Cousins of a Kind

by Sheila Walsh

  Theo was thrown against the Comte with considerable force, and by the time they had untangled themselves and climbed down, a small crowd had gathered.

  The Comte’s angry protestations that he could not have avoided the boy brought dark mutterings of ‘bloody Frogs, wild driving’, and ‘fancy swells as didn’t give a cuss for folks worse off than themselves’.

  Theo ignored the veiled threats and ran to kneel beside the two women already at the boy’s side. The Comte muttered a Gallic curse, seized the youth nearest to him, pressed a coin into his hand, and promised another if he minded the tilbury. Then he strode away to stand at Theo’s shoulder.

  ‘Dead, that’s what the little bleeder is, all on account of you!’ shouted one of the women, glaring accusingly up at him. He gave her his most austere stare, and after a moment her eyes slid away.

  ‘Does the boy still live?’ he demanded tautly of Theo.

  She made no answer, being intent upon seeking a pulse. At last finding a thin thread, she began to run her hands gently over the child’s emaciated body.

  ‘Is either of you his mother?’ she asked, as pressure on his ribs drew a faint moan.

  ‘’is mam’s dead, more’n a year now,’ offered one of her companions.

  ‘And the father?’

  The woman shrugged.

  ‘Well, the child isn’t dead, but he does need a doctor.’ Theo looked up, conscious of a lack of response. ‘Who is responsible for him?’

  ‘Reckon ’e fends for ’imself,’ someone muttered. ‘Thievin’ mostly.’

  ‘Well, he can’t fend for himself now.’ Theo stood up, the light of battle in her eyes. ‘So, who among you is willing to take him in?’

  The crowd melted away with surprising suddenness, until only a few women remained.

  ‘The Widow Brodie’d most likely take ’im,’ said a large rough-looking woman, wiping her hands on a none-too-clean apron. ‘But as for doctors …’ She shrugged.

  Theo looked at her uncertainly, but there was little choice. ‘Where does this Widow Brodie live?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘End house ‒ that side.’ The woman jerked her head.

  ‘I shall take him,’ said the Comte, lifting the boy with surprising gentleness as Theo urged him to have a care for his rib, which she was fairly sure was broken, as was his left wrist.

  If there was something incongruous in the sight of the suave, elegant Frenchman striding down the mean street with his ragged and undoubtedly lousy burden, he seemed unaware of it, and Theo was too preoccupied to notice.

  The gaunt, middle-aged woman who opened the door to them was not upon first encounter an encouraging sight, but though sharp-tongued, she bade them to come in and lay the boy on a sagging couch against the back wall. Theo observed that though the room was shabby, it was spotlessly clean.

  She explained briefly what had happened and the extent of the boy’s injuries as far as she could determine them.

  ‘I’ll see ’im right,’ said Mrs Brodie. ‘The wrist’s a clean break, and as for his ribs … well, I reckon I can bind them up as good as any doctor.’

  ‘You will need money,’ said the Comte, who had stood aloof from the discussion. He tossed a handful of coins on to the widow’s table, and looked a little helplessly at Theo. ‘For food and …’ He shrugged.

  ‘It is enough,’ said the widow dourly.

  ‘Merci.’ He bowed formally.

  ‘Well, then …’ Theo smiled and moved to the door. ‘We are very grateful to you.’

  ‘Can’t hardly let the little perisher snuff it, can I?’ came the sharp retort. ‘He’s not a bad kid, for all that ’e thieves! Reckon it en’t his fault.’

  ‘No,’ said Theo.

  She walked rather blindly out into the sunshine and back up the road a little ahead of the Comte. The boy into whose charge he had entrusted the tilbury was still at his post, valiantly defending it against a horde of inquisitive children, and upon receiving his promised reward, ran off, with the rest in hot pursuit.

  It was very quiet when they had gone. Theo stood with one hand resting on the gleaming panel of the tilbury feeling suddenly weak with exhaustion. She was very much aware of de Varron standing near by, and presently lifted her eyes to meet his.

  ‘Well!’ she exclaimed on a faint sigh.

  He was regarding her with a look ‒ part bewildered, part quizzical. ‘I am asking myself,’ he said in a wondering way, ‘why are you still here?’

  She returned his look steadily. ‘I am waiting for you to take me home, monsieur ‒ if you will be so kind as to help me up?’

  He came forward then, and with his hand firm beneath her arm, stood very close staring down at her with a fierce intensity.

  ‘You had every chance to escape me ‒ why did you not attempt it?’

  Theo studied his face. At such close quarters it showed a myriad of fine lines that lent the handsome features their particular stamp of distinction and maturity ‒ and, for added measure, just a fascinating hint of decadence. His eyes, narrowed in frowning concentration, were very blue ‒ and clearly puzzled by her lack of fear. She was a little puzzled herself.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said with quiet deliberation. ‘Perhaps I saw something in you just now that made the thought of flight unnecessary. You see, it seemed to me that a man who could show so much concern for an unknown child could not be half so callous as he was endeavouring to paint himself to me.’

  Having thus effectively deprived him of speech, she added with the ghost of a smile, ‘So please ‒ may we go now? The Duchess will be wondering where I am.’

  He shook his head as if in a daze. ‘Incroyable!’ he murmured, and without another word, handed her up into the seat.

  The equipage swayed on its springs as he leaped up beside her and took up the reins. Just before he gave the patient mare the office to start, he looked at Theo again with the glimmer of a smile.

  ‘I wonder,’ he mused. ‘But for the accident ‒ would I have gone through with it?’

  ‘That, thank God, we shall never know, monsieur,’ she replied with devout sincerity, and leaned back with closed eyes.

  They were well on their way when she opened them again.

  ‘You know,’ she mused thoughtfully, ‘I guess that if Grandpa does have that necklace, his main objection to admitting it lies in his fear that you are an impostor.’

  ‘But you do not think this?’

  She considered. ‘There was a time when I wasn’t sure.’

  ‘And now?’ He could scarcely keep the urgency out of his voice.

  ‘Now? Oh, now,’ she concluded, ‘I am inclined to believe you.’

  He laughed, and gave the reins a slap that sent the little mare dancing faster. ‘Merci bien, ma chère Mademoiselle Théo! And you will help me, yes?’

  ‘I will do what I can,’ she said, smiling at his sudden, almost boyish, ebullience. ‘Though I’m not sure how much help I can be, other than to write to Grandpa.’ She thought a moment. ‘What will you do with the necklace if it should be found?’

  He cast her a speculative look. ‘Nothing is certain, but this acquaintance with whom I stay ‒ he also has an acquaintance ‒ not of noble family, you understand, but a man of immense wealth ‒ he has, I believe, many factories!’

  Theo was shocked. ‘You would sell it, monsieur? And to such a one?’

  ‘Ah, no,’ he assured her. ‘Not unless all else fails. The wealthy factory-owner has a daughter ‒ a plump little pudding. Eh bien, this child, upon learning of the beauty of the Cascade, longs to own such a prize ‒ and papa would like for his daughter to be a Comtesse …’

  ‘So you would sell yourself,’ she said, disappointed.

  The Comte shrugged. ‘So what would you, mademoiselle? In France, a mariage de convenance is commonplace. The little pudding will be content to be a grande dame with her Cascade Diamant, papa will be puffed with pride and will pay handsomely for the restoration of the de Varron fortunes ‒ and I shall thus take my righ
tful place once more in society.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Theo said reluctantly. ‘But it all sounds very … unromantic.’

  He put back his head and laughed. ‘Ah, chère mademoiselle, in France we seldom confuse romance and marriage!’ He gave her a droll look. ‘Now I have really shocked you!’

  ‘Not at all,’ she said primly, and turned her thoughts once more to the main stumbling-block to the realisation of his expectations. ‘Would papa not agree to the marriage without the necklace?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the Comte a little austerely. ‘But one has one’s pride. With the Cascade, at least I am not empty-handed!’

  ‘Have you any idea how many people here know about the Diamond Waterfall, apart from the girl and her papa?’

  ‘It is hardly the kind of information one bandies about, you understand,’ he said in his droll way. ‘Such questions as I have ventured to ask have been confined solely to members of your family.’

  ‘So Cousin Beau knows about it. And Selina?’

  He nodded. ‘And your cousin Benedict, of course. He was the first to know.’

  ‘Yes.’ She thought about the mysterious intruder. ‘Did you ever visit Radlett House in Grosvenor Square?’

  ‘No ‒ because he ‒ your cousin Benedict ‒ informed me that my lord was ill and living in the country.’

  A further unpleasant thought crossed her mind. ‘Did Aubrey know about the necklace?’

  ‘That I cannot vouch for.’ The Comte glanced at her ruefully. ‘Such an interrogation! Where does it all lead, I ask myself!’

  ‘I’m not too sure,’ Theo admitted. ‘But we shall see.’ She noted with relief that they were approaching Hyde Park. From the number of people about, she guessed that the hour must be late. ‘I hope the Duchess hasn’t set up a hue and cry,’ she said with a half-nervous laugh.

  ‘It is not too late to turn back,’ he suggested provocatively. ‘I could then pursue the second of my alternatives.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she exclaimed. ‘I never did discover what that was?’

  He threw her a glance brimming with mockery. ‘I thought to seduce you.’ And as her eyes opened wide and faint colour stole into her cheeks, he continued, ‘You would then be obliged to marry me, your grandpère must perforce accept the situation, deliver to me my property and his grandchild also ‒ a much more agreeable prize than the little pudding, hein? And romantic!’

  The sheer effrontery of it was too much for Theo. She succumbed to laughter which was part relief, part appreciation.

  ‘But not anything like so financially rewarding!’ she gasped. ‘No, Monsieur le Comte, I think you had better hold to your original plan ‒ you have many irresistible qualities, but I don’t think I would be very comfortable having you for a husband!’

  His eyes twinkled. ‘But then I had not thought to make you comfortable, mademoiselle!’

  His comical expression sent her into fresh whoops, and she was still laughing as they passed a small group of people talking beside a drawn-up carriage, and she found herself looking down into Benedict’s eyes.

  Chapter Eleven

  The repercussions of that afternoon were to cast a shadow over the days that followed. Theo arrived home to a gentle but firm reprimand from the Duchess for disappearing without telling anyone where she was going.

  ‘Independence may be all very fine, my love, but too much of it can lead to misunderstandings!’

  Her eyes had opened wide at the sight of her somewhat dishevelled charge, but a carefully edited account of the afternoon’s events, although it had her tut-tutting, appeared to satisfy her. Theo, however, was left with an annoying sense of guilt that she had been less than honest, which in turn left her in no mood to deal with Benedict when he came.

  That he would come she had no doubt; but her hope that she might have gained the safety of her room had been foiled by her interview with the Duchess, so that they were crossing the hall together when he was admitted. The sight of the Duchess stayed him momentarily. Then he bowed punctiliously and came on, the lines of his face harshly drawn, his voice dangerously clipped.

  ‘Servant, ma’am. Permit me, if you will, the favour of a few words with my cousin.’

  Her grace, from several steps up the staircase, looked down on the two young people; the antagonism between them was almost palpable.

  ‘Oh la!’ she exclaimed comically. ‘Very well, sir ‒ if dear Theo is agreeable! But do not keep her, I beg of you ‒ and do not put her in bad humour, for you will remember that we go to Almack’s this evening!’

  Theo, with one hand already on the banister rail, toyed with the notion of denying him his few words and taking to her heels, but there was a look about him at that moment which gave her pause. He was just careless enough of the conventions to make his reaction uncertain (vastly unjust, she railed inwardly, when he expected complete conformity from her!), and she had no wish to embarrass the Duchess in front of her servants.

  So she tossed her head at him and led the way across the hall to the small saloon.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded, when the door had closed behind them. The yellow sparks were very much in evidence in her flashing eyes. ‘I give you fair warning that I am in no mood to listen to a tirade of abuse!’

  ‘Perhaps you would have preferred the veiled ridicule of the people I was with as you drove past?’

  Theo drummed the little bureau at her side with impatient fingers. ‘If people choose to make ill-mannered comment, that is their misfortune.’

  ‘And yours, believe me! For if the patronesses of Almack’s come to hear of it, do you suppose they will let you through their doors again?’

  ‘I don’t give that’ ‒ she snapped her fingers angrily ‒ ‘for the patronesses of Almack’s ‒ or for anyone else who cares more about social niceties than about people themselves!’

  His mouth was a thin line. ‘And what of the Duchess, who has gone to so much trouble on your behalf? Do you snap your fingers at her also?’

  Immediately she was stricken with conscience, which served only to make her the more angry. ‘Oh, this is ridiculous!’ she said in a low trembling voice. ‘Of what do I stand accused? Of driving in a perfectly acceptable fashion with a gentleman who is a distant cousin? I have done so with you more than once, and quite fail to see where the difference lies.’

  ‘My dear good girl, there is every difference in the world! Have you seen your appearance?’

  With little regard for her feelings, Benedict seized her by the shoulders and dragged her across to a pier-glass set in one of the room’s several alcoves. She saw, with something little short of horror, that the skirt of her green redingote was dusty and streaked with dirt where she had knelt in the road. Her close-fitting hat, still slightly askew from the accident, had permitted a tangled strand of hair to escape its confines, and a further streak of dirt disfigured her face. No wonder her grace had stared. A sorry sight, indeed! The reflection did little to assuage her temper.

  ‘And as for acceptable behaviour,’ he drawled with withering sarcasm, ‘there was little of it apparent in the unseemly display of mirth which I was witness to!’

  ‘So I was laughing? I had not realised that that, too, was a crime in society’s eyes! It seems to me that the sooner I return to the country, the better we shall all be suited!’ Theo made a futile gesture, her eyes stinging. ‘As for my disarray, it has a cause, but there is no earthly reason why I should divulge it to you. You have absolutely no authority to censure me!’

  ‘Very true.’ He ground the words out. ‘And you may thank heaven for it, for if I had, you would get more than a verbal dressing-down, believe me!’

  ‘Oh, you are insufferable! I will hear no more!’

  She pushed blindly past him, but his hand shot out to grasp her wrist, staying her flight.

  ‘Keep away from the Comte de Varron, Theo. His kind are not for you!’

  ‘He is more of a gentleman than you, cousin!’ she cried, quite forgetting how short a time since
she had had cause to doubt it. Her eyes glittered with unshed tears so that she could not see his face, and, unable to free herself, she fell to goading him the more; there was even a strange kind of excitement in seeing how far she could push him. Her voice broke on a wild laugh as she concluded: ‘If the idea were not so preposterous, one might conclude that you were jealous!’

  She heard his breath sucked in. The next moment he had pulled her hard against him, and his mouth on hers was like a punishment, compelling her surrender with an angry, almost brutal intensity that invaded every fibre of her being. She couldn’t breathe, and yet she seemed full of rushing air, and though her senses spun with the force of some violent emotion, she knew that it wasn’t fear, or even anger.

  When he at last released her, she made a small incoherent whimpering sound ‒ and as his face swam into focus, she saw that his eyes were strangely glittering. As she ran for the door, she heard him say with a kind of groan, ‘Oh, damn!’

  It was some time before Theo could compose herself. Never in her wildest imaginings could she have dreamed of anyone treating her as Benedict had done. It was an assault in every sense of the word ‒ and, worst of all, the thing that shamed her to her very toes, was that somewhere in the middle of it she had lost all desire to fight him.

  Maddie watched with troubled eyes as her young mistress paced the bedchamber in a state of great agitation until at last she sank on to the stool in front of the dressing-table with her head in her hands.

  ‘Will I be taking a message to her grace, Miss Theo? For you’ll not be wishing to go out this night, I’m thinkin’. All this gadding and such … I never did hold with it!’

  Her words seemed at first to have gone unheeded, but just as Maddie was about to take the matter into her own hands, Miss Theo uttered a deep shuddering sigh, lifted her head, and then, as though coming to from a great distance, sprang to her feet.

  ‘Heavens, we must hurry!’ she cried, almost as though nothing had happened (though not quite), and at once began to pull impatiently at the fastenings of her redingote ‒ in which she might well have been tramping through a midden, from the look of it, thought Maddie.