“You are Mrs. Challoner?” the Duchess said directly.
She spoke with a decided French accent, which further surprised her hostess. Sophia was also surprised, and exclaimed without ceremony: “Lord, are you Vidal’s mamma, then?”
Léonie looked at her from her head to her heels till Sophia blushed and began to fidget. Then she once more surveyed Mrs. Challoner, who remembered her manners, told her daughter to hold her tongue, and pulled forward a chair. “Pray, will not your grace be seated?”
“Thank you,” Léonie said, and sat down. “Madame, I am informed that your daughter has eloped with my son, which is a thing I find not very easy to understand. So I come to you that you may explain to me how this is at all possible.”
Mrs. Challoner dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, and protested that she was nigh distracted with grief and shame. “For Mary is a good girl, your grace, and elope with his lordship she would never do. Ma’am, your son has abducted my poor innocent child by force!”
“Tiens!” said the Duchess with polite interest. “My son is then a house-breaker. He perhaps stole her from beneath your roof, madame?’
Mrs. Challoner let the handkerchief fall. “From under my roof? How could he do that? No, indeed!”
“It is what I ask myself,” said the Duchess. “He laid a trap for her, perhaps, and seized her in the street, and carried her off with a gag and a rope.”
Mrs. Challoner eyed her with hostility. The Duchess met her look limpidly, and waited. “You don’t understand, ma’am,” said Mrs. Challoner.
“Assuredly I do not understand. You say my son abducted your daughter with force. Eh bien, I demand of you how this could be done in the middle of London. I find M. le Marquis has been extremely clever if he could arrange so difficult a rape.”
Mrs. Challoner flushed scarlet. “Ma’am! I must beg of you!”
“It is not then a rape?”
“Oh, I—yes, indeed and it is, and I will have justice done, ma’am, and so I tell you!”
“I too desire to have justice done,” said the Duchess softly. “But I am not a fool, madame, and when you talk to me of rapes you talk of what I do not at all believe. If your daughter was not willing she could make a great outcry, and it seems to me that in London there is someone who will hear and come to her rescue.”
“I see, ma’am, you have not heard the whole. Let me explain to you that it was not Mary his lordship wanted, but my little Sophia here. He has been for ever upon my doorstep, and I fear, ma’am, he has quite turned the child’s head. I blush to confess it to your grace, but he attempted to seduce Sophia, of course unbeknownst to me. I do not know what lies he told her, but he had it all arranged to fly with her. I have reared her very strict, ma’am, and how should she dream he did not mean marriage? She thought he would take her to Gretna Green. Oh, I’ll not deny it was mighty foolish and wrong of her, but girls will have these romantic fancies, your grace, and heaven knows what persuasions his lordship may have used. No, Sophy, be quiet!”
Léonie looked at the indignant Sophia, and smiled. “You present to me my son in a new r61e,” she said. “I have never known him to take so much trouble. It seems he was in love with you quite en désespéré.”
“He did love me!” Sophia said chokingly. “He never looked at Mary! Never!”
“Hold your tongue, Sophy! Not but what it is true, ma’am. His lordship was mad for the child. But Mary took it’ into her head ’twas not marriage he intended, and what she did was to save her sister from ruin.”
“It is of a nobility almost incredible, madame. What did this Mary do?”
Mrs. Challoner threw out her hands dramatically. “She took Sophia’s place, ma’am. It was night, and she was masked, for Sophia has found an old loo-mask gone from her drawer. What she had in mind to do I know not, but she meant to return, your grace. And all this was five days ago, and there is no sign of my poor girl. His lordship has run off with her to France.”
“Indeed?” Léonie said. “You have good information, madame. Who told you that M. le Marquis has gone to France? It is not known to many.”
Mrs. Challoner cast a startled glance at Sophia. “I told mamma,” Sophia said sullenly.
“You interest me—oh, but very much, mademoiselle! You thought, en effet, that he would go to Scotland, and he told you that he would go to France.”
“I see that your grace has guessed it!” Mrs. Challoner said desperately. “Sophia, leave the room. I have something of a private nature to say to her grace.”
“I won’t leave the room,” Sophia answered rebelliously. “You mean to make Vidal wed Mary, and it is not fair! He loves me, me, me! Mary stole him, the mean cat, but she shan’t have him!”
“Ah, I perceive the truth!” said Léonie. “It is Miss Mary Challoner who has abducted my son. I make her my compliments.”
“It is no such thing!” broke in Mrs. Challoner. “Alas, it is true that Sophia here would have gone with my lord to France, and dreadful it is to me to have to own to it. But girls will be for ever reading romances, ma’am, as I make no doubt your grace knows. Yes, Sophia was swept off her feet by his lordship’s wiles, but Mary stepped in with some scheme of her own to send my lord packing. She has saved her poor sister at the price of her own honour, ma’am!”
Léonie said thoughtfully: “It is strange, I find, that this so noble sister did not rattier inform you, madame, of what mademoiselle here meant to do. You, who have reared your daughters with such strictness, could have arranged matters more easily, is it not so?”
“Indeed, and I do not know why Mary did not tell me, ma’am, but she is an odd secret girl, and will for ever be thinking she knows better than her mamma.”
Léonie rose. She was smiling, but her dark eyes were bright with anger. “You do not know? Then me, I will tell you. It is plain to me that mademoiselle Mary has thought that she will become Madame la Marquise, and not her sister. As to that, we shall see. You have said to my sister that you will make one big scandal. Vous pouvez vous éviter de la peine, madame; it is I who will make the scandal. I do not desire that my son should have a liaison with your daughter, for she appears to me to be a young woman not at all comme il faut. I shall go to Paris at once, and I shall bring this clever Mary back to you in good time. And if you are so stupid that you cry aloud that the Marquis my son has carried off your daughter you will look even more foolish than you do now, for it will be seen that I am with M. le Marquis, and I think if I say I was with him all the time people will perhaps believe my word before that of Madame Challoner. Que pensez-vous, madame?”
Mrs. Challoner came to her feet in a hurry, and said loudly: “Ho, ma’am, and is that how it is to be? And do you think my poor deceived girl will have nothing to say to that fine tale? She shall declare her wrongs to the world, for I’ll make her, and I’ll see she is heard!”
Léonie gave a light, scornful laugh. “Vraiment? It is a story so silly, madame, that I think people will say ‘quel tas de bêtises!’ and not at all believe you. And me I shall say only that this Mary forced herself upon my son, and I shall be believed, madame, do not doubt.” She swept a curtsy, ignored Sophia, who was gaping at her in astonishment, and walked out of the room before Mrs. Challoner could collect her scattered wits.