“Belike she’s gone with Vidal too,” Lord Rupert said sarcastically.
Léonie refused to be diverted by this artless suggestion. She had been thinking hard, and now said: “If the Nobody — what is his name, Rupert? — Comyn. I will remember. If M. Comyn is in Paris, I think Juliana has eloped with him. Naturally, she would not tell you that, Elisabeth. If Vidal is with them, it is, sans doute, to make it to appear quite respectable. They had fled, perhaps to Dijon, and Vidal went to — to — en chaperon, in effect.”
Lord Rupert listened to this in considerable astonishment. “Do you tell me Vidal’s gone to play propriety?” he asked blankly. “ Vidal? No, rabbit it, that’s too much! You’re the boy’s mother, and of course you’re bound to make the best of him, but to say he’s gone to a silly place like Dijon to be a duenna to Juliana — Lord, you must be besotted, my dear!”
An irrepressible dimple peeped in Léonie’s cheek. “It is not perhaps very probable,” she admitted. “But he has not eloped with Juliana. I know he has not! It is all so strange that it makes my head ache, and I see that there is only one thing to do.”
Lord Rupert breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re a sensible woman, Léonie, ’pon my soul you are. If the luck favours us we’ll reach home before Avon gets back from Newmarket.”
Léonie tied the strings of her cloak under her chin, and shot a mischievous look at his lordship. “ Mon pauvre, we are not going home.”
Lord Rupert said disgustedly: “I might have known it. If ever there was a female with silly, wild notions in her head — ”
“I am very sensible. You said so,” Léonie pointed out, twinkling. “We will start very early in the morning, Rupert, and go to Dijon.” She paused, and added buoyantly: “ Du vrai, I find it fort amusant, you know. For it seems to me that my poor Dominique has now two ladies he must marry a l’instant, which is a thing not permitted. It does not amuse you, Rupert?”
“Amuse me?” gasped his lordship. “Amuse me to go junketing through France after that young devil and his pack of females? No, it don’t! Bedlam’s the place for Vidal, and damme, when I think of trying to explain all this to Avon I’ve a strong notion I’ll end there myself.” With which his lordship seized his hat and cane, and bidding his open-mouthed cousin a curt farewell, flung open the door for Léonie to pass out.