Read Online Mademoiselle At Arms by Elizabeth Bailey - Free Book Online Page B

mademoiselle a
visit. In any case, there was no doing anything on a Sunday and Brewis
Charvill, his main quarry, had gone out of town unexpectedly. An action which
gave Gerald furiously to think. Had Valade been to see him? Possibly even
yesterday when he was followed by some young lad—and the girl, of course. It
was all highly intriguing.
    On Monday Charvill had still not returned, and the major duly
presented himself at Mrs Chalkney’s house in Grosvenor Square, thanking his
stars that his friend Roding would not be there to spoil sport.
    Madame Valade was looking heartily bored, he noted, as his
searching eyes found out the couple. He could scarcely blame her. Valade, who
was standing by her chair, glancing around the packed pink-papered saloon with
a heavy frown on his face, was a thickset man of coarse, reddened feature, with
a discontented air. Or was that perhaps because his business in Piccadilly the
other day had gone awry? Perhaps Brewis Charvill had not welcomed him with open
arms.
    Gerald noted the lady’s eyes brighten as she caught sight of
him making his way through the throng towards her. Now how in the world was he
to get rid of the husband?
    His luck was in. Just as he reached them, the Comte de St
Erme drew Valade a little apart and began to converse with him in rapid French.
Valade accorded the major’s greeting a brief nod and gave his attention back to
St Erme.
    Gerald took Madame’s hand and kissed the fingers with a
little more warmth than punctilio demanded. ‘Madame, I trust I see you well?’
    ‘ Merci .’ She inclined her head, looking up at him
through her lashes, and passing a tongue lightly over her lips.
    Gerald smiled and crooked his elbow. ‘A little promenade,
madame?’
    Madame Valade rose from the chintz-covered chair with
alacrity and a little rustle of her silken petticoats. The close-fitting round
gown, if a little old-fashioned with its very narrow waist and wide skirts, was
becoming on a full figure, and the low décolletage, unencumbered by any form of
covering, exposed a good deal of bosom. The lady murmured briefly to her
husband, and then tucked her hand into Alderley’s arm.
    ‘We will converse in your own tongue,’ he said in French as
he led her away. ‘And I trust you will pardon my inadequacies.’
    Madame gave one of those breathy laughs. ‘They cannot be
worse than mine in English, monsieur.’
    While he trod a deliberate path through the pink saloon
towards the door, Gerald encouraged a flow of harmless chatter about the people
Madame had met and the parties she had attended. But once he had steered the
lady down the hall and along a passage to a window seat at the end, he
abandoned the subject of society.
    ‘And now,’ he said, drawing Madame to the seat, and
contriving to sit close enough that his anatomy touched hers at several points,
‘let us talk about you, madame.’
    ‘About me?’ The lady’s lashes fluttered and her fan came up. ‘You
would know more of me?’
    ‘I would know everything about you,’ Gerald told her, his
tone at once provocative and inviting.
    The major might not indulge in this sort of flirtation in the
ordinary way, but he had seen enough among his army colleagues to know just how
to go about it.
    She responded at once, rapping him on the knuckles with her
fan. ‘I hope I do not understand you.’
    You mean you hope you do, thought Gerald cynically. But he
seized the chance to entrap her fingers, fan and all, and look deeply into her
eyes. They were a dull grey, but the dark frizzed hair that framed her face was
attractive.
    ‘To begin with,’ he said, ‘allow me a very tiny intimacy. Your
name.’
    ‘Ah, that is easy,’ she began, laughing.
    ‘No, let me guess,’ he interrupted. ‘Let me see if our minds
are attuned.’
    The lashes fluttered demurely. ‘You would read my mind?’
    Gerald was pretty certain he already had, but he did not say
so. This was unscrupulous, he admitted, because he had no intention