“They will be,” his uncle said grimly. A heavy frown was gathering.
The Marquis’s lips tightened. “Damnation!” His glance flickered to Léonie’s troubled face. “Don’t let it disturb you, madame, I beg.”
“Dominique, did you — did you, in effect, mean to kill him?” she asked, her eyes on his face.
He shrugged, “Oh, since I fought at all, yes.”
“I do not mind you killing people when you have reason, you know, but — but — was there a reason, mon enfant?” said her grace.
“The fellow was drunk, and you knew it, Vidal!” Rupert said.
“Perfectly.” The Marquis sipped his wine. “But so was I drunk.” Again he looked towards Léonie. What he saw in her face made him say with a kind of suppressed violence: “Why do you look at me like that? You know what I am, do you not? Do you not?”
“Here, Dominic!” his uncle said, in a voice of protest. “You’re talking to your mother, boy.”
Léonie raised an admonishing finger. “Enough, Rupert. Yes, I know, my little one, and I am very unhappy for you.” She blinked away a tear. “You are too much my son.”
“Fiddle!” said Vidal roughly. He put down his glass, the wine in it unfinished. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour, and he looked quickly round at it. “I must go. Why did you come? To tell me Quarles is as good as dead? I knew it.”