Georgette Heyer - Devil's Cub by Devil's Cub

Author:Devil's Cub
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-04-28T12:28:44+00:00

Chapter XI

on the following morning Mrs. Challoner, chancing to look out of the window, was edified to perceive a very elegant equipage drawn up at her door. She said instantly: “The Duchess!” and hurried over to the mirror to arrange her cap. She told Sophia that if she dared to speak a word outside her part she would lock her in her bedchamber for a week: Sophia was about to retort in land when Betty opened the door and announced in a voice pregnant with awe: “The Duchess of Avon, mam!”

The Duchess came in, and Mrs. Challoner was so surprised she forgot to curtsy. She had expected a lady quite twenty years older than the youthful-looking creature who stood before her, and had prepared herself to meet something very formidable indeed. Great violet-blue eyes, a dimple, and copper curls under a chip-hat did not belong to the Duchess of her imagination, and she stood staring in a disconcerted way instead of greeting her grace with the proper mixture of pride and civility.

“You are Mrs. Challoner?” the Duchess said directly.

She spoke with a decided French accent, which further surprised her hostess. Sophia was also surprised, and exclaimed without ceremony: “Lord, are you Vidal’s mamma, then?”

Léonie looked at her from her head to her heels till Sophia blushed and began to fidget. Then she once more surveyed Mrs. Challoner, who remembered her manners, told her daughter to hold her tongue, and pulled forward a chair. “Pray, will not your grace be seated?”

“Thank you,” Léonie said, and sat down. “Madame, I am informed that your daughter has eloped with my son, which is a thing I find not very easy to understand. So I come to you that you may explain to me how this is at all possible.”

Mrs. Challoner dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, and protested that she was nigh distracted with grief and shame. “For Mary is a good girl, your grace, and elope with his lordship she would never do. Ma’am, your son has abducted my poor innocent child by force!”

“Tiens!” said the Duchess with polite interest. “My son is then a house-breaker. He perhaps stole her from beneath your roof, madame?’

Mrs. Challoner let the handkerchief fall. “From under my roof? How could he do that? No, indeed!”

“It is what I ask myself,” said the Duchess. “He laid a trap for her, perhaps, and seized her in the street, and carried her off with a gag and a rope.”

Mrs. Challoner eyed her with hostility. The Duchess met her look limpidly, and waited. “You don’t understand, ma’am,” said Mrs. Challoner.

“Assuredly I do not understand. You say my son abducted your daughter with force. Eh bien, I demand of you how this could be done in the middle of London. I find M. le Marquis has been extremely clever if he could arrange so difficult a rape.”

Mrs. Challoner flushed scarlet. “Ma’am! I must beg of you!”

“It is not then a rape?”

“Oh, I—yes, indeed and it is, and I will have

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