The Convenient Marriage (28 page)

A moment more the crushing grip held, then my lord flung his cousin away from him, and brushed his hands together in a gesture infinitely contemptuous.

Mr Drelincourt reeled back, grasping and clutching at the air, and fell with a crash on to the floor, and stayed there, cowering away like a whipped mongrel.

The Earl looked down at him for a moment, a smile quite unlike any Mr Drelincourt had ever seen curling his fine mouth. Then he leaned back against the table, half sitting on it, supported by his hands, and said: 'Get up, my friend. You are not yet dead.'

Mr Drelincourt picked himself up and tried mechanically to straighten his wig. His throat felt mangled, and his legs were shaking so that he could hardly stand. He staggered to a chair and sank into it.

'You said, I think, that Lord Lethbridge took this famous brooch from you? Where?'

Mr Drelincourt managed to say, though hoarsely: 'Maidenhead.'

'I trust he will return it to its rightful owner. You realize, do you, Crosby, that your genius for recognizing my property is sometimes at fault?'

Mr Drelincourt muttered: 'I thought it was - I - I may have been mistaken.'

'You were mistaken,' said his lordship.

'Yes, I - yes, I was mistaken. I beg pardon, I am sure. I am very sorry, cousin.'

'You will be still more sorry, Crosby, if one word of this passes your lips again. Do I make myself plain?'

'Yes, yes, indeed, I -I thought it my duty, no more, to - to tell you.'

'Since the day I married Horatia Winwood,' said his lordship levelly, 'you have tried to make mischief between us. Failing, you were fool enough to trump up this extremely stupid story. You bring me no proof - ah, I am forgetting! Lord Lethbridge took your proof forcibly from you, did he not? That was most convenient of him.'

'But I - but he did!' said Mr Drelincourt desperately.

'I am sorry to hurt your feelings,' said the Earl, 'but I do not believe you. It may console you to know that had you been able to lay that brooch before me I still should not have believed ill of my wife. I am no Othello, Crosby, I think you should have known that.' He stretched out his hand for the bell, and rang it. Upon the entrance of a footman, he said briefly: 'Mr Drelincourt's chaise.'

Mr Drelincourt heard this order with dismay. He said miserably. 'But, my lord, I have not dined, and the horses are spent. I -I did not dream you would serve me so!'

'No?' said the Earl. 'The Red Lion at Twyford will no doubt supply you with supper and a change of horses. Be thankful that you are leaving my house with a whole skin.'

Mr Drelincourt shrank, and said no more. In a short time the footman came back to say that the chaise was at the door. Mr Drelincourt stole a furtive glance at the Earl's unrelenting face, and got up. 'I'll - I'll bid you good night, Rule,' he said, trying to collect the fragments of his dignity.

The Earl nodded, and in silence watched him go out in the wake of the footman. He heard the chaise drive past the curtained windows presently, and once more rang the bell.

When the footman came back he said, absently studying his finger-nails: 'I want my racing curricle, please.'

'Yes, my lord!' said the footman, startled. 'Er - now, my lord?'

'At once,' replied the Earl with the greatest placidity. He got up from the table and walked unhurriedly out of the room.

Ten minutes later the curricle was at the door, and Mr Gisborne, descending the stairs, was astonished to see his lordship on the point of leaving the house, his hat on his head, and his small sword at his side. 'You're going out, sir?' he asked.

'As you see, Arnold,' replied the Earl.

'I hope, sir - nothing amiss?'

'Nothing at all, dear boy,' said his lordship.

Outside a groom was clinging to the heads of two magnificent greys, and endeavouring to control their capricious movements.

The Earl's eye ran over them, 'Fresh, eh?'

'Begging your lordship's pardon, I'd say they were a couple of devils.'

The Earl laughed, and climbed into the curricle and gathered up the reins in one gloved hand. 'Let them go.'

The groom sprang to one side, and the greys plunged forward.

The groom watched the curricle flash round a bend in the avenue and sighed. 'If I could handle them like that—!' he said, and wandered back to the stables, sadly shaking his head.

Chapter Seventeen

The Sun at Maidenhead was a very popular posting inn, its appointments and kitchens being alike excellent. Lord Lethbridge sat down to dinner in one of the private rooms, a pleasant apartment, panelled with old oak, and was served with a duck, a quarter of mutton with pickled mushrooms, a crayfish, and a quince jelly. The landlord, who knew him, found him to be in an unusually mellow mood, and wondered what devilry he had been engaged on. The reflective smile that hovered over his lordship's thin lips meant devilry of some sort, of that he was quite certain. For once in his life the noble guest found no fault with the food set before him, and was even moved to bestow a word of praise on the burgundy.

My Lord Lethbridge was feeling almost benign. To have outwitted Mr Drelincourt so neatly pleased him even more than the recovery of the brooch. He smiled to think of Crosby travelling disconsolately back to London. The notion that Crosby could be fool enough to carry an empty tale to his cousin never occurred to him; he himself was not one to lose his head, and although he had a poor opinion of Mr Drelincourt's intelligence, such heights of folly were quite beyond his comprehension.

There was plenty of company at the Sun that evening, but whoever else was kept waiting for his dinner, the landlord saw to it that Lethbridge was served instantly. When the covers were withdrawn, and only the wine left on the table, he came himself to ask whether my lord required anything else, and closed the shutters with his own hand. He set more candles on the table, assured his lordship that he would find his sheets well aired, and bowed himself out. He had just told one of the abigails to be sure not to forget to take a warming-pan up presently, when his wife called to him from the doorway: 'Cattermole, here's my lord driven up!'

'My lord,' in Maidenhead, could only mean one person, and Mr Cattermole sped forth at once to welcome this honoured guest. He opened his eyes rather at the sight of the racing curricle, but shouted to an ostler to come to the horses' heads, and himself hurried up all bows and smiles.

The Earl leaned over to speak to him. 'Good evening, Cattermole. Can you tell me if Lord Lethbridge's chaise changed horses here rather more than an hour ago?'

'Lord Lethbridge, my lord? Why, his lordship is putting up here for the night!' said Cattermole.

'How very fortunate!' said the Earl, and climbed down from the curricle, flexing the fingers of his left hand. 'And where shall I find his lordship?'

'In the oak-parlour, my lord, just finished his dinner. I will escort your lordship.'

'No, you need not do that,' replied the Earl, walking into the inn. 'I know my way.' At the foot of the shallow stairs he paused, and said softly over his shoulder: 'By the way, Cattermole, my business with his lordship is private. I feel sure I can rely on you to see that we are not disturbed.'

Mr Cattermole shot him a quick, shrewd glance. There was going to be trouble, was there? Not good for the house, no, not good for the house, but still worse for it to offend my Lord Rule. He bowed, his face a plump, discreet mask. 'Certainly, my lord,' he said, and drew back.

Lord Lethbridge was still sitting over his wine, still meditating over the events of the day, when he heard the door open. He looked up, and stiffened. For a moment they faced one another, Lethbridge rigid in his chair, the Earl standing silent in the doorway, looking across at him. Lethbridge read that look in an instant. He got up. 'So Crosby did visit you?' he said. He put his hand in his pocket and drew out the brooch. "Is that what you came for, my lord?'

The Earl shut the door, and turned the key in the lock. 'That is what I came for,' he said. 'That, and one other thing, Lethbridge.'

'My blood, for instance?' Lethbridge gave a little laugh. 'You will have to fight for both.'

The Earl moved forward. 'This should afford us both gratification. You have a charming taste in revenge, but you have failed, Lethbridge.'

'Failed?' said Lethbridge, and looked significantly at the brooch in his hand.

'If your object was to drag my name in the mud, why, certainly!' said Rule. 'My wife remains my wife. Presently you shall tell me by what means you forced her to enter your house.'

Lethbridge raised his brows. 'And what makes you so sure that I had any need to employ force, my lord?'

'Merely my knowledge of her,' replied the Earl. 'You have a vast deal of explaining to do, you see.'

'I don't boast of my conquests, Rule,' Lethbridge said softly, and saw the Earl's hand clench involuntarily. 'I shall explain nothing.'

'That we shall see,' said Rule. He pushed the table down to one end of the room, against the wall, and blew out the candles on it, leaving only the pendent chandelier in the centre of the room to light them.

Lethbridge thrust the chairs back, picking up his sword from one of them, and drawing it from the scabbard. 'My God, how I have waited for this,' he said suddenly. 'I am glad Crosby went to you.' He put the sword down again, and began to take off his coat.

The Earl made no reply, but set about his own preparations, pulling off his top-boots, unbuckling his sword-belt, rolling up his deeply ruffled shirt-sleeves.

They faced one another under the soft candlelight, two big men in whom rage, long concealed, burned with a steady strength too great to admit of vain flusterings. Neither seemed to be aware of the strangeness of the scene, here in the upper parlour of an inn, with below them, penetrating faintly to the quiet room, the hum of voices in the coffee-room. With deliberation they set the stage, with deliberation snuffed a candle that was guttering, and divested themselves of coats and boots. Yet in this quiet preparation was something deadly, too deadly to find relief in a noisy brawl.

The swords flashed in a brief salute, and engaged with a scrape of steel on steel. Each man was an experienced swordsman, but this was no affair of the fencing-master's art, with its punctilious niceties, but a grim fight, dangerous in its hard swiftness. For each antagonist the world slid back. Nothing had reality but the other man's blade, feinting, thrusting, parrying. Their eyes were on each other's; the sound of their stockinged feet shifting on the boards was a soft thud; their breathing came quick and hard.

Lethbridge lunged forward on his right foot, delivering a lightning thrust in tierce, his arm high, the muscles standing out on it ribbed and hard. Rule caught forte on forte; the foible glanced along his arm, leaving a long red slash, and the blades disengaged.

Neither checked; this was no quarrel to be decided by a single hit. The blood dripped slowly from Rule's forearm to the floor. Lethbridge leaped back on both feet and dropped his point. 'Tie it!' he said curtly. 'I've no mind to slip in your blood.'

Rule pulled a handkerchief from his breeches pocket, and twisted it round the cut, and dragged the knot tight with his teeth.

'On guard!'

The fight went on, relentless and untiring. Lethbridge attempted a flanconnade, opposing his left hand. His point barely grazed Rule's side; the Earl countered in a flash. There was a scuffle of blades, and Lethbridge recovered his guard, panting a little.

It was he who was delivering the attack all the time, employing every wile known to his art to lure Rule into giving an opening. Time after time he tried to break through the guard; time after time his blade was caught in a swift parry, and turned aside. He was beginning to flag; the sweat was rolling in great drops off his forehead; he dared not use his left hand to dash it from his eyes lest in that second's blindness Rule should thrust home. He thrust rather wildly in carte; the Ead parried it half-circle, and before Lethbridge could recover, sprang in, and seized the blade below the hilt. His own point touched the floor. 'Wipe the sweat from your eyes!'

Lethbridge's lips writhed in a queer, bitter smile. —'So -you are - quits?'

The Earl did not answer; he released the sword, and waited. Lethbridge passed his handkerchief across his brow and threw it aside.

'On guard!'

A change came; the Earl was beginning at last to press the attack. Hard driven, Lethbridge parried his blade again and again, steadily losing strength. Knowing himself to be nearly done, he attempted a
botte coupee
, feinting in high carte and thrusting in a low tierce. His blade met nothing but the opposition of Rule's, and the fight went on.

He heard the Earl speak, breathlessly, but very clearly. 'Why did my wife enter your house?'

He had no struggle left to waste in attack; he could only parry mechanically, his arm aching from shoulder to wrist.

'Why did my wife enter your house?'

He parried too late; the Earl's point flashed under his guard, checked, and withdrew. He realized that he had been spared, would be spared again, and yet again, until Rule had his answer. He grinned savagely. His words came on his heaving breaths: 'Kidnapped - her.'