The Convenient Marriage

by Georgette Heyer

  ‘You m-make a habit of running away with f-females, do you not?’ said Horatia.

  His brows contracted, but only for a moment. ‘So you have that story, have you? Let us say that I make a habit of running away with the females of your family.’

  ‘I,’ said Horatia, ‘am a W-Winwood, which you will find makes a vast d-difference. You can’t force me to elope with you.’

  ‘I shan’t try,’ he replied coolly. ‘Yet I believe we might deal extremely together, you and I. There’s something about you, Horry, which is infinitely alluring. I could make you love me you know.’

  ‘N-now I know what is the m-matter with you!’ exclaimed Horatia, suddenly enlightened. ‘You’re drunk!’

  ‘Devil a bit,’ answered his lordship. ‘Come, give me your cloak!’ He twitched it from her as he spoke, and threw it aside, and stood for a moment looking at her through half shut eyes. ‘No, you’re not beautiful,’ he said softly, ‘but – damnably seductive, my pretty!’

  Horatia took a step backward. ‘D-don’t come near me!’

  ‘Not come near you!’ he repeated. ‘Horry, you little fool!’

  She tried to dodge away from him, but he caught her, and pulled her roughly into his arms. There was a wild struggle; she got one hand free and dealt him a ringing slap; then he had both her arms clamped to her sides, and kissed her suffocatingly. She managed to jerk her head away, and brought one sharp heel down full on his instep. She felt him flinch, and twisted herself free, hearing the lace at her corsage rip in his clutching fingers. The next moment the table was between them, and Lethbridge was nursing his bruised foot and laughing. ‘Gad, you little spitfire!’ he said. ‘I never dreamed you would show such spirit! Damme, I believe I shan’t let you go back to that dull husband of yours after all. Oh, don’t scowl so, sweetheart, I’m not going to chase you round the room. Sit down.’

  She was by now really frightened, for it seemed to her as though he must be out of his senses. She kept a wary eye on his movements, and decided that the only thing to do was to pretend to humour him. Trying to speak quite steadily, she said: ‘If you sit down, so will I.’

  ‘Behold me!’ Lethbridge replied, flinging himself into a chair.

  Horatia nodded, and followed his example. ‘P-please try and be sensible, my l-lord,’ she requested. ‘It isn’t the least use telling me that you are fallen in l-love with me, because I d-don’t believe it. Why did you bring me here?’

  ‘To steal your virtue,’ he answered flippantly. ‘You see, I am quite frank with you.’

  ‘W-well, I can be frank too,’ retorted Horatia, her eyes gleaming. ‘And if you think you are g-going to ravish m-me, you quite mistake the m-matter! I’m much nearer the door than you are.’

  ‘True, but it is locked, and the key’ – he patted his pocket – ‘is here!’

  ‘Oh!’ said Horatia. ‘So you don’t even play f-fair!’

  ‘Not in love,’ he replied.

  ‘I wish,’ said Horatia forcefully, ‘you would stop talking about l-love. It makes me feel sick.’

  ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘I assure you I am falling deeper in love with you every moment.’

  She curled her lip. ‘Stuff!’ she snorted. ‘If you l-loved me the l-least little bit, you wouldn’t do this to me. And if you did ravish me you would be p-put into prison, if Rule d-didn’t kill you first, which I daresay he would do.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Lethbridge. ‘No doubt I should be put into prison – if you had the courage to tell the world of this night’s work. It would be worth it. Oh, it would be worth it, only to know that Rule’s damned pride was in the dust!’

  Her eyes narrowed; she leaned a little forward, her hands clenched in her lap. ‘So that is it!’ she said. ‘F-fustian, my lord! It would d-do very well at Drury Lane, I d-daresay, but in life, n-no!’

  ‘We can but try,’ said Lethbridge. The mockery had vanished, leaving his face very harsh, the mouth set in grim lines, the eyes staring straight ahead.

  ‘I can’t imagine how ever I c-could have wanted you for a friend,’ said Horatia, meditatively. ‘You are d-dreadfully poor-spirited, I think. C-couldn’t you find a way of revenge except through a woman?’

  ‘None so exquisitely complete,’ Lethbridge answered, unmoved. His gaze travelled to her face. ‘But when I look at you, Horry, why, I forget revenge, and desire you for yourself alone.’

  ‘You c-can’t imagine how flattered I am,’ said Horatia politely.

  He burst out laughing. ‘You adorable rogue, I believe a man might keep you a twelvemonth and not be tired of you!’ He got up. ‘Come, Horry, throw in your lot with mine! You were made for something better than to be tied to a man who don’t care a rap for you. Come away with me, and I’ll teach you what love can be!’

  ‘And then Rule can divorce m-me, and of c-course you’ll m-marry me?’ suggested Horatia.

  ‘I might even do that,’ he concurred. He walked over to the table and picked up one of the bottles that stood on it. ‘Let us drink to – the future!’ he said.

  ‘Very w-well, sir,’ Horatia answered in a voice of deceptive mildness. She had risen when he did, and taken a step towards the empty fireplace. Now, as he stood with his back to her, she bent swiftly and picked up the heavy brass poker that lay there.

  Lethbridge was filling the second glass. ‘We will go to Italy, if you like,’ he said.

  ‘Italy?’ said Horatia, tiptoeing forward.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘B-because I wouldn’t go to the end of the street with you!’ flashed Horatia, and struck with all her might.

  The poker fell with a rather sickening thud. Half horrified, half triumphant, Horatia watched Lethbridge sway a moment, and crash to the ground. The wine-bottle, slipping from his nerveless fingers, rolled over the carpet spilling its contents in a dark ruby flood.

  Horatia caught her underlip between her teeth, and went down on her knees beside the limp form, and thrust her hand into the pocket he had patted so confidently. She found the key, and pulled it out. Lethbridge was lying alarmingly still; she wondered whether she had killed him, and shot a frightened look towards the door. No sound disturbed the silence; she realized with a sigh of thankfulness that the servants must have gone to bed, and got up. There was no blood on the poker, and none that she could see on Lethbridge’s head, though his wig, gaping up from his forehead, might conceal that. She put the poker back in the grate, caught up her cloak and sped over to the door. Her hand shook so that she could scarcely fit the key into the lock, but she managed it at last, and the next moment was out in the hall, tugging at the bolts of the front door. They scraped noisily, and she cast a quick nervous glance behind her. She got the door open, and wrapping her cloak round her fled down the steps into the street.

  There were large puddles in the road, and heavy clouds threatening to obscure the moon, but for the moment it had stopped raining. The road was eerily quiet; blank, shuttered windows on either side, and a little draughty wind sneaking up to whip Horatia’s skirts about her ankles.

  She set off, almost running in the direction of Curzon Street. She had never in her life been out alone on foot at this hour, and she prayed fervently that she would not meet anyone. She had nearly reached the corner of the street when, to her dismay, she heard voices. She checked, trying to see who these late wayfarers might be. There were two of them, and their progress seemed a little uncertain. Then one of them spoke in a quite unmistakable if slightly thick voice. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ it said. ‘I’ll lay you a pony you’re wrong!’

  Horatia gave a tiny shriek of relief and hurled herself forward, straight into the arms of the astonished roysterer, who reeled under the impact. ‘P-Pel!’ she sobbed. ‘Oh, P-Pel, take me home!’

  The Viscount steadied himself by grasping at the railings. He blinked at his sister in a bemused fashion, and suddenly made a discovery. ‘Burn
it, it’s you, Horry!’ he said. ‘Well, well, well! Do you know my sister, Pom? This is my sister, Lady Rule. Sir Roland Pommeroy, Horry – friend o’ mine.’

  Sir Roland achieved a beautiful leg. ‘Your la’ship’s most obedient!’ he said.

  ‘P-Pel, will you take me home?’ begged Horatia, clasping his wrist.

  ‘Permit me, ma’am!’ said Sir Roland, gallantly presenting his arm. ‘Should be honoured!’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ commanded the Viscount, who was frowning portentously. ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘I d-don’t know, but it m-must be dreadfully late!’ said Horatia.

  ‘Not a second after two!’ Sir Roland said. ‘Can’t be after two. We left Monty’s at half-past one, didn’t we? Very well, then, call it two o’clock.’

  ‘It’s more than that,’ pronounced the Viscount, ‘and if it’s more than that, what’s bothering me is, what the devil are you doing here, Horry?’

  ‘Pel, Pel!’ besought his friend. ‘Remember – ladies present!’

  ‘That’s what I say,’ nodded the Viscount. ‘Ladies don’t walk about at two in the morning. Where are we?’

  Sir Roland thought. ‘Half-Moon Street,’ he said positively.

  ‘Very well, then,’ said the Viscount, ‘tell me this: what’s my sister doing in Half-Moon Street at two in the morning?’

  Horatia, who had listened impatiently to this interchange, gave his wrist a shake. ‘Oh, don’t stand there talking, P-Pel. I couldn’t help it, indeed I couldn’t! And I’m dreadfully afraid I’ve killed Lord Lethbridge!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘K-killed Lord Lethbridge,’ shuddered Horatia.

  ‘Nonsense!’ said the Viscount.

  ‘It isn’t nonsense! I hit him with a p-poker as hard as I could, and he f-fell and lay quite still.’

  ‘Where did you hit him?’ demanded the Viscount.

  ‘On the head,’ said Horatia.

  The Viscount looked at Sir Roland. ‘D’you suppose she killed him, Pom?’

  ‘Might have,’ said Sir Roland judicially.

  ‘Lay you five to one she didn’t,’ offered the Viscount.

  ‘Done!’ said Sir Roland.

  ‘Tell you what,’ said the Viscount suddenly. ‘I’m going to see.’

  Horatia caught him by the skirts of his coat. ‘No, you sh-shan’t! You’ve got to take me home.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ replied the Viscount, relinquishing his purpose. ‘But you’ve no business to go killing people with a poker at two in the morning. It ain’t genteel.’

  Sir Roland came unexpectedly to Horatia’s support. ‘Don’t see that,’ he said. ‘Why shouldn’t she hit Lethbridge with a poker? You don’t like him. I don’t like him.’

  ‘No,’ said the Viscount, acknowledging the truth of this statement. ‘But I wouldn’t hit him with a poker. Never heard of such a thing.’

  ‘No more have I,’ admitted Sir Roland. ‘But I tell you what I think, Pel: it’s a good thing.’

  ‘You think that?’ said the Viscount.

  ‘I do,’ maintained Sir Roland doggedly.

  ‘Well, we’d better go home,’ said the Viscount, making another of his sudden decisions.

  ‘Th-thank goodness!’ said Horatia, quite exasperated. She took her brother’s arm, and turned him in the right direction. ‘This way, you stupid, horrid c-creature!’

  But the Viscount at that moment caught sight of her elaborate coiffure, with its bunch of nodding plumes, and stopped short. ‘I knew there was something mighty queer about you, Horry,’ he said. ‘What have you done to your hair?’

  ‘N-nothing, it’s only a Quésaco. D-do hurry, Pel!’

  Sir Roland, interested, bent his head. ‘I beg pardon, ma’am, what did you say it was?’

  ‘I s-said it was a Quésaco,’ replied Horatia, between tears and laughter. ‘And that’s Provençal signifying “What does it mean?”’

  ‘Well, what does it mean?’ asked the Viscount reasonably.

  ‘Oh, P-Pel, I don’t know! Do, do, take me home!’

  The Viscount permitted himself to be drawn onward. They traversed Curzon Street without mishap, and Sir Roland remarked that it was a fine night. Neither the Viscount nor his sister paid any heed to this. The Viscount who had been thinking, said: ‘I don’t say it ain’t a good thing if you’ve killed Lethbridge, but what I can’t make out is what brought you here at this time of night?’

  Horatia, feeling that in his present condition it was useless to attempt to explain to him, replied: ‘I went to the p-party at Richmond House.’

  ‘And was it agreeable, ma’am?’ inquired Sir Roland politely.

  ‘Yes, th-thank you.’

  ‘But Richmond House ain’t in Half-Moon Street,’ the Viscount pointed out.

  ‘She walked home,’ explained Sir Roland. ‘We were walking home, weren’t we? Very well, then. She walked home. Passed Lethbridge’s house. Went in. Hit him on the head with the poker. Came out. Met us in the street. There you are. Plain as a pikestaff.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said the Viscount. ‘Seems queer to me.’

  Sir Roland drew nearer to Horatia. ‘Deeply regret!’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘Poor Pel not quite himself.’

  ‘For m-mercy’s sake, do hurry!’ replied Horatia crossly.

  By this time they had reached Grosvenor Square, and it had begun to rain again. The Viscount said abruptly: ‘Did you say it was a fine night?’

  ‘I may have,’ said Sir Roland cautiously.

  ‘Well, I think it’s raining,’ announced the Viscount.

  ‘It is raining, and my f-feathers will be ruined!’ said Horatia. ‘Oh, now what is it Pel?’

  The Viscount had stopped. ‘Forgotten something,’ he said. ‘Meant to go and see whether that fellow Lethbridge was dead.’

  ‘P-Pel, it doesn’t matter, really it d-doesn’t!’

  ‘Yes it does, I’ve got a bet on it,’ replied the Viscount, and plunged off in the direction of Half-Moon Street.

  Sir Roland shook his head. ‘He shouldn’t have gone off like that,’ he said severely. ‘Lady on his arm – walks off, not a word of apology. Very cool, very cool indeed. Take my arm, ma’am!’

  ‘Thank g-goodness we’re there!’ said Horatia, hurrying him along.

  At the foot of the steps of her own house, she stopped and looked Sir Roland over dubiously. ‘I shall have to explain it all to you, I suppose. C-come and see me to-morrow. I mean today. Please remember to c-come! And if I’ve really k-killed Lord Lethbridge, don’t, don’t say anything about it!’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Sir Roland. ‘Not a word.’

  Horatia prepared to ascend the steps. ‘And you will go after P-Pelham and take him home, won’t you?’

  ‘With the greatest pleasure on earth, ma’am,’ said Sir Roland, with a profound bow. ‘Happy to be of service!’

  Well, at least he doesn’t seem to be as drunk as Pelham, thought Horatia, as the sleepy porter opened the door to her knock. And if only I can make him understand how it all happened, and Pelham doesn’t do anything foolish, perhaps Rule need never know anything about this.

  Slightly cheered by this reflection, she went up the stairs to her bedroom, where a lamp was burning. Picking up a taper, she lit the candles on her dressing-table, and sat down before the mirror, quite worn out. The plumes in her hair were draggled and limp; her corsage was torn. She put her hand to it mechanically, and suddenly her eyes widened in horror. She had been wearing some of the Drelincourt jewels – a set of pearls and diamonds, ear-rings, brooch and bracelets. The ear-rings were there, the bracelets still on her wrists, but the brooch had gone.

  Her mind flew back to her struggle in Lethbridge’s arms, when her lace had been torn. She stared at her own image in the glass. Under the Serkis rouge she had turned deathly pale. Her face
puckered; she burst into tears.

  Fifteen

  Nothing intervening to cause the Viscount to swerve from his purpose, he pursued a somewhat erratic course back to Half-Moon Street. Finding the door of Lethbridge’s house open, as Horatia had left it, he walked in without ceremony. The door into the saloon was also ajar, and lights shone. The Viscount put his head into the room and looked round.

  Lord Lethbridge was seated in a chair by the table, holding his head in his hands. An empty bottle of wine lay on the floor, and a Catogan wig, slightly dishevelled. Hearing a footfall his lordship looked up and stared blankly across at the Viscount.

  The Viscount stepped into the room. ‘Came to see if you was dead,’ he said. ‘Laid Pom odds you weren’t.’

  Lethbridge passed his hand across his eyes. ‘I’m not,’ he replied in a faint voice.

  ‘No. I’m sorry,’ said the Viscount simply. He wandered over to the table and sat down. ‘Horry said she killed you, Pom said So she might, I said No. Nonsense.’

  Lethbridge, still holding a hand to his aching head, tried to pull himself together. ‘Did you?’ he said. His eyes ran over his self-invited guest. ‘I see. Let me assure you once more that I am very much alive.’

  ‘Well, I wish you’d put your wig on,’ complained the Viscount. ‘What I want to know is why did Horry hit you on the head with the poker?’

  Lethbridge gingerly felt his bruised scalp. ‘With a poker was it? Pray ask her, though I doubt if she will tell you.’

  ‘You shouldn’t keep the front door open,’ said the Viscount. ‘What’s to stop people coming in and hitting you over the head? It’s preposterous.’

  ‘I wish you would go home,’ said Lethbridge wearily.

  The Viscount surveyed the supper-table with a knowing eye. ‘Card-party?’ he inquired.

  ‘No.’

  At that moment the voice of Sir Roland Pommeroy was heard, calling to his friend. He too put his head round the door, and, perceiving the Viscount, came in. ‘You’re to come home,’ he said briefly. ‘Gave my word to my lady I’d take you home.’