Page 27 of The Count’s Charade

“But for how long? Henri, what are we going to do?”

He tried to infuse reassurance into his voice. “We wait, Grâce. Think you this man who has taken Jean-Marc will let him enter? I do not think so.”

“Mayberry? No, I am sure he won’t. But I am equally sure he will bring Wooferton here, and it will be hard indeed to stop them taking you away.”

“Better your English take me than my compatriot.”

He released her fingers and Grace withdrew them into her lap, trying for a calm she was far from feeling. “If you were only strong enough to leave!”

To her chagrin, Henri laughed. “Last night, ma chère, you were angry that I tried to go.”

“Yes, because I know only too well that you are not strong enough.” She sighed. “Why did they not believe me when I said you had gone? I tried to pretend you went away that same night, only —”

“Grâce, you think with the mind of logic. Jean-Marc has questioned in many places, we know this. It is probable he finds the English do not wish to speak to him. He is French, enfin. An enemy. They know, these English, that I am here.”

“They don’t know it’s you. They don’t know you’re French.”

“But they know I am a man wounded. Jean-Marc, be assured, is not asking for a Frenchman. He asks for a man wounded.”

Grace frowned, remembering Joe Piper. “Yes, that is what was reported to me, now I think of it.”

“Voilà. Even to you, he asks for a man wounded. But from you he finds, the first time, that I have been here. You say you do not know I am French. You say I have gone the same night. Me, if I was in the place of Jean-Marc, I will be suspicious.”

A rush of guilt seized Grace. “It’s because I said I didn’t know you were French. That must be it. Dear Lord, what a simpleton! I should have said you had not spoken, that you had been unconscious the whole time you were here. That is the only way I could not have known your nationality. No wonder he was suspicious.”

Henri was shaking his head. “Perhaps that is so, Grâce, but I think not. It is possible he believes you. Also it is possible he believes you may lie for me, if I tell you certain things.” A smile of great tenderness softened his eyes. “Jean-Marc, he knows not this Grâce, who has a heart of fire. This Grâce, she knows nothing of Henri Rousselle, but she will save him if she is able — from death, from capture, and from his enemy. Even that he is spying for France.”

A tide of heat flooded Grace. She was sure her cheeks were flying colour. In a gruff tone, she repudiated the compliment. “That is nonsense. It is only what anyone would do under the circumstances.”

“But you, ma chère, are not anyone,” said Henri gently. “It is why I have remained.”

A spark leapt in Grace’s breast, and her heartbeat took on an uneven rhythm. She had no words, and the look in the green eyes melted her bones. And then Henri shattered the unacknowledged hope.

“Whatever will happen, Grâce, you will remain all my life in my memory.”

She managed to smile through the deadness, and she heard herself say, in a voice that sounded peculiarly normal, “Then we had best make sure you have a long life, Henri.” And then she was rising, remembering in despite of the dull despair that she must make no noise with her unruly boot. “You had better rest now,” she told him from the door. “And I must work. With luck, Mayberry will return for the guardian at the gates before the day is out.”

The long journey downstairs, necessitated by the need to tread in silence, had a salutary effect: by the time she reached the bottom, Grace had mastered her urgent desire to weep.

Forced by the presence of the fellow across the lane to remain in her parlour, Grace had no choice but to concentrate upon her work. The result was she had almost completed Mr Staply’s treatise by the time Jemima came excitedly in with the news that Mayberry was riding up the lane. Grace glanced at the case clock on the mantel.

“It is almost four. Then he will not stay long, for he will be wanting his dinner.”

“He’s got Mr Wooferton with him,” Jemima told her.

“Ah, that’s why he’s on horseback. He must have borrowed a mount from Wooferton, for he could not have ridden to Rainham, burdened with those Frenchmen.” A horrid thought assailed her. “They are not with him, are they?”

The maid shook her head. “Unless they’re following on foot. Mayhap Mr Wooferton left them at the Black Horse.”

Since the excise officer was also a publican, who was apt to keep felons under guard in an upstairs room at his inn, this notion lent Grace a little of the maid’s excitement. “If only it was so! Mayberry must mean to take that wretch outside away with them. I dare say that is why he has brought Wooferton.”

But it transpired, once the two men had tethered their mounts and trodden up the path to the front door Jemima hastened to open to them, that this was not the excise officer’s sole errand.

Under an unprepossessing exterior, Wooferton’s was a genial nature. He was over-tall and over-thin, which, coupled with a hawk-like nose, made him appear fiercer than he was. A useful deception in his line of work, as the excise officer was apt to remark. Grace was unsurprised to find him sympathetic to Henri’s plight, and apologetic in the execution of his duty.

“Thing is, Miss Grace, as it ain’t no manner of use your keeping him, for I’ve to take him in charge sooner or later.”

“Then let it be later,” Grace said at once.