Pistols for Two (8 page)

‘That, my child, was the Lady Almeria Spalding. If you are ready to go –’

‘Lady Almeria! Are – are you not engaged to her?’

‘I
was
engaged to her!’

‘Oh!’ she cried. ‘What have I done? Did she cry off because of me?’

‘She did, but as we are not at all suited to one another I shall not reproach you for that. Foisting a repellant mongrel on me, however, which whined the better part of the night, is another matter; while as for your conduct in Marlborough –’

‘But – but don’t you care that your engagement is broken?’ she interrupted.

‘Not a bit!’

‘Perhaps she will think better of it, and forgive you,’ suggested Nan, in a somewhat wistful tone.

‘I am obliged to you for the warning, and shall insert into the
Gazette
the notice that my marriage will not take place the instant I reach London,’ he said cheerfully.

‘It is very dreadful, but, do you know, sir, I find I
cannot
be sorry for it!’

‘I am glad of that,’ he said, smiling.

‘She did not seem to me the kind of female you would
like
to be married to.’

‘I can imagine none more unlike
that
female!’

She looked enquiringly up at him, but he only laughed, and said: ‘Come, we must finish this journey of yours, if your grandfather is not to think that we have perished by the wayside!’

‘Do you think he will be angry when he hears all that has happened?’ she asked uneasily.

‘I fear that his anger will fall upon
my
head. He will say – and with truth! – that I have made a poor hand at looking after you. However, I trust that when he has heard the full tale of your atrocious conduct he will realize that it was experience, and not goodwill, that was lacking in me, and give me leave to study how to do better in future.’

‘I know you are quizzing me,’ said Nan, ‘but I don’t precisely understand what you mean, sir!’

‘I will tell you one day,’ promised Sir Charles. ‘But now we are going to drive to London! Come along!’

She went obediently with him to where the curricle waited, but when he lifted her into it, and disposed her injured foot upon the folded bolster, she sighed, and said shyly: ‘Shall I ever see you again, once I am fixed in Brook Street?’

‘Frequently!’ said Sir Charles, mounting into the curricle, and feeling his horses’ mouths.

Miss Massingham heaved a relieved sigh. ‘I am so glad!’ she said simply. ‘For I don’t feel that I could ever like anyone half as well!’

‘That,’ said Sir Charles, flicking a coin to the expectant ostler, ‘is what I mean to make very sure of, my dear and abominable brat!’

It was a silken domino, of a shade of rose-pink admirably becoming to a brunette. One of the footmen had carried up the bandbox to the Blue Saloon in the great house in Grosvenor Square, where Miss Wrexham was engaged in solving a complimentary charade, sent to her by one of her admirers. This was abandoned; Miss Wrexham pounced on the bandbox, and lifted the lid. The domino was packed in sheet upon sheet of tissue-paper, and as Miss Wrexham lifted it from the box these fluttered to the ground, and lay there in drifts. Miss Wrexham gave a coo of delight, and held the cloak up against herself, looking in one of the long mirrors to see how it became her. It became her very well indeed: trust the most expensive modiste in London for that! Somewhere, on the floor, there was a rather staggering bill, but Miss Wrexham cared nothing for that. Bills were of no consequence to a Wrexham of Lyonshall. Being under age, one existed upon an allowance, and frequently outran the constable. But that was of no consequence either, since there was always Mama to come to one’s rescue, or even, at a pinch, Giles. But only at a pinch. A brother who was eight years one’s senior, and one’s legal guardian into the bargain, could not be thought an ideal banker. He had never yet refused to pay one’s debts, but there had been several distressing scenes, and one in particular, when she had lost a considerable sum of money playing loo for high stakes, which she preferred not to remember. For several quaking hours she had expected to be banished to Lyonshall, in charge of her old governess; and Mama, who seemed to have incurred more blame even than herself, had had one of her worst spasms. She had been forgiven, but she still thought it astonishingly mean of Giles to grudge her a few paltry hundreds out of his thirty thousand pounds a year.

All this, however, was forgotten, for she had a new and absorbing interest to distract her. Still holding up the pink domino, she wondered how the new interest would like it; and came to the conclusion that he must be hard indeed to please if he did not.

She was so lost in these agreeable speculations that she did not hear the door open behind her, and had no notion that she was not alone until a dry voice, which made her jump nearly out of her skin, said: ‘Charming!’

She spun about, instinctively bundling the domino into a heap. ‘Oh! I thought you was gone out!’ she gasped.

Mr Wrexham shut the door, and walked forward. He was a tall man, with raven-black hair, and uncomfortably penetrating grey eyes. His air of distinction owed nothing to his dress, for this was careless. Stultz certainly made his coats, but he was never permitted to give his genius full rein. Mr Wrexham preferred to enter his coats without the assistance of his valet; and was so indifferent to the exigencies of the mode that when every Pink of the Ton was to be seen abroad in pantaloons and Hessians it was the Bank of England to a Charley’s shelter that he would emerge from Jackson’s Boxing Saloon attired in riding-breeches and top-boots, and with a Belcher handkerchief negligently knotted about his neck. In a lesser man such conduct would have occasioned severe censure; but, as his mama pointed out to his sister, if you were Wrexham of Lyonshall there was nothing you might not do with the approval of Society.

‘It – it is a gown I chose yesterday!’ said Letty.

‘Do you take me for a flat?’ replied her brother. ‘It is a domino.’ He picked up from the floor Madame Celestine’s bill, and his brows rose. ‘Quite an expensive domino, in fact!’

‘I am sure there is no reason why I should not buy expensive things!’ said Letty, trying to turn the issue.

‘None at all, but this seems an extortionate price to pay for something you will not wear.’

Colour rushed up into her exquisite little face. ‘I shall! I
shall
wear it!’ she declared.

‘I have already told you, my dear sister, that I will not permit you to go to a Pantheon masquerade, least of all in the company of a military fortune-hunter!’

Her eyes blazed with wrath. ‘How dare you say such a thing? You have never so much as set eyes on Edwin!’

‘He would appear to have taken good care of that,’ said Mr Wrexham, with a curl of his lip.

‘It is untrue! He would have been very glad to have met you! It was
I
who forbade it, because I knew how horrid you would be!’

At this moment, the door opened, and a faded lady came in, saying in a voice that matched her ethereal mien: ‘Oh, here you are, my love! If we are to visit the Exhibition – Oh, is that you, Giles?’

‘As you see, Mama. Pray postpone your visit to the Exhibition, and look at this!’ He twitched the domino out of Letty’s hands as he spoke, and shook it out before his mother’s eyes.

Lady Albinia Wrexham, realizing that a scene highly prejudicial to her enfeebled constitution was about to take place, sank into a chair, and groped in her reticule for her vinaigrette. ‘Oh, dear!’ she sighed. ‘Dearest child, if your brother dislikes it so very much, don’t you think – ?’

‘No!’ said Letty. ‘Giles dislikes everything I wish to do, and – and
every
gentleman who admires me!’

‘With reason!’ said Giles. ‘You have now been on the town for less than a year, my girl, and I have been obliged to repulse no fewer than eight gazetted fortune-hunters!’

‘Edwin is not a fortune-hunter!’

‘Indeed, Giles, I think him an unexceptionable young man!’ interpolated Lady Albinia.

‘Let me remind you, ma’am, that you said the same of Winforton!’

‘To be sure, I could wish that he were not serving in a Line regiment,’ said her ladyship feebly. ‘But his birth is perfectly respectable! I own, I should wish dear Letty to make a far more brilliant match, but –’

‘Not I! I am going to marry Edwin, and follow the drum!’ announced Letty.

Her brother threw her a glance half of amusement, half of exasperation. ‘I should be sorry for any penniless lieutenant of Foot who was saddled with you for a wife, my dear!’

‘But if he married Letty,’ pointed out her ladyship, not entirely felicitously, ‘he would not be penniless, Giles!’

‘Exactly so!’ he said sardonically.

‘You are unjust!’ Letty cried. ‘All you care for is that I should make a splendid marriage, and nothing for my happiness!’

‘At present,’ he returned, ‘I am not anxious to see you make any marriage at all. When you have ceased to imagine yourself to be in love with every man who dangles after you – why, yes! I should wish you to make a good match!’

‘Then I wonder you don’t make one yourself!’ she flashed. ‘I dare say there must be a score of eligible females casting out lures to you!’

‘You flatter me,’ he replied, unmoved.

‘Oh, no, it is very true, Giles!’ his mother assured him. ‘And I wish very much that I could see you creditably established! There is Rothwell’s daughter, or –’

‘Oh, no, Mama!’ Letty struck in, with an angry little titter. ‘Giles does not make Earls’ daughters the objects of his gallantry! When he marries, he will choose a dab of a girl in an outmoded bonnet, and a black pelisse!’

A tinge of colour stole into her brother’s lean cheeks, but he said nothing. Lady Albinia, looking very much shocked, exclaimed: ‘Dear child, I do not know what you can possibly mean!’

‘It is wickedly unjust!’ Letty declared, a sob in her throat. ‘Giles will have nothing to say to my dearest Edwin because he has neither title nor fortune, but I know very well that if he could but have discovered where she lived
he
would have offered for a Nobody that was never at Almack’s or – or anywhere one would look for a lady of quality!’

‘Your imagination is as unbridled as your tongue,’ Mr Wrexham said curtly.

‘But what is this?’ demanded Lady Albinia, greatly bewildered.

‘You may well ask!’ he replied. ‘I hope you mean to enlighten us, Letty: who is the Nobody your fancy has marked down as my bride?’

‘You know very well that I mean the girl who was knocked down in Bond Street, that day you and I were going to Hookham’s Library! You may try to hoax me, but
I
know why you have been so obliging as to escort me to Almack’s three times this month, and why you have taken to driving your phaeton in the Park every afternoon! You are trying to find her, because you were so much struck by the
sweetest
face
you
ever
beheld
that you lost your wits, and never even discovered what was her name!’

Lady Albinia turned astonished eyes towards her son. He uttered a short laugh. ‘One of Letty’s high flights, ma’am! The truth is merely that some girl had the misfortune to be knocked down by a curricle and pair, and I rendered her such assistance as lay within my power. Had she come by her deserts, she must have suffered serious injury. Happily, she was merely stunned for a minute. I trust that the incident has served to convince her of the folly of stepping into the road before ascertaining that no vehicle is at that moment approaching.’

Letty, who had listened to this speech with growing indignation, exclaimed: ‘How can you, Giles? When you carried her into the Library, and sent me running to a chemist’s shop, and told the man in the curricle, in the
rudest
way, that he was unfit even to drive a donkey! Yes, and if the girl would have permitted it you would have conveyed her to her home, and abandoned me in the middle of Bond Street!’

‘Had the girl not been accompanied by a servant, I dare say I should have done so,’ he replied coolly. ‘I collect that this rodomontade is designed to divert my attention from your evident purpose. Understand me, Letty, I will not permit you to go to a Pantheon masquerade under any circumstances whatsoever, least of all in the company of an unknown officer of Foot!’ He glanced down at his parent, and added: ‘I must say, ma’am, I am amazed that you could sanction so improper a scheme!’

Lady Albinia had recourse to her vinaigrette. ‘But, indeed, Giles, you do not perfectly understand how it was to be! The thing is that Mr Ledbury’s married sister was to have escorted Letty. She was so civil as to write a letter to me, just as she ought, assuring me that she would take every care of her. There is to be a little party, and Letty is invited to dine at this Mrs Crewe’s house before going to the Pantheon. But, of course, if you do not quite like it, I am persuaded she will give up the project!’

‘No! No!’ said Letty hotly.

‘If you have a grain of common-sense, you will!’ said her brother. ‘Recollect that for two years to come you are in my wardship! Banish this new swain of yours from your thoughts, for if you do not I give you fair warning I shall find the means to compel you!’ He paused, looking rather grimly at the stormy countenance upraised to his. After a moment, his own face softened, and he said: ‘Come, Letty, don’t be a goosecap! Indeed, these masquerades are not at all the thing! Be a good girl, and I will take you instead to the play!’

Mr Wrexham, withdrawing, left his sister mutinous, and his mother in a flutter of apprehension. To Letty’s diatribe she could find nothing better to say than: ‘Yes, indeed, my love, but you know how it is with Giles! I told you how it would be! He will never suffer you to marry a Nobody!’

‘I will not be browbeaten by Giles!’ said Letty. ‘I know very well he means me to marry to oblige him – Rothbury, I daresay! – but I won’t do it! I
know
that I shall never love anyone but Edwin!’

Lady Albinia uttered distressful sounds. ‘My love, do not say so! He will never let you throw yourself away like that! And I must say I think it was most imprudent of you, Letty, to set up his back with that nonsensical story!’

‘Mama, I vow to you that he was so much struck by the girl that I scarce knew him for my own brother! And he
did
say that she had the sweetest face he ever beheld!’

‘Very likely, my love, but you must know that such fancies are common amongst gentlemen, and they do not lead to marriage! If you imagine
that
was in his head, you are a great goose! He has more pride even than his sainted papa, and he, you know – Well, never mind that! But the Wrexhams
always
make good marriages. It has grown to be quite a habit with them!’

Letty said no more, but went away, carrying the domino over her arm.

Mr Wrexham, meanwhile, had left the house. He did not return to it until shortly before seven o’clock, when he was greeted by the staggering tidings that Miss Letty, so far from being in her dressing-room, had driven away in a hackney a few minutes earlier.

‘To what address?’ asked Mr Wrexham, in a voice of dangerous calm.

Never had the butler been more thankful to be able to disclaim all responsibility for his young mistress’s actions. None of the servants had been employed to summon the hackney; and but for the accident of one of the abigails looking out of a window just as Miss Letty was stepping up into the vehicle, no one would have known that she had gone out.

Mr Wrexham went up to Lady Albinia’s dressing-room two steps at a time. He found her resting upon a sofa, and, with a total disregard for her nerves, demanded to be told whether she was aware that her daughter had left the house in a manner which he did not scruple to call clandestine.

Her face of shocked dismay was answer enough. Curbing a strong inclination to animadvert severely upon the negligence that had made it possible for Letty to steal from the house, Mr Wrexham curtly requested his parent to furnish him with Mrs Crewe’s direction.

‘Giles!’ protested her ladyship. ‘You cannot wrest your sister away from a dinner-party!’

‘Oh, yes, I can!’ retorted Mr Wrexham.

Lady Albinia, perceiving that he was in a towering rage, sank back against her cushions, and said in a dying voice: ‘I can feel a spasm coming on!’

‘Furnish me with Mrs Crewe’s direction, ma’am, and I will leave you to enjoy it in private!’

‘But I don’t know it!’ wailed her ladyship, almost beyond human aid. ‘I never kept her letter, for why should I? And I don’t recall the direction, though I am sure it was perfectly respectable, for if it had not been I must have noticed it!’

Controlling himself with a visible effort, Mr Wrexham strode from the room.