She felt as if eons had passed; but no one in the other room had spoken, so it must have been seconds.

A pistol landed on the bed. Luke was helpless now.

Everything depended on her.

“You are sensible, monsieur,” said the spy. “I will attempt to persuade my colleague that the lady in the next chamber is not to be disturbed.” Behind him, the door opened. “Ah, here he is now.”

A man in a light brown coat stepped into the mirror, a gun in his hand. For a moment his face was obscured by the bedpost, then he moved into view. Gabrielle recognised him at once.

“Hold still!” ordered that beloved voice.

With a half-swallowed sob, Gabrielle ran back to the bed, fell to her knees and buried her face in her arms.

Her father was a French spy!

She felt a hand on her shoulder. “What is it?” whispered Dorothea. “What is the matter? Has Alain killed Luke? Has Luke killed Alain? Tell me!”

Gabrielle raised her head. “No,” she said dully. No, she thought, my father is about to kill both of them. “No, nothing like that.”

“Then what? Oh, pray go and see! What can they be doing?”

She forced herself to her feet and went slowly back to the connecting door. The day’s exertions had suddenly caught up with her and she ached in every bone.

Dorothea followed her, pulling on her arm.

“Gabrielle, are you all right? Gabrielle! What shall we do?” The pistol wavered dangerously in her delicate hand.

“Hush! First put that down.” She took the gun and laid it on the floor. “Wait a minute. Let me see what is happening.”

Alain was slumped in the chair in the corner of the room, looking tired and strained.

“How is my sister?” he asked.

“As well as can be expected.” Gabrielle’s father sounded his usual cheerful self. She could see his face clearly in the mirror, an ordinary face, topped with crisply curling grey hair, smiling gently. He looked no more like a malevolent traitor than he ever had, yet he was capable of threatening an innocent girl to force her brother to do his will.

Mademoiselle de Vignard was waiting below stairs, ignorant of her fate, alone and afraid.

“Dorothea!” hissed Gabrielle. “Listen! You must take Alain’s sister away from here. Hire a carriage, go back to Charing. She will be safe there, whatever happens.”

Dorothea’s frightened face gazed at her in horror. “Oh, I couldn’t,” she stammered. “On my own? I have no money.”

“Of course you can. You must! For Alain’s sake. Take the groom with you, and tell Mr Colby to put the charge on your brother’s reckoning.”

“On Luke’s?”

“Or Alain’s, if he thinks Alain is your brother. For  heaven’s sake, what does it matter? Go now, quickly.”

With relief she saw that she had convinced Dorothea. The girl scurried towards the door into the corridor. Gabrielle turned back in time to hear her father say,

“Roussel, you appear surprised.”

“
Sacre bleu
!” The Frenchman addressed as Roussel was beyond Gabrielle’s view, but he sounded stunned, not merely surprised. “For eight years you have worked for Fouché, and I for you. How should I not be surprised? What are you going to do now?”

“’E’s not gonna do nowt!” declared a familiar voice. Suddenly Mr Darcy’s reflection was framed on one side by a small, bald man in black, on the other by a portion of a huge, round-faced man in fustian. “Drop that pop smart now,” Billy continued, “or I’m gonnarafta shoot, and I don’t like killing coves, see?”

“Don’t shoot!” cried Alain, springing up. “He’s on our side. That is Le Hibou!”

Gabrielle’s knees went weak and she sat down abruptly on the floor, head spinning. What was her father? Was Alain lying to gain time? Or was he really Le Hibou, the mysterious English spy who had bedevilled Boney for years, and his predecessors before him? With all her heart she hoped that it was true, that he was not after all a renegade and a turncoat.

Yet, just as Luke had believed the worst of her, so she had been ready to condemn her own father.

She wanted to run to him and ask his forgiveness. She wanted to sit still and think quietly, sort out her feelings. But Luke was speaking, his voice tired, and she must concentrate on his words.

“All right, I don’t know who is who here. But until I find out, you are all under arrest. Baxter, Billy, let us escort these gentlemen belowstairs, if you please. There is a parlour reserved there, I believe, which cannot but be more convenient than this wretched bedchamber, which I begin to abhor!”

Luke was in control. For the moment she was content to have it so.

There was no need now for Dorothea and Sophie to escape to Charing. She must call them back and tell them the outcome of the confrontation. Hurrying down the stair she met Mr Colby, lumbering up, looking as worried as a man with a plump face made for jollity can look. He greeted her with relief.

“What’s agoing on up there, miss?” he asked anxiously. “The young lady come down all of a fluster and ordered a chaise to be made ready, quick as winking. I don’t have no objection to my house being used for certain activities what you wot well of, if you catch my drift, but I don’t care for the looks of some of them as is here tonight.”

“It’s quite all right,” Gabrielle assured him. "A certain gentleman the colour of whose coat we both wot well has everything under control. The chaise will not be needed, at least not immediately. Where is the young lady who ordered it?”

“This way, miss, if you please. She’s in the parlour with the foreign miss as arrived a while back. The missus went in a few minutes agone, and she said as neither young lady don’t look too well, miss.”

“I shall take care of them. Pray bring us some tea, for it will do them good, and I vow it is the only thing I want in the whole world!”

She found Sophie de Vignard huddled in a wing chair by the fire. She was a thin, sickly-looking girl of fifteen or sixteen, with her brother’s dark hair hanging now in lank strands about her wan face. Dorothea was sitting beside her, holding her hands. They both looked up.

“You need not go,” said Gabrielle. “Luke had a pair of aces up his sleeve, and you will be quite safe here.”

“He has not shot Alain?”

“No, merely arrested him until he sorts out the mess.”

“Arrested! That is near as bad!” Dorothea turned to Sophie and the two chattered to each other in mixed French and English.

Gabrielle realised that for the present she was not needed. The girls were united in adoration of Alain and worry over his safety. A wave of intense loneliness unexpectedly engulfed her, and she sank onto a sofa on the other side of the room.

At any moment Luke would come in with his prisoners. She did not want to face him. Two thoughts chased each other through her mind, refusing to stand still for rational examination.

Papa was found and Luke was lost.

The maid brought in a tray of tea and set it on the table. Gabrielle was pouring from the heavy earthenware pot when voices were heard in the hall. The French spy, Roussel, came into the parlour, guarded by Baxter. Next came Alain, with Billy towering over him, then Mr Darcy, and lastly Luke, pistol in hand.

Mr Darcy looked back at him. “I can see that I shall have to produce reams of evidence to satisfy you as to my credentials,” he said. “Perhaps you will at least explain to me just where you come into the picture?”

“He is the Man in the Green Coat, Papa,” said Gabrielle.

Mr Darcy stopped dead. She had never seen him taken by surprise before. His face was momentarily completely blank, but when he spoke it was in his usual calm voice.

“Gabrielle, my love, what the devil are you doing here?”

“I came to rescue Alain, Papa.” Her own voice was unnaturally calm.

Luke gazed at her in astonishment. Apparently he had not yet learned his prisoner’s name, and thus his connection with Gabrielle. She tried to avoid looking at his face.

"To rescue Alain!” Her father was undoubtedly taken aback. He looked from her to Alain and back, and frowned. “You are in love with Alain,
mon petit chou
? I cannot like a marriage between first cousins.”

Gabrielle scarce heard his last comment.

“No,” she cried, “I am in love with the Man in the Green Coat!” Her control broke and she ran to hide her face in her father’s waistcoat. “Tell him to go away, Papa,” she sobbed. “I never want to see him again!”

Chapter 23

“I cannot understand him!” exclaimed Lord Everett. “I told him that the debts are paid and that henceforth he will receive an allowance suitable to his position, and it sent him into a flat despair!”

Lady Cecilia nodded wisely. “I thought there was something amiss. Let me talk to him.”

“I wish you will, and that before he wears out the carpet in my study.”

Luke was pacing up and down from desk to window and back. Now and then he paused at the window and gazed on to the Dower House, then shook his head fiercely and turned away. His stepmother watched him for a few moments before announcing her presence.

“Luke?”

Startled, he swung round.

“What is wrong?” she asked bluntly, advancing into the room and taking a seat.

He flung himself into a chair, then got up again and went back to the window.

“I don’t know what to do!” he said, not looking at her.

“About Gabrielle? She is at Charing, is she not, and you are on your way there?”

“She told her father that she loves me, and that she never wants to see me again.”

Lady Cecilia laughed gently. “Is that all? You must have made her very, very angry.”

“I insulted her in every conceivable way. Not only last time we met, but the time before also.”

“Then you can hardly wonder that the poor girl does not want to see you! I daresay she expects more of the same.”

“I cannot think what came over me! I have never before fallen into such a rage that I lost control of my tongue.”

“No, it is not like you. But there is nothing in the world so painful as to think ill of the one you love. I take it your suspicions were unfounded?”

“Of course! I cannot tell you all because it is secret government business, connected with my position at the Foreign Office. But you know that Gabrielle’s father is come. He and I decided to gather together everyone involved to explain the situation, and since Lord Charing must be present and his ill health makes travel inadvisable, I am on my way to Charing now. If it were not for that, I should probably never see her again.”

“It is up to you to make use of the opportunity. Luke, I cannot tell you what to say, only to make very sure that she knows you love her.”

“I do, Cecilia. Very much.”

She went to him, squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek. “Then you will know what to do.” Struggling with an unexpected and unwanted pang of jealousy, she left him. For too many years she had had his silent devotion. She had always hoped that he would find a woman he could love and wed; yet now that the moment had come, it hurt a little. She went to look for her husband.

* * * *

The huge fireplace in the great hall at Charing was filled with dancing flames. Newly burnished, the suits of armour guarding the stair gleamed. A vase of magnificent Chinese chrysanthemums, bronze, white and yellow, added their spicy scent to the fragrance of woodsmoke.

Lady Harrison looked around with an air of satisfaction.

Barbaric splendour it might be, but it was a vast improvement over the gloomy den she had walked into when Maurice brought her here three days earlier. Outside was a raw September morning; inside was as near cosy as such a large room could be.

She looked up as Gabrielle came down the wide oak staircase. Ah,
bon
! The girl was dressed in her new lilac morning gown and Marie had done wonders with her hair, not that those dark ringlets needed a great deal of arranging. A touch of rouge would not have come amiss, thought my lady. Gabrielle had been alarmingly listless since Maurice's return.

There could be only one reason for melancholy in a young lady recently reunited with her long-lost father.

Lady Harrison swept forward and gently pinched Gabrielle's cheeks to bring a little colour into them.

“You must not let him believe you pine away, ma chérie!"

Lord Charing’s halting step was heard approaching. Busy settling him in a comfortable chair by the fire, Gabrielle scarcely noticed the arrival of the rest of the company. She glanced up to find that her father, Gerard, Alain, Sophie de Vignard, Lady Sarah and Luke Everett had joined them. Marie and Baxter were also present, sitting a little apart from the rest.

She sat down quickly on a footstool, leaning against the arm of his lordship’s chair and half hidden by a sofa occupied by Gerard and Alain. She could see clearly only Sophie, seated opposite, with Lady Sarah and Lady Harrison on either side of her, a strange contrast of quiet simplicity with fashionable elegance.

Her father came to Lord Charing and kissed his hand.

“With your permission, sir?’’ he said.