She rose to her feet, and swallowed hard.
‘Monseigneur, I – I know ! I could not – you do not understand! It was not possible – Oh, Monseigneur, Monseigneur, why have you come?’
‘To take you back, my infant. What else?’
She shook her head.
‘Never, never! I c-can’t! I know so well that –’
‘Sit down, child. There is so much that I must tell you. Crying, ma mie.’ He raised her hand to his lips, and his voice was very tender. ‘There’s naught now to distress you, mignonne, I swear.’ He made her sit down on the couch, and placed himself beside her, still holding her hand. ‘Child, you are not base-born, you are not even peasant-born. You are, as I have known from the first, Léonie de Saint-Vire, daughter of the Comte and his wife, Marie de Lespinasse.’
Léonie blinked at him.
‘Mon-monseigneur?’ she gasped.
‘Yes, my child, just that,’ said his Grace, and told her briefly what was her history. She stared at him, round-eyed and with parted lips, and when he finished could find no words for a long minute.
‘Then – then I am – noble!’ she said at last. ‘I – Oh, is it true, Monseigneur? Is it really true?’
‘I should not else have told you, mignonne.’
She sprang up, flushed and excited.
‘I am well-born! I am – I am Mademoiselle de Saint-Vire! I can – I can come back to Paris! Monseigneur, I thin
k I am going to cry!’
‘I beg you will not, ma fille. Spare your tears for my next news.’
She paused in her dance across the room, and looked at him anxiously.
‘I have to inform you, infant, that your father is dead.’
The colour returned to her cheeks.
‘Vraiment? ’ she said eagerly. ‘Did you kill him, Monseigneur?’
‘I am very sorry, infant, but I did not actually kill him. I induced him to kill himself.’
She came back to the couch, and sat down again.
‘But tell me!’ she said. ‘Please tell me quickly, Monseigneur! When did he kill himself ?’
‘On Tuesday, my child, at Madame du Deffand’s soirée.’
‘Tiens!’ She was entirely unperturbed. ‘Why, enfin ?’
‘I thought that the earth had harboured him too long,’ Avon replied.
‘You did it! I know you did it!’ she said exultantly. ‘You meant him to die that night!’
‘I did, child.’
‘Was Rupert there? And Lady Fanny? How Rupert must have been pleased!’
‘Moderately, child. He did not display any signs of the unholy ecstasy you appear to feel.’
She tucked her hand in his, and smiled trustingly up at him.