April Lady Read online

  ‘Oh, that’s the tale is it?’ said the Viscount. ‘Well, it won’t fadge! Didn’t think to tell me that, did you? Why not? That’s what I want to know! Why not?’

  ‘Because you were a dashed sight too ripe to attend to a word anyone said to you!’ replied Mr Hethersett, with brutal frankness.

  ‘And in any event there was no need for you to behave in such an outrageous way, Dy,’ interpolated Nell severely. ‘Even if it had been Felix’s house, which it might as well have been, because I had the intention of calling on him, on account of my not knowing the number of Mr Allandale’s. Only, by good fortune, he chanced to be coming out just as I was paying off the hack.’

  ‘Yes, you have that mighty pat, haven’t you, my girl?’ said Dysart. ‘And I daresay you think it makes all right! Well, it don’t! Pretty conduct in a female of quality to be paying calls on every loose fish on the town, I must say! In a common hack, too! Well, that may suit your notions of propriety, Cardross, but it don’t suit mine, and so I’ll have you know!’

  ‘Dy, how can you be so absurd?’ protested Nell. ‘No one could possibly think poor Mr Allandale a loose fish!’

  ‘Dash, it, cousin!’ exclaimed Mr Hethersett indignantly.

  ‘My dear Dysart, do let me assure you that I honour you for such feelings, and enter into all your ideas on the subject!’ said Cardross. ‘You may safely leave the matter in my hands.’

  ‘That’s just what it seems to me I can’t do!’ retorted Dysart. ‘Yes, and that puts me in mind of another thing I have to say to you! Why the devil don’t you take better care of Nell? Did you get her out of a silly scrape? No, you didn’t! I did! All you did was to put it into her head you thought she only married you for your fortune, when anyone but a gudgeon must have known she’s too big a pea-goose to have enough sense to do anything of the kind. So when she finds herself under the hatches she daren’t tell you: I have to pull her out of the River Tick! A pretty time I had of it! Why, I even had that fellow Hethersett hinting it was my fault she was being dunned for some curst dress or other!’

  Mr Hethersett blushed. ‘Misapprehension! Told you so at the time!’

  ‘Well, it was my fault!’ said Dysart furiously. ‘I daresay if I hadn’t borrowed three centuries from her you wouldn’t have had to snatch her off Jew King’s doorstep, but how was I to know it would put her in the basket? Besides, I’ve paid it back to her!’

  ‘Nell, my poor child, how could you think – Did I frighten you as much as that?’ Cardross said remorsefully.

  ‘No, no, it was all my folly!’ she said quickly. ‘I thought that shocking bill from Lavalle had been with those others, only it wasn’t, and when she sent it me again it seemed as though I couldn’t tell you! Oh, Dysart, pray don’t say any more!’

  ‘Yes, that’s all very well, but I am going to say something more! I’ve a pretty fair notion of what your opinion of me is, Cardross, but I’ll have you know that it was not I who prigged that damned necklace of yours!’

  ‘Eh?’ ejaculated Mr Hethersett, startled.

  ‘You have really no need to tell me that, Dysart,’ Cardross replied, his colour heightened, and his eyes fixed on Nell’s face.

  ‘Well, it’s what my own sister thought!’ said Dysart bitterly.

  ‘Good God, Giles, you’ve never lost the necklace?’ Mr Hethersett demanded.

  ‘No,’ answered Cardross, holding Nell’s hand rather tightly. ‘It isn’t lost. If it were, I should not imagine for one instant that you had taken it, Dysart.’

  ‘Much obliged to you!’

  ‘I must say, that’s the outside of enough,’ observed Mr Hethersett. ‘Whatever made you take a notion like that into your head, cousin?’

  ‘It was very, very foolish of me!’

  ‘Well, I call it a dashed insult!’ declared the Viscount.

  ‘Yes, Dysart: so do I!’ said Cardross, raising Nell’s hand to his lips. ‘I hope you have begged his forgiveness, Nell – as I beg for yours!’

  ‘Oh, Giles, pray hush!’

  The Viscount, having frowned over this for a moment, exclaimed: ‘What, did you think she had sold the thing? If that don’t give you your own again, Nell!’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ objected Mr Hethersett, ‘but you said it wasn’t lost, Cardross!’

  ‘It was lost, but it has been restored to me. I suppose I now know who stole it – and should have known at the outset! Not your sister, Dysart, but mine! Was that it, Nell?’

  ‘Well, yes, it was,’ she confessed. ‘But you mustn’t be out of reason cross with her, because indeed I believe she would never have thought of doing such a thing, only that Dysart put it into her head!’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Dysart. ‘No, by God, that’s too much! I never did so!’

  ‘Yes, Dy, you did! Oh, I don’t mean to say that it was what you intended, but I have been thinking about it, and I am persuaded it was your holding me up that night, with Mr Fancot – good gracious, where is Mr Fancot?’

  ‘Yes, by Jove! Where is he?’ exclaimed Dysart.

  ‘No need to worry about him,’ said Mr Hethersett, nodding to where Mr Fancot was peacefully sleeping in a large wing-chair. ‘Wouldn’t have let you all talk in that dashed improper way if he’d been listening to you!’

  ‘If ever I knew anyone like Corny for dropping asleep the instant he gets a trifle above oar!’ remarked the Viscount, eyeing his friend with tolerant affection.

  ‘Don’t wake him, I beg of you!’ said Cardross. ‘What, my darling, had that hold-up to do with this affair?’

  ‘Yes, what?’ demanded Dysart.

  ‘Well, you see, Giles, when I wouldn’t sell any of the jewels you gave me – and I still think it would have been the most odiously deceiving thing to have done, Dy, however tiresome you may have thought it of me! – Dysart hit upon the notion of pretending to be a highwayman, and taking them from me in that way. Only I recognized him, so it came to nothing. But the thing was that Letty thought it had been a famous notion, and I am very sure that that was what put it into her head to sell the Cardross necklace!’ She broke off, as a thought occurred to her. ‘Good heavens, Letty! What are we about, wasting time in this way? Cardross, we discovered, Felix and I, that they set out with only a pair of horses! It is true that they have several hours start of you, but Felix seems to think that you might easily overtake them before they can reach the Border!’

  ‘I daresay I might – if I were to make the attempt,’ he agreed.

  ‘But won’t you?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘No. I have had my fill of driving this evening! Allandale is welcome to her!’

  ‘Yes, but to be married in such a way! Giles, only think what the consequences must be! I shouldn’t wonder at it if it ruined him as well as her! Indeed, I was never more astonished in my life than when I learned he had yielded to her persuasions! I had not thought it of him! And for you, too, how disagreeable must it be! Oh, do, pray, go after them, and bring her back!’

  ‘Dashed if I would!’ remarked the Viscount.

  ‘Giles!’

  He laid his hand over the small one insistently tugging at the lapel of his coat. ‘Hush, my love! This is where we must be guided by the judgement of that arbiter of all matters of taste and ton. Well, Felix?’

  Mr Hethersett, impervious to the quizzical look in his cousin’s eye, took snuff in a meditative way, his brow creased. ‘Don’t fancy it will make much difference,’ he pronounced at last, restoring the box to his pocket, and flicking a few grains of King’s Martinique from his sleeve. ‘Bound to be a deal of gossip whatever you do. Can’t suppose it won’t leak out, if you go careering off after Letty. Devilish nasty scene, too, if you force her to come home. Seems to have gone into strong hysterics when Allandale tried to get her to do that. Not the sort of thing I should care for.’

  ‘N