Devil's Cub Read online

  Partly because it was the fashion to be coquettish, partly from a feeling of guilt, Juliana had answered in an arch, provocative way that did not captivate Mr Comyn in the least. Bertrand de Saint-Vire would have known just what to say. Mr Comyn, unskilled in the art of flirtation, said that Paris had not improved his Juliana.

  They quarrelled, but made it up at once. But it was an ill beginning.

  Miss Marling made Mr Comyn known to her new friends, amongst them the Vicomte de Valmé. Mr Comyn, with a lamentable lack of tact, spoke disparagingly of the Vicomte, whom he found insupportable. Truth to tell, the Vicomte, who was well aware of Mr Comyn’s pretensions, was impelled by an innate love of mischief to flirt outrageously with Juliana under the very nose of her stiff and disapproving lover. Juliana, anxious to awake a spark of jealousy in what at that moment seemed to her an unresponsive heart, encouraged him. All she wanted was to be treated to a display of ruthless and possessive manhood. If Mr Comyn, later, had seized her in his arms in a decently romantic fashion there would have been an end to the Vicomte’s flirtation. But Mr Comyn was deeply hurt, and he did not recognise in these signs a perverted expression of his Juliana’s love for him. He was young, and he handled the affair very ill. He was forbearing where he should have been violent, and found fault when he should have made love. Miss Marling determined to teach him a lesson.

  It was this laudable resolve that took her to the Hôtel Saint-Vire. Mr Comyn should learn that it was unwise to lecture and criticize Miss Marling. But because under her airs and graces she was really very much in love with him, she induced her cousin to provide him with a card for the ball.

  The Vicomte de Valmé was her partner for the first two dances, and when they came to an end he took her off to a convenient alcove, and made intoxicating love to her. He was interrupted in this agreeable task by the sudden appearance of Vidal, who said unamiably: ‘Give me leave, Bertrand: I want a word with Juliana.’

  The Vicomte flung up his hands. ‘But I find you quite abominable, Dominique! Always you want words with Juliana! J’y suis, j’y reste. Have you yet slain me this Frederick?’

  ‘Vidal, did you give Frederick a card for the ball?’ Miss Marling asked anxiously.

  ‘I gave it to him, but I don’t think he’ll use it.’

  ‘A la bonne heure! ’ said the irrepressible Vicomte. He laughed impudently up at the Marquis. ‘For what do you wait, mon cher ? You are infinitely de trop.’

  ‘I await your departure – but not for long,’ said his lordship.

  The Vicomte gave an exaggerated start. ‘A threat, Juliana! I scent it unerringly. He will presently shoot me: I am as good as dead, but if you give me the roses you wear at your breast I shall die happy.’

  Vidal’s eye gleamed. ‘Will you go as happily through that window?’ he inquired.

  ‘By no means!’ said the Vicomte promptly. He rose, and kissed Miss Marling’s hand. ‘I surrender to force majeure, dearest Juliana. He has no finesse, our cousin. He will undoubtedly throw me out of the window if I linger.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think it very brave of you to give way to him,’ said Miss Marling candidly.

  ‘But, my adored one, observe his size!’ implored the Vicomte. ‘He would be very rough with me, and spoil my so elegant coat. I go, Vidal, I go!’

  Miss Marling waved an airy farewell, and turned to her cousin. ‘I find him excessively amusing, you know,’ she confided.

  ‘I see you do,’ said Vidal. ‘Where is Mary Challoner?’

  Miss Marling opened her eyes very wide. ‘Don’t you like him, Vidal? I thought he was a friend of yours.’

  ‘He is,’ replied the Marquis.

  ‘Well, it is very odd of you to threaten to throw your friends out of the window, I must say,’ remarked Juliana.

  He smiled. ‘Not at all. It is only my friends that I would throw out of the window.’

  ‘Dear me!’ said Juliana, finding the male sex incomprehensible.

  His lordship picked up her fan, a delicate Cabriolet with ivory sticks and guards, pierced and gilt, and rapped her knuckles with it. ‘Attend to me, Ju. Do you mean to have Comyn, or not?’

  ‘Good gracious, what in the world do you mean?’ exclaimed Juliana.

  ‘Answer, chit.’

  ‘You know I do. But I don’t at all understand why –’

  ‘Then you’d best stop flirting with Bertrand.’

  Miss Marling flushed. ‘Oh, I don’t – flirt!’

  ‘Don’t you?’ jibed his lordship. ‘I beg your pardon. But whatever it is that you do, stop. That’s a kind cousinly warning.’

  She tilted her chin. ‘I shall do as I please, thank you, Vidal, and I’ll not be lectured, and scolded by either of you.’

  ‘Just as you like, Ju. Don’t blame me when you lose your Frederick.’

  She looked startled. ‘I shan’t lose him!’

  ‘You’re a fool, Ju. What’s the game you’re playing? Trying to make him jealous, eh? It won’t work.’

  ‘How do you know it won’t?’ demanded Miss Marling, stung.

  He looked down at her with lazy affection. ‘You’ve chosen the wrong man for these tricks of yours. What is it you want?’

  She began to pleat the stiff silk of her gown. ‘I do love him,’ she said. ‘I do, Vidal!’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘If only he would – be a little more like you!’ she said in a rush.

  ‘Good God!’ said the Marquis, amused. ‘Why the devil should he be?’

  ‘I don’t mean that I want him to be really like you,’ explained Miss Marling. ‘It’s merely that – oh, I can’t tell! But supposing you loved me, Dominic, and I – well, flirted, if you must use that horrid word – with another man: what would you do?’

  ‘Kill him,’ said the Marquis flippantly.

  She shook his arm. ‘You don’t mean it, but I think perhaps you would. Vidal, you’d not let another man steal the lady you loved, would you? Do answer soberly!’

  The smile still lingered on his lips, but she saw his teeth shut hard. ‘Soberly, Ju, I would not.’

  ‘What would you do?’ inquired Miss Marling, momentarily diverted by curiosity.

  His lordship was silent for a minute, and the smile faded, leaving his face strangely harsh. A tiny snap sounded under his fingers. He glanced down at them, and the grim look left his face. ‘I’ve spoiled your fan, Ju,’ he said, and gave it her back. Two of the sticks were broken at the shoulder. ‘I’ll give you another.’

  Juliana was looking at him in considerable awe. ‘You haven’t answered me,’ she said, with an uncertain laugh.

  ‘What I might do is – happily for you – not in the least like what Comyn will do,’ he replied.

  ‘No,’ she said sadly. ‘But can you understand that I wish it were?’

  ‘My deluded child, one taste of my lamentable temper would send you flying into your Frederick’s arms,’ said the Marquis, and rose. ‘Where’s Mary Challoner?’

  ‘She wouldn’t come.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘To say truth, Vidal, I believe she did not desire to meet you.’

  ‘Fiend seize her!’ said his lordship unemotionally, and went off.

  Miss Marling emerged from her alcove to find him gone. When he did not reappear she realised that he had left the ball, and had no difficulty in guessing his present whereabouts.

  Nearly an hour later Mr Comyn came up the wide stairway. His arrival was most inopportune, for he came in excellent time to see Miss Marling bestow one of her pink roses on the ecstatic Vicomte de Valmé.

  She was standing just outside the ballroom, and she did not immediately perceive Mr Comyn. The Vicomte took the rose reverently, and pressed it to his lips. He then bestowed it carefully inside his coat, and informed Miss Marling that it cause