Free The Adventuress by Carole Nelson Douglas Page A

twenty, and my father, although a righteous country parson, had not a relative to whom to commend me, nor a pence in his pocket—save what he had collected from the parish poor box. You must convince your aunt and uncle of your innocence; if they spurn you, you can find work. Independence does wonders for a woman.”
    Louise gazed at me in horror through a shining glaze of tears. “Employment?”
    I was about to sing the praises of self-support when Irene interrupted. “Miss Huxleigh is certainly right; you must convince your guardians of your innocence.”
    “But how?” the silly child wailed.
    Godfrey was ready with a concrete suggestion. “Continue your narrative. Who were these men who abducted you? How many? Where did the kidnapping occur? How was your uncle’s man eluded?”
    “Pierre? True, Pierre did not intervene.” Louise frowned, then rubbed her temples. “My head aches so. I remember little from the time I was walking in the Bois de Boulogne until I awakened in that horrible room, discovered my injury, and staggered to the street to find the river awaiting me. It shone like a broad gold-and- silver braid in the late-afternoon sunlight. I—I could not live in this condition. I ran into the water. Its cold numbed me, like the sheets of a December bed. I was sinking into icy, sweet oblivion when Monsieur Norton appeared beside me and kept tugging me back to shore, back to shame, kept pulling me away from the cool, silent river!”
    Irene rose and perched on the arm of Louise’s chair, pressing a hand on the girl’s quaking shoulders. “Shhh, my dear.” She eyed us, saying softly, “I questioned her delicately while I arranged her toilette. I am convinced that the tattoo was the extent of the men’s mischief, and further that they used chloroform to drug her, then dragged her into a waiting carriage.”
    “What of this Pierre?” Godfrey wondered.
    “Duped. Or...”
    “An accomplice,” I breathed.
    “It grows late, little one,” Irene whispered into the girl’s ear. “You must compose yourself and return home.”
    “Home? Never!”
    “Soon,” Irene insisted, “else our excuses for your unheralded absence will not ring true. We will say that you took ill upon the street. My husband and I drove you away in our carriage—for did we not do just that this very evening?—to our quite respectable residence in Neuilly, where you did not recover until now, when we promptly brought you home. The maid has dried and freshened your clothing. You can return home as if nothing has happened.”
    “But, but—” As more than one had done before her, Louise fell speechless in the face of Irene’s relentless will. “I am utterly altered, Madame!”
    “Tut, tut!” Irene brushed a tendril from her charge’s cheek. “I have a marvelous tinted cream that will obscure your . . . um, interesting adornment. Some women willingly submit to the tattoo artist’s needle, did you know that? Perhaps not very respectable women, but some who are quite famous.”
    “You, Madame?”
    Irene’s forefinger closed Louise’s gaping mouth. “Not... as yet.”
    “Irene!” I managed to choke out.
    “But I have heard—” At this, Irene leaned close to Louise’s ear and whispered something. The girl’s eyes grew as round as her mouth had been.
    “You are certain, Madame? She?”
    “Indeed. So there may come a day when you will flaunt your most interesting souvenir of an adventure. But for now, you can easily hide it from even your maid, if you take care.”
    “Why should I perform such a charade when a letter may come any day to my uncle announcing my alteration?”
    “Why? Because we are going to get to the bottom of this puzzle. Ah, that is an English turn of phrase, don’t look so bewildered; we are going to—”
    “Find the villains,” Godfrey said acerbically, with the look of a Sidney Carton who has just seen his guillotine looming.
    Irene adapted his phraseology without hesitation. “Find the