Devil's Cub Read online

  The seconds stepped back, the word was given. My lord’s pistol hand jerked up swiftly; there was a flash and a report, followed almost instantly by an answering shot. Mr Quarles’s bullet buried itself in the wall beyond my lord, and Mr Quarles pitched forward on to his face.

  The Marquis tossed his pistol to Mr Fox. ‘Give ’em to my man, Charles,’ he said, and turned away to pick up his snuff-box, and handkerchief.

  ‘Damn you, Vidal, I believe you have killed him!’ Rupert said angrily.

  ‘I’m very nearly sure of it, dear uncle,’ said the Marquis.

  Mr Comyn, on his knees beside the fallen man, looked up. ‘A surgeon should be fetched,’ he said. ‘I do not think that life is extinct.’

  ‘I must be more drunk than I knew, then,’ remarked his lordship. ‘I’m sorry, Charles; I meant to make the place habitable for you.’

  Lord Cholmondley started towards him. ‘Devil take you, Vidal, you’d best be gone. You’ve done enough for one night.’

  ‘I thought so, certainly,’ said the Marquis. ‘Mr Comyn apparently disagrees.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘Hell and damnation, it’s past five already!’

  ‘You’re surely not driving to Newmarket now?’ cried Captain Wraxall, appalled by his callousness.

  ‘Why not?’ said Vidal coolly.

  Captain Wraxall sought for words, and found none. The Marquis turned on his heel and went out.

  Five

  It was only a little past noon on the following day when her Grace of Avon, accompanied most unwillingly by Lord Rupert, first called at Vidal’s home. The Marquis’s major-domo responded to his lordship’s anxious look with the smallest of bows. Lord Rupert heaved a sigh of relief. One never knew what might be found in Vidal’s apartments.

  ‘I want my son,’ her grace stated flatly.

  But it appeared that the Marquis had not returned from Newmarket.

  ‘There, what did I tell you?’ said Rupert. ‘Leave a note for him, my dear. The devil alone knows when he’ll be back, eh, Fletcher?’

  ‘I have no precise knowledge myself, my lord.’

  ‘I shall come back again later,’ announced her grace.

  ‘But, Léonie –’

  ‘And again, and again, and again until he has returned,’ said her grace obstinately.

  She kept her word, but on her last visit, in full ball dress at seven in the evening, she declared that she would enter the house and await her son there.

  Lord Rupert followed her weakly into the hall. ‘Ay, but I’m on my way to Devereaux’s card party,’ he expostulated. ‘I can’t stay here all night!’

  The Duchess flung out exasperated hands. ‘Well, go then!’ she said. ‘I find you fort ennuyant ! For me, I must see Dominique, and I do not need you at all.’

  ‘You always were an ungrateful chit,’ complained his lordship. ‘Here am I dancing attendance on you the whole day, and all you can say is that you don’t need me.’

  Léonie’s irrepressible dimple peeped out. ‘But it is quite true, Rupert; I do not need you. When I have seen Dominique I shall take a chair to my party. It is very simple.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ said Rupert. ‘Not with those diamonds on you.’ He followed her into the library, where a small fire burned, and struggled out of his greatcoat. ‘Where’s that fellow gone off to? Fletcher! What’s his lordship in the cellar that her grace would like?’

  The suave Fletcher showed some small signs of perplexity at that. ‘I will endeavour, my lord…’

  The Duchess had cast off her cloak, and seated herself by the fire. ‘Ah, bah, I do not want your ratafia, me. I will drink a glass of port with you, mon vieux.’

  Lord Rupert scratched his head, tilting his wig slightly askew. ‘Oh, very well! But it’s not what I’d call a lady’s drink.’

  ‘Me, I am not a lady,’ announced her grace. ‘I have been very well educated, and I will drink port.’

  Fletcher withdrew, quite impassive. His lordship remonstrated once more. ‘Y’know you mustn’t talk like that before servants, Léonie. ’Pon my soul –’

  ‘If you like,’ interrupted Léonie, ‘I will play piquet with you till Dominique comes.’

  Dominic came an hour later. A sulky dashed up the street and stopped outside the house. Léonie flung down her cards, and ran to the window, pulling aside the heavy curtains, but was too late to catch a glimpse of her son. A groom was already driving the sulky away, and inside the house a door slammed, and Fletcher’s discreet voice sounded. A sharper one answered; a quick step trod in the hall, and Vidal came into the library.

  He was pale, and his eyes were frowning and tired. Mud had generously splashed his breeches and plain buff coat, and his neck-cloth was crumpled and limp. ‘Ma mère! ’ he said, surprise in his voice.

  Léonie momentarily forgot her mission. She went to him, grasping the lapels of his coat. ‘Oh, you have not killed yourself ! But tell me, Dominique, at once, did you get there in the time?’

  His hands covered hers with a gesture rather mechanical. ‘Yes, of course. But what are you doing here? Rupert, too? Is anything amiss?’

  ‘Anything amiss,’ exploded Rupert. ‘That’s rich! ’Pon my soul, that’s rich! Oh, there’s naught amiss, never fear! You’ve only killed that fellow Quarles and set the whole town in a roar.’

  ‘Dead, is he?’ said his lordship. He put Léonie from him, and walked to the table. ‘Well, I thought as much.’

  ‘No, no, he is not dead!’ Léonie said vehemently. ‘You shan’t say so, Rupert!’

  ‘It don’t matter what I say,’ responded my lord. ‘If he ain’t dead now he will be in a day’s time. You fool, Vidal.’

  The Marquis had poured himself out a glass of wine, but was looking down at the red liquid instead of drinking it. ‘Runners after me?’

  ‘They will be,’ his uncle said grimly.

  A heavy frown was gathering. The Marquis’s lips tightened. ‘Damnation!’ His glance flickered to Léonie’s troubled face. ‘Don’t let it disturb you, madame, I beg.’

  ‘Dominique, did you – did you, in effect, mean to kill him?’ she asked, her eyes on his face.

  He shrugged. ‘Oh, since I fought at all, yes.’

  ‘I do not mind you killing people when you have reason, you know, but – but – was there a reason, mon enfant ?’ said her grace.

  ‘The fellow was drunk, and you knew it, Vidal!’ Rupert said.

  ‘Perfectly.’ The Marquis sipped his wine. ‘But so was I drunk.’ Again he looked towards Léonie. What he saw in her face made him say with a kind of suppressed violence: ‘Why do you look at me like that? You know what I am, do you not? Do you not?’

  ‘Here, Dominic!’ his uncle said, in a voice of protest. ‘You’re talking to your mother, boy.’

  Léonie raised an admonishing finger. ‘Enough, Rupert. Yes, I know, my little one, and I am very unhappy for you.’ She blinked away a tear. ‘You are too much my son.’

  ‘Fiddle!’ said Vidal roughly. He put down his glass, the wine in it unfinished. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour, and he looked quickly around at it. ‘I must go. Why did you come? To tell me Quarles is as good as dead? I knew it.’

  ‘No, not for that,’ Léonie replied. ‘I think – I think there is a billet for you from Monseigneur.’

  The Marquis’s laugh held a note of recklessness. ‘Be sure. I have it in my pocket. Inform him, madame, that I shall wait upon him in the morning.’

  There was real trouble in Léonie’s face. ‘Dominique, you do not seem to me to understand at all. Monseigneur is enraged. He says you must leave the country, and, oh, my dear one, I beg you not to anger him any more! You should wait on him at once.’

  ‘Who told him?’ Vidal answered. ‘You, Rupert?’

  ‘Fiend seize you, d