That Scoundrel Émile Dubois

by Lucinda Elliot

  Émile was shut away with Georges, refusing dinner, while Sophie was unable to eat any. Such of the staff who felt like dinner ate what the under cook had prepared for the dining room. These didn’t include Agnes and Katarina, who sat with Sophie.

  Mr Kit carved the roast and tried to jolly everyone along. He didn’t succeed. Mrs Kit looked thunderous; Éloise, Guto and the others pushed their food about their plates, but the boot boy cleared his three times.

  Mrs Kit rumbled like a volcano. “Disgraceful goings on…”

  “Now, Dolly, later.”

  “I never thought I would see the day!”

  “Dolly, please.”

  The others exchanged looks.

  Sophie, Agnes and Katarina were supposed to be working on the Poor Box, but they hardly took a stitch.

  Agnes was doing some jollying along herself. “From how those two howled, for sure something must happen. That wine wasn’t really hot.”

  Sophie ran a hand across her eyes. “Monsieur Émile detested the taste of the herbs, yet they haven’t cured him, or not properly, anyway.”

  Katarina was violently unpicking some work which yesterday had seemed good enough, but she now thought looked awful. “I’m not sure, Ma’am! His teeth are no longer so sharp.”

  Agnes said briskly, “I have a Good Feeling, but now is weary you look, Mistress Sophie, and I think you should lie down as Monsieur is sulking too much to take his dinner and you not able for yours.”

  Sophie sighed with relief when Agnes took off her stays. “I fear Monsieur may have bitten Éloise, Agnes. Mrs Kit knows as much, I’m sure.” She bit her own lip as she admitted it. “Yet if he has, hopefully she has lost little blood, for she looks rosy yet. We must warn her about wearing her cross. I suppose as a safeguard we must start her on the herbs without alarming her, hoping they may work upon her, whether they do or no on the men.”

  Agnes’ eyes flashed. “It could have been Georges bit her. I am going to warn the silly thing now, though I ain’t seen her without her cross. At least tonight them Man Vampires is too put out to be breaking into Demonic Laughs and Slobbering at our necks.”

  “Agnes, if there any of the Charged Wine left over?”

  “Near half, which I have safely locked up. For sure you are not thinking of dousing them rascals again so soon?”

  “No, Agnes, but I think I should have a glass myself, just in case I am So, and perhaps we should give one to Éloise too, though I think Katarina said that the herbs should be taken first. Bring the bottle up, and I shall keep it safe in my bedside cabinet.”

  Agnes nodded. “Is an excellent idea, Mistress Sophie. I’ll bring it you directly. We cannot be too careful, though very likely it is not needed, for you know how since your wedding, long before you could show any symptoms of being with child, you have complained of your morning hot chocolate tasting strange? It is because I have been putting some of the herbs in it as a safeguard for you and any babies to come.”

  The soothing murmuring as he caressed Sophie was like the first time. Then she felt a chill of warning, lingering even as she melted.

  “Open your eyes, ma cher.” He kept insisting on this. Still, she took a long time wakening from her exhausted sleep. The two glasses of charged wine she had taken made her sleep the more heavily after the nausea and heartburn they caused had eased.

  Seeing the savage green of Émile’s own eyes, she tried to snap hers closed, too late. His gaze had already transfixed her. In the perimeters of her vision, she was aware of the shifting light of the guttering candles and the extinguishing fire.

  “You bit Éloise!” Even as her brain became confused, she thought her whining note ridiculous.

  “Bien sûr; only through your playing the coquette with me, Sophie moi. I only took a couple of mouthfuls from her, not enough to change her for sure. You are my walking banquet. No, chérie, keep those innocent blue eyes on me. They melt me quite, I do love you.”

  Now he was holding her fast and she knew her struggles to be hopeless, yet instinct forced her.

  He went on, his tone condescending and gloating. “I cannot stay angry with you, though you subjected me to such agony earlier. I know you believe you act for the good of my soul, you little fool. Alors, these miserable religious convictions of yours shall no longer keep us apart, my praying little Goody Two Shoes.”*

  Again, even as his eyes grew, even as her thoughts slowed from their whirling, she somehow noted this was exactly like the Last Gloating Speech of the Villain of the Piece in novels.

  There it would be followed immediately by his defeat by the forces of good.

  There was no chance of that for her.

  The candles and the low fire were burning normally again. He went on, “Undo the clasp of That Thing.”

  Now, she sensed the secret hidden at the back of his eyes. Her hands undid the clasp. He drew back a little, never relaxing his piercing stare into her soul. “Throw it aside, keeping it from me.”

  As her hands moved, she willed them to thrust it into his face. They ignored her, hurling the cross away. In the deadly silence she heard it fall.

  “Now relax, ma chère. You know I love you.” Her arms moved to lie quiescent at her sides.

  She saw the secret in his eyes: it was herself, holding a blond baby.

  She roused to one last desperate effort. “No, Émile! I am–”

  He was talking across her. “Do not fear me, as I have often said, it will be as it is with the other. As then, all you need to do is trust me.”

  He was breathing fast, planting kiss after kiss on her bosom and throat, working himself up, tantalising himself in readiness for the final bite. But she had turned to ice.

  As her senses sank, she made a disjointed prayer.

  He bit. Horror overwhelmed her. There was no merciful oblivion of warmth.

  He stopped. He lay drooping upon her, gasping. His eyes met hers again, but in mortification. “I cannot do it!” He might have been complaining of impotence, so outraged and humiliated was he. “I cannot do it! My only chance and I cannot follow through!”

  Serves you right.

  He muttered and swore in French, running his hands through his hair so that it stood up wildly. She noticed he looked rather nice like that.

  “Tomorrow, I must have my strength – it cannot be I fast become human again! You devout meddler, what have you done?”

  Unaccountably, she felt sorry for him.

  He jumped up and was staggering from the room when he stopped to look back at her. “Sophie, make sure and find That Thing and put it on. You must be safe from the others.”

  He went on towards the door without a word of apology.

  Sophie lay still breathless, not daring to hope he was right about becoming human. Then, suddenly, a memory pierced through her thoughts as a sunbeam breaks through the cover of rain clouds.

  “Viens ici, salaud!”

  That was the phrase Mademoiselle Charlotte had murmured – looking shocked – in her dream weeks since. Sophie suddenly knew it to be a device Ceridwen Kenrick used to put Émile under her influence, no doubt to induce him to work with Kenrick.

  Émile froze at her words and exclaimed in French. He turned to stare at her, and already there was something oddly automatic about his movements.

  Sophie jumped up from the bed, but a wave of dizziness forced her to sit down again, blinking away the black swirling in front of her eyes. Meanwhile Émile stood where he was, as though waiting for orders.

  She got up slowly and went to him, despising herself for starting to forgive him already. Close to him, she could see the glazed look in his eyes. “I free you of any ideas anyone has put in your mind while under the influence of those words.” There was a stirring in his eyes, and she raised one hand to caress his face.

  “How I would like to use it to order you not to go to Plas Cyfeillgar again, and to love me forever! I wish I was unscrupulous enough to do so, but you must act of your own free will. So I free you of those w
ords. Come to yourself.”

  At once he shook his head violently. “Sophie?” He looked at her, puzzled. If she had half-expected an outburst of gratitude, she was to be disappointed; he remembered nothing and clearly wondered why he had turned back.

  “How do you feel now?” she asked.

  He looked outraged. “How do you suppose?!” He paused; perhaps he was trying to vanish in a burst of sparks. If so, he failed there too. He left ignominiously, on foot, again without a word of apology.

  Émile paced about his study while the candles burned in their sconces at either side of the mirror. He paused and stared down at the open book upon the desk. After some minutes, he paced again, breaking off to gaze at the book again. Sometimes a flickering came across the ceiling.

  He spun about at a tap at the door. “Go away!”

  The doorknob turned. “Let me in, it’s Georges.”

  “Keep off, idiot!”

  “Then I’ll come in through the window.”

  Swearing, Émile flung open the door. “What do you want?”

  Georges ducked under his arm. “Ah, you are about your funny work again.”

  “Stay out of this, Georges. I got myself into this and must get myself out of it.”

  “With me against them lot we stand one quarter of a chance, n’est pas? Without me, you stand none at all, and then what becomes of Madame Sophie and the others?”

  Émile squeezed his shoulders. “You are all I would choose in a brother, Georges.”

  Georges’ eyes glowed while he snorted. “We are in trouble, Gilles Long Legs. You weren’t surprised I couldn’t just appear in here because you cannot do as much yourself.” He glanced down at his nails dolefully.

  Émile sighed. “Les femmes chose an unhappy time to have their way with us. Bien sûr, now we cannot safeguard them by having our way with them.”

  “Never have we endured such treatment from women. Alors, tell me what you are about.”

  The flickering came back more persistently. “Think twice, Georges, for I go on a desperate venture.”

  The flickering intensified.

  Sophie tried to hide her feeling of incipient nausea from Agnes’ bright brown eyes, forcing herself to take sips of the odd smelling and tasting hot chocolate (which she suspected would have been distasteful to her even without the herbs). She must follow Émile to Plas Cyfeillgar today. Even apart from the sense of foreboding that drove her on to act today, tomorrow she might feel worse, and it is difficult to feel sick and brave at once.

  “Agnes, Monsieur Émile made an attempt on me last night, and failed.” For all the horror of their situation, Sophie had to smile as she remembered his humiliation.

  “Argol Fawr (Good Lord) he was not the only one. Katarina was with me last night, though Georges didn’t realise she was there, and I locked the door. Before now he has appeared and only my garlic has kept him out of my bed, but last night I heard him out in the corridor when I was half asleep, cursing and lamenting in French. For sure he tried to get in, and found he couldn’t. They become human apace already.”

  “Have you seen Monsieur and Georges? How did Éloise take your warning?”

  “I think Monsieur has said something to her, I don’t know what, but she is taking the cure anyway and is angry rather than scared, talking of packing her box, but slow enough about it. I think Monsieur still locked in his study, and Georges may be with him. Mr Kit is up and drinking small beer in the kitchen, and is rude enough about what he calls bumpkins isn’t it.”

  Sophie dropped her eyes, so Agnes wouldn’t see in them her sudden dread that Émile and Georges might already be at Plas Cyfeillgar, for all her freeing Émile of the malign influence of the words given to her by Charlotte.

  Sophie fondled the key in her nightdress pocket she had crept downstairs in the night to fetch, just in case Émile might leave orders for her to be kept inside. She wasn’t going to tell Agnes about the key; if Émile had gone to Plas Cyfeillgar, then she would follow him alone.

  More than her jealousy of Ceridwen Kenrick, more than anything, Sophie dreaded that having had his longing to change the past stirred by Kenrick, Émile would continue with this attempt, and so change the present in which they had come together and made this growing baby whom she was now confident would be fully human, and who might disappear too.

  In Émile’s dressing room on the cabinet where Émile often left her a funny or tender message in French (besides improving her riding and chess, he was teaching her French), Sophie found a note, in English save the endearment.

  ‘Sophie Moi,

  You do not need me to tell you how I love you, for all my savagery. Knowing it, please do not venture out today. I hope to be back for your English teatime.

  Yours Always My Lovely Girl,

  Émile.’

  Lord Ynyr left Plas Uchaf before breakfast, riding through the grey morning down the foothills to Plas Planwydden. The sheep stared at him, and one challenged him with what sounded like, ‘Merde!’

  That was exactly what the old Émile would have said about the gothic melodrama in which Lord Ynyr found himself.

  The Count – usually far from devout – was praying.

  The door was answered by the fat scoundrel who passed for the butler at Plas Planwydden. It was obvious from his battered face and black eyes he had been involved in a mill* recently. The Count drew back in disgust.

  The ruffian was about to speak, but Lord Ynyr cut him off. “Is Monsieur Émile at home?”

  “No, he is gone out.” The Count realised that the fellow was looking at him commiseratingly. “Your Lordship, may I enquire how does Miss Morwenna?”

  The Count found himself bandying words with a servant. “You dare ask me how your Master’s victim does?! He is a blood sucking monster and the villain, having very likely murdered Miss Morwenna, will not face me.”

  “Did anyone else speak of Monsieur so, I would not stand for it, but Anyone who has been a Friend to Monsieur is a Friend of Mine.” The ruffian looked regretful Lord Ynyr must be acknowledged as a member of this exclusive group.

  “Perhaps he is about more mischief with his fellow vampires over at Plas Cyfeillgar?” The Count thought he saw confirmation in the man’s eyes. “You disgusting fellow, most likely you are become one yourself!”

  The man drew himself up, looking outraged, and began to speak, but Lord Ynyr whipped out his cross.

  Instead of cowering back, gargling, Émile’s butler looked bored. “I hope Your Lordship ain’t got religion and come here to preach? But if you take comfort by it now, that is well enough by me.”

  Disappointed, Lord Ynyr had to admit that the man’s teeth were normal enough. “Where is your Mistress?”

  “Mistress Sophie is a little indisposed and seeing no visitors.”

  “I truly believe it! No doubt your monstrous master makes his poor wife a virtual prisoner in this disgusting nest of criminal vampires. I will waste no more words on you. But if Madame Dubois is by God’s mercy still human, then I will ensure remains so!”

  As he span on his heel, some detached part of Lord Ynyr’s mind recalled Émile’s reading out a part of ‘Madoc the Magnificent or the Vampyre’s Curse’ in which the hero Eugene made just such a speech. The Count’s back prickled as he walked to the front door, reminding him how foolhardy he was to storm into this household alone.

  The man was by him again. The Count thrust out his cross. Still unaffected by it, the criminal began, “You are wrong about Monsieur. That Kenrick –”

  “Silence, you disgusting vampire’s lackey!” The Count wrenched at the door and rushed down the front steps.

  He had remembered the curio someone – it could hardly have been Kenrick – had brought the Late Count from Eastern Europe, knowing his amused scorn over the vampire legends. He must fetch it from Plas Uchaf before confronting Émile. Then he must bring himself to use it.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Kenrick set up the chandeliers, the mirrors and the books w
ith the half visible images of the past.

  Arthur stood lost in thought, fondling Émile’s pistol.

  “I pity you, boy.” Kenrick said. “You dread Captain Mackenzie’s call signifies he even now persuades my so-called wife to go off with him. There is no possibility of that while I hold out the hope of reunion with her dead infant.”

  Arthur said hoarsely, “I fear, Sir, you shall all be lost.”

  “Then so be it, I care not for the risk. The French ruffian will be here betimes to do the necessary calculations.” He took off his glasses to polish and giggled. “Keep him covered; shoot if he tries any tricks. Also, it would be no loss if he should become stranded in another time stream, eh, Arthur?” He nodded conspiratorially, giggling again.

  He went to the fire for a taper, and lit the candles in the chandeliers. “I must begin.”

  He started as a light began to play across the ceiling, and then to resolve itself into a series of pictures moving downwards. “It comes back uncontrolled again!”

  Confused images were playing down the sides of the ceiling. Suddenly, Kenrick and Arthur were surrounded by a group of half transparent figures of Émile and Georges, seemingly in a fight, whirling and jumping about the room in a confusing, half formed crowd.

  Arthur followed their movements, jaw dropped.

  Kenrick raged. “From whence this –”

  The store room door thudded open. Émile and Georges rushed out, knives raised.

  Sophie, carrying some objects wrapped in a cloth, left via the locked side door two minutes after reading Émile’s note, nauseated, knees shaking in terror that she was too late.

  She trotted to the stables – expecting Georges to give chase at any minute – and told the groom she wanted to ride about the grounds. She fiddled as he prepared her horse. Then, at last she was riding down the back drive.

  The weak February sunshine was breaking through the mist as Sophie made the seemingly endless ride along the lanes to the foothills of the Famau Mountain. Once she passed by a toothless old woman driving a farm cart loaded with turnips, who made a gesture of respect.