Regency Buck (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 3)

Mr Brummell drew in his breath. ‘I will tell you, sir, if you will accord me a few moments.’ Then, turning to address a footman who had come in to make up the fire, he quietly desired the man to send his valet to him. Mr Fox-Matthews stared, but the Beau remained quite imperturbable, and maintained a thoughtful silence until the entrance of a neat man in a black coat, who came anxiously up to him, and bowed.

‘Robinson,’ said Mr Brummell, ‘which of the Lakes do I admire?’

‘Windermere, sir,’ replied the valet respectfully.

‘Ah, Windermere, is it? Thank you, Robinson. Yes, I like Windermere best,’ he said, turning politely back to Mr FoxMatthews.

Mrs Fox-Matthews, swelling with indignation, rose, and declared it to be time they were taking their leave.

Peregrine’s cough, when his sister next saw him, did not appear to have benefited much from a morning spent in the fresh air. It still troubled him, and during the days that followed grew perceptibly worse. His throat was slightly inflamed, and although he would not hear of consulting a doctor, or admit that he felt in the least sickly, it was evident that he was far from being in perfect health. There was a languor, a heavy look about the eyes which worried his sister, but he ascribed it all to having caught a chill, and believed that the air at Worth might not quite suit him.

‘The air at Worth,’ Judith repeated. ‘The air –’ She broke off. ‘What am I thinking? I deserve to be beaten for indulging such a wild fancy! Impossible! Oh, impossible!’

‘Well, what are you thinking?’ inquired Peregrine, with a yawn. ‘What is impossible? Why do you look so oddly?’

She knelt down beside his chair and clasped his hands. ‘Perry, how do you feel?’ she asked earnestly. ‘Are you sure that it is no more than a chill?’

‘Why, what else should it be? What’s in your mind?’

‘I hardly know, hardly dare to wonder. Perry, when that man picked a quarrel with you – I am speaking of Farnaby – were you not surprised? Did it seem to you reasonable?’

‘What has that to do with it?’ he asked, opening his eyes at her. ‘Ay, I daresay I was a trifle surprised, but if Farnaby was foxed, you know –’

‘But was he? You did not say so.’

‘Lord, how should I know? I did not think so, but he may have been.’

She continued to clasp his hands, looking anxiously up into his face. ‘You were fired on the day you came over Finchley Common, a shot you believed might have killed you, had it not been for Hinkson. Twice you have been in danger of your life! And now you are ill, mysteriously so, for you have no chill, Perry, and you know it, but only this dry cough, which is growing worse, and the sore throat!’

He stared, sat up with a jerk, and then burst into a laugh that brought on a fit of coughing. ‘Lord, Ju, you’ll be the death of me! Do you think I am being poisoned? Why, who in the world should want to put me away? Of all the nonsensical notions!’

‘Yes, yes, it is nonsensical, it must be!’ she said. ‘I tell myself so, and yet am unconvinced. Perry, have you not considered that if anything should happen to you the greater part of your fortune would be mine?’

This set him off into another fit of laughing. ‘What! are you trying to make away with me?’ he asked.

‘Be serious, Perry, I beg of you!’

‘Lord, how can I be? I never heard such a pack of nonsense in my life. This is what comes of reading Mrs Radclyffe’s novels! It is a famous joke, I declare!’

‘What is a famous joke? May I share it?’

Judith looked quickly round.The Earl had come into the room, and was standing by the table, inscrutably regarding them. How much he had heard of their conversation she could not guess, but she coloured deeply, and sprang up, turning her head away.

‘Oh, it is the best thing I have heard these ten years!’ said Peregrine. ‘Judith thinks I am being poisoned!’

‘Indeed!’ said the Earl, glancing in Judith’s direction. ‘May I know who it is Miss Taverner suspects of poisoning you?’

She threw her brother an angry, reproachful look, and went past the Earl to the door. ‘Peregrine is jesting. I believe him to have taken something that has not agreed with him, that is all.’

She went out, and the Earl, looking after her in silence for a moment, presently turned back to Peregrine, and, laying a silver snuff-box on the table, said: ‘This is yours, I fancy. It was found in the Blue Saloon.’

‘Oh, thank you! Yes, it is mine,’ said Peregrine, picking it up and idly flicking it open. ‘I did not know I had so much snuff in it, however; I thought it had been no more than half full. You know, Petersham found it to be a very good mixture. You heard him say so. I wish you would try it!’

‘Very well,’ said the Earl, dipping his finger and thumb in the box.

Peregrine, much gratified, also took a pinch, and inhaled it carelessly. ‘I like it as well as most,’ he said. ‘I do not see what there is to object to in it.’

The Earl’s eyes, which had been fixed watchfully on his face, fell. ‘Petersham’s praise should be enough to satisfy you,’ he said. ‘I know of no better judge.’