The Convenient Marriage Read online

  The Viscount pointed a finger at his unwilling host. ‘He ain’t dead, Pom. Told you he wouldn’t be.’

  Sir Roland turned to look closely at Lethbridge. ‘No, he ain’t dead,’ he admitted with some reluctance. ‘Nothing for it but to go home.’

  ‘Blister it, that’s a tame way to end the night,’ protested the Viscount. ‘Play you a game of piquet.’

  ‘Not in this house,’ said Lethbridge, picking up his wig and putting it cautiously on his head again.

  ‘Why not in this house?’ demanded the Viscount.

  The question was destined to remain unanswered. Yet a third visitor had arrived.

  ‘My dear Lethbridge, pray forgive me, but this odious rain! Not a chair to be had, positively not a chair nor a hackney! And your door standing wide I stepped in to shelter. I trust I don’t intrude?’ said Mr Drelincourt, peeping into the room.

  ‘Oh, not in the least!’ replied Lethbridge ironically. ‘By all means come in! I rather think that I have no need to introduce Lord Winwood and Sir Roland Pommeroy to you?’

  Mr Drelincourt recoiled perceptibly, but tried to compose his sharp features into an expression of indifference. ‘Oh, in that case – I had no notion you was entertaining, my lord – you must forgive me!’

  ‘I had no notion of it either,’ said Lethbridge. ‘Perhaps you would care to play piquet with Winwood?’

  ‘Really, you must hold me excused!’ replied Mr Drelincourt, edging towards the door.

  The Viscount, who had been regarding him fixedly, nudged Sir Roland. ‘There’s that fellow Drelincourt,’ he said.

  Sir Roland nodded. ‘Yes, that’s Drelincourt,’ he corroborated. ‘I don’t know why, but I don’t like him, Pel. Never did. Let’s go.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said the Viscount with dignity. ‘Who asked him to come in? Tell me that! ’Pon my soul, it’s a nice thing, so it is, if a fellow can come poking his nose into a private card-party. I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll pull it for him.’

  Mr Drelincourt, thoroughly alarmed, cast an imploring glance at Lethbridge, who merely looked saturnine. Sir Roland, however, restrained his friend. ‘You can’t do that, Pel. Just remembered you fought the fellow. Should have pulled his nose first. Can’t do it now.’ He looked round the room with a frown. ‘’Nother thing!’ he said. ‘It was Monty’s card-party, wasn’t it? Well, this ain’t Monty’s house. Knew there was something wrong!’

  The Viscount sat up, and addressed himself to Lord Lethbridge with some severity. ‘Is this a card-party or is it not?’ he demanded.

  ‘It is not,’ replied Lethbridge.

  The Viscount rose and groped for his hat. ‘You should have said so before,’ he said. ‘If it ain’t a card-party, what the devil is it?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Lethbridge. ‘It has been puzzling me for some time.’

  ‘If a man gives a party, he ought to know what kind of party it is,’ argued the Viscount. ‘If you don’t know, how are we to know? It might be a damned soirée, in which case we wouldn’t have come. Let’s go home, Pom.’

  He took Sir Roland’s arm and walked with him to the door. There Sir Roland bethought himself of something, and turned back. ‘Very pleasant evening, my lord,’ he said formally, and bowed, and went out in the Viscount’s wake.

  Mr Drelincourt waited until the two bottle-companions were well out of earshot, and gave a mirthless titter. ‘I did not know you was so friendly with Winwood,’ he said. ‘I do trust I have not broken up your party? But the rain, you know! Not a chair to be had.’

  ‘Rid yourself of the notion that any of you are here by my invitation,’ said Lethbridge unpleasantly, and moved across to the table.

  Something had caught Mr Drelincourt’s eye. He bent, and picked up from under the corner of the Persian rug a ring-brooch of diamonds and pearls of antique design. His jaw dropped; he shot a quick, acute glance at Lethbridge, who was tossing off a glass of wine. The next moment the brooch was in his pocket, and as Lethbridge turned he said airily: ‘I beg a thousand pardons! I daresay the rain will have stopped. You must permit me to take my leave.’

  ‘With pleasure,’ said Lethbridge.

  Mr Drelincourt’s eye ran over the supper-table laid for two; he wondered where Lethbridge had hidden his fair visitor. ‘Don’t, I implore you, put yourself to the trouble of coming to the door!’

  ‘I wish to assure myself that it is shut,’ said Lethbridge grimly, and ushered him out.

  Some hours later the Viscount awoke to a new but considerably advanced day, with the most imperfect recollections of the night’s happenings. He remembered enough, however, to cause him, as soon as he had swallowed some strong coffee, to fling off the bedclothes and spring up, shouting for his valet.

  He was sitting before the dressing-table in his shirt-sleeves, arranging his lace cravat, when word was brought to him that Sir Roland Pommeroy was below and desired a word with him.

  ‘Show him up,’ said the Viscount briefly, sticking a pin in the cravat. He picked up his solitaire, a narrow band of black ribbon, and was engaged in clipping this round his neck when Sir Roland walked in.

  The Viscount looked up and met his friend’s eyes in the mirror. Sir Roland was looking very solemn; he shook his head slightly, and heaved a sigh.

  ‘Don’t need you any longer, Corney,’ said the Viscount, dismissing his valet.

  The door closed discreetly behind the man. The Viscount swung round in his chair, and leaned his arms along the back of it. ‘How drunk was I last night?’ he demanded.

  Sir Roland looked more lugubrious than ever. ‘Pretty drunk, Pel. You wanted to pull that fellow Drelincourt’s nose.’

  ‘That don’t prove I was drunk,’ said the Viscount impatiently. ‘But I can’t get it out of my head that my sister Rule had something to do with it. Did she or did she not say she hit Lethbridge over the head with a poker?’

  ‘A poker, was it?’ exclaimed Sir Roland. ‘Could not for the life of me remember what it was she said she hit him with! That was it! Then you went off to see if he was dead.’ The Viscount cursed softly. ‘And I took her la’ship home.’ He frowned. ‘And what’s more, she said I was to wait on her this morning!’

  ‘It’s the devil of a business,’ muttered the Viscount. ‘What in God’s name was she doing in the fellow’s house?’

  Sir Roland coughed. ‘Naturally – needn’t tell you – can rely on me, Pel. Awkward affair – mum’s the word.’

  The Viscount nodded. ‘Mighty good of you, Pom. I’ll have to see my sister first thing. You’d best come with me.’

  He got up and reached for his waistcoat. Someone scratched on the door, and upon being told to come in, the valet entered with a sealed letter on a salver. The Viscount picked it up and broke the seal.

  The note was from Horatia, and was evidently written in great agitation. ‘Dear Pel: The most Dredful thing has happened. Please come at once. I am quite Distracted. Horry.’

  ‘Waiting for an answer?’ the Viscount asked curtly.

  ‘No, my lord.’

  ‘Then send a message to the stables, will you, and tell Jackson to bring the phaeton round.’

  Sir Roland, who had watched with concern the reading of the note, thought he had rarely seen his friend turn so pale, and coughed a second time. ‘Pel, dear old boy – must remind you – she hit him with the poker. Laid him out, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Viscount, looking a trifle less grim. ‘So she did. Help me into my coat, Pom. We’ll drive round to Grosvenor Square now.’

  When, twenty minutes later, the phaeton drew up outside Rule’s house, Sir Roland said that perhaps it would be better if he did not come in, so the Viscount entered the house alone, and was shown at once to one of the smaller saloons. Here he found his sister, looking the picture of despair.

  She greeted him without recrimination. ‘Oh, P-P