She got up quickly, and walked to the door. ‘Take care what you are about!’ she said warningly, as a parting shot. ‘I am not one of your unfortunate servants, obliged to submit to your odious arrogance!’
‘One moment!’ he said.
She looked back, very ready to continue to do battle.
‘Since Fotherby appears to be unable to think of anything but his boots, perhaps you, Miss Marlow, will be good enough to inform Lady Ianthe of my arrival,’ said Sylvester. ‘Will you also, if you please, pack Edmund’s clothes? I wish to remove from this place as soon as may be possible.’
This request startled her into exclaiming: ‘You can’t take him away at this hour! Why, it’s past his bedtime already! It may suit you to travel by night, but it won’t do for Edmund!’
‘I have no intention of travelling by night, but only of removing to some other hôtel. We shall leave for Calais in the morning.’
‘Then you will remove without me!’ said Phoebe. ‘Have you no thought for anyone’s convenience but your own? What do you imagine must be my feelings-if you can condescend to consider anything so trifling? While I was one of Sir Nugent’s party my lack of baggage passed unheeded, but in yours it will not! And if you think I am going to one of the fashionable hotels in a travel-stained dress, and nothing but a small bandbox for luggage, you are very much mistaken, Duke!’
‘Of what conceivable importance are the stares or the curiosity of a parcel of hotel servants?’ he asked, raising his brows.
‘Oh, how like you!’ she cried. ‘How very like you! To be sure, the mantle of your rank and consequence will be cast over me, won’t it? How delightful it will be to become so elevated as to treat with indifference the opinions of inferior persons!’
‘As I am not using my title, and my consequence, as you are pleased to call it, is contained in one portmanteau, you will find my mantle somewhat threadbare!’ Sylvester flung at her. ‘However, set your mind at rest! I shall hire a private parlour for your use, so you will at least not be obliged to endure the stares of your fellow guests!’
At this point Thomas entered a caveat. ‘I don’t think you should do that, Salford,’ he said. ‘You’re forgetting that the dibs aren’t in tune!’
A look of vexation came into Sylvester’s face. ‘Very well! We will put up at some small inn, such as this.’
‘The inns are most of ‘em as full as they can hold,’ Tom warned him. ‘If we have to drive all over the town, looking for a small inn that has rooms for the four of us, we shall very likely be up till midnight.’
‘Do you expect me to remain here?’ demanded Sylvester.
‘Well, there’s plenty of room.’
‘If there is room here there will be-’
‘No, there will not be room elsewhere!’ interpolated Phoebe. ‘Sir Nugent is hiring the whole house, having turned out the wretched people who were here before us! And why you should look like that I can’t conceive, when it is just what you did yourself, when you made Mrs. Scaling give up her coffee room for your private use!’
‘And who, pray, were the people I turned out of the Blue Boar?’ asked Sylvester.
‘Well, it so happened that there weren’t any, but I don’t doubt you would have turned them out!’
‘Oh, indeed? Then let me tell you-’
‘Listen!’ begged Tom. ‘You can be as insulting to one another as you please all the way to Dover, and I swear I won’t say a word! But for the lord’s sake decide what we are to do first! They’ll be coming to set the covers for dinner soon. I don’t blame you for not wanting to stay here, Salford, but what with pockets to let and young Edmund on our hands, what else can we do? If you don’t choose to let Fotherby stand the nonsense you can arrange with Madame to pay your own shot.’
‘Well, I am going to put Edmund to bed!’ said Phoebe. ‘And if you try to drag him away from me, Duke, I shall tell him that you are being cruel to me, which will very likely set him against you. Particularly after your cruelty to him!’
On this threat she departed, leaving Sylvester without a word to say. Tom grinned at him. ‘Yes, you don’t want Edmund to tell everyone you are a Bad Man. He’s got Fotherby regularly blue-devilled, I can assure you! Come to think of it, he’s already set it about that you grind men’s bones for bread.’
Sylvester’s lips twitched, but he said: ‘It seems to me that Edmund has been allowed to become abominably out of hand! As for you, Thomas, if I have much more of your damned impudence-’
‘That’s better!’ said Tom encouragingly. ‘I thought you were never coming down from your high ropes! I say, Salford-’
He was interrupted by the return of Sir Nugent, who came into the room just then, an expression of settled gloom on his countenance.
‘Have you told Ianthe that I am here?’ at once demanded Sylvester.
‘Good God, no! I wouldn’t tell her for the world!’ replied Sir Nugent, shocked. ‘Particularly now. She is very much distressed. Feels it just as I knew she must. You will have to steal the boy while we are asleep. In the middle of the night, you know.’
‘I shall do nothing so improper!’
‘Don’t take me up so!’ said Sir Nugent fretfully. ‘No impropriety at all! You are thinking you would be obliged to creep into Miss Marlow’s bedchamber-’
‘I am thinking nothing of the sort!’ said Sylvester, with considerable asperity.
‘There you go again!’ complained Sir Nugent. ‘Dashed well snapping off my nose the instant I open my mouth! No question of creeping into her room: she’ll bring the boy out to you. You’ll have to take her along with you, of course, and I’m not sure that Orde hadn’t better go too, because you never know but what her la’ship might bubble the hoax if he stayed behind. The thing is-’
‘You needn’t tell me!-Thomas, either you may stop laughing, or I leave you to rot here!-Understand me, Fotherby! I have no need to steal my ward! Neither you nor Ianthe has the power to prevent my removing him. Well, though I am going to do so I have enough respect for her sensibility as to wish not only to inform her of my intention, but to assure her that every care shall be taken of the boy. Now perhaps you will either conduct me to Ianthe, or go to tell her yourself that I am taking Edmund home tomorrow!’
‘No, I won’t,’ said Sir Nugent. ‘You may have the right to do it-well, I know you have! asked my attorney!-but does her la’ship know it? What I mean is will she own she knows it? If you think she will, Duke, all I can say is that you don’t know much about females! Which is absurd, because you don’t bamboozle me into believing you didn’t offer a carte blanche, not a year after your come-out, to-what was that little lightskirt’s name? You know the one I mean! A regular high flyer, with yaller curls, and-’
‘We will leave my affairs out of this discussion!’ said Sylvester, rigid with anger.
‘Oh, just as you wish! Not but what I’ve often wanted to ask you- However, I can see you’ll fly up into the boughs, so never mind that! The thing is, if I was to tell her la’ship what was in the wind she’d expect me to stop you making off with the brat. And let alone I don’t want to stop you, how the devil could I? You know what females are, Duke-no objection to my saying that, is there?-She’ll think I ought to pull out a sword, and it wouldn’t be a mite of use telling her I haven’t got a sword, because the trouble with females is they ain’t rational! And a pretty time I should have of it, while you were running off with the boy, as merry as cap and can! Why, I shouldn’t wonder at it if she didn’t forgive me for a twelvemonth!’
‘That,’ said Sylvester, ‘is your affair!’
‘Well, of all the scaly things to say!’ gasped Sir Nugent. ‘Here’s me, anxious to help you to the boy, and instead of- Oh, my God, haven’t you gone to bed yet?’