An Infamous Army (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 4)

The staff officer looked quick up, and jumped to his feet. He was a man in the mid-thirties, with smiling grey eyes, and a mobile, well-shaped mouth.

Lady Worth seized him by both hands. ‘My dear Charles! of all the delightful surprises! But when did you arrive? How pleased I am to see you! Have you breakfasted? Where is your baggage?’

Colonel Audley responded to this welcome by putting an arm round his sister-in-law’s waist and kissing her cheek. ‘No need to ask you how you do: you look fa

mous! I got in last night, too late to knock you up.’

‘How can you be so absurd? Don’t tell me you put up at an hôtel!’

‘No, at the Duke’s.’

‘He is here too? Really in Brussels at last?’

‘Why certainly! We are all of us here—the Duke, Fremantle, young Lennox, and your humble servant.’ A tug at his sash recalled his attention to his nephew. ‘Sir! I beg pardon! The boat—of course!’

The boat was soon finished, and put into his lordship’s fat little hand. Prompted by his Mama, he uttered a laconic word of thanks, and was borne off by his nurse.

Colonel Audley readjusted his sash. ‘I must tell you that I find my nephew improved out of all recognition, Judith. When I last had the pleasure of meeting him, he covered me with confusion by bursting into a howl of dismay. But nothing could have been more gentlemanlike than his reception of me today.’

She smiled. ‘I hope it may be true. He is not always so, I confess. To my mind he is excessively like his father in his dislike of strangers. Worth, of course, would have you believe quite otherwise. Sit down, and let me give you some coffee. Have you seen Worth yet?’

‘Not a sign of him. Tell me all the news! What has been happening here? How do you go on?’

‘But my dear Charles, I have no news! It is to you that we look for that. Don’t you know that for weeks past we have been positively hanging upon your arrival, eagerly searching your wretchedly brief letters for the least grain of interesting intelligence?’

He looked surprised, and a little amused. ‘What in the world would you have me tell you? I had thought the deliberations of the Congress were pretty well known.’

‘Charles!’ said her ladyship, in a despairing voice, ‘you have been at the very hub of the world, surrounded by Emperors and Statesmen, and you ask me what I would have you tell me!’

‘Oh, I can tell you a deal about the Emperors,’ offered the Colonel. ‘Alexander, now, is—let us say—a trifle difficult.’

He was interrupted. ‘Tell me immediately what you have been doing!’ commanded Judith.

‘Dancing,’ he replied.

‘Dancing!’

‘And dining.’

‘You are most provoking. Are you pledged to secrecy? If so, of course I won’t ask you any awkward questions.’

‘Not in the least,’ said the Colonel cheerfully. ‘Life in Vienna was one long ball. I have been devoting a great part of my time to the quadrille. L’Eté, la Poule, la grande ronde—I have all the steps, I assure you.’

‘You must be a very odd sort of an aide-de-camp!’ she remarked. ‘Does not the Duke object?’

‘Object?’ said the Colonel. ‘Of course not! He likes it. William Lennox would tell you that the excellence of his pas de zéphyr is the only thing that has more than once saved him from reprimand.’

‘But seriously, Charles—?’

‘On my honour!’

She was quite dumbfounded by this unexpected light cast upon the proceedings at Vienna, but before she could express her astonishment her husband came into the room, and the subject was forgotten in the greeting between the brothers, and the exchange of questions.

‘You have been travelling fast,’ the Earl said, as he presently took his seat at the table. ‘Stuart spoke of the Duke’s still being in Vienna only the other day.’

‘Yes, shockingly fast. We even had to stop for lard to grease the wheels. But with such a shriek going up for the Beau from here, what did you expect?’ said the Colonel, with a twinkle. ‘Anyone would imagine Boney to be only a day’s march off from the noise you have been making.’

The Earl smiled, but merely said: ‘Are you rejoining the Regiment, or do you remain on the Staff?’