Page 61 of The Count’s Charade

“Don’t say that, Mrs Lamport,” begged Jemima, who had brought coffee to the parlour and was hovering, one anxious eye on her mistress. “Miss Grace didn’t want him to go, and no more did I. He’s a good man is Mister Henry.”

Mab gave the maid a withering glance. “It don’t make no difference how good he is, Jemima Piper. As long as he’s a trouble to Miss Grace, in my book he ain’t welcome.”

The maid tossed her head. “Oh, and I s’pose as you wouldn’t know what kind o’ trouble she’d be in if’n he did go off and leave her?”

Grace intervened swiftly, before her old nurse could interpret this remark in the only way possible. “Do be quiet, Jemima!”

Mab’s eyes grew round as she turned them on Grace. “What in the world —?”

“Never mind it, Mab. Nothing matters beyond Henri’s safety.”

“But she said —”

Jemima grew jumpy, clearly realising her mistake. “No, I never, Mrs Lamport! I didn’t say no word as you could take amiss.”

“Listen to me, both of you,” cut in Grace as the nurse showed signs of argument. “Whatever may have happened in this house is no longer relevant. What does concern me is that Henri is being held at the Black Horse, where the Frenchmen are staying.”

“What, them as dared to come here and search this house?” Mab’s belligerence veered. “They’d best try anything under Sir James Levisham’s eye, that’s all I can say.”

Jemima’s features reflected something of Grace’s anxiety. “But Mister Henry will be under Mr Wooferton’s eye, miss. Maybe Mr Mayberry’s too.”

“Besides, didn’t them Frenchies purpose on taking him back to France?”

Grace brought her hands flat down to the table with a bang. “You don’t understand, either of you! Do you think it was an accident that they shot Henri? They want him dead!”

Both women looked at her dazedly. Jemima was the first to recover, addressing the nurse. “She’s right, Mrs Lamport. You never seen them come in here searching for Mister Henry. A set of murdering beasts, they are, who wouldn’t stop at nothing.”

Mab looked from one to the other, consternation gathering in her eyes. “Does Sir James know this?”

Grace shook her head. “No one knows, except Henri and I, and now the two of you. But Sir James will not believe it, even were he told. He thinks they mean to take Henri to France to stand trial.”

Jemima made a derisive noise. “We all know what them Frenchified trials is like. Pa told me as they ain’t nothing but a sham. If Sir James give Mister Henry over to them Frenchies, he might as well kill him hisself.”

“And if he keeps him here,” said Grace bitterly, “he will be obliged to put Henri on trial as a spy, since it must by now be common knowledge he was working for the Revolutionary Government.”

It was apparent this was news to Mab, for she grew pink, staring at her erstwhile mistress in horror. “That’s all we need! To have all the world think as you’ve been and got yourself a lover who ain’t nothing more than a nasty murdering revolutionary!”

“Mister Henry ain’t never one o’ them! He wouldn’t have nothing to do with that there horrid machine as is made for chopping off of folk’s heads.”

Grace sighed. “Yes, but the fact remains he was one of them, Jemima. He admitted as much to me last night.”

After a stunned moment, the maid burst into tears, flinging her apron up over her face. Mab pushed her into a chair, and the two of them spent several moments petting and soothing her into hiccupping sobs.

“To think you’ve been nursing a snake in your bosom, Miss Grace,” she said in broken accents. “To think I’ve let meself be fooled and all. And I thought to see him get to be master here, and you to be so very happy, Miss Grace.”

Grace let out a painful laugh. “There was never any hope of that, Jemima.” She caught her nurse’s astounded gaze, and got up from her chair. “You need not look like that, Mab. You cannot suppose a man like Henri Rousselle could be persuaded to marry such a creature as I am.”

Jemima was on her feet. “But he could, Miss Grace. I ain’t no jobbernoll, and I seen the way he looks at you. What’s more —” Here she broke off, reddening, and Grace could only be thankful, remembering how the maid had taken in the rumpled bedclothes this morning. She made haste to deflect Mab’s attention.

“This is all beside the bridge. Mab, I wish you will go home at once and ask Reuben to go to the Black Horse and glean what information he can.”

The nurse bustled out of her chair. “There ain’t no need to fret, Miss Grace, for I’ve already sent him. He’s to come through here on his way back.”

Moved, Grace thanked her, but kept to herself the notion she might pen a note for Henri to give to Reuben. He could deliver it the next day, if Wooferton would permit his prisoner to receive letters. She suspected that if he knew it came from her, he would bend the rules. If he could, Henri would write back, she was sure. She refused to let herself dwell on the possibility it might be the last communication between them.

When the nurse left them, the unnatural quiet closed once more around her. It was augmented on this occasion by Jemima’s retirement into dismal sulks, alienated by the revelation about Henri’s activities in France. The maid, though evidently fond of Henri, had not the consuming self-interest of love to overcome her revulsion. Had she the truest acquaintance with Henri, Jemima would know there must be extenuation.

Caught up in subsequent events, Grace had forgotten her own conviction. It came back to her as question now, and she found her mind dwelling upon it as she clumped slowly back from seeing off Mab and seated herself at the bureau. Henri’s papers were still secreted behind the false shelf. Why had he not asked her for them? He had given himself up. Surely he had a plan? Unless —