These Old Shades (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 1)

Enlightenment came to Merivale.

‘Of course I remember! Why in the world did he pretend he wanted to meet Alastair?’

‘I don’t like him,’ Jennifer said, troubled. ‘His eyes make me shiver. I think he is not a good man.’

‘What puzzles me,’ said Rupert, ‘is why he should be the living spit of Léonie.’

Merivale started up.

‘That is it, then! I could not think where I had seen her like! What does it all mean?’

‘Oh, but she is not like him!’ protested Jennifer. ‘’Tis but the red hair makes you say so. Léonie has a sweet little face!’

‘Red hair and dark eyebrows,’ said Rupert. ‘Damme, I believe there’s more in this than we think! It’s like Justin to play a deep game, stap me if it isn’t!’

Merivale laughed at him.

‘What game, rattle-pate?’

‘I don’t know, Tony. But if you’d lived with Justin for as many years as I have you wouldn’t laugh. Justin hasn’t forgot the quarrel, I’ll swear! He never forgets. There’s something afoot, I’ll be bound.’

Seventeen

Of a Capture, a Chase, and Confusion

Oh, parbleu !’ Léonie said in disgust. ‘This Rupert he is always late, the vaurien !’

‘My dearest love,’ Madam Field reproved her. ‘That expression! Indeed, it is not becoming in a young lady! I must beg of you –’

‘To-day I am not a lady at all,’ said Léonie flatly. ‘I want Monseigneur to come.’

‘My dear, it is hardly proper in you to –’

‘Ah, bah!’ said Léonie, and walked away.

She went to her own apartment, and sat disconsolately down at the window.

‘It is two weeks since Monseigneur wrote,’ she reflected. ‘And then he said, I come soon now. Voyons, this is no way to keep that promise! And Rupert is late again.’ A sparkle came into her eyes. She jumped up. ‘I will have a game with Rupert,’ she said.

With this intention she pulled her boy’s raiment out of the cupboard, and struggled out of her skirts. Her hair had grown, but it was not yet long enough to be confined in the nape of her neck by a riband. It clustered about her head still in a myriad of soft curls. She brushed it back from her forehead, dressed herself in shirt and breeches and coat, and catching up her tricorne, swaggered downstairs. Luckily Madam Field was nowhere to be seen, so she escaped without let or hindrance into the garden. It was the first time she had ventured out of doors in her boy’s gear, and since it was an illicit pleasure her eyes twinkled naughtily. Rupert, with all his laxity, had in him a quaint streak of prudery, as she knew.

He would of a certainty be shocked to see her parading the grounds thus clad, and as this was precisely what she wanted she set out in the hope of meeting him, making for the woods that ran down towards the road.

Half-way across the big meadow that separated her from the woodland she espied Rupert coming from the stables, carrying his hat under his arm, and whistling jauntily. Léonie cupped her hands about her mouth.

‘Ohé, Rupert!’ she called gleefully.

Rupert saw her, stood still for a moment, and then came striding towards her.

‘Fiend seize it, what will you be at next?’ he shouted. ‘’Pon my soul, it’s scandalous, stap me if it’s not! Home with you, you hoyden!’

‘I shall not, Milor’ Rupert!’ she cried tauntingly, and danced away. ‘You cannot make me!’

‘Can I not, then?’ called Rupert, and, dropping his hat, broke into a run.

Léonie straightway dived into the wood, and fled as for her life, for she knew very well that if he caught her Rupert would have no hesitation in picking her up and carrying her back to the house.

‘Wait till I catch you!’ threatened Rupert, crashing through the undergrowth. ‘Damme, I’ve torn my ruffle, and the lace cost me fifteen guineas! Plague take it, where are you!’