CHAPTER NINE #2
Jemima shifted from one foot to the other. “That ain’t like you, Miss Grace.”
A faint smile was drawn from Grace. “Thank you, Jemima. But I fear this time I am beaten. We can’t get Mister Henry out of the house with all those men watching. And unless I can convince Wooferton and Mayberry that he is not here —”
“Beats me why they think he is,” interrupted the maid. “No one couldn’t have known as he’d come back ’cepting me and you, miss.”
Grace pushed away from the door, and clunked to the entrance to the parlour, glancing at the case clock on the mantel.
“Half past five. They will be here in half an hour. Run upstairs and tell Mister Henry to stay in the bedchamber. And then I suppose we had best eat. At least let him not go hungry this time.”
It was a long half-hour, and although Grace sent Jemima upstairs with a tray, she could not herself touch the coddled eggs the maid had hastily prepared. Contenting herself with tea, she settled down at her bureau in the parlour, her gaze fixed through the window on to the lane.
At last the clopping sound of horses’ hoofs rewarded her.
Immediately she found herself wishing she had instead stayed upstairs, and waited with Henri.
Only she would not have been able to bear the sight of him, knowing if she failed she would have to watch him being taken away into captivity.
She was relieved he had remained sensibly above stairs.
Wooferton and Mayberry came into sight, riding together. No sign of Sir James. Yet it was his doing that these men were upon her. Flaring resentment sent Grace out to meet the officers with fresh determination.
They were dismounting when she opened the door. Her advent was remarked by Clem and Samuel, waiting to hold the horses. Mayberry looked round, and exchanged a glance with Wooferton. The excise officer came first down the path, followed by the burly form of his colleague.
Grace forestalled anything they had been about to say. “May I ask what in the world you mean by surrounding my house with your men?”
Wooferton pursed his lips, intensifying the hawk look. “It ain’t no manner o’ use taking that tone, Miss Grace.”
“And it’s no use your forcing your way in here, Mr Wooferton,” she retorted.
“Now then, Miss Grace,” came from Mayberry, pushing forward, “no one ain’t talking o’ forcing nothing. Only you had ought to let us in, no question, for Wooferton has his warrant all right and tight.”
Grace glanced at the three men in the lane, noting sheepish looks and curiosity.
But there was no mistaking the underlying determination.
She stepped back into the house, making for the parlour without waiting to see if they followed.
When she turned before the mantel, Mayberry’s sturdy form was filling the aperture, while Wooferton had entered to within a couple of feet of her.
He was holding out an official-looking paper.
Without a word, Grace took it, dismayed that her fingers quivered, and ran her eyes swiftly down the sheet.
The warrant, signed by Sir James, was perfectly in order, allowing Wooferton carte blanche to remove the said Henri Rousselle into custody.
Her heart sank, but she allowed nothing to show in her face.
Raising her eyes, she prepared for battle.
“What is the use of bringing me this? Mr Rousselle left here yesterday, as Sir James very well knows.”
She was subjected to a resigned look from Wooferton. “Aye, we know that.”
His companion trod into the room, revealing Jemima hovering in the hallway behind him. “We all know it, Miss Grace, for we was out a-hunting him most of the day and half the night. But that ain’t the full sum of it, now, is it?”
Was there a faint note of compassion in Mayberry’s voice. Grace’s throat felt dry, but she stood her ground. “I don’t understand you.”
Mayberry sighed. “Thing is, Miss Grace, as he were seen going in.”
Shock held her silent. Was it a bluff? Balked, she feigned stupidity. “Seen going in where, Mr Mayberry?”
“Lookee here, Miss Grace,” intervened Wooferton impatiently, “this won’t do! The feller were seen coming in the back here lateish last night.”
Grace stared him out. “Indeed? Who saw him?”
For the first time, the two men looked uncomfortable. They exchanged a glance, and Mayberry took it upon himself to answer.
“Well, it were they Frenchies, Miss Grace.”
Appalled, Grace could only gaze at him. “You mean Loriot and his men?”
“Aye,” confirmed Wooferton. “Which one of ’em saw him, I don’t know, but that feller as speaks English told it to Sir James when he comes to find ’em last night.”
She recalled Sir James saying he had the intention to return to the Black Horse to await the return of the Frenchmen, in case Henri should have fallen foul of them. Thrown out of her stride, she uttered her first thought aloud.
“Why did they not come barging in here last night, then?”
“Ah, now, they wouldn’t dare try that again,” said Mayberry in a satisfied tone.
“What makes you say so? They thought nothing of threatening to shoot the lock the last time.”
“Truth to tell,” put in Wooferton, “they might have, if they’d been all together.
Only they’d split, see, for to cover more ground.
Seems as they’d agreed to meet back at the Black Horse if they got too far separate.
I’d guess the one who saw the feller come in meant to get his colleagues and fetch ’em back here. ”
“Aye,” agreed Mayberry. “Only Sir James were there waiting for ’em, and he forbade ’em, on pain of imprisonment, to go forcing their way into your house. Only he couldn’t stop ’em waiting outside, so he fixes to get our men here immediate, so’s they Frenchies don’t get no chance to get their man.”
A violence of feeling surged through Grace, gratitude to Sir James uppermost. Had his hand then been forced?
If Henri had not been seen, would he have let the matter drop?
Indecision traced a stabbing line of apprehension from her breast to her stomach.
If she tried to bluff it through, and won, what price Henri’s chances with those murdering Frenchmen on his heels?
But to betray him, after what had transpired between them, was too painful to be contemplated.
“Will you fetch him, Miss Grace?”
Grace made up her mind. “I cannot, Mr Wooferton.”
The excise officer sighed. “You mean you won’t.”
“I mean what I say,” uttered Grace tartly. “Yes, it is true that Mr Rousselle came back last night, unbeknownst to me. He slipped in before Jemima locked up.”
“Well, if he slipped in, he must be here, then,” uttered Mayberry, in exasperated tones.
“No, because he slipped out again almost immediately.” Both men regarded her with patent disbelief. Grace put on her best authoritarian manner. “I don’t know why you should look at me in that fashion. It happens that Mr Rousselle and I quarrelled —”
“You’re making that up,” stated Wooferton bluntly.
“Can’t expect us to swallow that one, Miss Grace,” said Mayberry apologetically, “after the way you been carrying on all through, refusing to let us take the feller away.”
Grace ploughed on, determined to put them off if she could.
“It is true I supported Mr Rousselle. Only Sir James told me something about him yesterday that upset me very much. When I taxed Mr Rousselle with it, we quarrelled.” That at least was true.
“He then left, declaring his intention to make his way out of the area.”
Wooferton shook his head. “And how did he get past my men?”
She was ready for that one. “I told you, he was here a short time only. He must have slipped away before your men arrived.”
“What about them Frenchies?” demanded Mayberry.
“Didn’t you suppose the one who saw him had returned to the Black Horse to fetch his colleagues?”
“Aye, that’s true enough.”
“Well, then. Clearly both parties missed him.”
For the first time, she saw doubt in each face. It was plain they were reluctant to believe her, but her story had clearly shaken them. She waited, glancing briefly to where she had last seen Jemima waiting tensely in the hall, but the maid was no longer visible.
“I dunno,” said Mayberry at last.
“Well, I do!” Wooferton drew himself up. “Lookee here, Miss Grace, if you’re telling the truth, you won’t object to showing us his chamber, will you?”
She had been afraid of that. To hesitate was fatal, and already the excise officer was beginning to look a trifle grim.
Unable to think or decide, Grace played for time, moving towards the parlour door as if she would indeed take them upstairs.
“Very well, if you insist,” she said in a tone of feigned resignation.
To her horror, before she could reach it, Henri appeared in the aperture.
Grace stopped short, staring at him, blank with shock and confusion. Wooferton and Mayberry, taking the direction of her glance, turned, astonishment registering in both faces.
Henri’s eyes met hers in a swift smile of reassurance, and then he was turning to the officials. “Messieurs, it does not need that you trouble any longer Mademoiselle Grace. I am ready to go with you.”
The table across which authority confronted Henri was situated in a private parlour at the Black Horse inn.
He had no illusions, for he knew that the excise officer’s men were stationed to recapture him, one outside the locked door, the other beneath the casement window, in the unlikely event he managed to effect an escape under the eyes of the determined officials who had arrested him.
They were stationed in chairs against the wall, one either side of the magistrate who had been to see Grace the day before.
He had not the slightest intention of escaping, as he had informed Sir James Levisham when that gentleman had warned him of these bars to an unplanned exit.
He concentrated his attention on the man who must prove, he supposed, both judge and jury.
Those who had brought him here were clearly of less account.