‘Oh, you don’t have to do that!’ Sherry responded cheerfully, shaking hands with him.‘I don’t blame you for running off with my wife: did the same thing myself ! Come to think of it, you owed me one, for it was my Tiger forked your wallet and purse. Meant to have brought ’em along with me, but what with one thing and another I forgot ’em. Hallo, you’re hurt! How is this?’ Ferdy, who had been staring fixedly at the bowl of reddened water on the table, with the bloodstained napkin beside it, now nudged his cousin.‘Know what I think, Sherry? Been a regular turn-up. Someone’s had his cork drawn. Claret flowing copiously. If it was Monty’s cork, good thing! Don’t like him. Never have.’
Sherry turned to look at Revesby, his face hardening. ‘I was forgetting that damned scoundrel was here!’ he said. ‘By Jove, you’re right, Ferdy! Someone’s landed him a facer at last! Take a look at his jaw!’
‘Very wisty castor,’ agreed Ferdy, nodding his head approvingly. ‘Dashed if this fellow,Tarleton, ain’t a regular right one! Very obedient servant, sir! Happy to have met you!’
‘Yes, but wait a bit!’ Sherry said, his gaze taking in the unsheathed sword, and Mr Tarleton’s arm. ‘Something devilish queer about this! What’s that sword-stick doing there? You don’t mean to say –’
‘Ask Sir Montagu!’ said Miss Milborne, who had been leaning her chin in her hand, and staring into the fire, quite divorced from these proceedings. ‘Ask him to tell you how he drew steel upon an unarmed man!’
‘He did?’ said Ferdy.‘Well, of all things! You hear that, Sherry? Told you he was a Bad Man.’
‘Lord, I’ve known that any time these past three months! What I want to know is why he drew steel, and what he got that facer for! And another thing I may as well know, while I’m about it – not that I care much, but it’ll save trouble, I dare say – is what the pair of you are doing here at this hour of night!’
Miss Milborne promptly favoured him with an exact account of her share in the evening’s adventures. The Viscount remained unmoved.‘Well, I warned you not to go off with him, Bella,’ he said. ‘Might have guessed he would be up to some mischief. Dashed if it doesn’t serve you right! A rare dust you have kicked up and all to spite George, if I know anything of the matter! But that don’t tell me how he came to have a set-to with Tarleton!’
‘Oh, Mr Tarleton very kindly knocked him down, because he said such horrid things to me!’ explained Hero blithely.
‘Oh, that was it, was it?’ said his lordship, a martial light in his eye.‘I’m much in your debt,Tarleton! And what,my buck, did you say to Lady Sheringham, before I choke it out of your lying throat?’
Sir Montagu, retreating, said hoarsely: ‘You will regret it if you touch me, Sheringham! If the events of this night were to become known –’
‘No, Sherry!’ exclaimed Ferdy, seizing his cousin’s arm, and clinging to it desperately. ‘Promised you wouldn’t get into a miff ! Won’t do a bit of good! Got to stop the fellow’s mouth!’
‘I’ll stop his mouth so that he’ll never open it again!’ said Sherry savagely.‘Damn you, Ferdy, let go! I’m going to tear that ugly customer limb from limb, and if there’s anything left of him by the time I’ve done with him –’
‘Not in front of the ladies, dear boy! Shocking bad ton! Besides, it ain’t necessary: George wants his blood, and dash it, why shouldn’t he have it? Do him good, poor fellow! Put a bit of heart into him!’
‘If there is to be any more fighting, I shall have the vapours, and so I warn you!’ declared Miss Milborne. ‘I am sure I have had more to bear at Sir Montagu’s hands than Hero, and if I am satisfied I do not know why you should not be, Sherry! And if, sir, you should be so unwise as to open your lips on the subject of this night’s adventures, I shall have something to tell the world also! I imagine you would not care to have it generally known that you drew your sword upon an unarmed man!’
Sherry shook his cousin off. ‘Revesby,’ he said, eyeing Sir Montagu with a measuring glance. ‘I’d like to have the chance to pay off a certain score with you, but I fancy Ferdy’s right, and it ain’t necessary. Wrotham is searching for you, and he’s likely to fetch up here at any minute. You’re a dead man, Revesby!’
‘George is searching for me?’ said Miss Milborne faintly.‘Oh, good heavens!’
‘Went off in one of his pets as soon as he heard you wasn’t home,’ said Ferdy. ‘Said he’d call on Revesby to answer for his villainy. Good God, I’m dashed if that Greek thing hasn’t got after Monty too, Sherry!Very remarkable circumstance, ’pon my soul it is!’
‘What the devil is all this about a dashed Greek?’ demanded Sherry.‘George was trying to tell me about him, but I’m hanged if I could make head or tail of it! All I know is, I’m not acquainted with any Greeks, and what’s more I don’t want to be!’
‘It ain’t a thing you’re acquainted with, dear old boy. Duke knows what it is. Comes up behind a fellow when he ain’t expecting it. Thought it was after me, but it turns out to be Monty. Good thing.’
‘Yes, but what is it?’
Mr Tarleton said, with a quiver of amusement in his voice: ‘I fancy he means Nemesis.’
‘That’s it!’ said Ferdy, looking at him with respect. ‘Nemesis! You know him too?’
‘Well, it’s more than I do!’ declared Sherry. ‘What’s more, whoever he is, he had nothing to do with my coming to Bath!’
‘Not “he”,’ murmured Mr Tarleton, who was beginning to feel his years. ‘Goddess of retribution. The daughter, according to Hesiod, of Night.’
‘Was she, though?’ said Ferdy.‘Well, by Jove! Daughter of who?’
‘Night,’ repeated Mr Tarleton.
Ferdy looked a little dubious. ‘Seems a queer start, but I dare say you’re right. Come to think of it, devilish rum ’uns, all those old Greeks.’
His cousin regarded him with a surprise not wholly free from disapproval.‘Well, I never knew you was bookish before, Ferdy!’ he said.
‘Learned it at Eton,’ Ferdy said, with a deprecating cough. ‘Point is, thought the thing was after me. Turns out it was after Monty. Gave him that wisty castor, and set George on to his track. All the same, Sherry, not sure it is such a good thing, now I come to think of it. Don’t want George to be obliged to fly the country. Tell you what: let Monty go before George arrives! Pity, in some ways, but there it is!’
Sherry had raised his head, and was listening to an unmistakable sound. ‘Too late!’ he said, with a little laugh. ‘Lay you any money this is George!’
So indeed it proved to be. A bare couple of minutes later, George came striding into the coffee-room, with Mr Ringwood at his heels. He checked on the threshold. ‘Sherry!’ he ejaculated.‘Good God, you here? What the – Kitten!’
Mr Ringwood put up his glass.‘Well, upon my word!’ he said, mildly astonished.‘Devilish queer place to run into you people! Your very obedient, Kitten! You and Sherry come here on your honeymoon?’
Hero clasped both his hands tightly.‘Dear Gil, I am so glad to see you again! I have been in such a scrape! I was carried off by poor Mr Tarleton there, quite by mistake; and Isabella got into a scrape too, through Sir Montagu Revesby; but then Sherry came, and everything is all right and tight – I mean, everything has ended happily!’
Lord Wrotham, fastening on the one point in this ingenuous explanation which concerned him, looked round for his quarry, perceived him, and said: ‘Ah!
’ Sir Montagu, a perfectly ghastly smile writhing on his lips, said: ‘Lady Sheringham mistakes – I can explain – the most lamentable accident – !’
‘Yes?’ said George, stripping off his driving-gloves, taking them in his right hand, and advancing upon Sir Montagu.‘You got Miss Milborne into a scrape, and you fancy you can explain it, do you? Not to my satisfaction, Revesby!’
‘No, you don’t, George!’ suddenly said Mr Ringwood, grasping his lordship’s right wrist.‘By the looks of it, someone’s been before you! Let be, man, let be!’
‘By God,
Gil, if you don’t let me go – ! I’ve been wanting an excuse to call that fellow out these two months, and if you think you or anyone else can stop me now I’ve got it –’
‘George!’ said Miss Milborne compellingly.
Lord Wrotham’s eyes turned swiftly towards her.
‘George!’ said Miss Milborne again, rather pale, but meeting his gaze squarely. ‘If you call him out, I will not marry you!’
‘Isabella!’ uttered his lordship, trembling.‘Do you mean – can you mean – ?’
Mr Ringwood let him go, but not before he had thoughtfully removed the gloves from his suddenly slackened grasp.
‘Oh, George, for heaven’s sake, take me home!’ begged Miss Milborne, her admirably modulated voice breaking. ‘I’m so tired, and hungry, and I never cared a rap for that odious man, no, nor for Severn either, or Sherry, or anyone save yourself, and I’m sure I don’t know why I care for you, for you are just as odious as any of them, only I do, and I will marry you tomorrow, if you like!’
‘If I like!’ said his lordship thickly, and enveloped her in a crushing embrace.
Mr Ringwood, observing his attention to be distracted from Sir Montagu, touched that pallid gentleman on the shoulder, and nodded significantly towards the door. Ferdy, ever helpful, picked up his hat and greatcoat, and silently handed them to him. Sir Montagu clutched them thankfully, and made good his escape.
‘And the best of it is,’ remarked Sherry, closing the door, and setting his shoulder to it, ‘he won’t dare show his face in town for months, in case he should run into George, and George’s feelings should get the better of him.’
‘Have you let that fellow go?’ George demanded, turning his head.
‘Yes, but really it is much better that he should go,’ said Hero soothingly. ‘For if you were to shoot him, you would have to leave the country, and then you could not marry Isabella. And he will not dare say a word about what happened to-night, because of what we might say about his wounding poor Mr Tarleton. And besides that, if he spread a horrid scandal, I dare say Sherry would not mind my telling people about his baby, for he has one, you know, and he would not give its mother a penny to provide for it, and it is Sherry who has to do so, which is a great deal too bad, for it is not Sherry’s baby! Indeed, I wish it was – at least, I mean I wish it was mine, because it is the dearest little thing!’ A thought occurred to her; her eyes lit up; and she turned impulsively towards Sherry.‘Oh, Sherry, do you think –’
‘Yes!’ said his lordship hastily. ‘Yes I do, Kitten, but not now, for the lord’s sake!’
‘Bad ton!’ explained Ferdy kindly. ‘Not quite the thing! That fellow Tarleton present: very tolerable sort of a fellow, but almost a stranger! Talk it over later!’
‘No, by God, you won’t!’ said his lordship forcibly.
‘Eh?’ said Ferdy.‘Good heavens! No, by God, so I won’t!’
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About the Author
Author of over fifty books, Georgette Heyer is one of the best-known and best-loved of all historical novelists, making the Regency period her own. Her first novel, The Black Moth, published in 1921, was written at the age of fifteen to amuse her convalescent brother; her last was My Lord John. Although most famous for her historical novels, she also wrote twelve detective stories. Georgette Heyer died in 1974 at the age of seventy-one.
Georgette Heyer, Friday's Child
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