“But I can’t beg Rule to give me an evening alone with him, and then sit telling him stories he don’t want to hear about the war!”
“I wouldn’t say that,” temporized Sir Roland. “You don’t know he doesn’t want to hear them. Any number of people take a deal of interest in this war. I don’t myself, but that ain’t to say Rule doesn’t.”
“You don’t seem to understand,” said Captain Heron wearily. “You expect me to make Rule believe I’ve urgent business to discuss with him—”
The Viscount interposed. “It’s you who don’t understand,” he said. “All we care about is keeping Rule away from Vauxhall tonight. If we don’t do it the game’s up. It don’t matter a ha’porth how you keep him away so long as you do keep him away.”
Captain Heron hesitated. “I know that. I’d do it if only I could think of anything reasonable to discuss with him.”
“You’ll think of it, never fear,” said the Viscount encouragingly. “Why, you’ve got the whole afternoon before you. Now you go round to Grosvenor Square at once, there’s a good fellow.”
“I wish to God I’d put off my visit to town till next week!” groaned Captain Heron, reluctantly picking up his hat again.
The Earl of Rule was just about to go in to luncheon when his second visitor was announced. “Captain Heron?” he said. “Oh, by all means show him in!” He waited, standing before the empty fireplace until the Captain came in. “Well, Heron?” he said, holding out his hand. “You come just in time to bear me company over luncheon.”
Captain Heron blushed in spite of himself. “I’m afraid I can’t stay, sir. I’m due in Whitehall almost immediately. I came—you know my time is limited—I came to ask you whether it would be convenient—in short, whether I might wait on you this evening for—for a talk of a confidential nature.”
The Earl’s amused glance rested on him thoughtfully. “I suppose it must be tonight?” he said.
“Well, sir—if you could arrange—I hardly know how I may manage tomorrow,” said Captain Heron, acutely uncomfortable.
There was a slight pause. “Then naturally I am quite at your service,” replied his lordship.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Viscount, resplendent in maroon velvet, with a fall of Dresden lace at his throat, and his hair thickly powdered and curled in pigeon’s wings over the ears, came at his sister’s urgent request to dine in Grosvenor Square before taking her on to Vauxhall. His presence protected her from a tête-à-tête and if Rule was minded to ask any more awkward questions he, she considered, was better able to answer them than she was.
The Earl, however, behaved with great consideration and conversed affably on most unexceptionable topics. The only bad moment he gave them was when he promised to follow them to Vauxhall if Captain Heron did not detain him at home too long.
“But we’ve no need to worry over that,” said the Viscount as he got into his coach beside Horatia. “Edward’s pledged himself to keep Rule in check till midnight, and by that time we shall have laid hands on that trumpery brooch of yours at last.”
“It isn’t a trumpery b-brooch!” said Horatia. “It’s an heirloom!”
“It may be an heirloom,” replied the Viscount, “but it’s caused more trouble than any heirloom was ever worth, and I’ve come to hate the very mention of it.”
The coach set them down by the waterside, where the Viscount hired a boat to take them the rest of the way. They had three hours to while away before midnight and neither of them was in the mood for dancing. Sir Roland Pommeroy met them at the entrance to the gardens and was very punctilious in handing Horatia out of the boat on to the landing-stage, warning her against wetting her silk-shod foot on a damp patch, and proffering his arm with a great air. As he escorted her down one of the walks towards the centre of the gardens he begged her not to be nervous. “Assure your la’ship Pel and I shall be on the watch!” he said.
“I’m not n-nervous,” replied Horatia. “I w-want very much to see Lord Lethbridge, for I have a great desire to tell him just what I think of him!” Her dark eyes smouldered. “If it weren’t for the scandal,” she announced, “I d-declare I wish he would abduct me. I should make him sorry he d-dared!”
A glance at her fierce frown almost persuaded Sir Roland that she would.
When they arrived at the pavilion they found that in addition to the dancing and the other amusements provided for the entertainment of the company, an oratorio was being performed in the concert hall. Since neither the Viscount nor his sister wished to dance, Sir Roland suggested that they should sit for a while and listen to this. He himself had no great opinion of music, but the only distraction likely to find favour with the Viscount or Horatia was gaming, and he wisely dissuaded them from entering the card-room, on the score that once they had sat down to pharaoh or loo they would entirely forget the real object of their expedition.
Horatia fell in with this suggestion readily enough: diversions were all alike to her until the ring-brooch was in her possession again. The Viscount said that he supposed it could not be more tedious than walking about the gardens or sitting in one of the boxes with nothing to do but to watch the other people passing by. Accordingly they made their way to the concert hall and went in. A play-bill handed them at the door advertised that the oratorio was Susanna, by Handel, a circumstance that nearly made the Viscount turn back at once. If he had known it was a piece by that fellow Handel, nothing would have induced him to come within earshot of it, much less to have paid half a guinea for a ticket. He had once been obliged by his Mama to accompany her to a performance of Judas Maccabeus. Of course he had not had the remotest notion what it would be like or not even filial duty would have dragged him to it, but he did know now and he was damned if he would stand it a second time.
A dowager in an enormous turban who was seated at the end of the row said “Hush!” in accents so severe that the Viscount subsided meekly into his chair and whispered to Sir Roland: “Must try and get out of this, Pom!” However, even his audacity failed before the ordeal of squeezing past the knees of so many musical devotees again, and after glancing wildly to right and left he resigned himself to slumber. The hardness of his chair and the noise the performers made rendered sleep impossible, and he sat in increasing indignation until at long last the oratorio came to an end.
“W-well, I think perhaps I d-don’t care very much for Handel either,” remarked Horatia, as they filed out of the hall. “Though now I c-come to think of it, I believe M-mama said that Susanna was not a very good oratorio. Some of the singing was p-pretty, wasn’t it?”
“Never heard such a din in my life!” said the Viscount. “Let’s go and bespeak some supper.”
Green goose and burgundy partaken of in one of the boxes did much to restore his equanimity, and he had just told Horatia that they might as well stay where they were in comfort until midnight, when Sir Roland, who had been studying the throng through his quizzing-glass, suddenly said: “Ain’t that Miss Winwood, Pel?”
The Viscount nearly choked over his wine. “Good God, where?”
Horatia set down her glass of ratafia. “Ch-Charlotte?” she gasped.
“Over there—blue sacque—pink ribbons,” said Sir Roland, pointing.
“I c-can’t see, but it sounds very l-like,” said Horatia pessimistically. “She will wear blue and it d-doesn’t become her in the least.”
By this time the Viscount had perceived his elder sister, and gave a groan. “Ay, it’s Charlotte sure enough. Lord, she’s with Theresa Maulfrey!”
Horatia caught up her cloak and her reticule and retired to the back of the box. “If Theresa sees us she’ll c-come and join us, and we shall n-never shake her off!” she said agitatedly. “P-Pel, do come away!”
The Viscount consulted his watch. “Eleven o’clock. What the deuce do we do now?”