Regency Buck (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 3)

The Earl poured himself out a glass of wine, and tasted it before he answered. ‘Murder, George, is a very strong word,’ he said. ‘There was also a groom, and a tilbury, and a pair of horses.’

‘True,’ agreed Brummell. ‘Yet I am of the opinion that a resourceful person might – at a pinch – find the means of disposing of a groom, a tilbury, and even a pair of horses.’

‘It is a possibility that has already occurred to me. It is not, however, one that I intend to present to Miss Taverner.’

Mr Brummell set down his glass, and opened his snuff-box again. ‘How many years have I known you, Julian?’ he inquired.

‘Precisely eighteen,’ replied the Earl, with disastrous promptness.

‘Nonsense!’ said Brummell, considerably startled. ‘It was not as long ago as that, surely, that I joined the regiment?’

‘You were gazetted to the 10th Hussars in June of ’94, and you left us in ’98 – upon the regiment’s being moved to Manchester,’ said the Earl inexorably.

‘I remember that,’ admitted Brummell. ‘But how very shocking! I must be thirty-four or five!’

‘Thirty-four,’ said the Earl.

‘My dear Julian, I beg you won’t mention it to anyone!’ said Brummell earnestly.

‘I won’t. What was it you wanted to say?’

‘Oh, merely that during the years I have known you I have always thought you a man of considerable resource,’ said Brummell.

‘I am obliged to you,’ said the Earl. ‘You have only to add that the most determined suitor to Miss Taverner’s hand is one Charles Audley, and we shall understand one another tolerably well.’

‘But I have known you for eighteen years,’ objected Brummell. ‘And it does seem to me that I have seen another determined suitor – a very civil gentleman who is, I think, a cousin.’

‘Admiral Taverner’s son,’ said the Earl briefly.

Brummell nodded. ‘Yes, I met the Admiral in Brook Street once. He is a fellow, now, who would send his plate up twice for soup. I am perfectly willing to suspect any son of his.’

‘Yes,’ said the Earl, ‘I rather fancy that if nothing is heard of Peregrine, suspicion will point to Mr Bernard Taverner. That would be unfortunate for Mr Bernard Taverner.’

‘I collect,’ remarked Brummell, ‘that the gentleman in question is no friend of yours.’

‘So little my friend,’ replied the Earl, ‘that I shall own myself surprised if he does not presently set it about that it was I who caused Peregrine, and his groom, his tilbury, and his horses to disappear.’

‘Which is absurd,’ said Brummell.

‘Which,’ agreed the Earl, ‘is naturally absurd, my dear George.’

In Marine Parade Miss Taverner spent an uncomfortable day, running to the window at the least sound of carriage wheels stopping outside the house, and trying to think of some good reason for Peregrine’s prolonged absence. While Mrs Scattergood did her best to reassure her, it was evident that she too felt a considerable degree of alarm, and when, at six o’clock, there was still no sign of Peregrine, it was she, and not Miss Taverner, who sent a footman round to the Steyne with an urgent note for the Earl of Worth.

He came at once, and was ushered into the drawing-room, where both ladies were awaiting him. Miss Taverner was looking pale, and greeted him with a rather wan smile. ‘He has not come back,’ she said, trying to speak calmly.

‘No, so I am informed,’ he replied. ‘And you, I perceive, have been fancying him dead this hour and more.’

His coolness, though it might argue a lack of sensibility, had always the power to allay any extraordinary irritation of nerves in her. She had been thinking Peregrine dead, but she at once felt such fears to be nonsensical. But Mrs Scattergood exclaimed, with a strong shudder: ‘How can you say such things? If that is what you think –’

‘No, it is what Miss Taverner thinks,’ he answered. ‘Am I right, my ward?’

‘Lord Worth, what am I to think? He has disappeared. I know no more than that.’

‘You would do well not to imagine more,’ he said. ‘Your brother is an extremely careless young man, but because he has chosen to slip off on some adventure without letting anyone know of it, is no reason to be in despair.’

‘It will not do,’ she said. ‘You know how much reason I have to fear the worst. All day long I have been recalling that duel, the attempt to shoot him on Finchley Common – even his illness in your house! Have you forgotten these things?’

‘No,’ he replied, ‘I have not forgotten them. I am leaving for London to-night. I can get no news of him on the Worthing road. You must try to trust me, Miss Taverner. Meanwhile, I wish that you will remain in Brighton, and continue as much as possible your ordinary pursuits. Until we have more precise information it would be undesirable to start any public hue and cry. The fewer people who know of Peregrine’s disappearance the better.’