Page 46 of The Count’s Charade

“For the most part, especially after the Frenchmen caught us unawares on Saturday.” A faint stirring of relief was beginning to make itself felt, but Grace ignored it. “He must have come down.”

Sir James crossed to the window and looked out, peering this way and that as if he sought Henri in the lane. The conviction grew on Grace that Henri was not in the house, and she went out on to the landing, calling down the stairs.

“Jemima!”

She had to call twice more before the maid popped out of the kitchen. She was looking absurdly conscious, and Grace’s certainty grew.

“Yes, miss?”

“Have you seen Mister Henry?”

Silence. Jemima looked away, and her fingers twisted in one of her frizzed locks. Sir James joined Grace on the landing, and she began her dot-and-carry tread down the stairs. Behind her, the voice of authority was beginning to sound displeased.

“Dear me, Grace, this doesn’t look at all promising.”

Grace did not answer. She reached the bottom and caught Jemima by the arm. “Where is he?”

The maid flicked a glance at Sir James, standing on the last step, and her eyes came back to Grace. “He’s gone, Miss Grace.”

A flood of feeling cascaded into Grace’s bosom, but she gave it no name. Her control did not falter. “When?”

Jemima shuffled a little. “It were when Sir James and you was talking in the parlour. He come down quiet, like, and I seen him listening. Then he turned round and — and winked at me, miss. He put his finger to his lip, like, meaning as I shouldn’t say nothing. And then he upped and left by the back door.”

“You let him go?”

The maid began to sniffle, fidgeting with her apron. “I didn’t know as he was going, miss, not at first. I followed him after a bit. Then I seen he took his greatcoat as was hung on a hook to one side after I cleaned up the mess — for Mister Henry had laid on it when he were hiding. I rushed out then, Miss Grace, truly I did. But though I looked up and down and sideways, I couldn’t see nor hide nor hair of him.”

“But he had only been gone a couple of minutes, girl,” protested Sir James. “Surely he must have left some trace.”

“Nothing, sir. I think he must’ve gone by way o’ the wheat fields, for they’re ready for harvest, and them Frenchies had trodden ’em down Saturday, so’s none could tell if Mister Henry went the same way. He could’ve gone into the copse or round back of them bushes and none the wiser.”

It struck Grace that Henri might merely be hiding out until Sir James should have left. That he had gone, without a word of farewell to her, was impossibly wrong. Except that she ought to be glad if it was so. She was spared the misery of begging him for answers and hearing only lies.

Sir James was heading for the front door. “I’d best set Mayberry and Wooferton to send out a search party. He can’t have got far. They’re awaiting me at South Hall, so it won’t take long to set the men off after him.”

In spite of all, Grace jumped instantly to the most important defence. “You will not tell those Frenchmen he has escaped, will you?”

For the first time, Sir James showed anger. “What do you take me for, Grace? The fellow may be a damned revolutionary, but this is English soil. I’m hanged if I let a set of French upstarts dictate to me on my own ground!”

The door was tugged open, and with a brief word of farewell, he was gone. In a moment, they could hear the sound of his horses, speeding away down the lane.

Ignoring the twittering emanating from her maid, Grace stumped slowly back into the parlour and slumped down into the chair at her bureau. Sagging, she dropped her face into her hands.

“Oh, Miss Grace, don’t be downhearted! I’m sure as Mister Henry will be safe. He won’t let hisself be taken, for he ain’t no fool.”

No, indeed. He was rather a man keenly intelligent, who knew exactly how to avoid revealing the most incriminating truths.

“I’ll get you some tea, Miss Grace,” said Jemima briskly. “That’ll put heart into you, that will.”

Grace thanked her, glad only that it gave the girl something to do and kept her away. She desperately needed time to think.

In the event, she had too much time.

The sound of the hunt had died away in the little house at Wonts. Grace had listened to the calling of the men across the fields as the steady search went on into the evening. In her imagination, she followed Henri as he kept just sufficiently ahead, dropping out of sight every time any one of them threatened too close for safety. Almost she could see him tiring, and visualise the slowing down of his weakened frame, the ache that must be setting up in his shoulder.

She was glad she had not told Sir James of Henri’s declared scheme of heading north. Reuben, who might have done so, was not among the searchers. Nor had Mab arrived. Had her stepson told her Henri had gone? Or had the news of his disappearance and the subsequent search not filtered as far as East Hall? Both Mayberry’s farmhands and Wooferton’s own men, brought from Rainham, had joined the hunt, which presupposed the inevitable end expected to Sir James Levisham’s visit. They had been in readiness to take Henri the moment he gave the word.

Whatever he had done, whatever his past actions in France, Grace could not make it any easier for the authorities. Had she not been numb with shock, she knew she would have done all in her power to prevent Sir James from meeting Henri. As it was, he had taken matters into his own hands and she was spared the guilt of having betrayed him.