Devil’s Cub

by Georgette Heyer

Tears stung her eyelids; she forced them back, casting a timid look round the coach to see whether anyone was looking at her. The stout woman was asleep, with her jaw sagging; two farmers were earnestly conversing opposite to her, and judging from his stertorous breathing she thought the man on her left was also asleep.

Well, that one moment’s conviction would comfort her in the lonely future. He had called her — but, after all, it was dangerous to recall his words, or the look on his face, or the gentle note in his voice.

She had thought — it seemed a long time ago now — that if only he had loved her she could marry him, but she had not considered then what it would mean to him to marry one so far beneath him. Perhaps his father would cast him off; it might even be in his power to disinherit him, and from all she had heard of his grace he was quite capable of doing that. She did not think that his love would survive exclusion from his own order, nor could she for an instant contemplate dragging him down to the society of lesser men. She thought, a little sadly, that she had seen too clearly how a man could sink to be able to cheat herself into supposing that the Marquis would maintain his position. Her own father had been disowned by his father, and he had ceased to associate with his old friends, because he had been looked at askance, as one who had committed the unforgivable sin. If the Duke of Avon had it in his power to disinherit his son, the Marquis would soon find himself condemned to the society of Miss Challoner, and Uncle Henry Simpkins, and their like. The very notion was so incredible that had her heart been less heavy she would have smiled at it.

It had grown dark inside the coach, and very chilly. Miss Challoner drew her cloak more tightly round her, and tried to ease her cramped limbs. It did not seem as though they would ever arrive at Pont-de-Moine. At every halt, of which there were many, she waited hopefully to be set down, but though one of the farmers had alighted, and two other persons entered the coach, no summons had yet come for her. She had no means of ascertaining the time, but she felt sure she had been travelling for many hours, and had begun to wonder whether the guard had forgotten her, and long passed Pont-de-Moine, when the coach stopped again before a well-lighted inn, and the door was pulled open.

The guard announced Pont-de-Moine in a stentorian voice which woke the fat woman with a jerk. The child, drowsing in her arms, set up a whimper, and Miss Challoner descended thankfully on to the road.

The guard, who apparently took a friendly interest in her, jerked his thumb towards the open door of the inn, and said that she had best bespeak a bed for the night there. She looked at the inn doubtfully, fearing from its well-kept appearance that it might be beyond her means to stay there, and inquired whether there was not some smaller hostelry to which she could repair.

The guard scratched his chin, and ran his eyes over her thoughtfully. “Not for you, there is not,” he said bluntly. “There’s only a tavern, at the end of the village, but it’s not fit for a decent woman to enter.”

Miss Challoner thanked him, and rather recklessly pressed a silver coin into his hand, thereby depleting her slender hoard still further.

She watched the guard climb on to the box again, and feeling somewhat as though she had lost her only friend in all France, she turned, and walked resolutely into the inn.

She found herself in a small well -hall, with the stairs running up to a couple of galleries on the first and second storeys. The place was lit by swinging lamps, and had several doors leading out of it on one side. On the other an archway afforded a glimpse of a comfortable coffee-room.