His lordship’s remarks to Miss Challoner on the impropriety and folly of addressing strangers in French inns were caustic and denunciatory, but had no visible effect upon the lady. She continued to eat her dinner, lending no more than a polite ear to his homily, and appeared to consider Mr. Comyn’s inability to speak French an adequate excuse. My lord speedily undeceived her. “You do not seem to me to comprehend the extreme delicacy of your situation,” he said.
Miss Challoner subjected a dish of sweetmeats to close inspection, and finally selected the best of them. “I do,” she replied. “I have had plenty of time for reflection, my lord, and I cannot but realize that I’ve not a shred of reputation left to me.”
The Marquis laughed. “You’re mighty cool over it, ma’am.”
“You should be glad of that,” Miss Challoner said serenely. “The task of conveying to Paris a female suffering from a series of strong hysterics would, I imagine, be vastly distasteful to you.”
“It would,” said the Marquis with conviction.
“Moreover,” pursued Miss Challoner, once more inspecting the dish of sweetmeats, “I cannot discover that a display of agitation on my part would achieve much beyond my own exhaustion and your annoyance.” She bit into a sugar plum. “Also,” she said meditatively, “you have upon several occasions threatened me with extreme violence, so that I should be excessively fearful of the results of driving you to distraction.”
The Marquis brought his open hand down upon the table, and the glasses jumped. “Don’t lie!” he said. “You are not in the least afraid of what I may do to you! Are you?”
“Not at the moment, sir,” she admitted. “But when you have broached your second bottle, I own to some qualms.”
“Let me inform you, ma’am, that I am not considered dangerous until the third bottle.”
Miss Challoner looked at him with a faint smile. “My lord,” she said frankly, “you become dangerous immediately your will is crossed. I find you spoiled, impetuous, and shockingly overbearing.”
“Thank you,” said his lordship. “Perhaps you prefer the sedate demeanour of your friend Mr. Comyn?”
“He seemed to be a gentleman of ordinary propriety, certainly,” concurred Miss Challoner.
“I, on the other hand, am a gentleman of extraordinary impropriety, of course.”
“Oh, not a gentleman, sir, a nobleman,” said Miss Challoner with irony.
“You hit hard, ma’am. Pray, was there anything else in Mr. Comyn that you found worthy of remark?”
“To be sure, sir. His manners were of the most amiable.”
“I’ve none at all,” said his lordship blandly. “Being a nobleman, ma’am, I don’t need ’em. Pray let me pass you this second dish of comfits which has apparently escaped your notice.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Challoner.
The Marquis sipped his wine, watching her over the rim of his glass. “I think it only fair to warn you, ma’am, that this paragon is secretly contracted to a cousin of mine. In fact, his business in Paris, and I mistake not, is to elope with her.”
“Indeed?” Miss Challoner said innocently. “Your cousin is no doubt very like you?”
“Oh, just a family likeness, ma’am,” retorted his lordship. “She should be pleased with you,” he added thoughtfully.
“I cannot conceive why, sir.”
“She’d be pleased with any female who married me.”
Miss Challoner looked at him curiously. “She is so fond of you?”
“No, that ain’t the reason. Her mamma, my ambitious Aunt Fanny, intends her to be my bride — a prospect Juliana dislikes as much as I do.”
Miss Challoner said quickly: “Juliana?”
“My cousin.”
“Yes, I understand that, my lord. But what is her surname?”
“Marling,” said his lordship. “Now what’s to do?”
Miss Challoner jumped in her chair. “Your cousin! Juliana Marling! But I know her!”
“Do you?” said Vidal, not visibly excited. “A mad piece, ain’t she?”
“Oh, she was my very dearest friend!” Miss Challoner said. “But I never dreamed she was your cousin! We were at the same seminary, you see.”
“I’ll wager Juliana learned precious little there,” remarked Vidal.
“Not very much,” allowed Miss Challoner. “They nearly sent her away once, for — er — flirting with the drawing-master. She always said they only forgave her because her uncle was a duke.”
“Kissed the drawing-master, did she? She would!”
“Is she really going to marry Mr. Comyn?” inquired Miss Challoner.
“She says so. But she can’t run off with him now until our affair is settled. Egad, it’s providential that you know her!” He pushed back his chair and got up. “She’s staying with my cousin Elisabeth — bundled off too young to be out of Comyn’s way. I’ll go and pay my respects to her immediately we reach Paris, and tell her the whole story. She’s a rattle-pate, but she’s fond of me, and she’ll do as I bid her. She shall have met you in Paris, just as you were on the point of returning to England with — oh, an aunt, or some such thing. She will tell Tante Elisabeth that she has prevailed upon you to visit her for a week or two and you will go to the Hotel Charbonne surrounded by a positive fog of respectability. From whence, my dear, I shall presently elope with you — before, I trust, Tante has had time to discover the truth.”
Miss Challoner was thinking fast. If Juliana were in Paris, Juliana could help her to obtain a post in some genteel household. Knowing that lively damsel, she had no fear that she might be shocked at her friend’s extraordinary escapade. “Yes, my lord, that is a very good notion — some of it, but I believe you have not perceived the whole good of Juliana’s presence in Paris. You have said yourself, sir, that I shall be surrounded by a positive fog of respectability. I have only to pretend to my mother that Juliana was with you from the start of our journey, and my reputation is saved.”
He shook his head. “I fear not, Mary. It’s a good lie, but too many people would know it for a lie. Moreover, my dear, if I know aught of your mamma, her first care will have been to apprise my parents of your abduction, and to create as much stir as possible. I am well aware that she meant to try and force me into marriage with Sophia by some such method. Didn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Miss Challoner, flushing and shamefaced.
The Marquis touched her cheek with a careless finger as he passed her chair. “No need to look like that, child; I know. Happily, these plans will be delayed a little by the absence of both my parents from town. My father was to have left for the races at Newmarket upon the day I took my leave of him; and my mother was to have gone with him as far as Bedford, where she will be at this moment, staying with the Vanes. We have, therefore, at least a fortnight’s grace, I imagine, but certainly not longer. Write to your mother, apprising her of your betrothal: that should silence her.”
“And you?” she said, watching him as he wandered restlessly about the room. “Do you intend to write your father?”
An involuntary smile twisted his mouth. He refrained from telling her that it was not his libertine behaviour that would annoy his grace, but his honourable intention to marry. He said only: “No need: his grace is not likely to concern himself with my affairs.”
“I do not desire to speak with any disrespect of your father, sir, but from the little I have heard of him I take it that though he might not concern himself with your more clandestine affairs, he would do all in his power to prevent your marriage with one so unsuitable as myself.”
“I devoutly hope you are wrong, my dear,” replied his lordship humourously. “For when my father uses every means to achieve an end, he invariably does achieve it.”
Miss Challoner got up, smiling a little ironically. “Vastly pretty, my lord. I could almost suppose that you wanted to marry me.”
She moved towards the door which his lordship held open for her. “I assure you, ma’am, I am becoming hourly more reconciled to the prospect,” he said, and surprised her by taking her hand and kissing it, very much in the grand manner.
She reflected on her way upstairs that the sooner she left his lordship’s protection the better it would be for her peace of mind.
Upon the following day they resumed their journey, travelling by easy stages, and, at Miss Challoner’s request, at a moderately decorous pace.
She was somewhat amused at the Marquis’s entourage. Besides the chaise that carried her, there was a light coach bearing a quantity of luggage, and Mr. Timms. His lordship rode, and seemed to be accompanied by half his household. Miss Challoner remarked on the size of the cortege, and learned that the Marquis had thought himself to be travelling light. He described his mother’s frequent progresses, and made her feel sad to think that she would never meet the Duchess of Avon. Her grace, it appeared, had only two ways of travelling. Either she set forth carrying all her wardrobe, and most of her furnishings, with a small army of servants preceding her to make ready at every inn she stopped at, or she started out in an immense hurry, forgetting to provide herself with so much as a change of dress.
Miss Challoner soon discovered that the Marquis adored his mother, and by the end of the journey she had learned much concerning the engaging Duchess. She learned something, too, of the Duke, enough to make her feel thankful that the sea separated her from him. He seemed to be a somewhat sinister person, with uncanny powers of penetration.
They spent four days upon the road to Paris, and the Marquis only twice lost his temper. The first occasion was at Rouen, when Miss Challoner slipped off to see the cathedral, narrowly escaped being seen by a party of English persons, and was treated by her return to a furious tirade; and the second was induced by her refusal to wear the clothes of his lordship’s providing. This quarrel began to assume alarming proportions, and when the Marquis announced his intention of dressing Miss Challoner with his own hands, she thought it prudent to capitulate. His eyes were still smouldering when she reappeared in a gown of blue dimity, and it took her some time to coax him out of his wrath.
Upon their arrival in Paris his lordship conducted Miss Challoner immediately to the Hôtel Avon and left her there while he went in search of his cousin. It was already late in the evening, and neither Miss Marling nor Mme. de Charbonne was to be found at home. The Marquis learned that they had gone to a ball at the house of one Mme. de Chateau-Morny, and promptly followed them there. He had taken the precaution of changing his travelling clothes for a coat of yellow velvet rather heavily laced with gold, and satin breeches. Mr. Timms, on his mettle in this land of exquisites, managed to powder his raven locks with fair thoroughness, and further to fix a diamond buckle over the black riband that tied them back. There were diamond buckles on the Marquis’s shoes, and a diamond pin in the foaming lace at his throat. Mr. Timms would dearly have liked to slip a few rings on to my lord’s long white fingers, but the Marquis pushed them all aside, and would wear nothing but his gold signet. He was impatient of the haresfoot, and the patch-box, but when Timms besought him almost in tears not to go to a ball in Paris with his face entirely free from rouge, he laughed, and submitted. Consequently when he took his leave of Miss Challoner, cosily ensconced beside the fire in the big library, she thought for a moment that a stranger had entered the room. The sight of his lordship in full ball dress with diamonds glinting, ruffles of the finest lace falling over his hands, his hair adequately powdered and arranged in neat curls, and a patch at the corner of his mouth, almost took her breath away. She laughed at him, but thought privately that he looked magnificent.
He grimaced at his reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece. “I look like a damned Macaroni, don’t I?” he said. “If I know anything of Juliana, I shall find her at some ball or rout. Don’t go to bed till I get back.”
He had no difficulty in entering Mme. de Chateau-Morny’s hôtel, and when he reached the head of the stairway Madame herself greeted him with a cry of mingled surprise and delight, and laughed to scorn his apology for coming uninvited to her party. He escaped from her presently, and, entering the ballroom, stood looking round through his eye-glass. His very height at once attracted attention; several persons hailed him, demanding to know whence he had sprung, and more than half the young ladies in the room determined to dance with him before the night was done.
Miss Marling, at the moment of the Marquis’s entry, was going down the dance with a slim young gentleman dressed in the very latest mode. She caught sight of her cousin, gave an unmaidenly shriek, and seizing her partner by the hand, left the dance without ceremony, and rushed to greet him.
“Vidal!” she exclaimed, and gave him both her hands.
Half the young ladies in the room regarded her enviously. “Don’t be a hoyden, Ju,” said his lordship, raising first one hand and then the other to his lips. “God defend me, is it you, Bertrand?”
“It is her cousin, the wicked Marquis,” whispered a brunette to a languishing blonde.
“How she is fortunate!” sighed the blonde, gazing soulfully at Vidal.
The modish young gentleman swept a deep bow, flourishing a handkerchief strongly scented with amber. He had a mobile and somewhat mischievous countenance, and was known to every anxious parent as a desperate flirt. “ Cher Dominique, it is even I, thy so unworthy cousin. What villainy has brought you here?”
“Damn your impudence,” said his lordship cheerfully. “And what’s the meaning of all this, Bertrand?” He let fall his glass, and took the lively Vicomte’s ear between finger and thumb.
“English, you understand,” murmured a dowager to her vis-à-vis. “They are all quite sans gêne, I have heard.”
“My earrings? But it is de règle, my dear! Oh, but the very, very latest mode!” the Vicomte answered. “Let go, barbarian!”
Juliana tugged at his lordship’s sleeve. “Vidal, it is amazingly pleasant to see you again, but what in the world are you doing here? Never will you tell .me my uncle has sent you to — to be a dragon because of my dearest Frederick!”
“Lord, no!” replied Vidal. “Where is your dearest Frederick? Not here tonight?”
“No, but he is in Paris. Oh, Vidal, where can we talk? I have so much to tell you!”
The Vicomte broke in on this and said in English: “Vidal, I am with pistols quite incompetent, but you who are so much in the habit of it, will you not shoot me this abominable Frederick?”
Juliana gave a little crow of laughter, but told the Vicomte she would not permit him to talk in such a fashion.
“But he must be slain, my adored one! It is well seen that he must be slain. Anyone who aspires to steal you from me must be slain. Behold Vidal, the very man to do it!”
“Do it yourself, puppy,” said his lordship. “Pink him with that pretty sword of yours. Juliana would love to have a duel fought in her honour.”
“It is an idea,” agreed the Vicomte. “Decidedly it is an idea. But I must ask myself, can I do it? Is he perhaps a master of sword-play? That gives to think! I cannot fight for the hand of the peerless Juliana unless I am sure I win. You perceive how ridiculous that would make me to appear.”
“It won’t make you more ridiculous than those earrings,” said his lordship. “I wish you would go away; I want to talk to Juliana.”
“You inspire me with jealousy the most profound. Do I find you at the Hôtel Avon? I shall see you perhaps tomorrow, then.”
“Come and dine with me,” Vidal said, “but no earrings, mind!”
The Vicomte laughed, waved an airy good-bye, and went off in search of further amusement.
“Ju, I want your help,” the Marquis said quickly. “Where can we be undisturbed?”
Her eyes sparkled. “My dearest Vidal, what can you have done now? Tell me at once, dreadful creature. Of course, I’ll help you! I know of a little room where we shall be quite alone.”
The Marquis followed her to where a curtain hung over an archway, and held it back for her to pass through.
“Juliana, you minx, were you ever at a ball without finding a little room where you could be quite alone?”
“No, never,” answered Miss Marling with simple pride. Sheseated herself on a couch, and patted the place beside her invitingly. “Now tell me!”
He sat down, and began to play with her fan. “Do you recall the blonde piece you once saw me with at Vauxhall Gardens?”
She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, she had blue eyes and looked stupid.”
“She was stupid. I’ve run off with her sister instead of her, and the devil’s in it, I must marry the girl.”
“What?” shrieked Miss Marling.
“If you screech again, Ju, I’ll strangle you,” said his lordship. “This is serious. The girl’s not like the one you saw. She’s a lady. You know her.”
“I don’t contradicted Miss Marling positively. “Mamma would never let me know the sort of female who would run off with you, Dominic.”
“Don’t keep interrupting!” commanded Vidal. “I meant to bring the other sister to Paris, since I had to leave England — ”
“Merciful heavens, what have you done that you had to leave England?” cried Miss Marling.
“Shot a man in a duel. But that’s not important. The fair sister was to have come with me, but this one got wind of it and took her place to save her.”
“I expect she wanted you herself,” said the sceptical Miss Marling.
“She don’t want me; she’s too strait-laced. I didn’t discover the cheat till Newhaven was reached. The girl thought to make me believe Sophia had planned the trick. I did believe it.” He frowned down at the fan he still held. “You know what I’m like when I lose my cursed temper, Ju?” Miss Marling shuddered dramatically. “Well, I did lose it. I forced the girl to come aboard the Albatross, and brought her over to France. At Dieppe, I discovered the mistake I’d made. She was no Sophia, but a lady, and virtuous to boot.”
“I’ll be bound she enjoyed it prodigiously for all that,” sighed Miss Marling. “I should.”
“I dare say,” said his lordship crushingly, “but this girl is not a minx. There’s nothing for it but to marry her. I want to do that as quickly as may be, and until I can arrange it I want you to befriend her.”
“Vidal, I never, never thought that you would turn romantic!” said Miss Marling. “Tell me her name at once!”
“Challoner — Mary Challoner,” replied the Marquis.
She fairly leaped up from the couch. “Mary! What, my own dear Mary, who left school and was never more heard of? Dominic, you wicked, abominable creature! Where is she? If you’ve frightened her, I vow I’ll never speak to you again!”
“Frightened her?” he said. “Frightened Miss Challoner? Don’t you know her better than that? She’s the coolest woman that ever I met.”
“Oh, do take me to her at once!” begged his cousin. “I should like of all things to see her again. Where is she?”
“At the Hôtel Avon. Listen to what I want you to do.”
He told her his plan; she nodded her approval, and straightway dragged him off to the card-room where Mme. de Charbonne was playing at euchre. “Tante, here is Vidal!” she announced.
Madame gave him her hand and a preoccupied smile. “ Cher Dominique!” she murmured. “One told me that you were here. Come and visit me tomorrow.”
“Tante, only fancy! — Vidal tells me one of my dearest friends is in Paris. Tante, pray listen to me! I am going to see her at this very moment, for Vidal says she leaves tomorrow for England with her aunt.”
“But how can you go this moment?” objected madame.
“Vidal says he will escort me. You know mamma will let me go anywhere with Vidal. And he will bring me safe home when I’ve seen Mary. So do not wait for me, will you, Tante Elisabeth? Not here, I mean.”
“It’s all very irregular,” complained madame, “and you interrupt the game, my dear. Take her away, Dominique, and do not be late.”
Half an hour later Miss Challoner, dozing before the fire, was roused by an opening door, and looked up to see her friend Juliana come quickly into the room. “Juliana!” she cried joyfully.
“Mary!” squeaked Juliana, and flung herself into Miss Challoner’s arms.