On the 18th, having been assured that he would always be a welcome guest at Walhampton, Roger said good-bye to the hospitable Sir William and took coach to London. When he reached Amcsbury House he learned that Droopy Ned was in residence but had left an hour before and was not expected back until the early hours of the following morning, as he had driven down to Sion House at Isleworth, the residence of the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland who were giving a ball there that night. Droopy's father, the Earl, as was his custom all through the shooting season, was at his seat, Normanrood in Wiltshire, and the only person staying in the house was an elderly cousin whom Roger had always found a bore. So, having been installed in his usual room and freshened himself up after his journey, he decided to sup out at his Club.
As he had an hour or more to spare and the evening, although cold, was fine, he went out to stretch his legs in a stroll round the heart of fashionable London. Piccadilly was brightly lit as the shops then stayed open late, the roadway was packed with coaches, carriages and horsemen, the pavements crowded with a motley throng of homeward bound pedestrians, hucksters and ladies of the town dressed in tawdry finery. Roger was always polite when rebuffing these young painted harpies but, finding himself accosted at every twenty paces or so when he paused to look into a shop window, he tired of saying, 'No, thank you, m'dear,' or 'Not tonight, my pretty,' and turned out of Piccadilly into Berkeley Street.
On his left lay Devonshire House and as he walked at a good pace alongside the tall wall behind which lay the Duke's big garden he suddenly realised that he was heading towards Berkeley Square. Immediately his thoughts turned to Georgina. Although her betrayal of him had caused him more bitterness than any other event in his whole life, time had at least healed the wound sufficiently for him to dwell now and then on some of the many happy hours they had spent together.
While riding from Paris to Dieppe he had even hoped that when she learned that he was again in England she might seek a meeting with a view to expressing her contrition for her abominable act, and he had decided that should she do so he would readily forgive her. In any case he meant to get in touch with her to arrange to see his daughter and, if she was agreeable, her boy Charles. But that was a thing apart from healing the breach between them and he felt that after having put the Sheriff's officers on to him the first move must come from her.
Yet now, as he was approaching Berkeley Square, he realized more fully than he had ever done before what an appalling gap their quarrel had left in his life. Although from the age of fifteen he had lived for much the greater part of the time abroad, whenever he had come back to England Georgina had always been there to give him a tempestuous welcome. They had had no single secret of any kind from one another, talked and laughed the hours away and, regarding themselves as two beings bound by a tie that transcended all accepted standards of conduct, made passionate love regardless of marriage vows or any other commitment.
It had long been clear to him that John Beefy had represented something entirely different in her life from her two previous husbands and the many gallants with whom she had had passing affairs; so he had come to condone the fury and distress she had displayed on the assumption that he had killed Beefy in a fit of drunken jealousy. But what he did not understand was her refusal to believe his word that it had been an accident and. in any case, in view of their very special relationsliip, to forgive him. Even more puzzling was the fact that, although she had appeared as a witness when he had been tried for murder and had saved him from hanging she should, four months later, have still felt so bitterly towards him that she had deliberately betrayed him.
But all that had happened well over a year before, and surely by now she too would at times think with regret of the shattered love that had meant so much to them. Why not, he thought to himself, be generous and make the first approach? At this time of year it was as good as certain that Georgina would be in London and, at this hour, unless she too had gone down to the ball at Sion House, be dressing either to go out or to receive guests.
Roger's heart leapt at the thought. They had only to come face to face for all to be forgiven and forgotten. Whatever her commitments for that night, she would ignore them, pleading a sudden attack of the vapours. They would sup as of old before a roaring fire in her boudoir and later, fortified by good wine and drunk with the joy of their reunion, lie clasped in one another's arms between the sheets until morning.
When he reached the St. Ermins' mansion, his new-found elation subsided as though a bucket of icy water had been sloshed into his face. The house was dark and shuttered, so evidently Georgina was not in London.
Recovering slightly at the thought that, now he had decided to call bygones bygones, he could go down to Stillwaters next day, he rang the front door bell. After waiting for a few minutes he rang again then, as it still was not answered, he grabbed the bell pull and jerked it up and down until at last an elderly servitor, mumbling apologies for his delay, opened to him.
To his enquiry the man replied, 'Nay, sir; Her Ladyship is not at Stillwaters. She sailed last month for the West Indies to arrange for the disposal of her late husband's estates there. But the children are at Stillwaters in the care of Mrs. Marsham.'
Bitterly disappointed, Roger thanked him and turned away. Gone now was all prospect of restoring his erstwhile happy relationship with Georgina, anyhow for many months to come; for within a few weeks Talleyrand would expect him back in France with a report on all he could pick up about the plot to assassinate Napoleon, and it was impossible even to make a guess at when he would again be able to come to England.
His spirits now very low, he walked back to White's. There he found several old acquaintances, supped with four of them, drank fairly heavily then, although he was not normally a gambler, sat for four hours playing faro. Morosely, as he walked across to Arlington Street at half past two in the morning, he recalled the saying 'lucky at cards, unlucky in love', and the fact that he had come away from the club with three hundred and fifteen golden guineas in his breeches' pocket did not console him.
With the sleepy footman on night duty at Amesbury House he left a message that he was not to be called until Lord Edward roused, and would join him for breakfast. Both of them slept late and it was not until midday that Roger, still in his chamber robe, went along to his old friend's suite. Over eels in aspic, kidneys and bacon, a cold game pie and other trifles, washed down with copious draughts of fine Bordeaux, they lingered for two hours.
Roger, as always when with Droopy, made no secret of the reason for his return to England and consulted him on how best to set about his mission. Droopy peered with his shortsighted eyes across the table at Roger and said:
'Meseems that in this matter you are become a police spy. Hardly a role I would have expected you to play; but no doubt you have squared it with your conscience.'