Duc.”
A shadow crossed the lady’s face. She made a movement as though to stand between Leonie and the children. Leonie’s chin went up.
“I am not anything else, madame,
“I crave your pardon, my dear. I beg that you will stay. I am Lady Merivale.”
“I thought you were,” confided Leonie. “Lady Fanny told me of you.”
“Fanny?” Jennifer’s brow cleared. “You know her?”
“I have been with her two weeks, when I came from Paris. Monseigneur thought it would not be
Jennifer, in the past, had had experience of his Grace’s ideas of propriety, and thus she did not see at all, but she was too polite to say so. She and Leonie sat down on the tree-trunk while the small boy stared round- eyed.
“No one likes Monseigneur, I find,” Leonie remarked. “Just a few perhaps. Lady Fanny, and M. Davenant, and me, of course.”
“Oh, you like him, then?” Jennifer looked at her wonderingly.
“He is so good to me, you understand,” explained Leonie. “That is your little son?”
“Yes, that is John. Come and make your bow, John.”
John obeyed, and ventured a remark:
“Your hair is quite short, madam.”
Leonie pulled off her hat.
“But how pretty!” exclaimed Jennifer. “Why did you cut it?”
Leonie hesitated.
“Madame, please will you not ask me? I am not allowed to tell people. Lady Fanny said I must not.”
“I hope ’twas not an illness?” said Jennifer, with an anxious eye to her children.
“Oh no!” Leonie assured her. Again she hesitated. “Monseigneur did not say I was not to tell. It was only Lady Fanny, and she is not always very wise, do you think? And I do not suppose that she would want me not to tell you, for you were at the convent with her,
Jennifer was startled.
“I beg your pardon, my dear?”
“Since I was twelve I have always been a boy. Then Monseigneur found me, and I was his page. And—and then he discovered that I was not a boy at all, and he made me his daughter. I did not like it at first, and these petticoats still bother me, but in some ways it is very pleasant. I have so many things all my own, and I am a lady now.”
Jennifer’s eyes grew soft. She patted Leonie’s hand.
“You quaint child! For how long do you think to stay at Avon?”
“I do not quite know, madame. It is as Monseigneur wills. And I have to learn so many things. Lady Fanny is to present me, I think. It is nice of her, is it not?”
“Prodigious amiable,” Jennifer agreed. “Tell me your name, my dear.”
“I am Leonie de Bonnard, madame.”
“And your parents made the—the Duke your guardian?”
“N-no. They have been dead for many years, you see. Monseigneur did it all himself.” Leonie glanced down at the babe. “Is this also your son, madame?”
“Yes, child, this is Geoffrey Molyneux Merivale. Is he not beautiful?”
“Very,” said Leonie politely. “I do not know babies very well.” She rose, and picked up her plumed hat. “I must go back, madame. Madame Field will have become agitated.” She smiled mischievously. “She is very like a hen, you know.”
Jennifer laughed.
“But you’ll come again? Come to the house one day, and I will present my husband.”
“Yes, if you please, madame. I should like to come.
The baby gurgled, and waved an aimless hand. Leonie hoisted herself into the saddle.
“One does not know what to say to a baby,” she remarked. “He is very nice, of course,” she added. She bowed, hat in hand, and, turning, made her way back along the path down which she had come, to the road.
Jennifer picked up the baby, and, calling to John to follow, went through the wood and across the gardens to the house. She relinquished the children to their nurse, and went in search of her husband.
She found him in the library, turning over his accounts, a big, loose-limbed man, with humorous grey eyes, and a firm-lipped mouth. He held out his hand.
“Faith, Jenny, you grow more lovely each time I look upon you,” he said.
She laughed, and went to sit on the arm of his chair.
“Fanny thinks us unfashionable, Anthony.”
“Oh, Fanny——! She’s fond enough of Marling at heart.”
“Very fond of him, Anthony, but she is modish withal, and likes other men to whisper pretty things in her ear. I fear that I shall never have the taste for town ways.”
“My love, if I find ‘other men’ whispering in your ear——”
“My lord!”
“My lady?”
“You are monstrous ungallant, sir! As if they—as if I would!”
His hold about her tightened.
“You might be the rage of town, Jenny, an you would.”
“Oh, is that your will, my lord?” she teased. “Now I know that you are disappointed in your wife. I thank you, sir!” She slipped from him, and swept him a mock curtsy.
My lord jumped up and caught her.
“Rogue, I am the happiest man on earth.”
“My felicitations, sir. Anthony, you have had no word from Edward, have you?”
“From Edward? Nay, why should I?”
“I met a girl to-day in the woods who has stayed with the Marlings. I wondered whether he had written to tell you.”
“A girl? Here? Who was she?”
“You’ll be surprised, my lord. She is a very babe, and—and she says she is the Duke’s ward.”
“Alastair?” Merivale’s brow wrinkled. “What new whim can that be?”
“I could not ask, of course. But is it not strange that—that man—should adopt her?”
“Perchance he is a reformed character, my love.”
She shivered.
“He could never be that. I feel so sorry for this child—in his power. I asked her to come and see me one day. Was it right of me?”
He frowned.
“I’ll have no dealings with Alastair, Jenny. I am not like to forget that his Grace saw fit to abduct my wife.”
“I wasn’t your wife then,” she protested. “And—and this child—this Leonie—is not like that at all. I should be so pleased if you would let her come.”
He made her a magnificent leg.
“My lady, you are mistress in your own house,” he said.
So it was that when next Leonie rode over to Merivale she was received gladly both by Jennifer and her lord. She was rather shy at first, but her nervousness fled before Merivale’s smile. Over a dish of Bohea she made gay conversation, and presently turned to her host.
“I wanted to meet you, milor’,” she said cheerfully. “I have heard much—oh, much—about you!”
