Microsoft Word - Sherwood, Valerie - Nightsong by kps Page A

she wore at her belt and ran after them, shouting, with the naked blade wavingin the air. The argument wandered behind one of the lean-to shacks that dot the beach and I lost interest."
    "Do you think anyone was killed?"
    He shrugged. "Very possibly. Life is cheap in New Providence." "And that was the only time you saw Rouge?" "Yes. This girl, this Gilly"-he dropped his voice "if you are bent on giving her a new life, I suggest you let me find her employment in one of the taverns."
    "Oh, no, Kells, she'd promptly slip back into her old life-why, she could even end up in one of those brothels on Thames Street."
    "Which may be where she came from." He sighed. "Very well, Carolina. I will not cross you in this matter since you are so set upon it, but as I will be away so much and-"
    "What? Why will you be away?"
    His eyes glinted. "Tell me about Monsieur du Monde," he cut in briskly. "And why I might have heard rumors."
    So he had spoken to Hawks and Hawks had told him! "I-Monsieur du Monde sprang forward to rescue Gilly," she said in confusion.

    "And you invited him to dinner." "Well, I had expected you to be here," she said in her defense. He accepted that. "This Monsieur du Monde, what is he like?"
    "He said he was from New Providence, but he ain't," supplied Gilly, who had just re-entered the room with a large platter of biscuits. "I'd have seen him there-he ain't the kind could be missed."
    "Oh, he couldn't be missed, could he?" Kells turned to Carolina with a grim smile playing around the comers of his mouth. "I am sorry I didn't meet this Monsieur du Monde. Tellme, what did you learn about him?"
    "Not very much--" "All lies," said Gilly dispassionately. "He looked like a liar to me."
    "That will be enough, Gilly," said Carolina. "You are not to enter into our conversations when we are at dinner. You have set down that tray. Don't just stand there staring at us, return to the kitchen."
    "Yes, mistress!" said Gilly, flouncing away.
    "And you should be more grateful, Gilly. After all, Monsieur du Monde saved you from a beating most likely!" Carolina flung after her.
    The door closed a little too hard.
    "You will not be able to train that one," murmured Kells, shaking his head. "Go on, tell me about this Frenchman."
    "I am not sure he is French," she said slowly. "There is something very Spanish about him. And when I shot a question at him in Spanish, he replied instantly in flawless Spanish."
    "A Spaniard . . ." he said thoughtfully. "Oh, well, I don't know that, Kells. He claimed to be from Marseilles. Perhaps he is."
    "Many men claim to be from Marseilles. A crowded, indifferent, polyglot city-a convenient place to claim to be from, for one could get lost in the crowd there. Didn't you tell me our new neighbor, Louis Deauville, also claims to be from Marseilles?"
    "Yes, I did." She flushed for she guessed Hawks had informed Kells of the way Monsieur Deauville, who had come to live across the street from them, always paid court to her, usually erupting from his house the moment Carolina left hers, finding ways to speak to her, seeking her out in the market. She brought the conversation back to Raymond du Monde, considering it safer. "Anyway, I cannot say that he is not French. He said he had come from New Providence most recently, that he had only spent his boyhood in Marseilles."
    Kells quirked an eyebrow at her. "But you thought he was Spanish?"
    "Well, I could have been wrong."
    "I doubt it. Your instincts are very good about these things." "Anyway, he is gone so we need not bother about him. He told me he was leaving the very next day."

    "Gone. So soon? Did he say where he was going?"
    "I don't remember-no, I don't believe he did."
    "And you were not curious enough to ask him?"
    "Well, after all, it was not my affair. I only invited him to sup with me because-"
    "Because he came to your aid, I know. Still . . . I wonder what he wanted and how he managed so handily to come to your aid?"
    "Oh, that's ridiculous!" she