Page 36 of The Count’s Charade

“Who has been here? So many! I have watched them come and go.”

“Don’t ask!” Grace moved to join him.

“But I do ask,” he said with a frown. “I do not think it is usual for you. Is it on account of me that they come?”

Henri noted the irritation that crept into her face, but it was readily seen that it was not directed at him.

“Word has got out, yes. It was to be expected, I’m afraid. There are few gentlefolk in these villages, and so our doings are inevitably interesting. Besides, they all know I have been harbouring a wounded man. But that is not what brought them.”

“No?” He watched her closely in the sunlight that streamed through the window.

She squirmed a little, twitching at the petticoats of her dark green gown. “You are French, Henri, what would you?”

It would not do. “Come, Grâce. This they have known since some days. How long since Jean-Marc began to question here?”

A sigh escaped her, and the frank grey gaze met his. “Very well, if you must have it. Understand, if you please, that it is only the murmurings of a parcel of gossips. No sensible person could suppose what they think, but these villagers are not sensible.”

Henri thought he knew the answer, but he asked the question just the same. “And it is how that they think?”

For an instant, he thought she was not going to answer. Then she did, and the words rang between them.

“They think you are my lover.”

He eyed the defiant glare. He knew what he ought to say, if he was in a position to make the offer. He knew as certainly Grace would refuse it. Was there a hint of apprehension under the defiance? No, he would not give her that pain, to think he would take her upon terms utterly humiliating. He paused before he spoke, weighing what he should say.

Grace waited, frozen by dull despair. Then his mischievous look appeared, and her heart skipped a beat.

“But you know, and I know, that this is not so. We do not concern ourselves with lies, n’est-ce pas? Let them think as they wish, Grâce. It is but words. When I am gone, it will be forgotten. Voilà tout.”

A welter of mixed emotions poured into Grace’s breast, but she smiled, inexpressibly gratified. He would not demean her by offering a fruitless reparation. It was agony to be assured he did not want her. Bliss to be spared the insult of an offer that touched nothing at his heart. The putting into words of his inevitable departure must graze the wound, but one she had already accepted.

“Thank you!”

Henri heard the truth in her voice, and something flicked like a lash in his chest. Life was cruel, he decided, as the maid’s footsteps signalled an end to the tête-à-tête.

Grace was enjoying little sleep. After today’s visit of a coldly disapproving Doctor Ffrith — “Much to my surprise, sir, you appear to be well on the road to a full recovery!” — an unacknowledged hope had died completely. Not that she had truly supposed he would veto Henri’s removal. Only it had left Grace wide open to the promptings of instinct.

Plagued by the knowledge that Saturday was almost upon her, bringing closer the inevitable arrival of the authorities armed with a warrant, she was dismayed by an inner conviction Henri was going to leave.

Whether it was the spilling to him of the ruin of her reputation, or his returning strength, she could not have said. One or both might determine his course. He was likely anxious to minimise the damage to herself. As for his health, he had visibly improved, so Ffrith’s approval was scarce matter for wonder.

That one extra day in bed had apparently been a sufficiency. His wound had from the first been cleaned and redressed morning and evening — by herself to begin with, and later by Reuben once she had shown him how — and the doctor had pronounced it to be healing nicely. There had been no fever, and Henri had been well fed. For a man who could survive what Henri had survived, it was surely no surprise to find him steady upon his feet within ten days. He had tested his legs, even going down when the coast was clear to the privy, and found them good. Grace told herself she must be glad, and succeeded only in feeling dismal and wretched.

She was in limbo, unable to find reasons to keep him here when she knew it meant capture, by one enemy or the other. For in her heated imagination, they had become one. Wooferton and Mayberry as implacable as the Frenchmen. Unless she could convince them of his innocence. Innocence of what?

The image of the sealed letters in her secret drawer hovered at the edge of her mind. Proof that Henri Rousselle was a man more sinned against than sinning? They were the only weapons she had left. Other than a desperate need, which served only to confuse the issue. Was she being selfish? No, for she would rather endure never to see him again than to witness his death.

If only she knew why those creatures sought to kill him! She felt as if she was flailing in the dark. For the weapons were useless against Loriot and his two companions. Recalling what Henri had said in his unguarded moments at the start, Grace discovered she was mistaken. Loriot must be interested in the papers. Which must be why Henri was leaving them with her. If they should catch him, and murder him, Grace would be in possession of evidence that could indict them. A weapon indeed, but not one to save him.

Half afraid he would leave in the night, Grace strained her ears for any betraying sound from his room until sheer exhaustion overcame her. When she woke at last to daylight, her first action was to scramble out of bed and hurry through to his bedchamber.

She found Henri sleeping, and crept nearer to the bed. He looked vulnerable as he had not done since he had first been brought up here, black hair straggling on the pillows, lean features inert. Except that he had a good colour and his cheeks were not as gaunt.

Grace leaned over him, and one stealthy hand snaked up, brushing lightly over his forehead. She kissed her own quivering fingertip, and touched it gently to his sculptured lip. He did not wake, and Grace conjured the vision of his bright gaze within her mind. It smiled at her, and her heart contracted. The image faded, and she again saw him sleeping.

Smothering a sigh, she turned for her own room, and failed to note the lifting of Henri’s lids, the green eyes following her until she slipped behind the door.

He breakfasted in bed as usual, and permitted Reuben to assist him with his toilette. But he insisted on dressing himself, the lad standing by in comical dismay as Henri donned the fresh shirt and drawers procured for him at Wennington. Henri laughed.