Devil's Cub (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 2)

My lord looked at her frowningly. ‘Juliana,’ he said, ‘do I understand that you prefer him as a husband to myself ?’

‘Infinitely,’ Miss Marling assured him.

‘You have very bad taste, my girl,’ said my lord calmly.

‘Indeed, cousin! And may I ask whether you prefer that yellow-haired chit I saw you with at Vauxhall as a wife to me?’ retorted Juliana.

‘Ill-judged, my dear. I do not contemplate marriage either with her or you. Nor am I at all certain which yellow-haired chit you mean.’

Miss Marling prepared to depart. She swept a dignified curtsey, and said: ‘I do not mix with the company you keep, dear cousin, so I cannot tell you her name.’

The Marquis bowed gracefully. ‘I still live, dear Juliana.’

‘You are shameless and provoking,’ Miss Marling said crossly and left him.

Two

In the sunny withdrawing-room which overlooked the street sat the Duchess of Avon, listening to her sister-in-law, Lady Fanny Marling, who had called to pay her a morning visit, and to talk over the week’s doings over a cup of chocolate and little sweet biscuits.

Lady Fanny no longer looked her best in the crude light of day, but her grace, though turned forty now, still retained a youthful bloom in her cheeks, and had no need at all to shrink from the sunlight. Lady Fanny, who had taken care to seat herself with her back to the window, could not help feeling slightly resentful. There really seemed to be so little difference between her grace, and the boy-girl whom Avon had brought to England twenty-four years ago. Léonie’s figure was as slim as ever, her Titian hair, worn just now en négligé, was untouched by grey, and her eyes, those great dark-blue eyes which had first attracted the Duke, held all their old sparkle. Twenty-four years of marriage had given her dignity – when she chose to assume it, and much feminine wisdom, which she had lacked in the old days, but no wifely or motherly responsibility, no weight of honours, of social eminence had succeeded in subduing the gamin spirit in her. Lady Fanny considered her far too impulsive, but since she was, at the bottom of her somewhat shallow heart, very fond of her sister-in-law, she admitted that Léonie’s impetuosity only added to her charm.

To-day, however, she was in no mood to admire the Duchess. Life was proving itself a tiresome business, full of unpaid bills, and undutiful daughters. Vaguely it annoyed her that Léonie (who had a thoroughly unsatisfactory son if only she could be brought to realise it) should look so carefree.

‘I vow,’ she said rather sharply, ‘I do not know why we poor creatures slave and fret our lives out for our children, for they are all ungrateful and provoking and only want to disgrace one.’

Léonie wrinkled her brow at that. ‘I do not think,’ she said seriously, ‘that John would ever want to disgrace you, Fanny.’

‘Oh, I was not talking of John!’ said her ladyship. ‘Sons are another matter, though to be sure I should not say so to you, for you have trouble enough with poor dear Dominic, and indeed I wonder how it is he has not turned your hair white with worry already, and young as he is.’

‘I do not have trouble with Dominique,’ said Léonie flatly. ‘I find him fort amusant.’

‘Then I trust you will find his latest exploit fort amusant,’ said Lady Fanny tartly. ‘I will make no doubt he wil

l break his neck over it, for what must he do at the drum last night but wager young Crossly – as mad a rake as ever I set eyes on, and I should be prodigious sorry to see my son in his company – that he would drive his curricle from London to Newmarket in four hours. Five hundred guineas on it, so I heard – play or pay!’

‘He drives very well,’ Léonie said hopefully. ‘I do not think that he will break his neck, but you are quite right, tout même, Fanny: it makes one very anxious.’

‘And not content with making absurd wagers, which of course he must lose –’

‘He will not lose,’ cried her grace indignantly. ‘And if you like I will lay you a wager that he will win!’

‘Lord, my dear, I don’t know what you would have me stake,’ said Lady Fanny, forgetting the main issue for the moment. ‘It’s very well for you with all the pin money and the jewels Avon gives you, but I give you my word I expect to find myself at any moment in that horrid place Rupert used to be clapped up in. If you can believe it I’ve not won once at loo this past month or at silver-pharaoh, and as for whist, I vow and declare to you I wish the game had never been thought of. But that’s neither here nor there, and at least I have not to stand by and watch my only son make himself the talk of the town with his bets and his highwaymen, and I don’t know what more beside.’

Léonie looked interested at this. ‘But tell!’ she commanded. ‘What highwayman?’

‘Oh, it was nothing but just to match the rest of his conduct. He shot one last night on Hounslow Heath, and must needs leave the body upon the road.’

‘He is a very good shot,’ Léonie said. ‘For me, I like best to fight with swords, and so does Monseigneur, but Dominique chooses pistols.’

Lady Fanny almost stamped her feet. ‘I declare you are as incorrigible as that worthless boy himself !’ she cried. ‘It’s very well for the world to call Dominic Devil’s Cub, and place all his wildness at poor Avon’s door, but for my part I find him very like his mamma.’

Léonie was delighted. ‘Voyons, that pleases me very much!’ she said. ‘Do you really think so?’

What Fanny might have been goaded to reply to this was checked by the quiet opening of the door behind her. She had no need to turn her head to see who had come in, for Léonie’s face told her.

A soft voice spoke. ‘Ah, my dear Fanny,’ it said, ‘lamenting my son’s wickedness as usual, I perceive.’

‘Monseigneur, Dominique has shot a highwayman!’ Léonie said, before Fanny had time to speak.