unpleasant.
“The Comtesse?” he asked, staring at Marie, who was half-sheltered behind the door.
“Madame is dead.”
“So!”
The man came further into the hall. Fleur, listening, had the strongest impression that the announcement held no surprise for him, he had known before he came, she was very certain of that.
She wondered who could have told him. The doctor? The Priest? If so, surely they would have warned her, or at least Marie, that a relation was on the way.
She took stock of Monsieur Pierre de Sardou and was not impressed. He was not so short as he had seemed when she had first viewed him from the upper floor, but he was stocky and inclined to corpulence and it was hard to believe that he could be a blood relation of Lucien.
There was nothing aristocratic in his appearance nor in his bearing for his arrogance and his sharply spoken sentences seemed more assumed than natural.
Then he turned his dark eyes towards her and she had the feeling that he was surprised and unpleasantly so by her presence
“This is – ?” he questioned, speaking to Marie rather than to her.
“La femme de Monsieur Lucien.”
Fleur felt her heart beat quicker, but she said nothing and made no movement, only stood and waited, as it were, for events to come to her rather than making any effort to precipitate them.
“His wife!” Monsieur Pierre expostulated. “But why were we not told? We received no announcement of it when we were informed of his death.”
Neither woman replied and abruptly he strode across the floor towards Fleur.
“It is correct what she says,” he asked, “that you are Lucien’s wife?”
Fleur took a deep breath, then in a voice that she hardly recognised as her own she lied,
“Yes, I am Lucien’s wife.”
“Madame!”
She felt her hand taken and raised to Monsieur Pierre’s lips.
Now he was speaking suavely.
“You must forgive my surprise. I had no idea. I believed that my aunt, the Comtesse, was living here alone with her servants, but I realise that I was mistaken. And are there, you will forgive me for asking, are there children of your marriage?”
Fleur had a sudden insane desire to strike him in the face. She did not know why, it was just that there was something in his smile and the expression in his eyes that made her not only resent his questions but feel afraid of them.
The moment was too chaotic and too unexpected for her to remain cool, but she was certain of one thing, if of one thing only, that there was danger in every word she uttered and that this man was her enemy.
“I have no child.” She spoke quietly. “But will you not come in to the salon? You would like something after your journey, a cup of coffee perhaps?”
“I thank you, but I have not long finished luncheon.”
Fleur led the way into the salon. As she opened the door, she caught sight of Marie’s face and knew by her expression that she was warning her that she too had sensed danger.
The afternoon sun shining in through the lowered Venetian blinds made stripes of gold across the Aubusson carpet with stripes reminiscent of bars, prison bars.
“You have been here long?”
“A long time.’”
“I really cannot understand my dear aunt not acquainting me of so interesting an event as Lucien’s marriage. Besides, I should have liked to commemorate it with a suitable gift.”
“We were married only a short time before he was killed,” Fleur said through stiff lips.
“That accounts for it, of course. The shock and the unhappiness must have been terrible. And yet courageously she answered her letters of condolence, I received one myself. She spoke proudly and at some length of Lucien, strange that she should not have mentioned his wife. She must have forgotten it, of course, that is the explanation, but it is so odd you must agree. My aunt was most punctilious in these matters as you may have noticed. When did she die?”
“This morning at half-past six. Would you like to see her?”
“There is plenty of time for that as I shall be staying here tonight, of course. The funeral will be tomorrow?”
“The next day.”
“So. Then we shall have the pleasure of each other’s company until Wednesday. Perhaps other members of the family may turn up, I don’t know, but I myself will have a great deal to do. You understand, I am now the Head of the Family.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. Of course I am entitled to call myself the ‘Comte de Sardou’, but then we of the younger generation are not in the least concerned with such trifles or the gaudy baubles left over from an effete aristocracy. No, no, I much prefer to be ‘Monsieur’. I am a democrat, as I am sure you are, madame?”
“Of course.”
“I am delighted to hear it. We shall have much in common, I can see that. You have seen the will of Madame la Comtesse?”
The last question was shot at Fleur.
She took her time to answer, stooping to arrange some small china snuffboxes on a table and amused to keep her inquisitor on tenterhooks, knowing that here lay the real crux of the whole situation.
“No, I know nothing at all about it,” she said at length. “If she has made one, it will be with the Advocate.”
“Of course.”
She heard the quick breath of relief that Monsieur Pierre drew. He walked a few paces across the room and then back again.
“May I smoke, madame?”
“Of course, please do. I am sorry I forgot to suggest it.”
“That comes of being in a manless household for so long.” He lit a cigarette. “You were here when Lucien was killed?”
“Yes, I was here.”
“Where were you married?”
Fleur felt herself tremble. This was the question that she had been afraid of. It was only a matter of time now before she was discovered.
“In Paris.”
“At Notre Dame?”
“No, at the Madeleine.”
She did not know why she contradicted him save for the pleasure of it.
“Strange indeed!
