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He had, it was true, expected an apology. But the gothic accusations that followed made the earl wonder whether the young man should be sent back to bed and a physician called in. In the next few minutes, however, as Will summed up the suspicious circumstances, Lord Hartleigh was forced to admit to himself that this tale was very much in Basil's style.
"You know me, Hartleigh," the marquess pleaded. "When have you ever seen me make such a cake of myself? Why, if you called all Dessing's servants together and questioned them, you'd find I had no more than three glasses of champagne altogether."
"So you suspect Basil somehow slipped something into one of those glasses?"
Though Lord Arden meant other glasses at another place, he nodded grimly.
"Why? What had he to gain by it?"
"I'm not sure," the marquess hedged. "Though I can make a good guess, and I mean to set him straight."
"Well, that's only natural. Though I might add it's also a great waste of time. Basil can't be set straight. It's physically impossible. Besides, he's gone after Mr. Burnham."
"Yes, and I'm going after him."
"Now, Will, don't make a mountain out of a molehill. Whatever you suspect—"
"It's no secret that I have been endeavouring to win the affection of the young lady under your roof," Lord Arden interrupted rather pompously. "Last night's events are not calculated to inspire her confidence. I intend to clear this matter up—and with it my character."
In vain did the earl attempt to pour oil on the troubled waters. Will was determined to find Basil and wring the truth out of him. That failing, he would, he hinted darkly, seek revenge.
Well, if he must, he must. Lord Hartleigh shrugged. Basil could take care of himself. Fortunately, not having the remotest idea where his cousin had gone, the earl was spared the disagreeable necessity of offering Lord Arden any other assistance than a reluctant "Godspeed."
Lord Hartleigh, as was his habit in all things, confided the matter to his wife and was a little surprised to see her intelligent blue eyes lit with vexation.
"Gone after him?" she repeated. "And you let him, Edward? Gracious God! What if he kills him?"
"Of course he won't kill him. They've been playing pranks on each other and vowing revenge since they were boys. Will isn't about to risk disgrace and exile on account of a mere female—regardless how much he thinks he wants her."
"I still don't like it. This whole business has gotten completely out of hand."
"Which is what I predicted in the first place. There's nothing you or I can do now. Except, perhaps, report to your mother—as if she doesn't know already."
"Gone after him?" Lady Deverell repeated, bored past all expression. "How very wearisome in this heat." She returned her attention to the book that lay in her lap.
"Mama!"
"Yes, my love." The viscountess did not look up.
"What are we to do?"
"I suppose," Lady Deverell answered vaguely, apparently preoccupied with the book, "we shall have to dress soon. We are promised to the Osbornes for dinner. How distressing for them. With the three gentlemen gone, the numbers at table will be sadly out. How tiresome for Mrs. Osborne when she goes to so much trouble."
"She won't be tired at all if there's gossip to be gotten out of it," Isabella retorted. "I daresay it's all over the county by now after that scene at Netherstone. Mr. Burnham runs away, and then Basil goes after him for no apparent reason, and then Will after him. I wonder who'll be next?" She cast a speaking glance at her mother. In answer she received a world-weary shrug followed by a world-weary sigh. "I suppose," she told her provoking parent, "I had better let Miss Ashmore know of it.”
"Why on earth should you do that, my love?"
"Because," was the exasperated reply, "she's bound to remark Will's absence sooner or later, and though you like to tease and make secrets of everything, I do not."
"Why, Bella, my darling, what on earth are you in such a bother about?"
"You, Mama. You know exactly what is going on and you tell me nothing, only sit there like the Sphinx. As though it were the most natural thing in the world that a quiet, studious gentleman like Mr. Burnham should take it into his head to run away. Or that Will Farrington, whose head for spirits is harder even than Papa's, would drink himself insensible. Or that Basil, who makes such a scene about going to London, should turn up at the Dessing's party five days later—and the party half over. Really, Mama, what a ninnyhammer you must think me."
Lady Deverell looked up from her book with a blank little smile. "Why, my dear, now you mention it, it is rather odd, is it not?" She shrugged philosophically. "Still, there's no accounting for the strange starts men will take. Don't trouble yourself about it, dear. Pray do not. I daresay there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything."
"Oh, I daresay there is," Isabella muttered, sarcastically. "Oh, indeed, there must be. And I'm not about to find it out from you, am I? No, of course not. Why should you condescend to tell your daughter anything?"
The viscountess only chuckled while Lady Hartleigh, feeling much inclined to shake her aggravating parent until her teeth rattled, told off the Fifth Commandment to herself and exited from the room.
Though she was in the company of her godmother when the news was told, Miss Ashmore could not keep her voice steady. "Gone after Mr. Trevelyan? Kit why on earth should he do that?"
"Will claims he wasn't foxed at all," Lady Hartleigh explained. "He insists that the little he did drink was adulterated with something else, and that it was Basil did the mixing."
Alexandra was ve
ry surprised to hear her godmother explode with laughter, as was Lady Hartleigh. The two stared at the older woman.
What on earth, Alexandra wondered, was so funny? Basil was in danger. He could be dead—even now—at Lord Arden's hands. It was horrible, and Aunt Clem was laughing!
"Now, now Alexandra. Don't take on so. Why, child, you look as if you'd seen a ghost. You too, Isabella. Why, of course it's nothing. They are always at each other, those two. Have been since they were children. Oh, but it is monstrous amusing." Lady Bertram wiped away the tears, chuckling as she did so.
"Yes," Isabella seconded, though with less assurance. "That is what Edward says. So you needn't worry about Will. He'll come to no harm, I’m sure."
It had not occurred to Miss Ashmore to worry about Will, but she didn't mind having this convenient excuse for her too-obvious agitation. She got through the rest of the conversation with as much poise as she could muster, which was little enough, though no one seemed to notice.
She managed to muster a bit more that evening when they dined with the Osbornes and some others, though the visit was ghastly. Those dreadful girls carried on so about the gentlemen's absence and dropped such thinly disguised hints about her devoted marquess's desertion that Alexandra wanted to throttle them. The Mama was even worse with a horrid smile pasted on her fat face as she asked two hundred times where all the young gentlemen had gone, and why and how.
The evening dragged on interminably. Between worrying about Basil, hating the Osbornes, and pretending all the while to be perfectly at her ease, Miss Ashmore was nearly dead with exhaustion when she climbed into the carriage to return to Hartleigh Hall.
Finally she could retreat to her bedroom, where the cumulative effects of not sleeping or eating properly and being consumed by anxiety resulted, quite logically, in hysteria.
The others were not unduly alarmed about either Basil or Will—but then, they didn't know what had actually happened last night. Though, when you came right down to it, neither did she. Obviously, Basil had had a hand in Randolph's disappearance; and given what he'd done to Will, Alexandra was afraid to imagine the criminal means employed in her other fiancé’s case. She was afraid that even if Will didn't get to dispense his own justice, others would.
