Devil's Cub Read online

  ‘I do not desire to speak with any disrespect of your father, sir, but from the little I have heard of him I take it that though he might not concern himself with your more clandestine affairs, he would do all in his power to prevent your marriage with one so unsuitable as myself.’

  ‘I devoutly hope you are wrong, my dear,’ replied his lordship humorously. ‘For when my father uses every means to achieve an end, he invariably does achieve it.’

  Miss Challoner got up, smiling a little ironically. ‘Vastly pretty, my lord. I could almost suppose that you wanted to marry me.’

  She moved towards the door which his lordship held open for her. ‘I assure you, ma’am, I am becoming hourly more reconciled to the prospect,’ he said, and surprised her by taking her hand and kissing it, very much in the grand manner.

  She reflected on her way upstairs that the sooner she left his lordship’s protection the better it would be for her peace of mind.

  Upon the following day they resumed their journey, travelling by easy stages, and, at Miss Challoner’s request, at a moderately decorous pace.

  She was somewhat amused by the Marquis’s entourage. Besides the chaise that carried her, there was a light coach bearing a quantity of luggage, and Mr Timms. His lordship rode, and seemed to be accompanied by half his household. Miss Challoner remarked on the size of the cortège and learned that the Marquis had thought himself to be travelling light. He described his mother’s frequent progresses, and made her feel sad to think that she would never meet the Duchess of Avon. Her grace, it appeared, had only two ways of travelling. Either she set forth carrying all her wardrobe, and most of her furnishings, with a small army of servants preceding her to make ready at every inn she stopped at, or she started out in an immense hurry, forgetting to provide herself with so much as a change of dress.

  Miss Challoner soon discovered that the Marquis adored his mother, and by the end of the journey she had learned much concerning the engaging Duchess. She learned something, too, of the Duke, enough to make her feel thankful that the sea separated her from him. He seemed to be a somewhat sinister person, with uncanny powers of penetration.

  They spent four days upon the road to Paris, and the Marquis only twice lost his temper. The first occasion was at Rouen, when Miss Challoner slipped off to see the cathedral, narrowly escaped being seen by a party of English persons, and was treated on her return to a furious tirade; and the second was induced by her refusal to wear the clothes of his lordship’s providing. This quarrel began to assume alarming proportions, and when the Marquis announced his intention of dressing Miss Challoner with his own hands, she thought it prudent to capitulate. His eyes were still smouldering when she reappeared in a gown of blue dimity, and it took her some time to coax him out of his wrath.

  Upon their arrival in Paris his lordship conducted Miss Challoner immediately to the Hôtel Avon and left her there while he went in search of his cousin. It was already late in the evening, and neither Miss Marling nor Mme. de Charbonne was to be found at home. The Marquis learned that they had gone to a ball at the house of one Mme. de Château-Morny, and promptly followed them there. He had taken the precaution of changing his travelling clothes for a coat of yellow velvet rather heavily laced with gold, and satin breeches. Mr Timms, on his mettle in this land of exquisites, managed to powder his raven locks with fair thoroughness, and further to fix a diamond buckle over the black riband that tied them back. There were diamond buckles on the Marquis’s shoes, and a diamond pin in the foaming lace at his throat. Mr Timms would dearly have liked to slip a few rings on to his lord’s long white fingers, but the Marquis pushed them all aside, and would wear nothing but his gold signet. He was impatient of the hares-foot, and the patch-box, but when Timms besought him almost in tears not to go to a ball in Paris with his face entirely free from rouge, he laughed, and submitted. Consequently when he took his leave of Miss Challoner, cosily ensconced beside the fire in the big library, she thought for a moment that a stranger had entered the room. The sight of his lordship in full ball dress with diamonds glinting, ruffles of the finest lace falling over his hands, his hair adequately powdered and arranged in neat curls, and a patch at the corner of his mouth, almost took her breath away. She laughed at him, but thought privately that he looked magnificent. He grimaced at his reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece. ‘I look like a damned Macaroni, don’t I?’ he said. ‘If I know anything of Juliana, I shall find her at some ball or rout. Don’t go to bed till I get back.’

  He had no difficulty in entering Mme. de Château-Morny’s hôtel, and when he reached the head of the stairway Madame herself greeted him with a cry of mingled surprise and delight, and laughed to scorn his apology for coming uninvited to her party. He escaped from her presently, and, entering the ballroom, stood looking round through his eye-glass. His very height at once attracted attention; several persons hailed him, demanding to know whence he had sprung, and more than half the young ladies in the room determined to dance with him before the night was done.

  Miss Marling, at the moment of the Marquis’s entry, was going down the dance with a slim young gentleman dressed in the very latest mode. She caught sight of her cousin, gave an unmaidenly shriek, and seizing her partner by the hand, left the dance without ceremony, and rushed to greet him.

  ‘Vidal!’ she exclaimed, and gave him both her hands.

  Half the young ladies in the room regarded her enviously.

  ‘Don’t be a hoyden, Ju,’ said his lordship, raising first one hand and then the other to his lips. ‘God defend me, is it you, Bertrand?’

  ‘It is her cousin, the wicked Marquis,’ whispered a brunette to a languishing blonde.

  ‘How she is fortunate!’ sighed the blonde, gazing soulfully at Vidal.

  The modish young gentleman swept a deep bow, flourishing a handkerchief strongly scented with amber. He had a mobile and somewhat mischievous countenance, and was known to every anxious parent as a desperate flirt. ‘Cher Dominique, it is even I, thy so unworthy cousin. What villainy has brought you here?’

  ‘Damn your impudence,’ said his lordship cheerfully. ‘And what’s the meaning of all this, Bertrand?’ He let fall his glass, and took the lively Vicomte’s ear between finger and thumb.

  ‘English, you understand,’ murmured a dowager to her vis-à-vis. ‘They are all quite sans gêne, I have heard.’

  ‘My earrings? But it is de règle, my dear! Oh, but the very, very latest mode!’ the Vicomte answered. ‘Let go, barbarian!’

  Juliana tugged at his lordship’s sleeve. ‘Vidal, it is amazingly pleasant to see you again, but what in the world are you doing here? Never will you tell me my uncle has sent you to – to be a dragon because of my dearest Frederick!’

  ‘Lord, no!’ replied Vidal. ‘Where is your dearest Frederick? Not here tonight!’

  ‘No, but he is in Paris. Oh, Vidal, where can we talk? I have so much to tell you!’

  The Vicomte broke in on this and said in English: ‘Vidal, I am with pistols quite incompetent, but you who are so much in the habit of it, will you not shoot me this abominable Frederick?’

  Juliana gave a little crow of laughter, but told the Vicomte she would not permit him to talk in such a fashion.

  ‘But he must be slain, my adored one! It is well seen that he must be slain. Anyone who aspires to steal you from me must be slain. Behold Vidal, the very man to do it!’

  ‘Do it yourself, puppy,’ said his lordship. ‘Pink him with that pretty sword of yours. Juliana would love to have a duel fought in her honour.’

  ‘It is an idea,’ agreed the Vicomte. ‘Decidedly it is an idea. But I must ask myself, can I do it? Is he perhaps a master of sword-play? That gives to think! I cannot fight for the hand of the peerless Juliana unless I am sure I win. You perceive how ridiculous that would make me appear.’

  ‘It won’t make you more ridiculou