Джорджетт Хейер - Regency Buck

“Oh, nothing, nothing, upon my honour!” she said wretchedly. “It was the heat, only the heat!”

“Why are you here?” he demanded. “What purpose can you have had in going apart with the Regent? Careless of your reputation I know you to be, but I had not thought it possible that you could behave with such imprudence!”

She was stung into replying: “How could I help going with him when he pressed me to as he did? What was I to say? Mrs. Scattergood was in the card-room; you were not present How could I know what I should do or say when no less a person than the Prince-Regent requested my company? These reproaches might have been spared! You cannot know the circumstances. Say no more! You may think me what you please: I am sure I do not care!”

“No,” said the Earl with strong feeling, “I am well aware of that at least! But while I have authority over you I must and will censure such conduct.”

She managed to get up, though her knees still shook. “It does not signify talking. You are determined to despise me.”

There was a moment’s silence. “I determined to despise you?” said the Earl in an altered tone. “What nonsense is this?”

“I have not forgotten what you said to me that day at Cuckfield.”

“Do you imagine that I have forgotten that day?” said the Earl sternly. “Your opinion of me, which you so freely expressed, is not likely to be soon wiped from my memory, I assure you.”

She found to her dismay that tears were rolling down her cheeks. She averted her face, and said in a broken whisper: “My carriage—Mrs. Scattergood—I must go home!”

“A message shall be conveyed to Mrs. Scattergood when she leaves the card-room,” he said. “I will take you home as soon as you are sufficiently recovered.” He paused, and added: “You must not cry, Clorinda. That is a worse reproach to me than any I have bestowed on you.”

“I am not crying,” replied Miss Taverner, groping in her reticule for her handkerchief. “It is just that I have the headache.”

“I see,” said the Earl.

Miss Taverner dried her eyes, and said huskily: “I am sorry you should have the troublesome office of taking me home. I am quite ready. But if only Mrs. Scattergood could be fetched—”

“To summon Mrs. Scattergood from the card-table would give rise to the sort of public curiosity I am endeavouring to avoid,” he replied. “Come! Your mistrust of me surely cannot be so great that you will not allow me to convey you a few hundred yards in your own carriage.”

She raised her head at that. “If I did indeed say that on that hateful day I beg your pardon,” she said. “You have never given me—would never give me, I am persuaded—the least cause for mistrusting you.” She saw the frown in his eyes, and wondered at it. “You are still angry. You don’t believe me when I say that I am sorry.”

He put out his hand quickly. “My dear child! Of course I believe you. If I looked angry you must blame circumstance, which has forced me to—” He broke off, and smiled at her.

“Shall we put the memory of that day at Cuckfield out of mind?”

“If you please,” whispered Miss Taverner. “I am aware—have been aware almost from the start—that I ought not to have driven myself from London as I did.”

“Miss Taverner,” he said, “I am seriously alarmed. Are you sure that you are yourself?”

She smiled, but shook her head. “I am not sufficiently myself to quarrel with you to-night, provoke me how you may.”

“Poor Clorinda! I won’t provoke you any more, I promise,” he said, and drawing her hand through his arm, led her to the door into the Chinese Gallery and so out to her carriage.

Mr. Brummell, who had elected to stroll across from his lodgings on the Steyne to the Earl of Worth’s house on the morning after the party at the Pavilion, set the red Pekin sweetmeat-box of carved lacquer down on the table with tender care, and sighed. “Yes,” he said. “I am inclined to hazard the opinion that it is quite genuine. Ch’ien Lung. Pray remove it from my sight.”

The Earl restored the box to its place in the cabinet. “I found it in Lewes, of all unlikely places. Charles will not allow it to be worth a guinea.”

“Charles’s opinions on old lac leave me supremely indifferent,” said Brummell. He crossed one leg, beautifully sheathed in a pale biscuit-coloured pantaloon, over the other, and leaned his head against the back of the chair to look lazily up at Worth. “Well, I have seen the Great Man,” he said. “You are quite out of favour, you know.”

The Earl gave a short laugh. “Yes, until he wants my judgment on a horse or a brand of snuff. Did you come to tell me that?”

“Not at all. I came to tell you that he has taken a chill for which he apparently holds you responsible.”

“I can only say that I hope it may prove fatal,” replied the Earl.

“He seems to think that probable,” said Brummell. “I left him on the point of being cupped. I am not unreasonable; if he likes to make being cupped a hobby it is quite his own affair; but he had the deplorable bad taste to tell me how much blood he had had taken from him these thirty years. It will come to this, you know, that I shall be obliged to drop him. I begin to think that I made a great mistake to bring him into fashion at all.”

“He doesn’t do you much credit, certainly,” remarked the Earl with the glimmer of a smile.

“On the contrary, he does me considerable credit,” said Brummell. “You must have forgotten what he was like before I took him up. He was used to flaunt abroad in green velvet and spangles. Which reminds me, you will like to know that I punished him for you after you had left last night. He actually asked my opinion of that coat he was wearing.” He inhaled a pinch of snuff, and delicately dusted his fingers. “I thought he was going to burst into tears,” he said reflectively.

At this moment the door was quickly flung open, and Captain Audley came into the room. He looked straight across at his brother, and said without preamble: “Are you at liberty, Julian? Miss Taverner is here, and wishes to see you—on a matter of grave importance.”

The Earl turned, and their eyes met for an instant. “Miss Taverner wishes to see me?” repeated the Earl, a slight inflection of surprise in his voice.

“Urgently,” said Captain Audley.

“Then pray bring her in,” said the Earl calmly. He walked to the door. “My dear Miss Taverner, will you not come in? I do not know what Charles is about to leave you standing in the hall.”

Judith came swiftly towards him. She was dressed in her driving-habit, and she looked unusually pale. “Lord Worth, something has happened to Perry!” she said. “I have come at once to you.”

He drew her into the saloon, and shut the door behind her. “Indeed! I am extremely sorry to hear it. What is it? Has he overturned his curricle?”

Her eyes alighted on Brummell, who had risen at her entrance and was regarding her with an expression of civil concern. “I beg your pardon. I thought you were alone. You must forgive me for breaking in on you so abruptly, but I hardly know what I am about. I have just learned that Perry did not go to Worthing yesterday!”

The Earl raised his brows. “From whom have you learned this? Are you quite sure?”

“Oh yes, there can be no mistake. I have spoken with Lady Fairford. She and Miss Fairford have come over to Brighton to make some purchases. I was driving up East Street when I saw them. I stopped, and before I could speak Lady Fairford had asked me whether Peregrine was indisposed that he had not kept his engagement with them yesterday.” She paused, and lifted her hand to her cheek. “Perhaps you will think I am needlessly alarmed—there may be a dozen simple explanations! I tell myself so, but—I cannot believe it! Lord Worth, Perry left me yesterday afternoon, and he is not back!”

One of Mr. Brummell’s mobile brows went up. He glanced from Worth to Charles Audley, but said nothing.

The Earl drew a chair forward. “Yes, I think there might be several explanations,” he said. “Will you not be seated? Charles, pour out a glass of wine for Miss Taverner.”

She made a gesture of refusal. “Thank you, thank you, I do not want anything. What explanation can there be? All I can think is that some accident has befallen him, but even that will not do, for how is it possible that I should not have heard of it by now? He was not alone; his groom was with him. Lord Worth, what has happened to Perry?”

“I am afraid I can scarcely answer that question,” replied the Earl. “But since he was accompanied by his groom, it seems safe to assume that he has not met with an accident. The more probable explanation is that he has gone off to see a cock-fight, or something of that sort, and did not wish you to know of it.”

“Oh,” she said eagerly, “do you think that might be so? It is quite true that he would not wish me to know. But the Fairfords—oh no, he would not have made so positive an engagement—he was to accompany them to an Assembly—if he had not meant to keep it!”

“Well, let us suppose that he did mean to keep it,” said the Earl. “From my knowledge of him I should not imagine that if, at the last moment, some acquaintance desired him to go off to see a mill, or some cocking, he would find him very hard to persuade.”

“No, perhaps not,” she conceded doubtfully. “But would he not have returned by now?”

“Apparently not,” said the Earl.

The matter-of-fact way he spoke had its effect on her. She tried to smile, and said with a faint blush: “You make my fears sound ridiculous. Of course something of the kind must have occurred. Ten to one I shall find him at home when I get there. Only—Lord Worth, do you indeed think that? You do not see any need for anxiety?”

“Not yet, at all events,” he replied. “If you have no news of him by dinner-time, send me word, and I will come round to discuss what is best to be done. Meanwhile, I will certainly make inquiries on the Worthing road. I think, if I were you, I would not mention the matter to anyone. If Peregrine were to return and find the whole town talking of his escapade, he might not be best pleased.”

“You are very right. I shall say nothing. Of course, there must be some very simple reason for his disappearing.” She got up. “I must not stay. Mrs. Scattergood will be wondering what has become of me.”

Captain Audley, who had retired to the window, stepped forward. “You will allow me to accompany you?” he said.

She smiled. “Yes, indeed, I should be glad. I daresay we shall find Perry in Marine Parade after all. Mr. Brummell, I wish you had not been here, for I am aware how I must have sunk in your estimation! You told me once never to betray emotion, and here I am, on the high road to hysterics! No, no, do not come out with me, Lord Worth! Captain Audley has me in charge.”

The Earl, however, accompanied her to her phaeton, handed her up into it, and saw her drive off. When he returned to the saloon he found Mr. Brummell standing where he had left him, sipping a glass of Madeira. Mr. Brummell said in his pensive way: “It occurs to me, Julian, that though I might not be so well informed, the news of a mill to be fought in the district must have reached your ears.”

“You would think so,” replied the Earl shortly.

Mr. Brummell looked at him over the rim of his wine-glass. “Well, do you know, I do think so,” he said. “The cocking was a better notion, and if you are satisfied with it, it would be absurd for me to cavil.”

“I am not in the least satisfied with it,” said the Earl. “But something had to be said. If you have any suggestion to offer I shall be glad to hear it. What is in your mind, George?”

“Who,” asked Mr. Brummell, “is the heir to Peregrine’s fortune?”

“To a great extent, his sister.”

Mr. Brummell shook his head. “I cannot feel that Miss-Taverner would be guilty of the impropriety of murdering her brother.”

The Earl poured himself out a glass of wine, and tasted it before he answered. “Murder, George, is a very strong word,” he said. “There was also a groom, and a tilbury, and a pair of horses.”

“True,” agreed Brummell. “Yet I am of the opinion that a resourceful person might—at a pinch—find the means of disposing of a groom, a tilbury and even a pair of horses.”

“It is a possibility that has already occurred to me. It is not, however, one that I intend to present to Miss Taverner.”

Mr. Brummell set down his glass, and opened his snuff-box again. “How many years have I known you, Julian?” he inquired.