CHAPTER FOUR #4
Grace felt as if a lead weight had landed in her stomach. She had failed to convince him. There was nothing for it but to feign outrage. She drew herself up, all her terror swallowed up in her fiercest tone.
“Search my house? How dare you? By what right do you presume you may enter an English lady’s home? I do not know what may be acceptable in your own country, sir, but in England you do not enter a private residence without a warrant. I will thank you to stand aside.”
Without waiting for his response, Grace limped quickly into the house and slammed the door in the man’s face. Jemima pushed past her, and swiftly turned the key in the lock.
Grace clumped to the stairs and grasped the newel post at the bottom of the banisters, her breath catching on great gulps of air.
It was a few minutes before she regained control and the flurry in her bosom subsided.
Glancing to the door, she found the maid standing with her back against it, her features taut with fear.
She put a finger to her lips, and Grace listened to the sound of male voices that reached her from beyond the door. They were not leaving.
Instinct urged her upstairs to warn Henri — if he had not heard them.
Reuben had come and gone earlier in the morning, and Henri had been resting after breakfast when the knock had brought these unwelcome visitors.
Working at her bureau, Grace had glanced through the window.
The sight of three strangers had sent her stumbling to the hall, where she had swiftly superseded Jemima, who had just opened the front door.
The interview had not gone according to plan, and Grace’s mind raced over what she might have said to make them suspicious.
She looked up, but could hear no sound from Henri’s chamber.
She dared not take the stairs while the Frenchmen remained outside, for the heavy clump of her boot must echo to their ears.
Trusting Henri was asleep, she beckoned to Jemima, who came to her on tiptoe.
“Go and peep from the kitchen window and watch what they do,” she said, low-toned. “I will wait here.”
The interval was agonising, but Grace dared not shift from the spot, afraid to give away her whereabouts. Presently Jemima reappeared. “They’ve gone back into the lane, Miss Grace.”
“Are they going?”
The maid shook her head. “Don’t look like it. Stood off in the middle of the road, talking and looking back to the house again and again.”
Grace sank down to sit on the bottom step, gazing at Jemima. “What in the world are we to do?”
“They can’t get in, Miss Grace,” Jemima assured her. And then her eyes popped. “’Sakes alive, the back door!”
She shot off down the corridor, and Grace heard the key turning in the lock. They were not in the habit of using the lean-to key, for it was rusty and once turned was near impossible to unlock again. The latch was easy to open from the outside, which was why Henri had been able to get in.
“We’ll just have to stay inside until they go,” said the maid, returning.
Grace shook her head. “No, for I am sure Mr Mayberry must come today.”
Jemima brightened. “I’d best keep a watch for him from the kitchen, Miss Grace. Them Frenchies won’t see me. And if they do, I’ll pretend to be busy with me work. Seems to me you’d best go back to your desk, miss.”
It was sensible advice. She could not remain sitting upon the stairs all day. But she knew she would not be able to concentrate without making sure Henri did nothing to give himself away inadvertently. She got up.
“Go up to Henri first, Jemima. If he is asleep, don’t disturb him. But if he is awake, tell him what has happened and that I dare not come up for fear of alerting those men with the noise of my boot. Beg him to stay in his bed, for if he should try to get up, he may be seen.”
The maid was already creeping up the stairs. Grace watched her vanish around the corner, and waited in an agony of apprehension. Jemima slipped back down, her face a picture of astonishment.
“He knows, Miss Grace. He’d been dressing hisself slowly when they come, and he heard it all.”
Dressing himself? After last night? And he had said he would not yet go. Distress burgeoned in Grace.
“He had a look at them secret-like out the window,” went on the maid, “and he says to tell you it’s them.”
This intelligence had the effect of driving out of Grace’s head everything but the present danger.
Outside her house were the men who wished Henri dead.
His would-be murderers, who had done their utmost to finish him, and who would have succeeded had he not found his way into her lean-to.
And she had failed to convince them he had already left.
“I’ll go and keep watch, shall I?” asked the maid, concern mingling with the excitement in her face.
Grace nodded. Glancing once up the stairs, half hoping to see Henri safe and sound at the top, she turned towards the parlour. What else was there to do? For the time being at least, she was a prisoner in her own house.