Devil's Cub (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 2)

Lord Rupert scratched his head, tilting his wig slightly askew. ‘Oh, very well! But it’s not what I’d call a lady’s drink.’

‘Me, I am not a lady,’ announced her grace. ‘I have been very well educated, and I will drink port.’

Fletcher withdrew, quite impassive. His lordship remonstrated once more. ‘Y’know you mustn’t talk like that before servants, Léonie. ’Pon my soul –’

‘If you like,’ interrupted Léonie, ‘I will play piquet with you till Dominique comes.’

Dominic came an hour later. A sulky dashed up the street and stopped outside the house. Léonie flung down her cards, and ran to the window, pulling aside the heavy curtains, but was too late to catch a glimpse of her son. A groom was already driving the sulky away, and inside the house a door slammed, and Fletcher’s discreet voice sounded. A sharper one answered; a quick step trod in the hall, and Vidal came into the library.

He was pale, and his eyes were frowning and tired. Mud had generously splashed his breeches and plain buff coat, and his neck-cloth was crumpled and limp. ‘Ma mère! ’ he said, surprise in his voice.

Léonie momentarily forgot her mission. She went to him, grasping the lapels of his coat. ‘Oh, you have not killed yourself ! But tell me, Dominique, at once, did you get there in the time?’

His hands covered hers with a gesture rather mechanical. ‘Yes, of course. But what are you doing here? Rupert, too? Is anything amiss?’

‘Anything amiss,’ exploded Rupert. ‘That’s rich! ’Pon my soul, that’s rich! Oh, there’s naught amiss, never fear! You’ve only killed that fellow Quarles and set the whole town in a roar.’

‘Dead, is he?’ said his lordship. He put Léonie from him, and walked to the table. ‘Well, I thought as much.’

‘No, no, he is not dead!’ Léonie said vehemently. ‘You shan’t say so, Rupert!’

‘It don’t matter what I say,’ responded my lord. ‘If he ain’t dead now he will be in a day’s time. You fool, Vidal.’

The Marquis had poured himself out a glass of wine, but was looking down at the red liquid instead of drinking it. ‘Runners after me?’

‘They will be,’ his uncle said grimly.

A heavy frown was gathering. The Marquis’s lips tightened. ‘Damnation!’ His glance flickered to Léonie’s troubled face. ‘Don’t let it disturb you, madame, I beg.’

‘Dominique, did you – did you, in effect, mean to kill him?’ she asked, her eyes on his face.

He shrugged. ‘Oh, since I fought at all, yes.’

‘I do not mind you killing people when you have reason, you know, but – but – was there a reason, mon enfant ?’ said her grace.

‘The fellow was drunk, and you knew it, Vidal!’ Rupert said.

‘Perfectly.’ The Marquis sipped his wine. ‘But so was I drunk.’ Again he looked towards Léonie. What he saw in her face made him say with a kind of suppressed violence: ‘Why do you look at me like that? You know what I am, do you not? Do you not?’

‘Here, Dominic!’ his uncle said, in a voice of protest. ‘You’re talking to your mother, boy.’

Léonie raised an admonishing finger. ‘Enough, Rupert. Yes, I know, my little one, and I am very unhappy for you.’ She blinked away a tear. ‘You are too much my son.’

‘Fiddle!’ said Vidal roughly. He put down his glass, the wine in it unfinished. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour, and he looked quickly around at it. ‘I must go. Why did you come? To tell me Quarles is as good as dead? I knew it.’

‘No, not for that,’ Léonie replied. ‘I think – I think there is a billet for you from Monseigneur.’

The Marquis’s laugh held a note of recklessness. ‘Be sure. I have it in my pocket. Inform him, madame, that I shall wait upon him in the morning.’

There was real trouble in Léonie’s face. ‘Dominique, you do not seem to me to understand at all. Monseigneur is enraged. He says you must leave the country, and, oh, my dear one, I beg you not to anger him any more! You should wait on him at once.’

‘Who told him?’ Vidal answered. ‘You, Rupert?’

‘Fiend seize you, d

o you take me for a tale-bearer? You young fool, he saw it!’

The frowning eyes stared at him. ‘What the devil do you mean?’