Devil's Cub (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 2)

‘What sort of a girl?’ demanded his lordship.

‘A – a hussy! A – I do not know any word bad enough!’

‘Oh, that sort, eh? Well, what of it? You ain’t turning pious, are you, Léonie?’

‘Rupert, it is most serious. He meant to elope with the bourgeoise, and oh, Rupert, he has taken the wrong sister!’

Rupert stared at her blankly. ‘Taken the wrong sister? Well, I’ll be damned!’ He shook his head. ‘Y’know, Léonie, that boy drinks too much. If this don’t beat all!’

‘He wasn’t drunk, imbécile ! At least,’ added Léonie conscientiously, ‘I do not think he was.’

‘Must have been,’ said his lordship.

‘I shall have to explain it all to you,’ Léonie sighed.

At the end of her explanation his lordship gave it as his opinion that his nephew had gone stark, staring mad. ‘Does Avon know?’ he asked.

‘No, no, not a word! He must not, you understand, and that is why we are going to France at once.’

His lordship regarded her with profound suspicion. ‘Who’s going to France?’

‘But you and I, of course!’ Léonie replied.

‘No, I’m not,’ stated Rupert flatly. ‘Not to meddle in Vidal’s affairs. I’ll see him damned first, saving your presence.’

‘You must,’ Léonie said, shocked. ‘Monseigneur would not at all like me to go alone.’

‘I won’t,’ said Rupert. ‘Now, don’t start to argue, Léonie, for God’s sake! The last time I went to France with you I got a bullet in my shoulder.’

‘I find you ridiculous,’ Léonie said severely. ‘Who is to shoot bullets at you now?’

‘If it comes to that, I wouldn’t put it above Vidal, if I go meddling in his concerns. I tell you I won’t have a hand in it.’

‘Very well,’ Léonie said, and walked to the door.

Rupert watched her uneasily. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

‘I am going to France,’ said Léonie.

His lordship requested her to have sense; she looked woodenly at him. He pointed out to her the extreme folly of her behaviour; she yawned, and opened the door. His lordship swore roundly and capitulated. He was rewarded by a beaming smile.

‘You are very kind to me, Rupert,’ her grace said enthusiastically. ‘We will go at once, do you not think? For I am late already, five days.’

‘If you’re five days behind that young devil you’re too late altogether, m’dear,’ said his lordship sensibly. ‘Lord, Avon will murder me for this!’

‘Of course he will not murder you!’ said Léonie. ‘He will not know anything about it. When shall we start?’

‘When I’ve seen my bankers. I’ll do that in the morning, and I only hope the fellows don’t take it into their heads I’m flying the country. We can catch the night packet from Dover, but don’t bring a mountain of baggage, Léonie, if you want to travel fast.’

The Duchess took him at his word, and when his coach arrived in Curzon Street next morning she had only one band-box to be put into it. ‘You can’t travel like that!’ he protested. ‘And ain’t you taking your abigail along too?’

She rejected the suggestion with scorn, and pointed an accusing finger at the baggage already piled on the roof of the coach. After a lively dispute, in which Lady Fanny and her son joined, two of Lord Rupert’s trunks were left behind in his sister’s charge. An errand-boy, two loiterers, and a cook-girl were interested spectators of the start, and Mr Marling delivered a lecture, which no one paid any attention to, on the amount of baggage he himself considered necessary for a gentleman to take to Paris.

When the coach at last moved forward Lady Fanny announced that she had the migraine, and went off upstairs, leaving Mr Marling to order the disposal of the two trunks left on the pavement.

She expected to see his grace of Avon within three days. She saw him within two, greatly to her dismay. When his name was announced she was reclining on a couch in her withdrawing-room, her hands encased in chicken-skin gloves (for an east wind had slightly chapped their soft whiteness), yawning over the pages of The Inflexible Captive. She gave a perceptible start, but recovered herself in an instant, and greeted his grace with apparent delight.

‘La, Justin, is it you indeed? I’m vastly glad to see you. Only look at this book that John has given me! It is writ by that Bluestocking, Mrs More. I find it amazingly dull, do not you?’