Page 84 of Souvenir of Love

Madeleine inhaled sharply and placed a hand against her tightly corseted waist. “She suggested I could be a grandmother.”

“Youaregoing to be a grandmother.” Alix smoothed the mound of her belly.

“That’s beside the point.”

Alix waited for her mother to continue.

“And then she had the nerve to ask after Elizabeth. Can you imagine? After everything she has said and done to that poor girl?” Madeleine sniffed indignantly. “And the way she proceeded to bring up the story at nearly every function she attended.”

“Her retribution for my having stolen Rafe from her.”

“Absurd. Anyone who saw him last winter knows that Moreham was mad for you. Why, the first time he laid eyes upon you in London he behaved as if you belonged to him?—”

“She did.”

At these words, Alix and Madeleine both turned their heads toward the door to the library, where Rafe stood. “How long have you been standing there?” Madeleine asked.

“Long enough to feel compelled to remind you that Roland is your dog, my dear mother-in-law, and to wonder how you responded to Lady Anne.” He strode over to his wife’s chair and kissed her. He received a lick from Roland as well.

“I know how to deal with spiteful women. I let her know, most casually, that far from being disgraced, Elizabeth is still in demand amongst members of our society.”

Rafe glanced sharply at Madeleine, drawing his brows together in a tight frown.

“Do not make that face at me, Moreham, I spent many years at the court of Versailles. I know how to be diplomatic.” Madeleine smoothed her plum-colored skirts. “And besides, I said nothing that was untrue. Elizabeth is at Hartsdale.I imagine she must be quite a favorite of the Norcrofts, considering how much of the summer she has spent with them.”

A muscle in Rafe’s jaw twitched. His hand curved around the arm of Alix’s chair so tightly that if the roses in the brocade pattern had been real, they would have been pressed into perfume. Alix covered his hand and looked up at him.

“You two are keeping secrets from me.” Madeleine eyed them sharply. “I can tell from the way you are regarding one another. I do not like secrets, so confess!”

Alix cocked her head questioningly at Rafe. “It is Elizabeth…” she began slowly. “Not so much a secret as a…concern.”

“Yes?” Madeleine prodded.

“Her letters arrive regularly, but…something seems amiss. For example, in the one that arrived this past week, she describes a delightful outing to the ruins of an old Norman castle. Yet she says the outing was last Tuesday, and she raves about the lovely weather?—”

“LastTuesday?” Madeleine pursed her lips. “The day of the dreadful downpour?”

Alix nodded. “And there have been other errors, little ones, but taken all together, well, it is enough now to raise suspicions…”

“So why do you not ride over to Hartsdale and see if she is there?” Madeleine looked pointedly at Rafe.

“And if she is not?” he inquired dryly.

“Disaster?”

“Precisely.” Rafe looked as if he might tear the chair arm loose from the frame.

“There is always the chance that she is not with Dinsmore…” Alix offered.

“Very true.” Madeleine folded her hands in her lap. “Most likely the errors in the letters were honest ones; I mistake the date all the time.” She smiled. “I am sure that is it. Indeed, I amcertain there is a bright side to Roland’s encounter with Lady Anne this morning.”

“And what is that?” Rafe’s tone was skeptical.

Madeleine smiled. “Wherever Elizabeth may be, thanks to me, Lady Anne believes she is mending her ways at Hartsdale.”

The soldier calledJean stared distastefully at Joley’s battered eyepatch. Then he called over his shoulder to the soldier who’d given him the order to inspect the eye. “I’m standing guard on these two,” he said, gesturing with his musket at David and Andre. “You flip up the patch.”

The thin soldier, Henri, waved the identification papers he had taken from James. “My hands are filled.”