‘He did love me!’ Sophia said chokingly. ‘He never looked at Mary! Never!’
‘Hold your tongue, Sophy! Not but what it is true, ma’am. His lordship was mad for the child. But Mary took it into her head ’twas not marriage he intended, and what she did was to save her sister from ruin.’
‘It is of a nobility almost incredible, madame. What did this Mary do?’
Mrs Challoner threw out her hands dramatically. ‘She took Sophia’s place, ma’am. It was night, and she was masked, for Sophia has found an old loo-mask gone from her drawer. What she had in mind to do I know not, but she meant to return, your grace. And all this was five days ago, and there is no sign of my poor girl. His lordship has run off with her to France.’
‘Indeed?’ Léonie said. ‘You have good information, madame. Who told you that M. le Marquis has gone to France? It is not known to many.’
Mrs Challoner cast a startled glance at Sophia. ‘I told mamma,’ Sophia said sullenly.
‘You interest me – oh, but very much, mademoiselle! You thought, en effet, that he would go to Scotland, and he told you that he would go to France.’
‘I see that your grace has guessed it!’ Mrs Challoner said desperately. ‘Sophia, leave the room. I have something of a private nature to say to her grace.’
‘I won’t leave the room,’ Sophia answered rebelliously. ‘You mean to make Vidal wed Mary, and it is not fair! He loves me, me, me! Mary stole him, the mean cat, but she shan’t have him!’
‘Ah, I perceive the truth!’ said Léonie. ‘It is Miss Mary Challoner who has abducted my son. I make her my compliments.’
‘It is no such thing!’ broke in Mrs Challoner. ‘Alas, it is true that Sophia here would have gone with my lord to France, and dreadful it is to me to have to own to it. But girls will be for ever reading romances, ma’am, as I make no doubt your grace knows. Yes, Sophia was swept off her feet by his lordship’s wiles, but Mary stepped in with some scheme of her own to send my lord packing. She has saved her poor sister at the price of her own honour, ma’am!’
Léonie said thoughtfully: ‘It is strange, I find, that this so noble sister did not rather inform you, madame, of what mademoiselle here meant to do. You, who have reared your daughters with such strictness, could have arranged matters more easily, is it not so?’
‘Indeed, and I do not know why Mary did not tell me, ma’am, but she is an odd secret girl, and will for ever be thinking she knows better than her mamma.’
Léonie rose. She was smiling, but her dark eyes were bright with anger. ‘You do not know? Then me, I will tell you. It is plain to me that mademoiselle Mary has thought that she will become Madame la Marquise, and not her sister. As to that, we shall see. You have said to my sister that you will make one big scandal. Vous pouvez vous éviter de la peine, madame ; it is I who will make the scandal. I do not desire that my son should have a liaison with your daughter, for she appears to me to be a young woman not at all comme il faut. I shall go to Paris at once, and I shall bring this clever Mary back to you in good time. And if you are so stupid that you cry aloud that the Marquis my son has carried off your daughter you will look even more foolish than you do now, for it will be seen that I am with M. le Marquis, and I think if I say I was with him all the time people will perhaps believe my word before that of Madame Challoner. Que pensez-vous, madame?’
Mrs Challoner came to her feet in a hurry, and said loudly: ‘Ho, ma’am, and is that how it is to be? And do you think my poor deceived girl will have nothing to say to that fine tale? She shall declare her wrongs to the world, for I’ll make her, and I’ll see she is heard!’
Léonie gave a light, scornful laugh. ‘Vraiment? It is a story so silly, madame, that I think people will say “quel tas de bêtises! ” and not at all believe you. And me I shall say only that this Mary forced herself upon my son, and I shall be believed, madame, do not doubt.’ She swept a curtsey, ignored Sophia, who was gaping at her in astonishment, and walked out of the room before Mrs Challoner could collect her scattered wits.
Sophia bounced out of her chair, crying: ‘There, mamma! That’s all your scheming has led to! Lord, I vow I could die of laughing at you!’
Mrs Challoner promptly boxed her ears. Sophia began at once to cry, but her mother had gone to the window, and was watching a liveried footman hand her grace into the carriage. She said through her teeth: ‘I’m not finished yet, Sophy, don’t think it. We’ll see who has the laugh, your grace!’ She turned quickly. ‘I’m going to make a journey,’ she said. ‘You’ll be off to your Uncle Henry’s house, Sophy, till I come back, and see you behave yourself circumspectly!’
In the white house in Curzon Street Lady Fanny was eagerly awaiting Léonie’s return. When her grace came into the boudoir she fairly pounced upon her, a dozen questions tripping off her tongue. Léonie untied the strings of her becoming hat, and threw it on the table. ‘Bah, quelle vieille guenon !’ she said. ‘I have frightened her a little, and I will tell you this, Fanny, I will not have Dominique ally himself with the daughter of such an one. I go at once to France to arrange the matter.’
Lady Fanny regarded her shrewdly. ‘La, my dear, you’re in such a heat you’d best wait till you’ve cooled a little.’
‘I am not in a heat at all,’ Léonie said with great precision. ‘I am of a coolness quite remarkable, and I would like to kill that woman.’
‘You’re in a rage, my love, don’t tell me! You’ve forgotten your English, which is a very sure sign, though I can’t conceive why you should become so vastly French as soon as you lose your temper.’
Léonie stalked to the mantelpiece, picked up a vase from it, and quite deliberately smashed it. Lady Fanny shrieked, and cried out: ‘My precious Sèvres vase!’
Léonie looked down, conscience-stricken, at the pieces of porcelain lying on the floor. ‘I do not behave like a lady,’ she said. ‘I did not know it was Sèvres. It was very ugly.’
Fanny giggled. ‘Hideous, love! I’ve always hated it. But, ’pon rep, I thought you had learned to curb that dreadful temper of yours! I vow you’re as great a hoyden as ever you were twenty years ago. What did that odious creature say to make you so angry?’
Léonie said fiercely: ‘It is a trick, all of it, to make Dominique marry that girl. She thought she could make me afraid, but it is I who will make her afraid! Dominique shall not marry that – that – salope !’
‘Léonie!’ gasped Fanny, clapping her hands over her ears. ‘How dare you?’
‘She is!’ raged her grace. ‘And that mother, she is nothing but an entremettreuse ! Me, I know very well her type! And she will be my Dominique’s belle-mère, hein ? No, and no, and no!’
Lady Fanny uncovered her ears. ‘Lord, my dear, don’t put yourself about! Vidal won’t want to marry the wench. But what of the scandal?’
‘Je m’en fiche! ’ said Léonie crudely.