“Yes, but that was different!” insisted Tom. “Besides I thought it would be an adventure!”
“You had your wish, then. Your scruples, I collect, didn’t extend to my pistol?”
“But, sir!” Tom said very earnestly. “Indeed, I only borrowed that! And I didn’t take any ball, or powder, you know, because I thought you would not like me to.”
“Well, that was very thoughtful of you,” said the Duke. “And it would have been still more thoughtful of you if you had remembered to keep out of scrapes, and to take care of Belinda.”
“I was trying to take care of her, sir!” Tom pointed out. “For when you did not come home last night, the landlord said you had loped off without paying our shot, and he was deuced unpleasant, and I quite thought it would make Belinda uncomfortable, only she is such an unaccountable girl, and heeds nothing, besides being a dead bore—anyway, I thought I must see what could be done to come off all right. And I have played that trick with a bottle before, you know, and I thought very likely it would answer, and so it would have, if only that fellow had not crept up behind me! And, oh, sir, I very nearly hit the coachman! Only fancy! For I can tell you it is not at all an easy thing to aim a ginger-beer cork.”
“Tom, you are a hopeless case, and I have a good mind to take you home to your father!”
“Oh, no, sir, pray do not! I swear I will not do it again! It would be too bad of you, when I took such pains not to give my name at that horrid Roundhouse, nor anything that could make the constable think I was me! For there is no knowing but that Mr. Snape might have enquired for me here. And if you had not gone off without saying anything to me I should not have done it!” He looked at the Duke with suddenly knit brows. “Where did you go to, sir?”
The Duke laughed. “You will never forgive me! I had a more exciting adventure than you: I was kidnapped, and held to ransom, and I only escaped by burning down my prison!”
Tom’s eyes glistened enviously. He instantly demanded to be told the whole. It did not seem to him at all strange that anyone should desire to kidnap such an unimportant person as Mr. Rufford, so the questions he eagerly asked were none of them embarrassing. He expressed his heartfelt chagrin at having had no hand in the Duke’s escape, and promised to guard him in future with all the might of his large fists. It occurred to him that Belinda might also have been kidnapped, and he began to make plans for her deliverance. But the Duke had made some enquiries about Belinda’s new protector, and he was obliged to dash Tom’s hopes. Mr. Clitheroe, according to reliable report, was an elderly gentleman of impeccable morals, who lived with his sister on the outskirts of the town, and busied himself largely with charitable works. In what circumstance he had encountered Belinda the Duke could not guess. She had gone out after she had breakfasted that morning, and had returned quite shortly under Mr. Clitheroe’s escort, to collect her two bandboxes. The landlord had been unwilling to allow these hostages out of his hands, but he seemed to stand in some awe of Mr. Clitheroe. From what the Duke had been able to discover, that stern Quaker had severely rated him for admitting seducers and abductionists into his house, and had cut short all his attempts to explain that Belinda was travelling in the company of her brother and his tutor. “And what’s the use of me telling him she has a brother when he’s bound to ask where the brother may be, and all I can answer him is that he’s clapped up in the Roundhouse?” demanded the landlord, justly aggrieved. “I’m sure I don’t know how you’ve got him out, sir, but if it’s all the same to you I’d as lief you didn’t bring him here! And—”
“It is not all the same to me,” had said the Duke, very gently indeed.