Page 45 of The Count’s Charade

“That is a possibility, but they obviously have not said so. However, it is as plain as day the man is a revolutionary. He had been an aide, apparently, to that devilish creature, Robespierre.”

Dullness settled over Grace’s mind. A weight was wedging into her stomach, with the heaviness of lead. Robespierre, by all accounts the curse of Paris, upon whose head lay the deaths of too many to count. Owing to those émigrés who had escaped his Reign of Terror, together with accounts culled from certain English who insisted upon visiting the French capital despite the present circumstances, all England was aware of the former leader’s reputation for butchery. Grace’s response was purely mechanical.

“I thought he had been executed.”

“Last month, yes. You will recall we were discussing it at dinner just before your brother departed for the coast.”

“Then —” She did not know what she had been about to say, unless it be some way to exonerate Henri from a past that was not to be contemplated.

“You do not take my point, Grace,” Sir James cut in. “With Robespierre’s removal from power, those closest to him were bound to follow, tainted as they must be with the same bloody brush. It seems Henri Rousselle managed to escape. His pursuers are here with the duty of bringing him to justice.”

A keening cry was coiling deep inside Grace. Of protest, of despair. She spoke like an automaton, driven by misplaced affections over which she had no control.

“Why did they shoot him then? That is to cheat justice, is it not?”

Sir James put out his hand and it closed over Grace’s, which had formed into a fist on the table. “I am inclined to think that was a mistake.”

She felt cold, and an irrational desire to throw off his sympathetic touch possessed her. She sat rigid, and the words dropped like stones from her mouth.

“You believe them. Without question.”

Had not Henri told her they were his enemies? Had not he said they meant to kill him? But Henri had not told her about Robespierre. Was that what he felt it would endanger her to know?

The hand closed over hers moved, shaking her fist. “Grace, my dear! Grace!”

She blinked, gazed at him blindly. “Yes?”

“You are dreadfully white,” said Sir James in a tone of concern.

He let her go and took hold of the sherry bottle, pouring a little into his used glass. Grace watched him without comprehension, and stared stupidly at the glass when he put it down in front of her. “Drink it, my dear.”

Still riding on automatic, she did so, feeling the warm liquid burn a fiery path down her throat. The icy coldness began to leave her, and her fingers trembled as she set the empty glass down. Her breath was catching badly, and she knew she was in shock. Sir James took one of her hands and began to chafe it. In a few moments, her quivering breath subsided, and she smiled gratefully at him.

“I beg your pardon. You must think me excessively foolish.”

The troubled expression was pronounced. “My dear, I think you excessively courageous. You were not to know what sort of a man you were harbouring. And that I have come here should answer your earlier query. I could not be said to have discharged my duty faithfully did I condemn a man without hearing his side of the story.”

But would Henri tell him? Had he anything in his history to set against this cruel indictment? Cruel, if it was untrue. More cruel, if he had deceived her into believing him innocent. Except that Henri had made no deception. He had simply refused to speak at all. Any deception practised upon Grace had come out of her own head. She had none but herself to blame. Certainly not Henri, who had repeatedly warned her against becoming involved in his torturous past.

An intense feeling of helplessness came over her. What price shielding him now? How could she hold out against authority, when she could no longer trust her judgement? She had fallen in love with a man who had connived in the murder of scores of people whose only crime was to be born into the wrong class of society. If he could vindicate himself, it must be to the authorities. For Grace knew she dared not believe what he might tell her.

Nevertheless, she could not withstand a terrible sensation of betrayal as she spoke the fatal words. “I had best take you up to him.”

Sir James rose, and she shied from the sympathy in his eyes. Her boot clumped at each step in rhythm with the deadly thumping at her heart. For one appalling moment, as she reluctantly took the stairs, Grace wished that Henri had died that first night. She need never then have known this agony.

She brushed the thought away, chiding herself. She could never wish him dead, no matter what he had done. Aware of Sir James behind her as she reached the top of the stairs, she gathered herself together. Nothing of what she felt must be visible in her face. Not that she had the slightest doubt Henri would immediately realise something was wrong. Unless his attention was fully taken up by the fact she had brought Sir James Levisham, Justice of the Peace, to see him, and had thereby given him up.

She clunked through the open doorway, and stopped short. The room was empty.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Grace stared at the bed, which Jemima had remade and upon which, so short a time ago, she and Henri had been sitting together, talking. The approach of Sir James’s phaeton had been hastily discussed, and Grace had gone down with the intention of putting him off.

“What is it, my dear?”

Grace turned. “He is not in his room.”

A frown creased his brow. “Had he been in the habit of remaining in here?”