The Virgin and the Unicorn Read online

  Louise lifted her hand to fluff out her hair. “Perhaps they are setting their chapeaux for Englishmen, milord.”

  “Your point, madam. One can only admire their intelligence; they insist on the best.” Laurent rustled his newspaper impatiently to show his disgust with the conversation. Rotham called to him, “You are quite right, Laurent. Comparisons are odious. You are so quiet I forgot you are present.”

  Miranda rose to join Laurent as she felt it rude to ignore him entirely, and besides, this was an excellent opportunity to get to know him better.

  Before leaving the group by the grate, she said to Rotham, “Are you really going to have a rout tomorrow evening? Because if you are, I shall have to send home for a gown.”

  “Yes, I am. Really.” He rose to accompany her. “We English gentlemen are as good as our word. By all means invite Trudie and her baron, if they are at Wildwood.”

  “No, they are not. Where did you get that idea?”

  “You mentioned Trudie giving you the gown.”

  “She gave it to me last winter.”

  “I see. One does not like to appear rude, and indeed I could not be happier that you are with us—an unexpected delight—but one does just wonder why you have removed to Ashmead, when your own home is only a mile away.”

  “Sukey has the measles.”

  “Ah, and you have come to share them with us. That is very kind of you.”

  “I do not have them. I was sent here so I would not become infected. Lady Hersham assured Mama that everyone here had had them already.”

  “I recall I had them at the same time as you did yourself. In fact, I blame you for infecting me. Is there a new strain that can be had twice? My last bout was—oh, five years ago?”

  Miranda blushed at being caught out in a transparent ruse for being here. “Three. It was the spring you were making up to Trudie.”

  “Three.” He nodded. “I was trying to teach you to jump a ditch. You were riding that Welsh pony.”

  “Mama thought perhaps that was chicken pox. She could not recall and thought it a wise precaution to send me here.”

  “Did you ever learn to jump the pony?”

  “Yes, no thanks to you. You jilted Trudie after you got the measles.”

  “Or chicken pox, as the case may be.”

  Miranda wanted to have the last word. She said, “You were very rude to Laurent, saying that Frenchmen are no good.”

  “I did not say no good. I said not so good as Englishmen.”

  “That is a matter of opinion. I think they are much more interesting.”

  “And you only—what? Seventeen? Not old enough to appreciate their love of older women.”

  “I am eighteen.”

  “Still too young to cut your teeth on a wicked Frenchman, ma petite. I suggest you flirt with me instead.”

  Miranda felt some charm in his wicked dark eyes, which gazed admiringly at her. Rotham had never turned his charms on her before. She could never understand how all the local girls, one after the other, could make such cakes of themselves over him. She began to understand how he did it. He made you feel special, when he smiled at you like that, as if you were the only girl in the world. But she knew how evanescent his romances were, and how long and painful the cure.

  She studied him with a frank, unemotional stare. “I think you must be about the most wicked man in England,” she said. “I shall stick to Frenchmen.” Then she left him and joined Laurent.

  Rotham stood looking after her, admiring her tiny waist and the gentle, feminine sway of her hips. One black curl had escaped its ribbon and nestled enticingly on the nape of her neck. Now there was a facer! He really would have to teach the chit some manners. He looked forward to it with a familiar stirring of excitement.

  Chapter Three

  The comte had all the qualifications of an excellent flirt. He was handsome, he was some years older than Miranda, a man of the world, he was French with a charming trace of accent, a relative stranger to her, and she had been warned away from him. But after a quarter of an hour’s uphill work, she decided he was unflirtable.

  When asked his opinion of Bonaparte’s escape, he said, "The man ought to have been shot when they had the chance. Mad dogs are incurable. There will be no peace in France while he lives. He is as bad as the revolutionaries. You will see, mademoiselle, my family estate will be given to some general or jumped-up bureaucrat. The Valdors have lived in the Loire Valley for three hundred years, but we will live there no more. Talleyrand is our only hope, and he is a sly dog when all is said and done. His allegiance is with King Louis at the moment. You are aware of his principle of legitimacy, of course, that restored the throne to Louis.”

  “I have heard of it,” she lied.

  “Bah! If Talleyrand thinks Bonaparte will succeed, you will see the chameleon change his skin once again. He held a high position in the French Revolution, he worked for Bonaparte, now he claims to be on the king’s side. Whatever befalls the rest of us, Talleyrand will end up on his feet. I cannot trust the man."

  This was a little too much politics for Miranda. She said, “It is very vexing, to be sure, but there is little you can do about it. You must try to enjoy Brighton. It is lovely at this time of the year.”

  “I shall not go to Brighton if the comtesse goes to Austria. Why does Lord Rotham push this dangerous scheme on her? It is because he plans to return himself.” A flush suffused his swarthy cheeks. “I am the head of my family now,” he said. “It is for me to protect her. I shall forbid the trip. C’est tout.”

  “I do think it dangerous,” she agreed, and tried once more to steer the conversation into more sociable channels. “Lord Rotham is having a rout tomorrow evening,” she said.

  “A rout! When Europe is on the very edge of collapse! Has the man never heard of Nero, fiddling while Rome burns? Why does he linger here? Why does he not fly, ventre à terre, to London to arrange matters with Lord Castlereagh? It was a gross error to send Castlereagh away from Austria at this time. Wellington is a general; I have never heard he is a statesman.”

  Miranda looked regretfully to the grate, where the others were enjoying themselves. Rotham had brought in a large wicker basket and was showing Louise the silks. Pavel was already arranging his lead soldiers on the sofa. Laurent looked to the grate as well.

  “Rotham said the silks were in his trunk,” he said. “The shabby black trunk he had taken to his room.”

  Miranda said, “Perhaps he put them in the wicker basket to bring them downstairs,” although she did not believe it. Or at least she did not believe the silks had come from the black trunk.

  “No, the wicker basket was left with the butler.” He gave a conscious look, as though he regretted his words. “I happened to notice, when he came in,” he added.

  “I expect he had his clothes in the trunk.”

  “Very likely,” Laurent said. But he knew very well that Rotham had told his man to lock that trunk in his room and guard it with his life. He had just entered the Blue Saloon when Rotham arrived and had overheard the order. Laurent had seen the two trunks being carried abovestairs. A man did not lock his clothes in his room and set a guard on them—although he would like to steal one of those dashing jackets. Weston! Ah, the man was a magician.

  Laurent was convinced there were orders for Castlereagh in the trunk, and he was passionately curious to see them. It was disgraceful the way these politicians managed matters among themselves, as though they were the lords of creation, and the rest of the population were their pawns. Disgraceful, too, the way Rotham was flirting with Louise.

  “You would like to admire the silks, non?” he said to Miranda, for he wished to join the other group himself and planned to use her as an excuse.

  “Yes, let us have a look,” she agreed at once, and escaped from the dour Frenchman. She did not despise his seriousness. Quite the contrary, she admired his interest in serious matters, but she had thought a Frenchman would realize that a tête-a-tête was not the
time or place to indulge in politics.

  “This one. I shall take this one,” Louise said, running her white hands possessively over an ell of emerald silk. She held it up to her face. Her green eyes echoed the emerald hue, and her golden curls provided an exciting contrast. “What do you think, Laurent?” she asked with a provocative smile.

  “Ravissante,” Laurent said softly, with a hungry look in his eyes.

  Louise smiled and made a purring sound of pleasure. “I shall take it to Mademoiselle Chêne tomorrow and see how quickly she can make it up.”

  Rotham lifted an ell of rose silk from the basket. It fell from his fingers in a shimmering ripple with a light rustling sound. “Sissie, are you sure I cannot tempt you?” he asked.

  She gazed longingly at the silk. “No, thank you,” she said primly. “I expect you bought it for Selena. Why do you not give it to her?” Selena was Rotham’s married sister.

  He shrugged to conceal his annoyance. She wanted it all right; his experience with ladies told him so. What it did not tell him was why she should refuse. “I brought a blue bolt for Selena, but I doubt I shall have any trouble getting rid of the rose.” He tossed the bolt carelessly aside.

  Miranda assumed it would grace the back of one of his mistresses. She would keep an eye out for it in Rye.

  There was a commotion at the doorway as Lord and Lady Hersham came in, accompanied by the tea tray. Louise poured, as Lady Hersham disliked the bother. The conversation turned to other matters. Rotham had been away for six weeks and had to be brought up to date on estate doings and local gossip. Lord Hersham looked surprised when his elder son informed him he planned to have a rout the next evening.

  “You are putting off your trip to London, then?” he asked.

  “There is a matter I have to take care of here first,” Rotham replied. They exchanged a meaningful glance.

  So did Miranda and Pavel. The battered black trunk with the padlock was on the minds of all four of them.

  “It will take a deal of work to arrange a party in one day,” Lady Hersham said. “I shall have a word with Cook, and perhaps you would begin making up a guest list, Sissie. You know who Rotham would like to invite. You must ask any of your friends as well, of course. I daresay this rout is in Sissie’s honor, eh, Rotham?”

  “Just so, Mama. Sissie tells me she did not miss me during my absence, but she did miss the parties. I took the hint.”

  “I was not hinting!” Miranda exclaimed, her cheeks flaming. Nor had she actually said she did not miss him. She had only implied she did not.

  “There is no need to apologize,” Lady Hersham said. “We are overdue for a little rout. A couple of dozen guests—we need not invite them for dinner first. You and Pavel can ride around tomorrow and deliver the cards.”

  “We shall write up the cards this evening,” Miranda said. Her hand flew to her lips. “Oh, I was going to help you repair the tapestry tomorrow, Lady Hersham.”

  “Another few days will not do it much harm. It has been perishing for five hundred years.”

  After tea the group broke up. Rotham claimed he had some correspondence to attend to. He went to his papa’s study. Lord Hersham soon joined him there. Miranda and Pavel agreed to fill out the cards for the party in the library. Only Louise and Laurent remained by the fireside. Laurent looked very well pleased. As Miranda and Pavel departed, he joined Louise on the sofa.

  It was to be only a small party, and the invitation cards were soon written. As he piled them into a stack, Pavel said, “I believe I shall nip down for a word with Cook.”

  “Your mama was going to do that,” Miranda replied.

  “Mama will be gone by now. She will only say, ‘You know best what will be required, Cook,’ and leave. I mean to visit the wine cellar, for an excuse to get hold of the house keys. Cook has a key to the cellars. It put Boxer’s nose out of joint when Papa gave her one. Serves the butler right. He will insist on keeping even the cooking sherry locked up. I shall slip the key to Rotham’s room off the ring and see if we can get a look at the trunk. Cook will never notice the key is gone.”

  “Laurent is interested in the trunk,” Miranda said.

  “Is he? It was kind of you to try to entertain him. All you got for your efforts was another tirade, I daresay?”

  “Yes, he is very worried about Bonaparte.”

  “He is a dead bore. He thinks he knows it all, but you don’t see him stirring a finger to help out against Boney. Sitting on his backside, waiting for Rotham and the rest of them to handle the job, then he will complain some more.”

  “He is unhappy,” Miranda said forgivingly.

  “Then he ought to get a job.”

  “You know he is trying, Pavel. I hope he gets that position at the British Museum.”

  “So do I! I am sick of his thundercloud of a face.”

  “He is very handsome.” She sighed.

  “I suppose that means you have a tendre for him. Waste of time, m’dear. He has eyes for no one but Louise.”

  “She will never marry a penniless man. I daresay that is why he is so eager to reclaim his ancestral home.”

  “Until he does get it back, you would do better to keep away from him, or he will end up with your ten thousand in his pocket. Are you coming with me to the kitchen?”

  “Of course.”

  As they went into the hallway, they saw someone—a man—-just peeling around the corner.

  “Who was that? I wonder if he was listening at the door!” Miranda exclaimed.

  “Probably a footman,” Pavel said, with little interest, and continued to the kitchen.

  Cook handed over the keys with no trouble. She also provided a candle for them to go to the cellar. It was a vast, damp, dark, cool cavern, holding bins of root vegetables in the first room, with the wine in the next chamber. They did not move beyond the root cellar. While Miranda held the candle, Pavel searched the ring for the key to Rotham’s room.

  “I know it is number seventeen,” he said, “for he used to keep pictures of scantily clad women under his mattress when he was young. He used to lock his door then. It took me half an hour to find out which key was his. Now that is deuced odd!” he exclaimed, fingering the keys. “Number seventeen is missing! He took the spare key! By Jove, whatever he is hiding, it must be worth seeing.”

  “What a take-in. Let us go upstairs. There are horrid black beetles on the floor here.”

  They scampered back up to the kitchen. Pavel got Cook aside and said in a knowing way as he handed her the keys, “Rotham got his key from you all right, did he?”

  “Oh yes, milord. I gave it to Slack this very afternoon, soon as they arrived. Slack took the key for the sitting room as well, as there is no key for the door between the rooms. You need have no fear foreigners will see that dispatch from Austria.” She nodded her head in a conspiratorial fashion.

  So that was the story Slack had used for secrecy. As if a dispatch required a whole trunk. “Good work,” Pavel said.

  “What wine will you be wanting for tomorrow night, then?”

  He gave a start of surprise, for he had forgotten all about the wine. “The usual,” he said. “I see there is no shortage. Just tell Boxer to bring up the usual. There will be twenty-four guests.”

  When he and Miranda left, he said, “Rotham had Slack get the key the minute he arrived. And the key to the sitting room as well. What the devil can be so important that he wants no one to see it?”

  “It cannot be more pictures of naked women, or he would not have shown them to Hersham. I have no idea,” she said.

  “Nor have I, but tomorrow while the rout is on, I mean to get into that room, if I have to tear down a wall to do it.”

  “Is there a vine outside his window?” Miranda asked.

  “No, just that old oak tree, and it is more than twenty feet from the house. You would have to be an ape to leap it.”

  “What about a ladder? Does Rotham leave his window open?"

  “Yes, by Jove! He d
oes in weather like this. He is a demon for fresh air. Right. We'll get out the ladder tomorrow night while Rotham is busy flirting with Louise at the rout.”

  This sounded entirely satisfactory to Miranda. With an exciting day ahead of her, she retired early to her room. Her bedchamber, like most of the spaces at Ashmead, displayed a tapestry on the windowless wall. It was called The Virgin and the Unicorn and pictured a medieval lady wearing what looked like a dunce’s pointed hat. She stood on a chamomile lawn, guarded by a unicorn wearing a blue cape on one side and a tiger similarly arrayed on the other. Smaller animals—rabbits and dogs mostly— disported themselves on the grass. The colors had faded to delicate pastels over the centuries.

  Lady Hersham had told her a unicorn was a mythical wild animal that could only be captured by a virgin. Miranda thought it a silly story, but the tapestry was pretty. Not all the older tapestries at Ashmead were so nice. Many of them had religious themes, as it was mainly the church that could afford tapestries during the Middle Ages. They were placed in churches and convents.

  The aristocracy also commissioned some, but most of them had been lost or destroyed as they were carried about on the Crusades and used roughly. The gold threads had been pulled out and melted down. The few that survived were shabby beyond repair.

  Lady Hersham was very fond of her tapestries.

  “There is no finer private collection in all of England,” she would say proudly. Miranda heard an echo of the lady’s voice inside her head. “I have seen better work than this in my own home,” she had said, when she was looking at the secret in Rotham’s trunk. Was it a tapestry he had stolen? The trunk was the right size for a small tapestry, but surely a stolen tapestry was not a hanging matter, not for a peer of the realm. It was said to be particularly dangerous with Boney on the loose. Boney was not an aficionado of tapestries, was he? Why had Hersham wanted his wife to see the secret? He would not call her to view secret documents. Nor would she proclaim them “a shabby-looking thing.”