world, gazed at his distant cousin hoping to see some softening in his coldly handsome face. He found none. Devenish might have the golden good looks of an archangel in a Renaissance painting, but they were those of an avenging one, all mercy lacking.
‘So you intend to call in his IOUs. Including the last one when he bet the family home—and lost.’
‘He took that risk, not I.’ Devenish’s tone was almost indifferent.
‘And if you can ruin someone so easily, do you expect me still to remain your friend?’
‘I never expect anything of anyone, least of all one of my relatives. And the choice is, of course, yours, not mine.’
How to move him? George said impulsively, ‘I don’t believe that even you will do such a thing. You don’t need the lad’s money, he’s not your enemy—’
‘And it’s not your business what I do with my winnings—or how I gained them. Forgive me if I decline to pursue this matter further. I am due at the Lords this afternoon: they are debating this matter of the Midlands frame-breakers and I mean to put my oar in.’
George sank into the nearest chair. They were in the library at Innescourt House, off Piccadilly. It was a noble room, lined not only with books, but also with beautifully framed naval maps. An earlier Devenish had been a sailor before he had inherited the title.
His great-grandson was standing before a massive oak desk on which lay the pile of IOUs which young Jack Allinson had scrawled the night before.
‘I shall never understand you, Devenish, never. How you can be so heartless to that poor lad and in the next breath dash off to the Lords to speak on behalf of a pack of murdering Luddites is beyond me.’
‘Then don’t try, dear fellow. Much better not. You’ll only give yourself the megrims. Come to the Lords with me, instead, and enjoy the cut and thrust of debate.’
‘Sorry, Devenish, I’ve had my fill of cut and thrust with you today. I’ll see you at the Leominsters this evening, I suppose. They say that the Banbury beauty will be there. The on dit is that she’s about to accept young Orville. Everyone thought that you were ready to make her a Countess yourself.’
Devenish laughed. He picked up the pile of IOUs and riffled carelessly through them before he spoke.
‘Never believe on dits about me, George, they are invariably wrong. Besides, I could never marry a woman who has no conversation, and the Beauty is singularly lacking in that. Unfortunately in my experience the beauties have no conversation, and the conversationalists have no beauty, so I suppose that I am doomed to bachelorhood.’
‘My experience, too,’ returned George gloomily. ‘Look, Devenish,’ he added as he turned to leave, ‘you will think of what I said about young Allinson, won’t you? It cannot profit you to ruin him: your reputation is bad enough already without his committing suicide. He was threatening to shoot himself after you had left this morning.’
‘Oh, as to that,’ riposted Devenish, raising one quizzical eyebrow, ‘it is also my experience that those who talk loudly and dramatically in public of such an extreme measure rarely put it into practice. No, he’ll go and get drunk first and when his head’s cleared he’ll visit me to beg for mercy.’
‘Which you will grant him?’ said George eagerly.
‘Who knows? It depends on whether my chef is on form at dinner that day. I really do have more to do than think about young Allinson, you know. My speech, for instance. Do be off with you, George. Go and visit the Turkish baths or lose a few hundred yourself somewhere.’
‘Oh, I never gamble.’
‘Yes, I know. It’s a weakness of yours not to have any weaknesses!’
George’s shout of ‘Devenish, you’re impossible,’ floated through the double doors as he left.
Devenish raised his eyebrows again and laughed. However much he grumbled, George would be back again to reproach and chivvy him. He threw the IOUs on to his desk, and debated whether to send for his secretary, Thorpe.
At least he wouldn’t have the impudence to complain about his non-existent moral sense as George always did. He noted idly that Thorpe had been in earlier and had left a small pile of correspondence on his desk for him to deal with.
Devenish picked up the first letter. It was from his agent, Robert Stammers, who ran Tresham Hall, on the edge of Tresham Magna village in Surrey, and the estate around it. He had never been back there since he had succeeded to the title ten years earlier when he had just turned twenty-three. He had preferred to go instead on a belated Grand Tour of Europe, even though Great Britain was in the middle of the war against Napoleon.
Robert had accompanied him as his secretary, and twice a year he visited Innescourt House as a favoured guest, somewhat to George Hampden’s bemusement.
That the Grand Tour had turned into something more exciting and important was known to few—and certainly not to George. Even after that, when he had returned to England Devenish had never revisited Tresham Hall: it held too many memories which he had no wish to awaken.
And now Robert was urging him to go there. ‘Your presence is needed at Tresham, m’lord,’ he had written, ‘and for more reasons than I care to commit to paper.’
Now that was a remarkable statement from an underling, was it not? Calculated to rouse a man’s curiosity—which was doubtless why Robert had so worded it! If anyone else had written him such a letter Devenish would have dismissed it, but he had appointed Robert to be his agent because he had the best of reasons to trust him.
Devenish sighed. He sighed because Robert was one of the few people in the world who had a right to make a claim on him, so he must agree to what Robert wished. He did not call Thorpe in to dictate the letter to him but began to write it himself.
‘Damn you, Rob,’ he began without preamble. ‘You, of all people, must understand how little I wish to return to Tresham and therefore I have to agree to what you ask, if only because, knowing you, I must believe that you have good reasons for making such a request of me—’
He got no further. There was the sound of voices in the corridor outside, the door was flung open, and Tresidder, his butler, entered, but not in his usual decorous fashion. He was being pushed in backwards by, of all people, young Allinson. He was not only shouting in Tresidder’s face but was also threatening him with a pistol.
‘M’lord,’ gasped Tresidder, made voluble by fright, ‘I dare not stop him. He insisted on seeing you, even when I told him that you had given orders not to be disturbed, and then he pulled out a pistol and threatened me with it if I did not do as he wished.’
‘Quite right,’ raved Allinson, releasing him. ‘And now I am here, you may go.’ He waved his pistol at Devenish who had risen, had walked round his desk and was advancing on him.
‘Tell him to leave us, damn you, Devenish. My quarrel is with you, not with him. And if you come a step further I’ll shoot you.’
Devenish retreated and leaned back against the desk, his arms folded, the picture of undisturbed indolence.
‘Yes, do leave us, Tresidder,’ he drawled. ‘I am sure that you have no wish to take part in this unseemly farce which Allinson thinks is a tragedy!
