Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer Page B

damnable temper, maman,” he said ruefully.
    She nodded. “I know. That is why I am feeling very miserable. It is no good people saying you are a devil like all the Alastairs, because me, I know that it is my temper that you have, mon pauvre .You see, there is very black blood in my family.” She shook her head sadly. “M. de Saint-Vire—my father, you understand—was of a character the most abominable. And hot-headed! He shot himself in the end, which was a very good thing. He had red hair like mine.”
    “I haven’t that excuse,” said her son, grinning.
    “No, but you behave just as I should like to when I am enraged,” Léonie said candidly. “When I was young I was very fond of shooting people dead. Of course, I never did shoot anyone, but I wanted to—oh, often! I meant to shoot my father once—which shocked Rupert—it was when M. de Saint-Vire kidnapped me, and Rupert saved me—only Mon-seigneur arrived, and he would not at all permit it.” She paused, wrinkling her brow. “You see, Dominique, I am not a respectable person, and you are not a respectable person either. And I did want you to be.”
    “I’m sorry, maman. But I don’t come of respectable stock, either side.”
    “Ah, but the Alastairs are quite different,” Léonie said quickly. “No one minds if you have affaires .Of course, if you are a very great rake people say you are a devil, but it is quite in the mode and entirely respectable. Only when you do things that other people do not do, like you, and make scandals, then at once you are not respectable.”
    He looked down at her half-smiling. “What am I to do, maman? If I made you a promise to become respectable I am very sure I should break it.”
    She slipped her hand in his. “Well, I have been thinking, Dominique, that perhaps the best thing would be for you to be in love and marry somebody,” she said confidentially. “I do not like to say this, but it is true that before he married me, Monseigneur was a very great rake. A vrai dire ,his reputation was what one does not talk about. When he made me his page, and then his ward, it was not to be kind, but because he wanted to be revenged upon M. de Saint-Vire. Only then he found that he would like to marry me, and do you know, ever since he has not been a rake at all, or done anything particularly dreadful that I can remember.”
    “But I could never hope to find another woman like you, maman. If I could I promise you I’d marry her.”
    “Then you would make a great mistake,” said Léonie wisely. “I am not at all the sort of wife for you.”
    He did not pursue the subject. He was with her for an hour and more; it seemed as though she could not let him go. At last he wrenched himself away, knowing that for all her brave smiles she would weep her heart out once he was gone. He had given his word to her that he would leave London that night; he had much to do in the few hours left to him. His servants were sent flying on various errands, one to Newhaven to warn the captain of his yacht, the Albatross ,that his lordship would sail for France next day, another to his bankers, a third to a quiet house in Blooms-bury with a billet, hastily scrawled.
    This was delivered to an untidy abigail who received it in a hand hastily wiped upon her apron. She shut the door upon the messenger, and stood turning the heavily sealed letter over in her hand. Sealed with a crest it was; she wouldn’t be surprised if it came from the handsome lord that was running after Miss Sophy, only that it was directed to Miss Challoner.
    Miss Challoner was coming down the stairs with her marketing-basket on her arm, and her chip hat tied over her curls. Miss Challoner, for all she was better educated than her sister, was not too grand to do the shopping. She had constituted herself housekeeper to the establishment soon after her return from the seminary, and even Mrs. Challoner admitted that she had the knack of making the money last longer than ever it