Regency Buck (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 3)

‘Possibly not,’ said the Earl. ‘But “fear” was probably the right word. Would you like to continue this conversation, or shall we turn to your own affairs?’

‘I thought you would not like it,’ said Peregrine, not without a certain satisfaction. ‘Ay, let us by all means settle the business. I am ready.’

‘Well, sit down,’ said the Earl, opening one of the drawers in his desk. ‘This is the deed of settlement I want you to sign.’ He took out an official-looking document and gave it to Peregrine.

Peregrine reached out his hand for a pen, but was checked by the Earl’s raised brows.

‘I am flattered by this blind trust in my integrity,’ Worth said, ‘but I beg you won’t sign papers without first reading them.’

‘Of course I should not do so in the ordinary way! But you are my guardian, ain’t you? Oh Lord, what stuff it is! There’s no making head or tail of it!’ With which pessimistic utterance Peregrine fortified himself with a gulp of wine, and leaned back in his chair to peruse the document. ‘I knew what it would be! Aforesaid and hereinafter until there is no sense to be made of it!’ He raised his glass to his lips again and sipped. Then he lowered it and looked at the Earl. ‘What is this?’ he asked.

The Earl had seated himself at his desk, and was glancing over another of the documents that awaited Peregrine’s signature. ‘That, my dear Peregrine, is what Brummell would describe as the hot, intoxicating liquor so much drunk by the lower orders. In a word, it is port.’

‘Well, I thought it was, but it seems to me to taste very odd.’

‘I am sorry that you should think so,’ replied the Earl politely. ‘You have the distinction of being alone in that opinion.’

‘Oh, I did not mean to say that it was not good port!’ said Peregrine, blushing furiously. ‘I am not a judge. I’ve no doubt of it being capital stuff!’ He took another sip, and returned to the task of mastering the deed of settlement. The Earl sat with his elbow on the desk, and his chin resting on his hand, watching him.

The words began to move queerly under Peregrine’s eyes. He blinked, and was conscious all at once of a strong feeling of lassitude. Something in his head was making a buzzing sound; his ears felt thick, as though wool had been stuffed in them. He looked up, pressing a hand to his forehead. ‘I beg pardon – don’t feel quite the thing. A sudden dizziness – can’t understand it.’ He lifted his half-empty wine-glass to his lips, but paused before he drank, staring at Worth with a look of frightened suspicion in his eyes.

The Earl was sitting quite still, impassively regarding him. One of the cut-steel buttons on his coat attracted and held Peregrine’s cloudy gaze until he forced himself to look away from it. His brain felt a little stupid; he found himself speculating on the snowy folds of Worth’s cravat. He himself had tried so often to achieve a Water-fall, and always failed. ‘I can’t tie mine like that,’ he said. ‘Water-fall.’

‘You will one day,’ answered the Earl.

‘My head feels so queer,’ Peregrine muttered.

‘The room is a trifle hot. I will open the window in a minute. Go on reading.’

Peregrine dragged his eyes away from that fascinating cravat and tried to focus them on the Earl’s face. He made an effort to collect his wandering wits. The paper he was holding slipped from his fingers to the ground. ‘No!’ he said. ‘It’s not the room!’

He staggered to his feet and stood swaying. ‘Why do you look at me like that? The wine! What have you put in the wine? By God, you sh-shall answer me!’

He stared at his glass in a kind of bemused horror, and in that instant Worth was on his feet, and in one swift movement had got behind him, and seized him, gripping the boy’s right hand from over his shoulder in a cruel hold that clenched Peregrine’s fingers tightly round the wine-glass. His left arm was round Peregrine, forcing the boy back against his shoulder.

Peregrine struggled like a madman, but the dreadful lassitude was stealing over him. He panted: ‘No, no, I won’t! I won’t! You devil, let me go! What have you done to me? What –’ His own hand, with that other grasping it, tilted the rest of the wine down his throat. He seemed to have no power to resist; he choked, spluttered, and saw the room begin to spin round like a kaleidoscope. ‘The wine!’ he said thickly. ‘The wine!’

He heard Worth’s voice say as from a long way off: ‘I am sorry, Peregrine, but there was no alternative. There is nothing to be afraid of.’

He tried to speak, but could not; he was dimly aware of being lifted bodily from the ground; he saw Worth’s face above him, and then he slid into unconsciousness.

The Earl laid him down on the couch against one wall and loosened the folds of his cravat. He stood frowning down at him for a minute, his fingers lightly clasping one slack wrist, his eyes watchfully intent on Peregrine’s face. Then he moved away to where the empty wine-glass lay on the carpet, picked it up, and put it on the table, and went out of the room, locking the door behind him.

There was no one in the hall. The Earl let himself out through the back door on to the iron st

eps, and went down them into the yard. The tiger met him, and grinned impishly. The Earl looked him over. ‘Well, Henry?’

‘Shapley’s not back yet from wherever it was you sent him off to, guv’nor, and you know werry well you let the under-groom go off for the day.’

‘I had not forgotten it. Did you do what I told you?’

‘O’ course I did what you told me!’ answered Henry, aggrieved. ‘Don’t I always? I knew he wouldn’t say no to anything out of a bottle. “Flesh-and-blood this is,” I says to him, but Lord love yer, guv’nor, he wouldn’t have known different if I’d said it was daffy! He tosses it off, and smacks his lips, and I’m blessed if he didn’t sit down right there under my werry nose, and drop off to sleep! I never seen anything like it in all my puff !’

‘The sooner you forget that you saw it at all, the better,’ commented the Earl. ‘Where is Hinkson?’

‘Oh, him!’ Henry sniffed disparagingly and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Putting the horses to, he is, which is about all he’s good for, and not so werry good at that either, if you was to ask me.’

‘Don’t be jealous, Henry. You have done your part very well, but you cannot do everything,’ said the Earl, and walked across the yard to the stables just as Hinkson led out Peregrine’s two horses. ‘Get those horses put to, Ned. Any trouble?’