Free Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer Page B

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.
     
    Chapter V
    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. Ton 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