The Virgin and the Unicorn Page 12

  “When are you leaving for Brighton, Comtesse?” Pavel called after her. “I am dashed sorry to see you go.”

  “Bientôt. Après— After lunch,” she said, as if catching herself up on slipping into French, although she did not, in fact, recall the French word for lunch. “I have asked Boxer to take down the trunks and stow them in my carriage. I cannot imagine what keeps him.”

  This sent Pavel and Miranda rushing belowstairs to alert Rotham that the trunks were about to descend. They found him in the ballroom, lifting the loose ends of various tapestries to see if anything was concealed behind them.

  “We had best get to the stables,” Pavel said breathlessly. “I have just spoken to Louise. She has asked Boxer to take the trunks to the carriage. Easier to load ‘em onto the rig at the front door. Smells fishy to me. She and Laurent plan to leave right after luncheon.”

  A flash of hope flared in Rotham’s eyes. “Let us go,” he said, and they all went out by the front door, hurrying.

  The trunks were bound up in leather straps, but they were not locked. Louise’s trunks contained her gowns and belongings, along with one small but rather valuable statuette of a shepherdess from her chamber, which she had told Lady Hersham she had accidentally broken. She had made humble apologies and offered to pay for it, knowing no payment would be accepted.

  “This proves she is a thief anyhow!” Pavel exclaimed. “By Jove, I shall give this back to Mama.”

  Rotham frowned. “It proves she has no notion we would search her trunks,” he said, “and I rather think she would suspect it if she were guilty. Let it be, Pavel. No point letting her know we searched the trunk.”

  Pavel was reluctant to let her walk away with a family treasure, but in the end, he decided the statuette was an ugly thing. Laurent’s thievery was so small as to be almost pitiful. He had hidden a bottle of Hersham’s claret in the bottom of his trunk, wrapped up in a magazine, unaware that Lord Hersham kept a well-stocked cellar at Brighton.

  They all felt ashamed for him, but no one called him a thief. “Poor bleater,” Pavel said. It expressed the mood of them all.

  Rotham told the groom to keep watch on the trunks until the carriage left the stable, then they returned to the house for lunch.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Laurent and Louise sat by the grate in the Blue Saloon awaiting the call to lunch when Miranda came downstairs. Laurent was brooding over a letter. It was unclear whether Louise was helping him brood or remembering her husband. In any case, she wore her sad face. Rotham and Pavel stood apart from them by the window, talking quietly. It was the latter group Miranda wished to join, but for politeness’ sake, she stopped for a word with the Valdors in passing. Laurent immediately rose to his feet and showed her to a chair.

  “I see your letter has finally come, Laurent,” she said. “I hope the news is good.” His sullen expression was not necessarily a harbinger of bad news, nor was the letter he held necessarily from the British Museum, although he did not usually receive any mail.

  He folded the letter and put it in his pocket. “I did not get the position at the British Museum,” he replied. Either anger or disappointment drew sharp lines from his nose to his mouth. “It seems Sir Peter Nugent, Lord Haley’s youngest son, has been chosen. A schoolboy, just down from Oxford. I have more knowledge of French art in my little finger than he has in his empty head. I grew up surrounded by the very best of French art. At the chateau we had half a dozen Poussins and as many Lorrains. Watteau, Fragonard—we had them all. Has Lord Haley’s youngest son ever heard of our great French portraitists, I wonder? Rigaud, Nanteuil, Champaigne—mention Champaigne to Sir Peter and he would think you spoke of wine.”

  Miranda knew that Laurent had left France when he was five or six years old, so for him to speak of growing up at the chateau was an exaggeration. He would have to have been an extremely precocious child to even remember the paintings. But when she thought of the bottle of wine hidden in his trunk, she felt a wince of pity. “I am sorry you did not get the position,” she said, wondering if she could escape to the window before he got at her with his politics.

  Louise gave her head a little shake, as if awakening from a deep sleep. “It is really not fair,” she scolded. “It is all nepotism. If only you knew more influential Englishmen.” Her green eyes slid in Rotham’s direction, just as he and Pavel turned from the window.

  “You have heard Laurent’s sad newses?” she asked, drawing a long face. The brothers joined the group by the grate. “He was refused the position at the musée. C’est incroyable. A curator for the French artworks is required, and they choose an English schoolboy. We have just been explaining to Miss Miranda it is all the nepotism. Can you not put in a speech for Laurent, Rotham?”

  “She means a word, I believe,” Pavel explained.

  Rotham replied, “If the position is already filled, then it is highly unlikely I can change officialdom’s mind, but I might find something in another department.” Laurent’s knowledge of French might be helpful in some nonstrategic position, after the Napoleon business was settled.

  “It is very kind of you, milord,” Laurent said, with a mixture of gratitude and hauteur that revealed his discomfort in taking favors. “I become restless, battening myself on the charity of others for so long. Perhaps if you would give me a few letters of introduction to your influential friends, I might borrow Louise’s carriage and go up to London while we are at Brighton. You permit, Louise?”

  “What would I use for a carriage while you are gone?” she asked.

  “Mama keeps a whisky in Brighton for short drives along the Marine Parade,” Rotham told her. “It would be more convenient than your traveling carriage in the city, especially in good weather.”

  She did not want to appear selfish and gracefully agreed. It might mean hiring a horse to draw the rig, but on the other hand, Lady Hersham’s rig would be recognized and perhaps excite curiosity regarding its occupant. “Between us we shall get you fixed up with something, Laurent.” She smiled, very much the grande dame.

  “I am most grateful,” Laurent replied, gazing soulfully into her eyes. “And to you, Rotham,” he added.

  “That is why friends are for,” Louise said.

  Like Miranda, Rotham thought of that bottle of wine sequestered in Laurent’s trunk and felt sorry for him. Such petty larceny did not suggest an imagination large enough to be responsible for the missing embroidery.

  “My pleasure,” Rotham said dismissingly, just as Boxer came to summon them for lunch. It seemed he was forever doing favors for Laurent—the loans (never repaid) of small sums of money, the use of a mount or carriage, writing an introduction—yet he was left with the feeling that he was not doing enough.

  Louise was in an effervescent mood with the holiday in Brighton to look forward to. When Lady Hersham joined the group, Louise said, “I have not seen Monsieur Berthier today. Has he left?”

  A sudden hush fell over the room. Lady Hersham rose to the occasion. “Yes, he was called home. Hersham was disappointed. They were planning to have a look at some sheep today.”

  “Ah, the darling sheepses and lambs.” Louise smiled. “When may I hope to see you in Brighton, Lady Hersham?”

  “Not soon, I fear,” the hostess replied, and added untruthfully, “I have had a letter from Selena telling me she would like to bring her family to visit in July. There will be preparations to be made.” She did not ask when the comtesse would return to Ashmead.

  After lunch Laurent accompanied Rotham to his office, where Rotham scribbled up a few letters of introduction. He would send a note off to Castlereagh explaining how he had been more or less forced into writing them. Castlereagh would see that Laurent did not land in any position where he could be a menace. If, on the other hand, Laurent was innocent, he would be happy to help him.

  Louise took a tearful farewell of “all her dear friends and Miss Miranda,” declaring she would never forget this visit of the most charming.

  “Yo
u will be stopping at Rye to pick up Madame Lafleur?” Rotham asked.

  “She will be joining us tomorrow,” Louise replied. “My fault, I fear. I kept Mademoiselle Chêne so busy with my gown, she had not time to finish madame’s. We ladies cannot go to Brighton without a new gown,” she added gaily. “We would have waited for her, but Laurent—he was most eager to be off. Madame will come on the first coach tomorrow.”

  A tinge of pink flushed Laurent’s swarthy cheeks. “I had hoped I might get the prince to put in a word for me about the position at the museum,” he said. “The Duc de Guichet is in Brighton for a few days only, visiting the prince. He is a friend of my family. After receiving my letter this morning announcing the position is filled, I suggested to Louise we could wait and go tomorrow with Madame Lafleur, but Louise wanted to go today. She has already made an appointment with friends for tomorrow morning, I believe.”

  Miranda noticed that it was, in fact, Louise who insisted on leaving today and was trying to shift the blame to Laurent. Was she eager to escape because she had stolen the embroidery? It seemed pretty fast for them to be traveling unchaperoned. Her hostess obviously disagreed with her.

  “No need to wait,” Lady Hersham said at once.

  “It is the short drive,” Louise pointed out. “Madame will not mind going on the coach. She is used to it. And we have your housekeeper to chaperon us, Lady Hersham," she added, with a shrug that suggested a chaperon was a mere formality.

  Immediately after luncheon, the comtesse and Laurent set off for Brighton.

  Rotham felt uneasy to see them go. They were his chief suspects, yet they were certainly not carrying the tapestry with them. He remembered that silk gown he had felt in the Green Room the night Slack had been drugged. Who was it? Was it possible Madame Lafleur had the tapestry? If so, she had either broken into the house last night and stolen it, slipped it out the window, thence off to Rye—or someone had passed it out the window to her.

  He felt a tingle of apprehension. He must get a look at madame’s trunk before she left Rye. And how the devil could he ask a perfectly respectable lady to open her trunk to be searched? She might even send the thing on ahead of her, today, but he did not think she would dispatch such a valuable item unguarded on the public coach.

  He preferred not to bring the constable into it. The tale would be all over the parish before the sun set. His only other recourse was to get into her house and have a look while she slept that night. Meanwhile, he must have someone in Rye to make sure Louise did not pick up the trunk on her way to Brighton. That was another possibility. Slack was assigned the duty. As there had been no word from Macpherson, Rotham decided to pay him a call in Hythe.

  “What are you doing this afternoon?” he asked Miranda.

  “We shall keep looking for the embroidery,” she said, but with lagging interest, now that the suspects had escaped. “What are you doing, Rotham?”

  “I have to go to Hythe. I wondered if you would like to accompany me.”

  “Has it to do with finding the embroidery?” she asked with sharp interest.

  “Yes, I want to call on Macpherson. I really should not invite you on such a shabby errand....”

  “I should not accept—but I shall,” she added with a pert, laughing look. “Must you tell Lady Hersham where you are going? She might not let me accompany you.”

  He looked abashed. “What am I thinking of, corrupting the innocent by taking you to call on a smuggler? I have done enough harm. I shall go alone.”

  “It will be all right when I am with you,” she said. Her mind was on what Society would think of the visit to a smuggler, and she knew that when a young lady had Lord Rotham for an escort, she would be forgiven much. Indeed, she was hardly expected to behave with perfect propriety. “Will you take your curricle?” she asked eagerly.

  “If you like.”

  “I should like it of all things. I do not often get a ride in a curricle. Only with Parnham occasionally, and he is a wretched fiddler.”

  “Now there is a facer for me! It is the company of my grays you are seeking, not me.”

  “Oh, no! What good are the grays without you, Rotham? I could not handle them.”

  He lowered a brow at her. “That, of course, is much more flattering.”

  “I would not insult you by offering flattery.”

  “And you would not compliment me either, wretch!”

  “Pavel says you are a complete hand with the grays, and if I agree after our drive, you may be sure I shall compliment you.”

  “Get your bonnet,” Rotham said brusquely, as it was clear as glass he was not going to receive any compliments.

  She ran off for her bonnet and pelisse, for the wind from the sea was cool, even in mid-June. Pavel was given the assignment of watching the doings at Ashmead during their absence. He had a dozen ideas where the embroidery might be hidden and spent the next few hours scouring the cellars and clambering, with great difficulty, over the slippery slate roofs of Ashmead, where he found a pigeon’s nest and decided to take one of the eggs to his room to hatch, under the mistaken impression that it would keep warm if he wrapped it in cotton wool.

  Miranda enjoyed the drive along the coast in the curricle, with the wind snatching at her pelisse and tossing the sea into white caps. She felt she was queen of the countryside as she was pelted along at sixteen miles an hour, or at least it seemed like it, with Rotham by her side. Everyone they passed turned to stare at them.

  “It is odd that Madame Lafleur is not going to Brighton today,” she said. “If the embroidery was lowered out the window, she might have it in her trunk.”

  “That occurred to me as well. I must get a look in her trunk before she leaves.”

  “How will you do that?”

  “I shall break into her house tonight,” he announced blandly.

  “Excellent! You are awake on all suits, Rotham, Pavel and I will go with you.”

  “Pavel may accompany me, if he wishes,” he replied dampeningly, but he liked her eagerness for a frolic. He wondered if that eagerness had anything to do with himself.

  She gave him a bold look. “Perhaps it would be best if I stayed outside to act as a lookout.”

  “That was not my meaning, Miranda.”

  She noticed he had stopped calling her Sissie and wondered at it. Did he finally realize she had grown up? “I know, but I would be safer going with you and Pavel than following alone at midnight.”

  Rotham lifted a dark eye and examined her impish face. “I hesitate to raise a subject I would prefer to forget, but you are not much like Trudie.”

  “I believe it is because she was the eldest child and was watched over too closely. It is often the way, although it does not seem to have made you cautious at all.”

  “I have never been accused of an excess of caution,” he agreed. “Quite the contrary.”

  “Whatever possessed you to do it, Rotham, steal the embroidery?”

  “Sheer stupidity.”

  She did not contradict him. “Why is the old embroidery so important? It did not look like anything special.”

  “The Bayeux Tapestry not special?” he asked, staring.

  “Is that what it is!” she exclaimed. “I have heard of it forever. Why, it is famous. I had no notion it was such a shabby-looking thing. I thought it would be like one of your mama’s finer tapestries, with gold threads and things.”

  “No, it is not really a tapestry at all, but a simple embroidery.”

  “Then what is so special about it?”

  “It is one of the few hangings that has survived from Anglo-Saxon times. It dates to within ten or so years of the Norman Conquest. It was commissioned by William the Conqueror’s half-brother Odo, who was the bishop of Bayeux. It tells the story of the Norman invasion and victory.”

  “That is what the names referred to! I remember there was a Willelm and a Harold—King Harold, of course. And an Eadward—who was he?”

  “Edward the Confessor, the fellow wh
o built Westminster Abbey. Harold was the brother of Edward’s queen. Edward did not want Harold to become king when he died. There was a deal of skullduggery and an underhanded arrangement with William, but the upshot was that Harold was crowned king upon Edward’s death. William felt he had some claim to the throne. He invaded England, defeated Harold at Hastings—you must at least recall the famous Battle of Hastings.”

  “Oh, indeed, on October 14, 1066. I studied it in history. Everyone has heard of the Battle of Hastings. That was the Norman Conquest—was it not?” she said uncertainly.

  “Just so. Well, the Bayeux Tapestry is a depiction of those events on a strip of linen over two hundred feet long. The soldiers massing, the journey by ship, the arrival, the battle, and so on. The scenes include Harold’s death from an arrow in the eye. Harold and his two brothers were killed, and on Christmas Day in 1066, William was crowned king of the English in Westminster Abbey. You may imagine how dear the tapestry is to the hearts of the French—their sole conquest of England. It is also of use to scholars as it portrays realistic scenes of life at that time—the sort of boats used, armor, and so on. Bonaparte made use of it to invigorate his forces earlier in the war by putting it on display in Paris. My muddle-headed thinking was that he would use it again. That is why I took it.”

  He looked at her, expecting a blast of invective. Her eyes were aglow with admiration, and her lips trembled open in a smile of disbelief that made him feel ten feet tall.

  “How splendid of you, Rotham!” she exclaimed. “And here I thought you were just a common thief, or perhaps a traitor. We must recover it.”

  He winced at her heedless words. “You do not think it foolish of me? I confess I was foxed when I did it.”

  “I should think one would require a little false courage for such an intrepid undertaking. I wish you will tell me all about it.”

  Rotham did not hesitate to re-create the daring of that evening in Bayeux when he had such a pretty and appreciative audience.