Free Mademoiselle At Arms by Elizabeth Bailey Page B

Kimble nodded eagerly. ‘Aye, miss, like a shadow. I done
just what you asked.’
    Melusine was quite aware of the effect she had on the young
lad. She was sorry for his liking her too much for his own good, but her need
was too desperate to cavil at turning it to useful account. She had need of a devoted
cavalier and Jack had proved eminently valuable.
    ‘That is good,’ she said with satisfaction, ‘for I was
compelled on Saturday to abandon the chase.’
    Kimble’s eyes widened. ‘Was you following, too, miss?’
    ‘Certainly I was following. Only that I was prevented by one
of those soldiers that caught me in the big house.’
    ‘Militia, miss,’ Kimble corrected her. ‘They weren’t no
soldiers.’
    ‘They wear a uniform, do they not? They march and fight with
swords and shoot with guns, no?’
    ‘Well, yes, miss.’                                                                                                                      
    ‘Then they are soldiers. And me, I know very much of soldiers.
One must be on guard. Now do not make me any more arguments, but tell me at
once where that pig is gone.’
    Jack blinked. ‘Pig, miss?’
    ‘The one who calls himself Valade, idiot ,’ snapped
Melusine impatiently.
    ‘Oh, the Frenchie. On Saturday he went to that there Mr
Charvill’s house. In Hamilton Place that is, like I told you before, miss.’
    ‘Yes, that is Mr Brewis Charvill, as you have found out for
me.’ She struck her hands together. ‘ Parbleu , that pig, he will ruin all.
Did he see him, this Monsieur Charvill?’
    ‘I don’t rightly know, miss,’ confessed Kimble. ‘At least I
couldn’t say for sure. He went in there, and he was in there for a good half
hour. But I never seen Mr Charvill, and when the Frenchie come out, I followed
him again, like you told me. But he only went home again to Paddington.’
    Melusine swung away and moved to stare dully out of the
window of the little chapel vestry onto the mews outside. At this time of day
the priest would be at his apartments in Brewer Street, a short walk away from Golden Square which the building overlooked. The house had in fact been converted into a
convent, but the fact could not be advertised, not even in the Catholic enclave
that existed in this part of town. The nuns wore their habit, and said all
their offices, and went about their tasks unobtrusively, relieving the poor and
needy and tending the sick. They troubled no one, and as long as they did not
noise themselves abroad and make a nuisance of themselves in this Protestant
country, no one troubled them.
    The vestry was perhaps the only room in the place, except her
allotted curtained off portion of the dormitory chamber that served for her
cell—and she could not scandalise the nuns by having a man in there, be he
never so much a servant—where Melusine could be sure of privacy. It was
situated off a little hallway that led also to the kitchens and the back door
to the outside. It was convenient for Father Saint-Simon, who could enter this
way and prepare in the little room before going up the narrow stair to the
chapel above where the nuns waited.
    There was little more here than a sideboard, a chest for the
vestments, and a simple wooden chair. But it was generally unused, and so was a
suitable spot for these secret meetings, when Melusine plotted and delivered
her instructions to Jack Kimble. He was officially in the nun’s employ, but
Melusine had commandeered his services immediately on the discovery that he had
conceived a passion for her. Leonardo had told her it would happen, and warned
her to make use of it. It troubled her conscience a little, but Melusine had
learned well of Leonardo and she trusted his word
    Besides, no one could expect that a jeune demoiselle ,
in a foreign land, might carry out quite alone the difficult task with which
she was