CHAPTER SEVEN
Grace heard Henri curse under his breath, but she felt numb with shock. They had sat and talked in full view of the parlour window. Had his enemies looked from the lane and seen him? Or had they marched straight up to the door? Either way, it mattered little. He must be hidden, and at once.
Jemima was waiting, looking to Grace to deal with this as she had dealt with everything else. She must think!
“Did you see if all three were there?” Henri asked the maid.
She nodded. “I looked through the kitchen window, Mister Henry. There’s been that many fools come calling, I’ve taken to checking before going to the door.”
“Thank the Lord you did!” said Grace. Her mind was working overtime. It was no use trying to keep them out. She would let them search the house, but Henri would not be found. A plan was beginning to formulate.
She grabbed the maid’s arm. “Jemima, do you get to the lean-to and throw some clothes into the washtub.” Mystified, but willing, the maid turned.
Grace stopped her. “No, wait! Run upstairs first — as quietly as you can — and strip the sheets from Henri’s bed.
Lay up the covers and throw anything unusual into the chest. Then come down with the sheets and get yourself into the lean-to.
You must pretend to be washing, do you understand? ”
The maid nodded. “Aye, miss. Shall I go now?”
“Yes, quick as you can, mind!”
Jemima sped away and another loud knocking sounded at the door as Grace turned to Henri, in whose features bewilderment was beginning to turn to interest.
“What do you wish, ma chère? I am in your hands.”
Quickly, she explained what she wanted him to do. Then, as he softly trod to the parlour door, she waited. He gave her a wave and vanished.
Rat-a-tat-tat! Louder now.
Grace swallowed, drew a breath, and began to move, stomping as hard as she could on her short leg to make as much noise as possible, drowning out the knocking at the front door.
By the time she reached the hall, frantic sounds from upstairs indicated that the maid was doing her part as fast as she could. Grace stood by the front door.
“Who is it?” she called loudly.
There was a pause. Then came the voice of the Frenchman Loriot, raised to carry through the wood.
“It is I, Loriot, mademoiselle. Please to open the door.”
But Jemima was not done. Grace put her face to the crack. “What do you want?”
Silence. A muttering in French. And then the response. “Mademoiselle, you will open, or we shall be forced to break it.”
The tone was implacable, and cold. A faint sense of how it must have been to dwell in France under the present regime filtered into Grace’s consciousness.
These men were used to dealing with recalcitrant citizens.
It mattered nothing that they were in a foreign land.
They knew she lived alone but for a servant girl, and the house was isolated.
They could force a way in, and be long gone before she could denounce them to the authorities.
The fellow was waiting for her capitulation.
It was a cue for Grace to fling open the door, demanding to know how he dared force his way into an English lady’s household.
But Jemima was upstairs, and she dare not open the door until the girl came down.
In an agony of apprehension, she kept quite still and silent, watching the stairs.
“Mademoiselle?”
“I am still here!” she shouted, terrified they would start battering on the door.
“Stand aside, if you please,” came from the other side.
Grace was moved to look round at the unyielding wood. She hardly knew she spoke. “What did you say?”
“Stand aside! I am going to shoot the lock!”
Her heart jerked. If she refused to move, would he dare to shoot anyway? Surely not. He could not wish to bring trouble on himself. Injuring an innocent citizen, and a lady to boot, must inevitably cause him a good deal of trouble. But she was loath to put it to the test.
She cast a frantic glance upwards. Come on, Jemima!
“You are there, mademoiselle?”
The maid appeared at the top of the stairs, a huge bundle of linen clutched to her chest. Grace beckoned madly, and Jemima crept downstairs, peering over the top of her burden to see her way.
“Don’t shoot!” yelled Grace. “I will open the door!”
The maid reached the bottom and scuttled down the hall and through the door to the lean-to, shutting it behind her. Grace let her breath go, and turned the key in the lock.
Loriot was on the doorstep, a large pistol held loosely in his hand. Heavens above, he had meant it! Grace thrust down on the coursing fear and glared at him.
“Is this how you treat a lady, sir? How dare you threaten me?”
The Frenchman slipped the pistol into his pocket, his attitude laconic. “I do not threaten you, mademoiselle. I desire not to hurt you, but I will certainly search this house.”
Grace’s look of feigned fury passed beyond him to the two men standing in the path.
They were singularly expressionless, and the more chilling for it.
There was neither triumph nor expectation here.
A job was to do, and they were doing it.
That was all. Again, Grace felt the shiver of helpless apprehension that must be the lot of ordinary men and women across the Channel.
For the first time, she began to appreciate just what had induced Henri to hold his secrets so close to his chest.
She returned her gaze to the leader. “By what authority do you presume to search my house, sir?”
He did not turn, but a snap of his fingers threw one of the men behind him into action.
It was he who had been left on guard here the first time.
Augustin, Henri had said. He slipped a hand into an inner pocket of his coat.
The paper he extracted was handed into Loriot’s waiting fingers.
He did not glance at it, but held it out to Grace.
She took it and opened it up. It was written in English, announcing the bearer to be an accredited agent of the Republic of France, to whom it was trusted diplomatic courtesy would be extended. He was here on a matter of public safety.
Grace handed it back, eyeing Loriot with no diminution of her fierce stare. “I see no reason in the world why I should allow you to enter my house. However, if it will convince you I spoke nothing but the truth when I told you your countryman left here more than a week since —”
“Mademoiselle,” interrupted Loriot, “it is not that we do not believe. It is that we have only this house where the man was once found. Here we must begin therefore.”
“Well, I don’t know what you expect to find,” she said, adopting an imitation of Mab’s grumbling tone. “It is excessively inconvenient, moreover.”
No reply was forthcoming. Trusting Jemima and Henri would be fairly embarked upon her scheme, Grace at last allowed them entry, stationing herself in the gap to the side of the stairs to prevent their crossing directly towards the lean-to.
Looking a trifle surprised, Loriot stepped in, the two other men crowding behind him.
Had he thought she would not capitulate?
She had best continue to feign annoyance.
Grace gestured to the left. “The parlour. Pray don’t neglect to hunt for your fugitive under the table.”
She received a steady look from the leader, who did not trouble to reply.
All three trod into the parlour, and Grace immediately stomped to the door, remaining in the aperture.
They were looking about with interest, standing in a close formation that made the room look small.
Her eye caught the two cups left upon the table, and her pulse fluttered.
She made haste to draw their attention away from it, pointing to the bureau. “That is where I work.”
The third man — Etienne, was it? — stepped towards the bureau. Loriot glanced at her. “You permit?”
Grace shrugged and lifted her chin. “Apparently you do not need my permission, sir. No doubt you will wish to inspect it for clues.”
Her sarcasm was wasted. She watched as Etienne opened the bureau, pushing aside her work and hunting through the little drawers and row of shelves above.
There was no fear of his finding the secret cache, for it was impossible to know it was there or to open it without an intimate knowledge of the catch, which was not operable by accident.
A tattoo pattered in her breast, nevertheless.
Etienne looked through the lower drawers and then turned to Loriot with a grimace. In turn, the leader looked at Grace. “What do you do there?”
“Not that it is any of your affair, but I write on behalf of the illiterate in the villages. Letters, and an occasional treatise. I also copy accounts for Mr Mayberry. Anything that may produce a little income, in fact.”
A shade of understanding came into the Frenchman’s face, and Grace thought his features lightened a little. “You have need of money? That is unusual in England, I think, for such as you, mademoiselle.”
“Unusual to do what I do, but not at all uncommon. We are not all endowed with fortune, sir, and a woman of —” She cut herself off on the point of mentioning her class, remembering that in France her class would likely have brought her to the guillotine.
“A woman alone has few options,” she finished.
He nodded, and the other two men muttering at him, he moved towards her, pointing across the hall behind her. “What room is that?”
“The kitchen,” she said, stepping aside and allowing them through.
Apprehensive lest the place would be found to contain half-begun preparations for the next meal, she followed them to the door and cast a swift look around.
No, thank heaven. Jemima had evidently been cleaning up the breakfast things, for there was no sign of any food laid out ready to be worked upon. Loriot’s eyes were upon her.
“Where is the servant?”
“She is working elsewhere this morning.”