The Reckoning (26 page)

‘
It's the same thing, my lady. A man as talks that loud will
be acting rough the next minute. I don't like it, my lady, and
that's a fact. There's not a single gentleman in sight.'

‘
Pho! You're too nice. It's an adventure: don't be so cow-
hearted.’

But before they had been served even with the soup, Moss's
fears were realised. A man appeared at the end of their booth, removed his hat, swaying slightly, and bowed unsteadily. His
head and face were pale and chubby and the one as innocent
of hair as the other, which made him look both funny and
sinister. His clothes were an over-bright, cheap and exagger
ated version of a Dandy's, and he obviously took himself very
seriously as a Bond Street buck, for his neckcloth must have
taken half an hour to perfect, and his corset must have been causing him acute suffering. He had plainly been indulging
himself already that evening: his eyes were clouded, and as he
spoke his breath whistled past them like a gale from an empty brandy-cask.

‘
Good evening, ladies! Two lovely ladies, all alone? That
won't do! Robinson's my name. May I have the honour of
making your acquaintance, and buying you dinner? Anything
you like – champagne, anything! Nothing but the best for two
lovely ladies.’

Little round Judy Moss leapt like a terrier to her mistress's defence. 'You may not! Take your hat and your silly face out
of here, and don't dare to address her ladyship in that manner!'

‘
Her ladyship, is it?' he said in slurred accents. 'Well, I'm
dying to be her ladyship's servant – and yours, ma'am, I
assure you! No offence intended.'

‘
You're as drunk as a brewer's horse!' cried Moss furiously.
'Go back to the tap-room where you belong – and if you can't
tell a lady's maid from a lady, you'd better stay there!’

Mr Robinson seemed to find in these repulsive words only
food for debate. He leaned his fists on the table to support
himself and began deliberately, 'Now s'interesting you should
say that, because I knew a horse once –’

At that moment another figure appeared behind him, a
large hand attached itself to his collar, and he was lifted in a
most surprising manner clear through the air and away from
the table in mid-sentence.

‘
Not now, cully,' the newcomer said firmly. 'You're in no
state to know anything – your brains resemble a dish of
crambo at this moment, and I strongly recommend you go
back to your friends and crawl back inside that brandy-bottle,
where it's safe.’

The landlord appeared, tutting and flapping and spilling
over with apologies, to finish the job of removal. Mr
Robinson, apparently unaware that he had offended, was
walked away and disappeared through the coffee-room door,
still talking, with one proprietorial hand gripping his collar
and another the seat of his pants to help him along.

And now the rescuer turned back to address the rescuee.

‘
My dear Lady Rosamund, what can you be doing in such a
place as this? No, no, you must not answer, for it's none of my
business! But if you will do me the great honour of taking
dinner with me, I can protect you from any further nuisance
of that sort a great deal more effectively than your maid –
courageous though she is.’

Rosamund shook her head – not in refusal, but in wonder.
So much, she thought, for meeting the stranger who would
change her life!

‘
I should be glad of your company, and I'm sure Moss will
be glad to be released,' she said. 'Pray, do sit down, Mr
Hawker; and tell me, what on earth is crambo?’

*

It was an adventure, all the same – the first time she had ever
had dinner alone with a man, and in an inn, to boot! It was a
pity in a way that it was only Mr Hawker, in whom she had
no interest; but on the other hand it was perhaps better to be
with someone she didn't need to impress, with whom she
could be comfortable. It gave her a light-headed feeling of
being off the leash – she could say and do anything tonight,
and it wouldn't count in everyday life. It was fen-larks, as
they used to say as children when they crossed their fingers
during chasing-games.

As a substitute for Moss, he was in all ways superior. And
he was handsome, there was no doubt about it – if you liked
that kind of dark, Byronic good looks. She need not be
ashamed of being seen with him.

‘
So, Lady Rosamund, are you having enough of an adven
ture?' he said when the soup had been removed. 'I presume it
was on your command that you put up here instead of at the
George in Grantham?'

‘
Why should you have expected me to stay at the George?'

‘
It's where your mother always stays.' He laughed at her ex
pression. 'Come now, don't look so surprised! Your mother is a
public figure, and particularly well known on this road. Did you
think you moved in a cloak of invisibility, you and your family?’

She frowned a little. 'I don't think I like that. Do you mean
whatever I do, I am spied upon?'

‘
Hardly that. But you are not
incognita,
you know. I was
told you were here five minutes after you stepped across the
threshold.'

‘
So your being on hand to rescue me was not a coincidence?' He bowed. 'And what about Scarborough? Was our
first meeting on the sands there arranged, too?’

Did you suspect it was? You are a very noticing young
woman, Lady Rosamund. Very well, I engineered the
meeting; but I did go to Scarborough at Farraline's request,
and he was there for his convalescence.'

‘
Why Scarborough?'

‘
Because it was the nearest seaside place that I thought would be tolerable. It was a
peine
that I persuaded him to
leave his mills at all, you know, and I'd never have got him
any further away than that.’

She was not quite satisfied with the explanation, but could
hardly call him a liar when they were about to have dinner
together, so she left the point and said instead, 'And why did you – engineer the meeting, as you say?’

He raised an eyebrow. 'Did I need a reason? My dear
ma'am, two beautiful, vivacious young women, two unatt
ached and lonely men – is that not reason enough?'

‘
Oh stuff! You don't need to gammon me, Mr Hawker.
What was the real reason?’

He laughed, and she noticed how very white his teeth were
in his dark face. It made him look rather vulpine – but attrac
tive, in a dangerous sort of way. 'Such devastating honesty!
You are like your mother in that, Lady Rosamund. Very well,
I arranged the meeting for Farraline's sake. He needs capital
to invest in his mills, and his brother is not willing to give him
any. Where should a young man turn for capita; He can
either borrow it, or marry it, and marrying it
is
a
_g
^r
eat deal
more sensible.'

‘
Yes – because he never needs to pay it back,' Rosamund
said drily. 'But he can only do that once, remember.'

‘He needs only to do it once, if he does it properly.'

‘
Quite. So Sophie would not have done for him at all,' she
concluded.

‘How so? Is not Miss Morland an heiress, too?'

‘
Hardly. Your information is a little faulty, sir,' Rosamund
said with amusement. 'What made you think she was?’

He looked at her for a moment thoughtfully. 'She is your
aunt and uncle's eldest child, is she not? And the Morland
property is not entailed.'

‘
The Morland estate will go to her brother Nicholas,' Rosa
mund said. 'Indeed, you may believe me. It is a fact.'
He heard the triumph in her voice, and chuckled. 'But you
are mistaken – that was not why I paid her attention. As far
as my supposition of her wealth goes, I thought on that
account that she might do for Farraline, but I had no ambi
tions there myself. I chose her company because I liked her;
because she reminded me of Fanny. Only in her looks, of
course – she is nothing like her in character.'

‘Nothing,' Rosamund agreed.

‘
Fanny was an original – unique.' He sighed faintly. 'There
will never be anyone like her.'

‘
Come, Mr Hawker, have you not found a replacement
already?' Rosamund said boldly. 'Lady Annabel is unique
enough, is she not?'

‘
Ah, you know about that, do you? Farraline has a long
tongue. But what a thing to talk to you of What could he be
about?’

Rosamund blushed. 'Neither he nor you seem to feel it necessary to talk to me of conventional things. It is very
shocking.'

‘
But pleasant? After so much bland, sweet food, the palate
craves spice and vinegar, doesn't it? Shall I continue to be
shockingly frank?'

‘
Please do,' Rosamund said, still feeling her cheeks warm.
Thank heaven there was no-one she knew to see her. But it
was an adventure, wasn't it?

‘
Very well,' he smiled. 'Then I shall tell you that you are
wrong about Bel. She is not, and never could be, a substitute
for Fanny – for me or, I imagine, for anyone else. Yes, I see in
your eyes that you have cause to doubt it. But you need never
be jealous of Bel, I assure you.'

‘
Since we are being frank – I imagine you know that
Marcus Morland made a fool of himself over her.'

‘
And you hold it against him – and against her. Well, that is very understandable. But I think I may explain it in a way
that will take the sting out of it. You see, there are two ways in which a man can love a woman. Bel accounts for one sort. She attracts very strongly. She has a particular sort of excite
ment which is hard to resist – and with such a women as Bel,' he added with a shrug, 'there is no need to resist. It is all very
simple – you hunger, you eat, and there's an end.’

There was no chance, Rosamund thought, of her blush's
subsiding while this topic of conversation persisted. Yet it was
fascinating. It was something she wanted to understand, and
it was unlikely anyone else would ever try to explain it to her.
Did you not – eat Fanny?’

He grinned at her phrasing. 'I loved Fanny. Yes, I ate her –
I could never get enough of her! But there was something else,
too. When you love a woman, you want to possess her
entirely, to keep her to yourself so that no-one else can ever
have any part of her. Mine, Fanny was mine, and I'd have
killed any man who offered her the least insult!' He pulled
himself up, seeming surprised by his own vehemence, and
went on in his usual mild and cynical tone. 'One does not feel
that way about such as Bel de Ladon,
voila tout.’