‘I’ll shake you in a minute,’ threatened the Marquis. ‘What’s between you two?’
Miss Marling raised herself on her elbow. ‘I won’t be bullied by you, Vidal, so pray don’t think it! I think men are the most hateful, cruel wretches imaginable, and I wish you would go away and find your provoking Mary yourself.’
There was a distinct break in her voice, and Vidal, who had a soft corner for her, put his arms round her, and said with unwonted cajolery: ‘Don’t cry, child. What’s to do?’
Miss Marling’s rigidity left her. She buried her face in Vidal’s blue coat, and said in muffled accents: ‘I want to go home! Everything is horrid in Paris, and I hope to heaven I never come here again!’
Vidal carefully removed his lace ruffle from her clutching fingers. ‘Quarrelled with Comyn, have you? You’re a fool, Ju. Stop crying! Has he gone off ? Shall I bring him back to you?’
Miss Marling declined this offer with every evidence of loathing, and releasing his lordship, hunted under her pillow for a handkerchief, and fiercely blew her small nose.
‘I wonder…’ Vidal stopped, and sat staring at the bedpost somewhat ominously.
Observing the darkling look in his eyes, Juliana said quickly: ‘What do you wonder? Please do not put on that murderous face, Dominic! It frightens me.’
He glanced down at her. ‘I wonder whether Mr Frederick Comyn has anything to do with Mary’s disappearance?’ he said.
‘What a stupid notion!’ commented Juliana. ‘Why in the world should he help Mary to escape?’
‘From damned officiousness, belike,’ said Vidal, scowling. ‘I found the fellow here last night – mighty friendly with Mary.’
‘What!’ Miss Marling stiffened. ‘Here? With Mary? What was he doing?’
‘Holding her hands, curse his impudence.’
‘Oh! ’ Miss Marling turned quite pale with indignation. ‘The wicked, deceitful creature! She never breathed a word of it to me! And then to dare to scold me for quarrelling with Frederick! Oh, I could kill them both! Holding her hands at that hour of night! And then to turn jealous because I like to dance with Bertrand! Oh, it beats anything I have ever heard! I’ll never forgive either of them.’
Vidal got up. ‘I’m going round to Comyn’s lodging,’ he said, and walked to the door.
‘Don’t kill him, Dominic, I implore you!’ shrieked his cousin.
‘For God’s sake, don’t be such a damned little fool, Juliana!’ said the Marquis irritably, and departed.
The owner of Mr Comyn’s lodgings, a retired valet, opened the door to the Marquis, and admitted him into a narrow hall. On being asked for the English gentleman he said that M. Comyn had paid his shot, and left by coach a bare hour since.
‘Left, has he? Alone?’ demanded the Marquis.
The valet cast down his eyes. ‘The Englishwoman who came to see him – oh, but at a very strange hour, m’sieur! – was with him.’
He stole a sly look upwards at the Marquis, and was startled by the expression on that dark face. ‘She was, eh?’ said Vidal through his teeth. He smiled, and the valet retreated a pace, quite involuntarily. ‘Where have they gone? Do you know?’
‘But no, m’sieur, how should I tell? The lady had no baggage, but M. Comyn took all of his. He said to me that he will not return, and he gave me a letter to deliver in the Rue St Honoré.’
Light flashed in the Marquis’s sombre eyes. ‘Where in the Rue St Honoré, my man?’
‘It was a letter to an English Marquis, m’sieur, at the Hôtel Avon.’
‘Was it, by God!’ said Vidal, and promptly went off home.
The letter, addressed in Mr Comyn’s neat handwriting, was lying on the table in the wide hall. Vidal broke the seal, and ran his eye down the single sheet.
‘My lord,’ wrote Mr Comyn, ‘I have to inform your lordship that my betrothal to Miss Juliana Marling being at an end, I have made bold to offer my hand in marriage to the lady lately travelling under your lordship’s protection. I think it only proper to apprise your lordship of this step, since your lordship was good enough to take me into your confidence. Miss Challoner having been so obliging as to accept of my offer, we are leaving Paris immediately. Miss Challoner, while sensible of the honour your lordship does her in proposing for her
hand, is highly averse from a marriage which she deems unsuitable, and from the outset doomed to unhappiness. Since I apprehend that this aversion is known to your lordship, it will be unnecessary (I am assured) to request your lordship to relinquish the pretensions which have become a menace to Miss Challoner’s peace of mind.
‘I beg to remain, my lord, in all else,
‘Your lordship’s obedient servant to command,