The Unknown Ajax Read online

  She drew an audible breath. ‘What a delightful thing it is to know that if I’m such a wet-goose as to marry you I shall be able to depend on having a husband who won’t hesitate to take the wind out of my eye every time I try to get a point the better of him!’ she remarked. ‘And let me tell you,’ she added, with strong indignation, ‘that that wounded look doesn’t move me in the least, because nothing will make me believe you didn’t know very well that I was trying to roast you!’

  Seventeen

  Richmond’s first reaction to the invitation to accompany his cousin to Yorkshire was a sparkling look of surprised pleasure. This was followed almost immediately, however, by a slight withdrawal. He said, stammering a little: ‘Thank you! I should be very happy – I should like to – but – I don’t know! It might not be possible: Grandpapa…’

  ‘Nay, that won’t fadge!’ said Hugo, with a grin. ‘You can bring Grandpapa round your thumb if you wish to!’

  Richmond laughed, but shook his head. ‘Not always! When do you mean to set out?’

  ‘On Wednesday next, but if that doesn’t do for you I could change the date,’ replied Hugo obligingly.

  ‘Not till Wednesday! Oh!’ Richmond said. He glanced up, feeling his cousin’s inscrutable blue gaze to be fixed on him, and coloured, saying quickly: ‘That should give me time to bring him round my thumb! Thank you! I’d like to go with you – if I can do it.’

  It seemed to Hugo that his hesitation had its roots in something other than doubt of winning Lord Darracott’s consent, but what this could be was difficult to guess. Had the moon been on the wane Hugo would have suspected that he had engaged himself to pick up, from the Seamew, a dropped cargo; but smuggling craft did not put to sea on moonlit nights, and it would be several days yet before the moon reached the full. If there was a run cargo lying concealed in the Dower House, it seemed improbable that Richmond should consider it necessary to take any part in its removal. The possibility that he might prefer the excitement of such a venture to an expedition into Yorkshire did occur to the Major, but he discarded it: Richmond had been within ames-ace of jumping at the chance offered him, and his subsequent hesitation had clearly been due to an undisclosed afterthought.

  The Major knew better than to question him. Richmond had made it plain that he was not going to confide in him; and to persist in interrogating him would serve no other purpose than to arouse his hostility. Hostility had certainly flickered for a minute in his eyes during the session in his bedchamber; and it seemed unpleasantly probable that Richmond, regarding his cousin as a foe to beware of, was only waiting until he should be out of the way to prosecute whatever illicit undertaking it was that he had on hand.

  This unwelcome suspicion was not quite laid to rest by the discovery that Richmond had at least told Lord Darracott of the offered treat. Telling his lordship and coaxing him were two very different things: Richmond was bound to tell him, but in what manner he had done it Hugo could not know. If he had used any cajolery his efforts had not so far met with success. When his lordship was alone with his elder grandsons that evening, the ladies of the party, and also Richmond, who rarely kept late hours, having retired to bed, he bent one of his more intimidating stares upon the Major and demanded to be told what the devil he meant by inviting Richmond to go with him on a tedious journey that was certain to knock him up.

  ‘I don’t think it would knock him up, sir,’ replied Hugo, with the imperturbability which had by this time ceased to surprise his cousins.

  ‘Much you know!’ barked his lordship. ‘Your way of travel won’t do for Richmond, let me tell you!’

  ‘Never fear!’ said Hugo, an appreciative twinkle in his eye. ‘I’ll be travelling post, and it’s no matter to me how many times I break the journey: I won’t let the lad be knocked-up!’

  Balked at this point, his lordship delivered himself of a diatribe against posting-houses, all of which, he appeared to believe, made it their invariable custom to seek, by every means at their disposal, to render their patrons’ visits not only uncomfortable, but generally fatal.

  Listening in great astonishment to these strictures, Claud was moved to protest. ‘No, no, sir!’ he said earnestly. ‘Assure you – ! Not a word of truth in it! Daresay it may have been like that in your day, but it ain’t so now! Ask anyone! No reason at all to think young Richmond would be put between damp sheets, or given bad fish to eat! What’s more, if you ask me, it would take more than a journey by stage-coach, let alone one in a post-chaise-and-four, to knock him up!’

  ‘I don’t ask you – fribble!’ snapped his lordship, rounding on him, with the speed of a whiplash. ‘You may keep your tongue between your teeth!’

  ‘Yes, sir – happy to!’ uttered Claud, dismayed. ‘No wish to offend you! Thought you might like to be set right!’

  ‘Thought I might like to be set right?’

  ‘No, no! Spoke without thinking!’ said Claud hastily. ‘I know you don’t!’

  ‘There’s no need for any fratching about it,’ interposed Hugo. ‘I’d be glad of the lad’s company, I’ll see he takes no harm, I think he’d enjoy it, and that’s all there is to it.’

  His deep, unperturbed voice seemed to exercise a soothing effect upon Lord Darracott. After glaring at Claud for a moment he turned away from him, to inform Hugo, disagreeably, but in a milder tone, that Richmond would find nothing whatsoever to interest him in such a place as Huddersfield. Driven out of this position, as he very soon was, he once more lost his temper, and said, gripping the arms of his chair: ‘Very well, sir, if you will have it, you may! The less Richmond sees of you the better I shall be pleased! I’ve had trouble enough with him without wishing for more! Before you came here, to set him off again, he was in a fair way to forgetting a crack-brained notion he took into his head that nothing would do for him but to join the army. I knew it was merely a silly, boy’s fancy he’d soon recover from, but I’m not running the risk of letting you stir him up, so don’t think it!’

  Hugo stood looking down at him impassively; but it was Vincent who spoke. He had been listening with an expression on his face of sardonic amusement, but at this point he said, unexpectedly: ‘I fear, sir, that such an attempt on my cousin’s part would be a work of supererogation. To judge by the confidences made to me when I took Richmond to Sevenoaks he has by no means forgotten that crack-brained notion. He was, in fact, a dead bore on the subject.’

  Lord Darracott stared at him. ‘He was, was he? Well, if he hasn’t recovered yet, he will presently! I’ll never give my consent, do you hear me? Good God, that weakly boy? As well kill him outright!’

  Forgetting caution, Claud said incredulously: ‘What, is Richmond weakly? I’d never have thought it! Well, what I mean is, he don’t seem to me to be happy unless he’s careering all over the county on one of his wild horses, or walking for miles after a few wretched pigeons, or tossing about in that boat of his! I should think the army would suit him down to the ground, for they always seem to be drilling, or manoeuvring, or doing something dashed unrestful, and that’s just what Richmond is – unrestful!’

  ‘Will you hold your tongue?’ said his lordship violently.

  ‘It goes against the grain with me to agree with Claud,’ drawled Vincent, ‘but honesty compels me to own that there is much in what he says, sir.’

  ‘So you’re in this, are you?’ said his lordship dangerously. ‘What the devil do you imagine it has to do with you?’

  ‘Nothing at all, sir: I am merely curious. Forgive me if the question is impertinent, but have you any other reason than Richmond’s supposed sickliness for holding a military career in abhorrence?’

  ‘One of them should be obvious to you!’ flashed his lordship. ‘I had a son who embraced a military career!’

  ‘Well, if that don’t cap the globe!’ gasped Claud. ‘No, dash it, sir – !’

  ‘Nay, I’ve a broad back! Sneck up!’ said Hug