Page 76 of The Count’s Charade

“In a little minute, all will be clear,” said Henri, intent on his task.

Intrigued, Grace waited as, with a little stiffness in his left arm, he unlaced the boot and drew it gently off her foot. He stood up and leaned back, supporting himself against the desk. By this time, both Mayberry and Wooferton had left off discussing the letter and had their attention firmly on Henri. Grace watched him pull up the inner sole of her boot and withdraw a folded sheet of paper. Realisation dawned.

“So that’s why it felt tight!”

“Forgive, ma chère. I have put it there —”

“That night when you came back! I thought I saw you put something in your pocket. Only where had you it?” The image came back into her mind, of helping Henri to remove his boots. “You took it from your own boot?”

Henri grinned, laying her boot aside. “You have eyes of much sharpness.” He unfolded the paper, glancing first at Wooferton, and then to Sir James. “It is in French.”

Sir James waved an impatient hand. “Yes, yes, give it to him.”

Stepping in, Wooferton accepted the paper and began to read. Intrigued, Grace forgot her exposed stockinged foot on her short right leg. At the end, the excise officer whistled and looked up at Henri, for once showing astonishment.

“Well, man, well?” Thus Sir James.

Wooferton waved the document. “This here’s a letter from a lawyer, sir.” He peered at the top of the paper. “Writ two years agone, by what I can make out.”

“What does it say?”

“Seemingly, this here Frenchie ain’t nowise no ordinary gennelman, Sir James.”

“Ah! Thought as much. Is he Rousselle?”

“He’s Rousselle all right. Only he ain’t Mister Rousselle.”

The stirrings of suspicion flitted into Grace’s head. Her eyes went from the letter to Henri, who was still holding her boot, and the memory that had been hovering at its edges leaped into her mind.

“That crested paper! The one with the map on it. You told me it was paper often found in France these days, trying to make me believe it meant nothing. But it does. It’s your crest, Henri, isn’t it?”

Sir James threw out an accusing finger. “Aha!”

Mayberry was hunting through the discarded documents. Triumphant, he held up the paper with the little map drawn on to it.

“Hold it towards the flame,” Grace told him.

“Right you are, Miss Grace.” The parish officer looked at Sir James. “There’s a crest all right, plain as day.”

Grace saw the light of triumph in Sir James’s eyes. “Wooferton, what the deuce is in that letter, man?”

The excise officer had lost some of his usual assurance. “Seems as the gennelman Rousselle weren’t nowise expecting it, but all them as might otherwise have claimed the title went to the guillotine. There ain’t nothing left but the title, mind, as this lawyer has it.”

A hollow was opening up in Grace’s chest as her eyes went to Henri. She could not help the flatness in her tone. “You are an aristocrat.”

Henri gave her a deprecating look. “Pardon, Grâce, but this deception was necessary. It does not change me, ma chère. It is only that if I desire it, I may take the name of Henri, Comte de Rousselle.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Grace lay on her bed, bullied into returning there to rest by Jemima, whose growing resemblance to Mab in her dealings with her mistress left much to be desired. Grace had submitted because she had got up only with difficulty this morning, her muscles stiff and sore from yesterday’s long walk into Rainham. The ache at her hip was less by contrast. Likely helped by the long sleep of exhaustion, both physical and mental. Grace could not remember ever having felt so tired.

It must, she supposed, be due to being rid of the tensions of the past days. That they had been replaced with a profound misery was of little importance. Henri was safe, and that was worth everything. Even if it had come as a shock to find him a French count.

Her mind roved over the scene immediately following the revelation. Sir James Levisham had reproached Henri for not making the important fact of his heritage known earlier. He had begun to suspect it when faced with Wooferton’s testimony about his conversation with Loriot. Henri’s anger had clinched the matter.

“None but an aristocrat,” had said Sir James, “would look down his nose and reproach those he ought rather to placate.”

He had moved on to praise the count’s bravery — Henri had received it in a stiff silence that Grace at least understood — and had demanded to hear all Henri could tell of the situation in France.