CHAPTER ELEVEN #5
Her gaze shifted to Henri’s face and found his closed look there again. Then there was something! “What more could there be?”
Grace hardly knew she had spoken aloud, distracted by a ripple of apprehension. She looked from one face to the other and saw a gleam in the eyes of the magistrate.
“I’ll be obliged to you, Rousselle, for whatever it was that prompted you to take that dangerous path for the sake of your aristocratic countrymen.”
The disquiet intensified as an elusive memory began to niggle at the back of Grace’s mind. Instinct urged her to deflect it. “Isn’t it obvious? Henri is a gentleman. That much has been evident from the first.”
Sir James Levisham’s regard did not waver from Henri’s face. “No denying that. From what I hear, he wouldn’t be the first of his kind to throw in his lot with the revolutionaries, even in earnest.”
A muscle tightened in Henri’s jawline as he met the man’s stare head on. “It has been thus with some.”
“Your friend Loriot, for one.”
The sense of tension grew too strong for Grace. “What in the world are you at, Sir James? What would you have him say?”
The magistrate’s glance barely grazed her. “If I’m to release him into English society, my dear, I’ve to be sure of my ground.”
“Zut alors!” Exasperation was in Henri’s face and voice. “You force me, m’sieur! Then let it be thus. Yet know that I reveal it against my will.”
Bewildered, Grace looked from him to Sir James and back again. “I don’t understand.”
Henri’s tone gentled. “Forgive, ma chère, but I have not a choice. Please to allow me to remove your boot.”
Grace gazed at him blankly. “Have you run mad, Henri?”
He shook his head, and she was a little reassured by his smile. “Sit, if you please.”
Willing but mystified, Grace clumped to the chair she had vacated and sat down again. She flushed a little as Henri removed his arm from its sling and knelt at her feet, drawing Sir James to follow them to the desk.
“What in thunder are you at, young Rousselle?”
“In a little minute, all will be clear,” said Henri, intent on his task.
Intrigued, Grace waited as, with a little stiffness in his left arm, he unlaced the boot and drew it gently off her foot.
He stood up and leaned back, supporting himself against the desk.
By this time, both Mayberry and Wooferton had left off discussing the letter and had their attention firmly on Henri.
Grace watched him pull up the inner sole of her boot and withdraw a folded sheet of paper. Realisation dawned.
“So that’s why it felt tight!”
“Forgive, ma chère. I have put it there —”
“That night when you came back! I thought I saw you put something in your pocket. Only where had you it?” The image came back into her mind, of helping Henri to remove his boots. “You took it from your own boot?”
Henri grinned, laying her boot aside. “You have eyes of much sharpness.” He unfolded the paper, glancing first at Wooferton, and then to Sir James. “It is in French.”
Sir James waved an impatient hand. “Yes, yes, give it to him.”
Stepping in, Wooferton accepted the paper and began to read. Intrigued, Grace forgot her exposed stockinged foot on her short right leg. At the end, the excise officer whistled and looked up at Henri, for once showing astonishment.
“Well, man, well?” Thus Sir James.
Wooferton waved the document. “This here’s a letter from a lawyer, sir.” He peered at the top of the paper. “Writ two years agone, by what I can make out.”
“What does it say?”
“Seemingly, this here Frenchie ain’t nowise no ordinary gennelman, Sir James.”
“Ah! Thought as much. Is he Rousselle?”
“He’s Rousselle all right. Only he ain’t Mister Rousselle.”
The stirrings of suspicion flitted into Grace’s head. Her eyes went from the letter to Henri, who was still holding her boot, and the memory that had been hovering at its edges leaped into her mind.
“That crested paper! The one with the map on it. You told me it was paper often found in France these days, trying to make me believe it meant nothing. But it does. It’s your crest, Henri, isn’t it?”
Sir James threw out an accusing finger. “Aha!”
Mayberry was hunting through the discarded documents. Triumphant, he held up the paper with the little map drawn on to it.
“Hold it towards the flame,” Grace told him.
“Right you are, Miss Grace.” The parish officer looked at Sir James. “There’s a crest all right, plain as day.”
Grace saw the light of triumph in Sir James’s eyes. “Wooferton, what the deuce is in that letter, man?”
The excise officer had lost some of his usual assurance. “Seems as the gennelman Rousselle weren’t nowise expecting it, but all them as might otherwise have claimed the title went to the guillotine. There ain’t nothing left but the title, mind, as this lawyer has it.”
A hollow was opening up in Grace’s chest as her eyes went to Henri. She could not help the flatness in her tone. “You are an aristocrat.”
Henri gave her a deprecating look. “Pardon, Grace, but this deception was necessary. It does not change me, ma chère. It is only that if I desire it, I may take the name of Henri, Comte de Rousselle.”