Devil's Cub (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 2)

‘What of it?’ said his lordship.

‘But do you not see, that if Vidal has been staying here of course Juliana has met him?’

‘Do you think she might know why the plaguey boy has gone off to Dijon?’ inquired Rupert hopefully. ‘That’s what bothers me. Why Dijon?’

Léonie wrinkled her brow in a puzzled manner. ‘But why, Rupert, is it Dijon that bothers you? I find the whole of this affair so very strange and without reason that for Dominique to have gone to Dijon is a bagatelle.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Rupert said. ‘It’s such a devilish queer place to go to. Dijon! What in the fiend’s name would anybody want there? I’ll tell you what it is, Léonie, the boy’s behaving mighty oddly.’ He shook his head. ‘The ninth earl was given to these turns, so they say. It’s a bad business.’

Léonie stared at him. Lord Rupert tapped his forehead significantly. Léonie said in great indignation: ‘Are you telling me that my son is mad?’

‘We’ll hope he ain’t,’ Rupert said pessimistically, ‘but you can’t deny he’s behaving in a manner no one would call sane. Dijon! Why, it’s absurd!’

‘If you were not Monseigneur’s brother, Rupert, I should have one big quarrel with you. Mad! Voyons, he is not so mad as you, for you have not any sense at all. Let us go to find Juliana.’

They found, not Juliana, but her hostess, laboriously writing what seemed to be a very long letter. When they were ushered into her boudoir she displayed as much startled surprise as could be expected of anyone so habitually placid. She got up to embrace Léonie, almost falling upon her neck. ‘Mon Dieu, is it you, Léonie?’ she said, with a fat gasp. Then she held out a checking hand. ‘Not my cousin Justin? Do not say my cousin Justin is here!’ she implored.

‘Lord, you wouldn’t see me here if he was in Paris!’ said Rupert reassuringly.

‘If Fanny is here, I cannot face her!’ stated madame in palpitating t

ones. She pointed to her desk, and the scattered sheets of gilt paper. ‘I am writing to her now. Why have you come? I am glad, yes, but I do not know why you have come.’

‘Glad, are you? Well, it don’t sound like it,’ commented his lordship. ‘We’ve come chasing after that plaguey nephew of mine, and a devilish silly errand it is.’

Madame sank down on to a spindle-legged chair, and stared at him with her mouth open. ‘You know, then?’ she faltered.

‘Yes, yes, we know everything!’ Léonie said. ‘Now tell me where is Dominique, Elisabeth? Please tell me quickly.’

‘But I do not know!’ cried madame, spreading out her two plump hands.

‘Oh, peste !’ said Léonie impatiently.

‘Come now, that’s the only thing we do know,’ said his lordship. ‘Vidal’s gone to Dijon.’

Madame looked from him to Léonie in blank bewilderment. ‘To Dijon? But why? Gracious God, why to Dijon?’

‘Just what I said myself, cousin,’ replied Rupert triumphantly. ‘I don’t say the boy hasn’t his reasons, but what the devil he can want in Dijon beats me.’

‘Let me see Juliana,’ interrupted the Duchess. ‘I think perhaps she will know where is my son, for he is fond of her, and I feel very certain that she has seen him.’

Madame gave a start. ‘Juliana?’ she echoed hollowly. ‘Alas, then, you do not know!’

Lord Rupert looked at her with misgiving in his face. ‘Burn it, I believe you’re going to start a mystery now. What’s to do? Not that I want to know, for I’ve enough on my hands as it is, but you’d best tell us and so be done with it.’

Thus encouraged, madame delivered her terrific pronouncement: ‘Juliana has eloped with Vidal!’

The effect of this on her hearers was to bereave them, momentarily, of all power of speech. Léonie stood staring in astonished incredulity, and Lord Rupert’s jaw dropped perceptibly. Léonie found her tongue first.

‘Bah, what a piece of nonsense!’ she said. ‘I do not at all believe it!’

‘Read that!’ commanded madame dramatically, and handed her a crumpled sheet of paper.

It contained a brief message in Juliana’s sprawling characters: ‘My dear Tante, pray do not be in a taking, but I have gone with Vidal. I have No Time to write more, for I am in Desperate Haste. Juliana.’

‘But – but it is not possible!’ stammered Léonie, growing quite pale.

Lord Rupert snatched the letter unceremoniously out of her hand. ‘Here, let me read it!’ he said. His eyes ran over the sheet. ‘Damme, if this doesn’t beat all!’ he ejaculated. ‘Oh, there’s not a doubt about it: the boy’s gone stark, staring crazy.’ He struck the paper with his hand. ‘It ain’t decent, Léonie! I’ve naught to say against him abducting this other wench: there’s no harm in that. But when he takes to running off with his cousin, blister it, it’s time he was clapped up!’