He had startled her today. She had not thought that he dreamed of a rival; now it appeared that he knew very well, probably had known from the first. She would have to be careful; trust her to know how matters lay between him and Robert Lethbridge!
No one ever spoke of it, no one could tell how the story got about, but any number of people knew that once Robert Lethbridge had aspired to the hand of Lady Louisa Drelincourt. Louisa was now the wife of Sir Humphrey Quain, with no breath of scandal attaching to her name, but there had been a day, in her mad teens, when the town hummed with gossip about her. No one knew the whole story, but everyone knew that Lethbridge had been head over ears in love with her and had proposed for her hand, and been rejected, not by the lady herself but by her brother. That had surprised everybody, because although it was true that Lethbridge had a dreadful reputation (“the wildest rake in town, my love!”), no one could have supposed that Rule of all people would put his foot down. Yet he had certainly done so. That was common knowledge. Just what had happened next no one exactly knew, though everyone had his or her version to propound. It had all been so carefully hushed up, but a whisper of Abduction started in Polite Circles. Some said it was no abduction but a willing flight north to Gretna, across the Border. It may have been so, but the runaways never reached Gretna Green. The Earl of Rule drove such fleet horses.
Some held that the two men had fought a duel somewhere on the Great North Road; others spread a tale that Rule carried not a sword but a horse-whip, but this was generally allowed to be improbable, for Lethbridge, however infamous his behaviour, was not a lackey. It was a pity that no one had the true version of the affair, for it was all delightfully scandalous. But none of the three actors in the drama ever spoke of it and if Lady Louisa was reported to have eloped with Lethbridge one night, she was known twenty-four hours later to be visiting relatives in the neighbourhood of Grantham. It was quite true that Robert Lethbridge disappeared from society for several weeks, but he reappeared in due course without wearing any of the symptoms of the baffled lover. The town was agog to see how he and Rule would comport themselves when they met, as they were bound to meet, but once again disappointment awaited the scandalmongers.
Neither showed any sign of enmity. They exchanged several remarks on different subjects, and if it had not been for Mr Harry Crewe, who had actually seen Rule drive his racing curricle out of town at the extremely odd hour of ten in the evening, even the most inveterate gossip-mongers would have been inclined to have believed the whole tale a mere fabrication.
Lady Massey knew better than that. She was well acquainted with Lord Lethbridge and would have wagered her very fine diamonds that the sentiments he cherished towards the Earl of Rule were tinged with something more than a habitual maliciousness.
As for Rule, he betrayed nothing, but she was not inclined to run the risk of losing him by encouraging too openly the advances of Robert Lethbridge.
She finished the arrangement of her flowers and turned, a gleam of rueful humour in her fine eyes.
“Marcus, my dear,” she said helplessly, “something much more important! Five hundred guineas at loo, and that odious Celestine dunning me! What am I to do?”
“Don’t let it worry you, my dear Caroline,” said his lordship. “A trifling loan, and the matter is settled.”
She was moved to exclaim: “Ah, how good you are! I wish—I wish you were not to be married, Marcus. We have dealt extremely, you and I, and I have a notion that it will all be changed now.”
If she referred to their pecuniary relations she might have been thought to have reason for this speech. Lord Rule was likely to find himself with new demands on his purse in the very near future. Viscount Winwood was on his way home to England.
The Viscount, having received in Rome the intelligence of his youngest sister’s betrothal, was moved to comply with his parent’s desire for his immediate return, and set forward upon the journey with all possible speed. Merely halting a few days in Florence, where he happened to chance upon two friends, and spending a week in Paris upon business not unconnected with the gaming-tables, he made the best of his way home, and would have arrived in London not more than three days later than his fond mother expected him had he not met Sir Jasper Middleton at Breteuil. Sir Jasper, being on his way to the Capital, was putting up at the Hotel St Nicholas for the night, and was in the midst of a solitary dinner when the Viscount walked in. Nothing could have been more providential, for Sir Jasper was heartily bored with his own company, and had been yearning this many a day to have his revenge on Pelham for a certain game of piquet played in London some months before.
The Viscount was delighted to oblige him; they sat up all night over the cards and in the morning the Viscount, absent-minded no doubt through lack of sleep, embarked in Sir Jasper’s post-chaise and was so borne back to Paris. The game of piquet being continued in the chaise, he noticed nothing amiss until they arrived at Clermont, and since by that time there were only seven or eight posts to go before they reached Paris, it needed no great persuasion to induce him to continue the journey.
He arrived eventually in London to find the preparations for Horatia’s nuptials in full swing; and he expressed himself extremely well satisfied with the contract, cast a knowing eye over the Marriage Settlements, congratulated Horatia on her good fortune, and went off to pay his respects to the Earl of Rule.
They were naturally not strangers to each other, but since Pelham was some ten years the Earl’s junior they moved in different circles and their acquaintanceship was slight. This circumstance did not weigh with the lively Viscount in the least; he greeted Rule with all the casual bonhomie he used towards his cronies and proceeded, by way of making him feel one of the family, to borrow money from him.
“For I don’t mind telling you, my dear fellow,” he said frankly, “that if I’m to appear the thing at this wedding of yours I must give my tailor a trifle on account. Won’t do if I come in rags, you know. Girls won’t like it.”
The Viscount was not exactly a fop, but anything less ragged than his slim person would have been hard to find. It did not require the efforts of two stout men to coax him into his coats, and he had a way of arranging his cravat askew, but his clothes were made by the first tailor in town, and of the finest stuffs, embellished with any quantity of heavy gold lacing. At the moment he sat in one of Rule’s chairs with his legs stretched out in front of him, and his hands thrust into the pockets of a pair of fawn breeches. His velvet coat hung open to display a waistcoat embroidered in a design of exotic flowers and humming birds. A fine sapphire pin was stuck in the cascade of lace at his throat and his stockings, which represented a dead loss of twenty-five guineas to his hosier, were of silk with large clocks.
The Viscount nobly upheld the Winwood tradition of good looks. He had a reasonable height, and a slender build, and bore a resemblance to his sister Elizabeth. Both had golden locks, and deep blue eyes, straight and beautiful noses, and delicately curved lips. There the likeness ended. Elizabeth’s celestial calm was quite lacking in her brother. The Viscount’s mobile face was already rather lined, and his eye was a roving one. He looked to be very good-natured, which indeed he was, and appeared to survey the world with a youthful air of cynicism.
Rule received with equanimity the suggestion that he should pay for his prospective brother-in-law’s wedding clothes. He glanced down at his guest with some amusement, and said in his bored way: “Certainly, Pelham.”
The Viscount looked him over with approval. “I’d a notion we should deal famously,” he remarked. “Not that I’m in the habit of borrowing from my friends, y’know, but I count you one of the family, Rule.”