False Colours by Georgette Heyer

Author:Georgette Heyer [Georgette Heyer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Twelve

He was permitted to dwell in this hopeful belief for rather less than twenty-four hours. Upon the following afternoon, driven indoors by a shower of rain, he was playing billiards with Cressy when Norton entered the room, and asked him in an expressionless voice if he might have a word with him.

‘Yes, what is it?’ Kit replied.

Norton coughed, and directed a meaning look at him. Unfortunately, Kit was watching Cressy, critically surveying the balls on the table, her cue in her hand. Their disposition was not promising. ‘What a very unhandsome way to leave them!’ she complained. ‘I don’t see what’s to be done.’

‘Try a cannon off the cushion!’ he recommended. A second cough made him say, rather impatiently: ‘Well, Norton? What do you want?’

‘If I might have a word with your lordship?’ Norton repeated.

Kit glanced frowningly at him. ‘Presently: you are interrupting the game.’

‘I beg your lordship’s pardon!’ said Norton, his meaning look becoming almost a glare. ‘A Person has called to see your lordship.’

‘Very well. Tell him I am at present engaged, and ask him to state his business!’

Cressy, who had raised her eyes from the table to look at the�butler, said: ‘Do go, Denville! I’ll concede this game to you�gracefully and happily, having already been beaten all hollow!’ She smiled at Norton. ‘I collect the business is urgent?’

‘Well, yes, miss!’ replied Norton gratefully.

By this time, Kit, his attention fairly caught, had realized that Norton was trying to convey an unspoken message to him. Since he had been assured by Fimber that the butler had no suspicion that he was not his noble master, he was puzzled to know why he was trying to warn him. He thrust his cue into the rack, made his apologies to Cressy, and preceded Norton out of the room. ‘Well? Who is it?’ he asked, as soon as the butler had shut the door behind him. ‘What’s his business with me?’

‘As to that, my lord, I shouldn’t care to say: the Individual being unwilling to divulge it to me.’ He met Kit’s questioning look woodenly, but added a sinister rider. ‘I should perhaps mention, my lord, that the Individual in question is not of the male sex.’

Not by so much as the flicker of an eyelid did Kit betray his feelings. He asked curtly: ‘Her name?’

‘She calls herself Alperton, my lord,’ responded Norton, at once disclaiming responsibility and revealing to the initiated the social status of the visitor. ‘Mrs Alperton – not a young female, my lord.’ His gaze became fixed on some object over Kit’s shoulder as he made his next tactfully worded disclosure. ‘I thought it best to show her into the Blue saloon, my lord, Sir Bonamy and Mr Cliffe being in the library, as is their custom at this hour, and her not being willing to accept my assurance that you were not at home to visitors, but declaring to me her intention of remaining here until it should be convenient to you to receive her.’

It

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