“Dozens of admirers,” Mr. Fitzhugh said stoutly. “Have to beat ’em off with a stick.”
“Ah,” said the chevalier with amusement. “Due to the lack of a dog. You might want to invest in one. It would save the wear and tear on the trees.”
“I thank you for your advice, Monsieur de la Tour d’Argent.”
There he was, Captain Musgrave, standing near the refreshment table, a silver cup in one hand. Arabella could see the steam rising off it in long curls, framing his face like a picture carried in a locket.
The chevalier grinned at Arabella. “Why not just call me ‘limb of Satan’ and have done with it?”
“Because some people, Nicolas, have manners,” said the chevalier’s cousin.
There were clusters of people on either side of Captain Musgrave, but not with him. He stood alone between the chattering groups while Arabella’s aunt gossiped with a nearby matron. As Arabella watched, he looked up, his eyes meeting hers across the clearing, across a divide of two months and one ring.
“Is that what you teach?” Arabella heard Jane ask Mlle de Fayette, dutifully making conversation. “Deportment?”
“Teach?” repeated Lady Vaughn, as though the word were unfamiliar to her.
The crowd moved again and he was gone, blocked out. Arabella looked abruptly away, forcing herself to focus on her companions. Act naturally, she admonished herself. The point was to look as though she were enjoying herself.
“I teach French,” said Mlle de Fayette. “It is a logical subject for me, no?”
“Oh, yes!” agreed Arabella enthusiastically. Too enthusiastically. Jane gave her a strange look.
“Do you like it?” asked Jane. “Teaching?”
Mlle de Fayette exchanged a wry look with her cousin. “It was not entirely a matter of choice, but it has its compensations. Today, however...” Leaning forward confidentially, she said, “There is a situation of the most awkward. A student of the school is here today, against all prohibitions.”
“A former student of the school. Asked to leave for conduct unbecoming young ladies,” chimed in the chevalier, in his nearly accentless English. “Who knew that an all-girls’ academy could be such a very interesting place?”
“It is not supposed to be,” said his cousin severely. “That is the point. It was very sad for Miss Carruthers and her family. Miss Climpson has allowed her to stay until the end of term, but after that...”
“Carruthers? Not Catherine Carruthers?” inquired Mr. Fitzhugh.
“I take it you know her, Fitzhugh?” said Vaughn.
“Not like that!” Mr. Fitzhugh’s ears went red. “Used to be friends with m’sister. Sally.”
“Ah,” said Mlle de Fayette, placing a hand confidingly on his arm. “Then you know the story. If you will excuse me. I must ask Signor Marconi if he has seen her. I must get her back to the school before her parents or others find out.”
“How did she get out here?” asked Mr. Fitzhugh. “Girls don’t make a usual practice of these jaunts, do they?”
“It is of the doing of the cousin, Lord ’Enry Innes. He says he did not know she was meant to be confined to the school.” Mlle de Fayette gave a brisk shake of her head. “It is of the most uncomfortable. One does not like to offend Lord Henry, but the parents of Catherine were most particular in their instructions. So I must find her and take her back. If you will pardon me?”
This time, no one stopped her. With a curtsy to the group at large, she hurried away, towards the man with the droopy mustaches, who had just moved on from “Helas” to “Flora Gave Us Fairest Flowers.”
“Signor Marconi is the music master at Miss Climpson’s,” explained the chevalier. “Although he also provides entertainment for private parties. He came very highly recommended.”
If he sounded slightly dubious, Arabella could understand why. Even to her untrained ear, Flora’s flowers were flat.
The chevalier shrugged. “To teach and to practice are two very different things. One may discuss what one might never do.” His gaze made a slow circuit of the assembled company. “Just as one might do things one might never discuss.”
A kiss for example, stolen between a dining room and a drawing room, two long months ago.
Captain Musgrave still stood by the refreshment table, his hair sticking out at odd angles under his hat. He had been joined by her aunt, a head shorter, her hand resting familiarly on Musgrave’s arm. She wore a coronet of egret feathers, spangled with some shiny substance that glittered in the winter sunlight.
Aunt Osborne started to turn, and Arabella braced herself for the greeting to come, the exclamations, the embraces, the explanations.
But before Aunt Osborne could spot Arabella, Captain Musgrave turned his wife away with a laugh and a light touch on her arm, directing her attention to the refreshment table. As Aunt Osborne exclaimed over the syllabub, Arabella fell back, the fixed smile frozen on her face.
Her aunt hadn’t seen her, that she was sure of, but Musgrave had.
“Well, jolly good meeting you,” said Mr. Fitzhugh jovially to the chevalier, and tugged at Arabella’s arm. “Shouldn’t like to keep the ladies from the ruins. Early dark in winter and all that, you know.”
Entirely unperturbed, the chevalier smiled at Jane. “If ruins you came for, then the ruins you must see. Might I commandeer the humble task of serving as your escort? Ladies? And Mr. Fitzhugh, of course.”
Arabella looked away from Musgrave and her aunt.
She put her hand on Mr. Fitzhugh’s arm and smiled prettily up at him. She made sure not to catch Jane’s eye. Jane saw far too much. As the chevalier had said, there were some things one didn’t discuss.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Let’s go see the ruins.”
Chapter 7
Turnip tucked Miss Dempsey’s arm through his as they strolled through the jagged walls where the Great Hall must once have been, following Miss Austen and the Cheval-whatever-his-name-was.
Deuced silly name, that. Foreigners. Couldn’t do anything properly.
“Not that a chap doesn’t generally like to give the chaps the benefit of the doubt, but there’s something rum about that Cheval-whatever-you-call-it,” muttered Turnip.
Not good rum, either. The sort of rum that tasted good in punch but gave a chap a headache the morning after.
“Pardon?” said Miss Dempsey. Visibly collecting herself, she turned her attention to Turnip. “What did you say?”
“Oh, nothing. Just not all that keen on the French chappy. Something deuced dodgy about him.”
Being no slouch, Miss Dempsey picked up on his meaning without his having to say anything more. “You don’t think the chevalier had something to do with the pudding, do you?”
“He is French,” said Turnip. “And his cousin works at the school. Might have been visiting her yesterday, for all we know. Skulking around out back.”
“He doesn’t seem the skulking sort,” said Miss Dempsey, regarding the chevalier with interest. Too much interest.
“You can never tell what a chap might get up to in his spare time. Just because a man doesn’t have leaves on his knees doesn’t mean he ain’t a villain.”
“Or a spy?” Miss Dempsey smiled at him. The tip of her nose was pink and her lips were slightly chapped from the wind. “If I were the French secret service, I would try to employ someone a little less obviously French. Even without the accent, his name is a dead giveaway.”
“What would you call him, then?” asked Turnip.
Miss Dempsey considered, turning her face up to the sun where it gilded the old gray battlements. The tips of her lashes glittered gold in the sunlight. “Smith,” she said. “Or Jones. Something plain and nondescript. Something English.”
Sensible, but it lacked a certain panache. Who had ever heard of a hero named Smith? The man would be laughed right out of the Black Mask Club.
“I prefer Fotheringay-Bumblethorpe, myself,” said Turnip. “Has a nice ring to it. Rolls pleasantly off the tongue.”