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.”
“And admit me to its privileges,” said the Earl gravely. “Admit me still further and let me have a list of your debts.”
The Viscount was momentarily startled. “Hey? What, all of ’em?” He shook his head. “Devilish handsome of you, Rule, but can’t be done.”
“You alarm me,” said Rule. “Are they beyond my resources?”
“The trouble is,” said the Viscount confidentially, “I don’t know what they are.”
“My resources, or your debts?”
“Lord, man, the debts! Can’t remember the half of ’em. No, it’s no use arguing. I’ve tried to add ’em up a score of times. You think you’ve done it and then some damned bill you forgot years ago crops up. Never come to the end of it. Wiser to leave it alone. Pay as you go, that’s my motto.”
“Is it?” said Rule, mildly surprised. “I shouldn’t have thought it.”
“What I mean,” explained the Viscount, “is, when a fellow puts the bailiffs on to you, so to speak, then it’s time to settle with him. But as for paying all my bills—damme, I never heard of such a thing! Wouldn’t do at all.”
“Nevertheless,” said Rule, moving over to his desk, “I believe you must oblige me in this. Your arrest for debt, perhaps even in the act of bestowing your sister’s hand on me in marriage, would quite unnerve me.”
The Viscount grinned. “Would it so? Well, they can’t clap up a peer yet, y’know. Just as you please, of course, but I warn you, I’m in pretty deep.”
Rule dipped a quill in the standish. “If I were to give you a draft on my bankers for five thousand? Or shall we say ten, as a rounder sum?”
The Viscount was moved to sit up. “Five,” he said firmly. “Since you’re making a point of it, I don’t mind settling up to five thousand, but give away ten thousand pounds to a lot of tradesmen I can’t and I won’t do. Damme, flesh and blood won’t stand it!”
He watched Rule’s quill move across the paper, and shook his head. “Seems wicked to me,” he said. “I’ve nothing to say against spending money, but blister it, I don’t like to see it thrown away!” He sighed. “You know, I could put it to better use, Rule,” he suggested.
Rule shook the sand off the paper and handed it to him. “But somehow I feel sure you won’t, Pelham,” he said.
The Viscount cocked an eyebrow intelligently. “Like that, is it?” he said. “Oh, very well! But I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”
Nor did his sisters like it when they heard of it. “Given you five thousand pounds to pay your debts?” cried Charlotte. “I never heard of such a thing!”
“No more did I,” agreed Pelham. “Thought for a moment the man was queer in his head, but he don’t seem to be.”
“Pel, I do think perhaps you might have waited,” Elizabeth said rather reproachfully. “It seems almost— almost indecent.”
“And it will all go on gaming,” said Charlotte.
“Devil a penny of it, miss, so that’s all you know,” replied the Viscount without rancour.
“Why n-not?” inquired Horatia bluntly. “It usually d-does.”
Her brother threw her a look of scorn. “Lord, Horry, if a man trusts you with a cool five thousand to pay your debts, there’s no more to be said.”
“I suppose,” said Charlotte waspishly, “Lord Rule requires to see your accounts.”
“I’ll tell you what it is, Charlotte,” the Viscount informed her, “if you don’t sweeten that tongue of yours you’ll never get a husband.”
Elizabeth intervened rather hastily. “Will it meet them all, Pel?”
“It’ll keep the blood-suckers quiet for a while,” replied his lordship. He nodded to Horatia. “He’ll make you a devilish good husband, I daresay, but you’d best be careful how you deal with him, Horry!”
“Oh,” said Horatia, “you don’t understand, P-Pel! We are not going to interfere with each other at all! It is j- just like a French marriage of c-convenience.”
“I’m not saying it ain’t convenient,” said the Viscount, glancing at Rule’s draft, “but if you take my advice you won’t play your tricks on Rule. I’ve a strong notion you might regret it.”
“I have felt that too,” Elizabeth said, an anxious note in her voice.
“S-stuff!” pronounced Horatia, unimpressed.
Chapter Five
