Devil's Cub (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 2)

He and she set forth next day in her grace’s huge travelling coach. Léonie did not seem to be greatly disturbed by her son’s conduct. She said cheerfully that it was very odd of Dominique to abduct the wrong sister, and asked John what he supposed could have happened. John, who was feeling tired and annoyed, said that he could not venture a guess.

‘Well, I think it was very stupid of him,’ said the Duchess.

Mr Marling said austerely: ‘Vidal’s conduct is nearly always stupid, ma’am. He has neither sense nor decency.’

‘Indeed?’ said the Duchess dangerously.

‘I have endeavoured again and again to interest him in serious things. I am his senior by six years, and I have not unnaturally supposed that my advice and frequent warnings would not go entirely unheeded. It seems I was wrong. The late scandalous happenings at Timothy’s make it positively unpleasant for me to enter the clubs, where I am aware that I must be indicated to any stranger as the cousin of a notorious rake and – not to mince matters – murderer. Moreover –’

‘I will tell you something, John,’ interrupted the Duchess. ‘You should be very grateful to Dominique, for of a certainty no one would point you out at all if you were not his cousin.’

‘Good God, aunt, do you imagine I wish to achieve notoriety in such a fashion? It is of all things the most repugnant to me. As for this latest exploit – well, I ascribe it very largely to my Uncle Rupert’s influence. Vidal has always chosen to be intimate with him to a degree I and, I may say, my mother, have considered to be unwise in the extreme. I don’t doubt he learned his utter disregard for morality from him.’

‘I find you insupportable!’ stated the Duchess. ‘My poor child, it is quite plain to me that you are jealous of Dominique.’

‘Jealous?’ repeated Mr Marling, astounded.

‘Of a certainty,’ nodded the Duchess. ‘To shoot a man dead: it is terrible, you say. For you could not do it. You could not shoot an elephant dead. To elope with a woman: it is scandalous! Bien entendu, but you, you could not persuade even a blind woman to elope with you, which I find not scandalous, but tragic.’

Mr Marling was unable to think of a suitable retort. His aunt, having disposed of him in this one withering speech, smiled affably, and patted her knee. ‘We will discuss now what I must do to rescue Dominique from this impasse.’

Mr Marling could not resist the temptation of saying: ‘I apprehend that the unfortunate young female at present in his company is more in need of rescue.’

‘Ah, bah!’ cried the Duchess, ‘it is not possible to talk to you, for you are without sense!’

‘I am sorry, ma’am, if I disappoint you, but you appear to regard this affair very lightly.’

‘I do not regard it lightly at all,’ said Léonie stiffly. ‘Only I do not believe that it is just as this Mrs Challoner has told Fanny. If Vidal has taken her daughter to France I think she went very willingly, and the matter solves itself. Mrs Challoner would have me believe that the one sister went with my son to save the other. Voilà une histoire peu croyable. I ask myself, if this were true where is the girl now? In England, bien sûr, for why should Vidal take to France someone he did not want?’

‘I’ve thought of that too, Aunt Léonie, and I have the answer, though I am afraid you will not credit it. If the story is true, Vidal will have taken her for revenge.’

There was a long silence. The Duchess clasped and unclasped her hands. ‘That is what you think, John?’

‘It is possible, ma’am, you’ll agree.’

‘Yes. In a black mood Dominique might… I must go to Rupert at once! Why do we go so slowly? Tell them to hurry!’

‘Go to my uncle?’ John echoed. ‘I cannot conceive what good he will be to you!’

‘No?’ Léonie said fiercely. ‘I will tell you, then. He will go to France with me, and find Dominique and this girl.’

‘Lord, ma’am, do you tell me you’ll go off to France with him?’

‘Why not?’ demanded Léonie.

‘But, aunt, it will be th

ought prodigious strange if it becomes known. People will think you have run away with my uncle. Moreover, I consider him a most unsuitable escort for any lady, accustomed as you are, my dear ma’am, to every delicate attention to her comfort.’

‘I thank you, John, but I am quite in the way of running off to France with Rupert, and he will look after me very well,’ said her grace. ‘And now, mon enfant, if I am not to murder you we will talk no more of Vidal, or of Rupert, or of anything.’

Some hours later aunt and nephew, each meticulously polite to the other, reached Lady Fanny’s house in town. It was the dinner hour, and her ladyship was about to sit down to a solitary meal when the Duchess came quickly into the dining-room.

‘Oh, my dearest love!’ exclaimed Fanny, embracing her. ‘Thank heaven you have come! It is all too, too true!’

Léonie flung off her cloak. ‘Tell me at once, Fanny; he has abducted her? Truly he has abducted her?’

‘Yes,’ Lady Fanny asseverated. ‘I fear so. That odious woman was here again to-day, and indeed she means mischief, and I don’t doubt she’ll make herself vastly unpleasant unless we can buy her off, which I thought of at once, only, my love, I do not know how in the world we are to do so unless you have a great deal of money by you, for I’ve not a penny. I declare I could kill Vidal! It is so unthinking of him to ravish honest girls – not that I believe she is honest for a moment, Léonie. The mother is a horrid, designing creature if ever I saw one, and oh, my dear, she brought the other sister here to-day, and ’twas that made me believe in her ridiculous story, for all I’m sure the most it’s a pack of lies. The child is quite provokingly lovely, Léonie, and do you know, she makes me think of what I was at her age? As soon as I clapped eyes on her I saw that there was nothing could be more natural than for Vidal to be in love with her.’ She broke off as the serving-man came into the room to lay two more covers, and begged Léonie to be seated. Further discussion being impossible before the servant, she began to talk of the latest town gossip, and even, for want of something to say, asked her son kindly whether he would not like to go to the Royal Society to-night. John deigned no reply, but when dinner was over he informed the two ladies that although it was unhappily out of his power to repair to the Royal Society, he proposed to occupy himself with a book in the library.