"The deuce you did! I had thought very few people knew of this habit of mine. Don't betray me, if you please. I don't want an escort."
"Shall I go?" enquired the Colonel with uplifted brows.
She reined in again to walk. "No. You have had the luck to encounter me in a charming mood, which is not a thing that happens every day of the week. I warn you, I have the most damnable temper, and it is generally at its worst before breakfast."
"Oh, that is capital!" declared the Colonel. "You show me how I can be of real service to you. I will engage to be here to quarrel with you any morning you may wish for a sparring partner."
"I think," she said quite seriously, "that you would not make a good sparring partner. You would spare me too much."
"Not I!"
She did not answer. A solitary horseman, cantering down the avenue towards them, had caught her attention. As he drew nearer, she turned to the Colonel with one of her wicked looks, and said: "You are about to meet the Captain Count de Lavisse. Shall you like that? He is quite charming!"
"Then obviously I shall," he answered. "But I thought you said he was stationed at Nivelles?"
"Oh, he has leave, I suppose!" she said carelessly.
The Captain Count, very smart in a blue uniform with a scarlet-and-white collar, and a broad-topped shako, set at an angle on his handsome head, drew rein before them, and saluted with a flourish. "Well met, Bab! Your servant, mon Colonel!"
The Colonel just touched his hat in acknowledgment of this magnificent salute, but the lady blew a kiss from the tips of her fingers. "Let me make you known to each other," she offered.
The Count flung up a hand. "Unnecessary! We have met already, and there is between us an unpaid score. I accuse you of volerie, Colonel, and demand instant separation!"
"Your waltzes, were they?" said the Colonel. "My sympathy is unbounded, believe me, but what can I do? The Duke is devilish down on duelling, or I should be happy to oblige. You will have to accept my profound apologies."
"This is dissimulation of the most base! I am assured that you would serve me again the same tour - if you could!" said the Count gaily. His eyes rested for an instant on Barbara's ungloved right hand. He made no comment, but there was a gleam of understanding in the glance he flashed at the Colonel. He wheeled his horse, and fell in beside Barbara. Across her, he addressed Colonel Audley: "Your first visit to Brussels?"
"No, I was here last year for a short space. A delightful town, Count."
The Count bowed. "A compliment indeed - from one who has known Vienna! Our endeavours must be united to preserve it from the Corsican maraudeur."
"Your endeavours may be," remarked Barbara, "but I have met some who wish quite otherwise."
He stiffened. "Persons of no consequence, I assure you!"
"By no means!"
"Madame, when the time comes you shall see how the suspected Belgians shall comport themselves!" He threw a somewhat darkling look at Colonel Audley, and added: "Rest assured, we are aware what malveillants reports have been spread of us in England, and by whom! Is it not so, mon Colonel? Have you not been warned that our sympathies are with Bonaparte, that we are, in effect, indignes de confiance?"
The Colonel responded with easy tact, but lost no time in turning the conversation into less dangerous channels. A civil interchange was maintained throughout the remainder of the ride, but the Lady Barbara, suddenly capricious, was silent. Only when they arrived at Vidal's house in the Rue Ducale did she seem to recover from her mood of abstraction. She gave the Colonel her hand then, and the shadow of a tantalising smile. "Do you really care to quarrel with me, Colonel?"
"Above all things!"
"You have not met my brother and his wife, I think? They are holding a soiree here tomorrow evening. It will be confoundedly boring, but come!"
"Thank you: I shall not fail."
A few minutes later, Barbara dropped into a chair at her brother's breakfast table, and tossed her forage cap on to another. Vidal said peevishly: "I suppose you have been making yourself remarkable. If you choose to ride out before breakfast, you may for all I care, but I wish you will not go unescorted!"
"No such thing! I was escorted - I was doubly escorted! Tell me all you know of Charles Audley, Robert."
"I don't know anything of him. How should I?"
"A younger son, with no prospects," said Augusta trenchantly.
"But with such charm of manner, Gussie!"
"I daresay."
"And such delightful smiling eyes!"
"Good God, Bab, what is all this?"
"Oh, I have had the most enchanting morning!" Barbara sighed. "They rode on either side of me, Etienne and this new suitor of mine, and how they disliked one another! I have invited Charles Audley to your party, by the way."
"Oh, very well! But what is the matter with you? What is there in all this to put you in such spirits?"
"I have lost my heart - to a younger son!"
"Now you are being absurd. You will be tired of him in a week," said Augusta with a shrug.
Chapter Five
From the Rue Ducale, with its houses facing the Park and backing on to the ramparts of the town, to Worth's residence off the Rue de Bellevue, was not far. Colonel Audley arrived in good time for breakfast, laughing off his sister-in-law's demand to know what could have possessed him to ride out so early after a late night, listened meekly to some pithy comments from his brother on his appropriation of the Doll, swallowed his breakfast, and made off on foot to the Duke of Wellington's Headquarters in the Rue Royale. This broad street lay on the opposite side of the Park to the Rue Ducale, its houses overlooking it. Two of these made up the British Headquarters, but the guard posted outside consisted merely of Belgian gendarmerie, the Duke, whose tact in handling foreigners rarely deserted him, having professed himself perfectly satisfied with such an arrangement.
The Duke, when Colonel Audley arrived, was closeted with the Prince of Orange, who had brought with him a welter of reports, letters for his Grace from Lord Bathurst, the English Secretary for War, and his own instructions from the British Commander-in-Chief, his Royal Highness the Duke of York. Colonel Audley, learning of this circumstance from Lord march, whom he met in the hall, ran upstairs to a large apartment on the first floor overlooking the Park, where he found two of his fellow aides-de-camp, in curiously informal attire, kicking their heels.
A stranger, unaware of the Duke of Wellington's indifference to the manner in which his officers chose to dress themselves, might have found it difficult that either of the two gentlemen in the outer office could be n aide-de-camp on duty. Fremantle, lounging in a chair with his legs thrust out before him, was certainly wearing a frock-coat, but had no sash; while Colonel the Honourable Sir Alexander Gordon, who was seated by the window, engaged in waving to acquaintances passing in the street below, was frankly civilian in appearance, his frock-coat being (he said) quite unfit for further service.
Fremantle was looking harassed, but Gordon's sunny temper seemed to be unimpaired.
"In the immortal words of our colleague, Colin Campbell," he was saying, as Colonel Audley strolled in."Don't be so damned cheerful!" begged Fremantle. His jaundiced eye alighted on Colonel Audley's immaculate staff dress. "Lord, aren't we military this morning!" he remarked. "That ought to please the Beau we have had one snap already about officers presenting themselves for duty in improper dress."
"Oh!" said Audley. "Crusty, is he?"
"Yes, and he'll be worse by the time he's done with Slender Billy's lists and requisitions and morning states," replied Fremantle, with a jerk of his head towards the door leading to the Duke's office.
Gordon, who was looking down into the street, announced: "Here comes old Lowe. I wonder whether he's realised yet that the Duke doesn't like being told how he ought to equip his army? Someone ought to drop him a hint."