Elisabeth Kidd (27 page)

“How did you get away?” the viscount enquired, rather. “Shoot yourself?”

Carey stepped back and eyed him guardedly. “How did you know I’d been shot?”

“Sapskull! No tailor worth his chalk would expend that much care on
a coat only to stuff one shoulder fuller than the other with wadding. You have a bandage under there, haven’t you?”

“And I thought I’d humbugged everyone! I might have known I’d
never pass your inspection —not that I expected to be obliged to!”

“When did it happen? Toulouse? You must have been in the thick of it
there.”

“No such good fortune!” The lieutenant looked down at his boots and
hesitated, much as a small boy ashamed of himself, not for playing a
prank, but for being caught at it, might hang his head. “Dash it,
Lobo—it was a hunting accident! Near Paris. Six years in Spain with
nary a scratch, and then some damn-fool cit who don’t know one end of a
gun from t’other peppers me in mistake for a fox! For the Lord’s sake, Duncan, don’t tell anyone the truth—I’d never hear the end of it!”

“How did you keep it from Neil?”

“I couldn’t! He was with me at the time. Carried me to the sawbones, laughing all the way, curse him.” The lieutenant paused momentarily, then enquired offhandedly, “Heard from Neil lately?”

Kedrington smiled and replied only, “Bab’s here.”

“Is she! What, in town? Where—”

“She’s living in rooms in Half Moon Street, but she’s becoming
restless with the wait. I took her out to the theatre the other night, and
she was absurdly grateful —but I don’t want her identity generally known
just yet.”

“Well, it’s as well you warned me,” said his incensed friend, “or I
might have babbled it all over town!”

“I meant, muttonhead, that we can’t stand here in the street talking
about it. Where are you going? Come along with me to Watier’s. How
long have you been in town, by the way? Where are you stopping?”

“Posada in the City—The Sergeant, it’s called. Apt, eh? But I’ve not
been here three days. Just long enough to get this rig made and ferret out
a couple of friends of mine from Harrow to lead me around. Can’t get
used to all this civilisation. I never had a leave in all those years, you
know, and one forgets how to behave.”

He looked around him wonderingly as he spoke, staring at a yellow-bodied curricle that passed. “Been wandering around gawking like any
rustic. Must get home, though. Haven’t written, ‘cause I wanted to
surprise m’family. In Leicestershire, you know.”

Kedrington let this piece of gratuitous information pass. “I suspect the surprise will be yours, amigo. Your family is here, in London.”

“What?”

The viscount had taken the lieutenant’s good arm and begun to propel him gently down the street, but at this the younger man stopped and stared at him again. “How d’you know that? What are they doing here?”

“Isabel’s coming-out ball took place a week ago. Were you not informed?”

“Haven’t seen a letter in months; things were all at sixes and sevens
there for a while, what with half the troops being packed off to America.
Stayed out of Bordeaux myself and ended up in Paris instead—conquering
hero and all. But never mind that! You didn’t tell me you knew my
family.”

“If you had been clever enough to look me up when you got to town, you
gudgeon, I would have told you I did.” They had by this time reached the
august portals of Watier’s Club, and the viscount invited his young friend
to come in and take some refreshment. “Augustus can scare up a proper meal even at this time of day, if you like. You’re looking a bit peckish.”

The lieutenant agreed cheerfully. “
You
ain’t!” he said as they went inside. “How much do you ride now, Duncan?”

Kedrington grinned ruefully. “Nearly fourteen stone!”

“Ay, I thought as much,” said the lieutenant, wagging his head
knowingly. “It’s all this high living.”

It was some hours later when, having temporarily exhausted their reminiscences, the two gentlemen emerged again into St James’s. The viscount reminded Lieutenant Fairfax once again that it behooved him to
make all haste to Mount Street to inform the ladies there of his arrival,
and to be certain that he would do so, Kedrington guided him as far as
his own home in Brook Street, where he had his curricle brought around
to convey his friend to his destination in comfort.

“Dash it, Lobo, I could walk there in five minutes!”

“Must I remind you again that you are no longer in Spain? Do try to remember that you were bred, and presumably still are under that vulgar
exterior, a gentleman. And don’t call me Lobo in front of your family.”

“Oh, all right! But if you must put me in that rig, come along with me to the city first. I’ll pay my shot and move out of that hole. Besides, I’ve
got some gee-gaws for the girls in my pack.”

Kedrington raised his eyebrows. “You amaze me! But I’m delighted to
see you are not lost to all sense of familial duty—even if it took you
deuced long to dredge up that much. How are you fixed for money, by the
way?”

Carey boasted of a tidy sum in prize money, only to hear himself
lectured by the viscount for not sending some of it home before now.
When the lieutenant protested that Antonia had never asked for anything—
had in fact insisted that they were in no need whatever—Kedrington
believed him, but a thoughtful look descended on him for the remainder
of their errand.

Then, having settled with the landlord of The Sergeant and thrown
Carey’s various portmanteaux, sabretaches, and dirty boots—which
Kedrington offered to throw overboard again—into the viscount’s curricle,
they were soon on their way across the city again. The lieutenant’s
patience grew shorter with the distance between him and his family, and
when they turned into Mount Street at last, he was almost standing up in
the curricle in his excitement.

“I can’t believe they’re really here! Which house is it, Duncan? Do you
realize how long it’s been since I saw them?
Dios!”

“Sit down, you young idiot! We’re almost there.”

Carey resumed his seat, but then began to run his hand over his face
and hair, and examined his fingernails critically. “Lord, I must look like a
gitano
! Ought I to have shaved again, do you think? I had a clean uniform
I could have worn, though it don’t fit right on account of my shoulder.
Look, you’ll explain to them it’s nothing to get in a quake about, won’t
you? You know how females are—even if they are my family! Why are we
stopping?”

Kedrington smiled. “Because you’re home, lieutenant.”

Carey looked up at the house, momentarily riveted to his perch, but
when he saw Baskcomb come up to take care of the horses, he leapt over the side and, considerably to the groom’s bewilderment, ran up and threw
his arms around him.

“Baskcomb! You here, too?”

“Why, it’s Mr Carey!” Baskcomb cried, when he had his balance and
his wits back. He shook Carey’s hand warmly and said, “Welcome home,
sir!”

“Thank you, Baskcomb! Is everyone at home? Never mind, I’ll go and see for myself!”

He bounded up the front steps and had his hand on the knocker when
the door was opened and Belding’s impassive countenance confronted
him. The butler was subjected to the same treatment Baskcomb had just
received and was left standing, overcome, in the hall as Carey dashed into
the drawing room and collided with Isabel, who ran to him and flung
herself ecstatically into his arms, exclaiming over and over, “Carey!
Carey! Carey!”

The Fairfaxes, the Kenyons, and Mrs Curtiz had been on the point of
sitting down to a quiet family dinner when Esme, who had not yet broken
herself of the habit of running to the window whenever a carriage
stopped in the street, announced breathlessly that Viscount Kedrington
was calling and—this in a tone of disbelief—that he had Mr Carey with
him!

Antonia, on hearing the viscount’s name, had half-risen to go and smooth her hair, but then hesitated, torn between conflicting emotions.
Sisterly affection won out when she saw her brother, however, and turned
her dignified welcome quickly into radiant laughter and kisses and an
impish twinkle in her eyes as she teased Carey about the length of his
chestnut curls and his sunburnt complexion and—oh, how grown-up he
looked!

Kedrington, forgotten for the moment, entered the house in time to
hear her and was stopped on the threshold by the realisation that he had
not heard her laugh just so since the day they met. When had she lost
that happy spontaneity he had first admired in her? And why had he let
it go?

But this was scarcely the time to ponder this unsettling idea, much less act on it. The room filled with people, who surrounded Carey. Even
the servants hovered in doorways, the newer ones from curiosity, the
older ones waiting their turns to greet the head of the family.

Philip
Kenyon murmured, “My boy, my boy!” and clapped Carey on the shoulder,
making him wince. Isabel remarked this instantly, and her blue eyes
widened in dismay.

“Uncle Carey! What’s the matter? Are you hurt? You are, you are!
You’ve been wounded!”

The lieutenant was immediately escorted to a couch and made to sit
down, while Isabel held his hand and interrogated him closely. Mrs
Curtiz went off to brew him a cup of tea, and Esme, imagining that he
looked faint, remembered that burnt feathers were wonderfully revivifying.

“Stop!” Carey roared lustily, calling them back. “It’s nothing, I tell you!
It’s nearly healed anyway! All of you just stay where I can look at you. Isabel, stop kissing my hand. Imogen, you’re looking very well. Just as I remember. Uncle Philip, too—pretty stout, are you? And ... ah, Charles,
isn’t it? I’m glad to see you, too.”

Carey shook off the restraining arms and rose to shake hands with
Charles, who tactfully refrained from making a speech, except to remind everyone that they ought to let Carey go upstairs and refresh himself
before they sat down again to their interrupted dinner. This served to set
Mrs Curtiz off again to have a room prepared. As the servants melted away from the doors and back to their duties, the Kenyons and Isabel,
still clutching Carey’s hand, followed him out amid a shower of questions
about his adventures.

Antonia turned to Kedrington, who was still standing among Carey’s
belongings in the hall.

“I beg your pardon. We ought to have thanked you long since for
bringing Carey home.”

He bowed, a little stiffly. “No thanks are due to me. I happened upon
him quite by chance, and as he was unaware of your presence here, I took
it upon myself to inform him of it. That is all.”

Adopting her manner to his, she replied courteously, but less warmly—it
seemed to him—than was usual to her. “Nevertheless,” she said, “we thank you. But tell me about Carey’s wound. Is it—”

He stopped her. “It is not in the least serious! It is only because he
received it recently that it troubles him a trifle. I assure you, within a few
weeks it will have healed with no need of solicitude on your part.”

“In other words, you are telling me not to fuss over him. Very well, I
shall not do so. He has never thanked us for such behaviour in any
case—not since he fell out of a tree when he was a child.”

“Ah, the famous oak, I collect?”

That made her smile at last. “Half a dozen times, at least! Carey has
not your agility.”

“But he has a great many more admirable virtues which I lack.” She frowned, and he recalled that he was supposed to have met Carey only that day. “One of which is a sense of time and place! I am intruding on
your reunion. I must go.”

“Oh, do stay to dinner. It is no trouble to lay an extra place.”

“Thank you, no. It will be even less trouble not to lay an extra place,
and I prefer to be known as a man who does not press his advantage.
Good day.”

He departed abruptly, but Antonia had no chance to puzzle over his behaviour before Charles came to inform her that dinner was served at
last.

“Has he gone? Very well-mannered of him, I will own. Your brother is
eager to talk with you, my dear. Will you come in?”

Charles placed a gentle but possessive hand on her arm, and Antonia turned away, conscious for the first time that more than a door had come
between her and Kedrington. She wondered why it disturbed her so to think that their friendship might not be adaptable to her changed circumstances.

She and Charles had agreed to keep their betrothal between themselves
for the present, in part because Charles felt obliged to apply formally to
Carey for her hand. Antonia thought this a great piece of nonsense, but for her part, she had no wish to draw attention away from Isabel on the
eve of her ball, and so she had agreed to keep their secret.