The Riddle of the Reluctant Rake (31 page)

“I don't see how anyone could know what you've written, and even if they suspected, you've not published any of it. Your wife has evidently lived in England for many years, and at all events, if she were an agent for Bonaparte—forgive the suggestion—she would scarcely have urged that you let me read something that might be damaging to her.”

Through a brief silence both men pondered the matter. Then Willoughby said with a determined nod, “Even so, Hastings, I think you must finish reading my—my foolish Lists.”

“Far from foolish, Uncle! Say shrewd and witty, rather!”

Blushing with pleasure, Willoughby thanked him but persisted, “Still, I may perhaps have written of something that
could
prove damaging to some unknown individual. I think I will not—er, rest easy, my boy, till you tell me you've perused it all.”

Since Adair was inclined to agree, he did not protest too vehemently, and when dusk fell he was still busily and, for the most part, enjoyably occupied in reading his uncle's observations on the world of London fashion.

Randall came in and was lighting candles when he heard Adair utter a stifled exclamation. He moved a candelabrum closer to the engrossed reader and by that golden light he noticed that the young Colonel looked very stern. It would be interesting, thought the butler, to know what was in the master's Lists to inspire such an expression.

*   *   *

“Never have I changed my dress in such a scrambling way,” complained Lady Abigail Prior, peering at her reflection in the carriage window and patting the convolutions of her alarmingly tall wig. “I begin to think I should have insisted on the white doves rather than this bluebird.” She fingered the adornment cautiously. “The wretched creature looks to be moulting!”

“No, it looks charming,” said her granddaughter. “And it won't moult if you just stop mauling it about.”

“I would go back and change the little beast,” said Lady Abigail fretfully, “save that it is nigh eleven o'clock, and we would be judged extreme rag-mannered to arrive so late to a ball.”

“We are not unconscionably late, Grandmama,” soothed Cecily. “And besides, you sent Rufus on ahead to convey our apologies. I am sure Lady Tenbury will not regard it, if she even notices that—” She was interrupted by a scream.

“My
feathers!
Only see how they droop! Oh, I shall look a quiz, I know it!”

“Good heavens! How you startled me! Let me see. They look very well and—”

“You say that to put me at my ease, which I am not and could not be, what with moulting birds and wilting feathers, and galloping from one end of England to the other to help your so admired Colonel. I vow there is no rest for a frail old lady. Much you care if I am exhausted!”

Cecily laughed and hugged her. “God grant I am as frail when I reach your age, dearest. And we are doing whatever we may to help Adair because we believe in that way we may also help our darling Alice. Now—show me your poor feathery disaster.”

Her ladyship turned back to her reflected image and poked at one very slightly tilted feather. “See it! Perfectly disgusting!”

Peering around her, Cecily said, “It just needs to be—” She broke off, her gaze passing her grandmother's reflection and resting on the gentleman who was walking around the corner they'd just passed. Jumping up, she pulled on the check-rein and tugged at the window.

“What on
earth…
” cried Lady Abigail, drawing her cloak higher about her chin. “It is freezing! Are you run mad, child?”

“Peters!” called Cecily. “Turn around at once, and follow the man who just turned down Grosvenor Street!”

“Why should we do so crazy a thing?” demanded her grandmother irritably. “We're late as it is! Who is that fellow?”

Sitting down again, Cecily said, “It's Nigel Adair! I'm sure of it! Hasty has been trying and trying to find him, and I want to ask him—” She broke off as another coach turned the corner and pulled into the kennel.

“You can't ask him now,” said Lady Abigail, peering into the darkness. That carriage has taken him up.”

“Oh, confound the creature!'

“Cecily Hall!” exclaimed the old lady, scandalized. “Because I sometimes use a naughty word is no excuse for you to—”

“I know, I know, Grandmama, but—Oh, whatever is he about? He surely must know the nasty creature is no friend to Hastings!”

“What ‘nasty creature'? What are you babbling at?
Now
what are you doing? Oh, I shall go distracted!”

Cecily was letting down the window again, and calling to Peters to follow the other carriage.”

Lady Abigail moaned, “We shall
never
get to this wretched ball! And just as I had my feathers decently arranged!”

“I'm sorry, dearest,” said Cecily breathlessly. “But it's the coach of that horrid Captain Droitwich, who seconded Thorne Webber in his duel with Hastings.”

“Good gracious me! Why would Nigel Adair associate with such a ruffian? You never think—
Nigel…
?”

“I don't know! I don't know! But—oh, I cannot like this! Grandmama, we
must
follow and see where they go! We
must!
”

“You're demented! They'll see us!”

“They may not be going very far, and they won't see us if Peters stays well back. Dearest, if we help Hastings, we help Alice!”

“Oh, very well,” said her ladyship in a martyred tone. “Have your way! We shall both likely be found floating in the river with our throats cut from ear to ear before we see the end of this horrid business! But I don't complain, however old and infirm I may be.”

Her lack of complaint was lost upon Cecily, who was already leaning to the window and calling further instructions to Coachman Peters.

*   *   *

“If you must know,” drawled Paige Manderville, stretching his long legs to the hearth and blowing cigar smoke at the ceiling, “I come down here now and then. To see the dogs.”

With just one branch of candles augmenting the leaping glow from the fire, the drawing room was a cozy and comfortable chamber on this cold winter evening. Dinner had been a merry meal, with the widowed Hilda Chatteris acting as hostess for her brother-in-law, and Minerva aglow with happiness because her favourite cousin had clearly won his way back into Uncle Willoughby's good graces. The ladies and Mr. Chatteris had retired half an hour since, but the two young men lingered, each pondering a vexing, though vastly different, problem.

A log shifted. Adair watched sparks fly up the chimney, and murmured idly, “To see the dogs, eh?”

Manderville turned his head against the sofa cushions and declared with a trace of defiance, “I am a dog lover. I thought you knew.”

“There are likely hundreds of dogs between Woking and Town.”

“Probably. But I find this house pleasant. And I think your cousin a jolly nice girl, with no simpering affectations about her.”

Adair thought of the many London beauties who adored his handsome and sophisticated friend, and of his plump and far from sophisticated cousin. He said, “Oh, I agree,” and added without emphasis, “She is also betrothed, you know.”

“So you say. It has not been published as yet.”

So he'd actually gone so far as to do some digging! Amazed, Adair murmured, “My grandfather doesn't approve. Harrington's lineage is—er, ‘unsuitable,' he says.”

“I'd thought Julius your good friend. A bit of a dull dog, but a nice enough fellow. If Mr. Chatteris approves … He—does, don't he?”

Uncle Willoughby's notes under the heading: “Harrington, Julius,” flashed before Adair's mind's eye. He said with a shrug, “Minerva certainly approves. But she's never been besieged by a dashing man-about-town, and if you mean to—”

“Good grief, man! I find the lady charming. No more, no less. Don't build the eternal triangle around it! What the deuce is that you're playing with?”

Adair tossed him the button he'd been turning in his hand. “Miss Hall found this among her cousin's belongings. She—er, evidently collects such things.”

“No need to wrap it in clean linen, old boy. Toby told me about the odd habits of the Prior ladies.” Manderville roused himself and sat up straight, holding the button to the candlelight. “This battered object came from a man's coat. Her sire's, perhaps.”

“Perhaps. Save that there seems to be some kind of crest or heraldic device and a pair of initials. D'ye see?”

“Not exactly.” Peering at the button, Manderville said, “Can't make head nor tail of the initials. What's that thing in the middle?”

“It's an umbrella.” Adair went to take the button. “Look here … That's the handle.”

“Are you sure? It don't look like an umbrella to me.”

“Probably because you're holding it upside down. This way, gudgeon. This way!”

Manderville yawned. “That fella we just fought…”

“Thorne Webber.”

“That's the one. Don't his family have something to do with the manufacture of—”

“Umbrellas,” said Adair.

“Well—there you are then. Neat and tidy, eh,
mon colonel?
”

“Hmm,” muttered Adair.

15

“General Chatteris has not yet taken his breakfast, miss,” said Polebrook, his disdainful gaze fixed on a point some twelve inches above the head of this lovely but shockingly fast young woman.

“And so I told her, sir,” murmured the footman, taking refuge behind the elderly butler.

“I do not care if your master is in his bed,” declared Cecily, raising her voice and pushing impatiently at the front door. “I demand that you announce me. At once! It is a—a matter of life and death!”

Polebrook curled his lip, his manner saying clearly that he'd heard that tale before.

“I believe,” said Cecily, raising her voice to an even more shrill pitch, “that you're the silly man who attempted to deny my grandmama a little while ago. If I am forced to bring her here again, General Chatteris will not be pleased, I am very sure!”

Staring at her, the butler lost a little of his colour. “Your—grandmother, miss?”

“Lady Abigail Prior,” shouted Cecily at the top of her lungs. “Now shall you open this door, or—”

“What the devil is going on?” Clad in his dressing-gown, General Sir Gower Chatteris stamped down the stairs, roaring. “I rang for you twice, Polebrook! What is that young woman screaming about? I declare there's no longer any peace to be had in a gentleman's home! I'd have a more serene life were I in France with that young rascal, Wellington! What does she want?”

Polebrook turned from the door and offered Cecily's calling card. “Miss Hall says she is the granddaughter of Lady Prior, sir.”

“Is she, by God!” The General took an involuntary step to the rear. “She has the voice for it, certainly!”

“And you are discourteous, sir,” announced Cecily, for the benefit of any neighbours who might be eavesdropping. “Else you'd not keep a lady waiting on your doorstep!”

“A lady would not call on a gentleman at this hour,” retaliated the General, but casting an uneasy glance at the street. “Is your grandmama with you?”

“No. We were out late last night, and—Oh, I'll tell you all about it, but for goodness' sake order this idiot to stand aside, sir! I am come on an urgent matter concerning your grandson.”

At the General's gesture, Polebrook and the footman retreated. “I presume you refer to Hastings Adair,” he said, frowning. “Did I hear you say a matter of life and death?”

“I should think the whole street heard me say it,” said Cecily, taking off her cloak and thrusting it at the footman. “Now you will want to finish your breakfast, I expect, sir, while I tell you why I have invaded your home in so rude a fashion.” She smiled in a way that caused the General to be carried back to other times, and his ire faded. “I trust you can spare some food for me,” she said mischievously. “I'm absolutely famished.”

General Chatteris laughed, and offered his arm. As they went up the stairs together, he said, “I take it that you share your grandmother's conviction that Hastings is innocent.”

“Absolutely. And her regret that we added our mite to his misery.”

He pushed open the door to the breakfast parlour. “I find that remarkable. Under the circumstances. I understood your grandmother to say that you and Miss Prior are like sisters.”

“So we are, sir, and I love her dearly. But”—she paused as he drew out a chair for her—“but I also love—your grandson, you see.”

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed the General, and rang for the maid to set another cover.

When the servants had been dismissed and Cecily was depleting the plate of haddock and toast set before her, she said, “I have come to you because I've learned something that Colonel Adair must be made aware of. He is not at Adair Hall, nor at his flat. I'd hoped you might have seen him.”

The General shook his head. “Perhaps he's with his friends at Jack Vespa's house.”

“My cousin went there, but Broderick has evidently gone to visit his father, and Paige Manderville is down at Blackbird Terrace. Hastings was there yesterday. I'd thought they would have returned, but they may have been delayed by this fog. Or perhaps Mr. Chatteris was really able to help.”

“Willoughby? By Jupiter, I
told
Hastings to pay him no heed! If you're relying on my son, you waste your time, my dear lady. There's small chance that poor Willoughby has wits enough to help himself—much less anyone else!”

“I believe Hastings thinks otherwise, sir. But at all events, I thought I should approach you with the nasty business before I go down there.”

“What ‘nasty business'? And why should you go down there in this weather? Surely, it can wait till Adair comes back to Town?”