Devil's Cub (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 2)

‘But it is impossible!’ Mary said, still feeling dazed. ‘Surely, surely all cannot be at an end between you and Juliana?’

‘Irrevocably, ma’am!’

‘Oh, I am sorry!’ Mary said pitifully. ‘As for your offer, indeed I thank you, but how should we two wed without love, or even acquaintance?’

He said seriously: ‘At any other time, ma’am, such haste would be strange indeed. But your situation being what it is, you are bound to seek refuge in wedlock with all possible speed. Ma’am, allow me to speak with a plainness you may deem impertinent; I think you, as well as I, come to this marriage with a bruised heart. Forgive me, Miss Challoner, but having watched you I could not but suspect that you are not indifferent to my Lord Vidal. I do not inquire what are the reasons that induce you to refuse his suit; I say only, each of us is disappointed: let us endeavour, together, to heal our separate hurts.’

She covered her face with her hands. She was so taken by surprise that her brain reeled. Here indeed was the answer to her prayer, yet all she could say was: ‘Please leave me. I must think, sir; I cannot answer you now. I know that I ought to refuse your offer, but such is the hopelessness of my position that I dare not even do that without a pause for calm reflection. I must see Juliana; I can scarcely believe that all is indeed as you say.’

He picked up his hat at once. ‘I will withdraw, ma’am. Pray think well over what I have said. I shall remain at my present lodging until noon to-morrow, then, if I do not hear from you, I shall depart from Paris. Permit me to wish you good night.’ He bowed, and left the room, and after a few moments Miss Challoner rose, and went slowly up to her bedchamber.

She heard her hostess and Miss Marling come in an hour later, and presently got up out of her bed, and slipped on a dressing-gown, and went to scratch softly on Juliana’s door.

Juliana called her to come in. A sleepy tirewoman was undressing her, and closely as she scrutinised the vivid little face Mary could perceive nothing in it but a natural weariness.

‘Oh, is it you, Mary?’ Juliana said. ‘You should have come; it was vastly entertaining, I do assure you.’ She began to chatter of the people she had met, and the dresses she had seen. Her eyes were bright and hard, her good spirits perhaps rather feverish, but she deceived her friend. She sent the abigail to bed when her dress was safely hung in the wardrobe, her jewels locked up, and her hair brushed free of powder, and Mary ventured to ask whether Mr Comyn had been at the ball.

Juliana jumped into bed, saying: ‘Oh, don’t speak to me of that man! I cannot conceive how I was ever fool enough to fancy myself in love with him. ’Tis all over between us; you cannot imagine how glad I am!’

Mary looked at her worriedly. ‘But, Juliana, you did love him – you do still!’

‘I?’ Miss Marling gave a scornful laugh. ‘Lord, how solemn you are, my dear! I thought it would be famous good fun to let him think I’d elope with him, but if you must know, I never meant to marry him at all.’ She shot a quick look at Miss Challoner’s grave face. ‘I shall marry Bertrand de Saint-Vire,’ she said, to clinch the matter.

This announcement startled Miss Challoner almost as much as it would have startled the Vicomte, had he been privileged to hear it. She said: ‘How can you talk so, Juliana? I don’t believe you!’

Miss Marling laughed again. ‘Don’t you, my dear? I make no doubt you think me monstrous heartless. Oh, yes, I can see you do! Well, we don’t have hearts in our family, as you’ll discover, I fear.’

‘You need not fear for me,’ said Mary calmly. ‘I am not going to marry Lord Vidal, I assure you.’

‘You don’t know my cousin,’ replied Juliana. ‘He means to wed you, and he will – in Uncle Justin’s teeth, too! Lord, I would give a guinea to see my uncle’s face when he hears! Not that it would tell me much,’ she added pensively. She clasped her hands round her knees. ‘You’ve not yet met his grace, Mary. When you do –’ she paused. ‘I can’t advise you. I am for ever making up my mind just what I shall say to him, and then when the time comes I am not able to.’

Miss Challoner ignored this. ‘Juliana, be frank with me: have you quarrelled with Mr Comyn?’

‘Lord, yes, a dozen times, and I thank heaven this is the last!’

‘You will be sorry in the morning, my dear.’

‘It don’t signify in the least. My mamma would never permit me to marry him, and though it is very good sport to plan an elopement it would be amazingly horrid to be really married to someone quite outside one’s own world.’

‘I did not know you were as selfish as that, Juliana,’ said Miss Challoner. ‘I’ll bid you good night.’

Juliana nodded carelessly, and waited until the door was firmly shut behind her friend. Then she cast herself face downwards on her pillows and wept miserably.

Meanwhile Miss Challoner sought her own bed, and lay thinking of the strange proposal she had received.

Her disgust at Juliana’s behaviour was untempered by surprise. By now she had reached the conclusion that the manners of the whole family of Alastair were incomprehensible to a less exalted person. My Lord Vidal was reckless, prodigal, and overbearing; his cousin Bertrand appeared to be a mere pleasure-seeker; Juliana, too, in whom Miss Challoner had suspected a warmer heart, was frivolous and calculating. From Juliana’s and Vidal’s conversation she had gleaned what she believed to be a fair estimate of the remaining members of the family. Lady Fanny was worldly and ambitious; Lord Rupert apparently wasted his time and substance on gambling and other amusements; his grace of Avon seemed to be a cold, unloving and sinister figure. The only one whom Miss Challoner felt any desire to know was the Duchess. She was inclined to think that Mr Comyn was well rid of a bad bargain, and this conclusion brought her back once more to the consideration of her own difficulties.

It seemed ridiculous in an age of civilization, but Miss Challoner had no doubt that in some way or other Vidal would contrive to carry her off to Dijon. She believed that he was prompted more by his love of mastery than by his first chivalrous impulse. What he had said he would do he must do, reckless of consequence. He could not, she realised, drag an unwilling bride to the altar, but if he succeeded in transporting her all the way to Dijon she felt that she would be then in so much worse a predicament that marriage with him would be the only thing left to her. Against this marriage she was still firmly set. God knew she would ask nothing better than to be his wife, but she had sense enough to know that nothing but unhappiness could result from it. If he had loved her, if she had been of his world, approved by his family – but it was useless to speculate on the impossible.

She might steal away from this house very early in the morning, and lose herself in some back-street of Paris. She could not forbear a smile at her own simplicity. She would certainly lose herself, but it seemed probable that his lordship, who knew Paris, would have little trouble in finding her. She was without money and without friends; if she left the protection of Mme. de Charbonne’s house she could see only one end to her career. Marriage with Mr Comyn would be preferable to that. At least his degree was not immeasurably superior to hers; he did not seem to be a gentleman of very passionate affections, and she felt that she could succeed in making him tolerably happy. After all, she thought, neither of us is of a romantic disposition, and at least I shall be rid of this dread of sudden exposure.

Mr Comyn was eating his breakfast some hours later when a surprised serving-maid ushered Miss Challoner into the room. The visit of a young and personable lady, quite unattended, and at such an unseasonable hour, roused all the abigail’s curiosity. Having shut the door on Miss Challoner, she naturally put her ear to the keyhole. But as the conversation inside the room was conducted in English she soon withdrew it.

Mr Comyn got up quickly from the table, and laid aside his napkin. ‘Miss Challoner!’ he said, coming forward to greet her.

Mary, who was dressed in the grey gown and hooded cloak she had worn on the night of her abduction, gave her hand into his, and as he bent to kiss it, said in her quiet way: ‘Please inform me, sir, now that you have had time in which to reflect, do you not desire to return to Miss Marling?’

‘Indeed, no!’ said Mr Comyn, releasing her hand. ‘Is it possible – do you in fact come in the guise of an envoy?’