Minuet Read Free Page B

and the Chinese shawl from the table, and insert pins and filets where milady directed. Considering that three orders came from belowstairs to hurry it up, milady took her time about the proceedings, standing in front of a mirror, turning over a piece of material to make a tuck here, a pleat there, as though she had all the time in the world.
    While still half draped, she ordered food, insisting she could not wait a moment longer. With a wing of chicken held between her fingers, she continued her toilette. At length she stood before them swathed in gold satin draperies that began well below her shoulders, and finished three feet behind her in a train. With all this finery, no shoes could be found to fit her, and she went in the housekeeper’s best Sunday silk hose, without shoes. Her hair had been toweled dry to be brushed into a tousle of curls the shade of burnished copper. It sat in a wreath of glistening ringlets like a cap on her head.
    “My, don’t you look pretty, mum,” the upstairs maid said, smiling in pleasure.
    “Pas trop mal,” Minou decided, as she took a last turn before a pier glass. She gave a little shrug of satisfaction and sallied forth to greet her father, just ninety minutes after leaving him. The lengthy interval convinced Lord Harlock the girl was indeed Marie’s daughter.
     

Chapter Two
     
    While Lady Céleste prepared her toilette, their lordships sat below discussing her appearance at Berkeley Square, with the elder trying to convince Degan that she was indeed Sal, and Degan trying equally hard to warn the elder to caution.
    “For your sake, I hope she is not,” Degan said curtly. “A daughter running around the countryside unchaperoned in boy’s clothing, and drinking brandy as though it were water, will do you little credit. It’s infamous carrying-on. And what the devil is keeping her? She’s been up there for hours.”
    “She is Marie’s daughter too,” Harlock pointed out with a patient smile.
    Suddenly she appeared at the doorway. Harlock turned pale and said, “Bless my soul! What a turn she gave me. The image of her mother.”
    Degan arose without quite knowing he did it, to pay homage to the entrance of a lady into the room. The sex at least of the person standing before them was in no doubt. A pair of white shoulders, dainty and well formed, were not the only clue. The gold satin curtain was stylishly draped over her curving bosom, tightly cinched at the waist. No male had such a body, and no female either that Degan had ever seen. The Chinese shawl, heavily fringed, trailed from her fingers. The head was held at a coquettish angle, tilted to one side, and an arch smile was on her lips. The face, free of tangled mats of hair and dirt, was seen to be kittenish in shape, with high cheeks tapering to a small pointed chin. She took two steps into the room, then lifted her arms and did a pirouette. “You like, Papa? Yes?” she asked.
    “Charming, my dear,” Harlock said warmly, and walked toward her.
    She tried a step forward to greet him, and found her shoeless feet caught up in the train as a result of her turn. She would have gone falling to the floor if he had not been there to catch her. “Ah, quelle gauchérie!” she said, and laughed up into his face before stooping over, with a quite careless disregard for her hastily constructed gown, which plunged with the movement. Degan averted his head in alarm that approached panic, to examine a very inferior Italian painting of the Ponte Vecchio for ninety seconds, till she had regained her posture and her gown.
    “At least we won’t need a doctor to tell us she’s a woman, eh, Degan?” Harlock joked.
    “Your daughter was a girl, sir, if I recall,” was his stiff, embarrassed answer.
    “But certainly I was a girl. How else does one become a woman?” she asked, with a contemptuous flicker of a glance toward Degan.
    “How old is she?” Degan asked his cousin.
    “Dix-neuf,” she answered. “I can speak for