Pay the Devil - Jack Higgins [30]
He raised his voice and said to the room in general, “Please do not let this unfortunate affair interfere with your enjoyment, ladies and gentlemen.” He nodded to the pianist, and as the ensemble struck up a waltz, walked from the room, Burke at his heels.
People stood in groups, their heads together as they discussed what had happened, and Clay gave his arm to Joanna and they moved out through the French windows onto the terrace.
Joanna leaned against a balustrade and gave a long sigh of relief. “Thank God you managed to stop him in time. If Shaun Rogan had been killed here tonight, the scandal would have rocked the country.”
“Why does your uncle hate him so much?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really know. Ask me why he hates so many things. I think it’s because Big Shaun has always refused to bow the knee. He’s like a rock, immovable, and my uncle doesn’t like that. He likes to think he can bend people to his will.”
“But he isn’t always successful, is he?” Clay said. “I wonder what he’d say if he knew his niece was addicted to moonlight gallops dressed like a man?”
She laughed lightly. “What he doesn’t know can never hurt him.” She shivered. “It’s turned rather chilly. Do you mind if we go back inside?”
As they entered the room, a young Hussar officer approached and claimed Joanna for a dance, and Clay went across to the buffet and helped himself to a large brandy. As he was drinking it, Vale came up, an expression of disgust on his face. “You look as though you could do with a drink,” Clay said.
Vale nodded. “I’ve just been listening to that swine Marley boasting about his latest affair. He’s as drunk as a lord, of course. It seems he’s got some wretched girl locked up in a room back at his house. Her mother’s a widow and he threatened to evict her for arrears of rent. The girl came this afternoon to plead with him and he made his terms pretty plain. Apparently, she turned him down flat and he locked her up, to give her time to consider the consequences, as he so delicately phrases it.”
He swallowed some brandy and excused himself as another dance started, and Clay turned away and stared out of the window, anger rising in him. He reached for the decanter, filled his glass to the brim and drained it, the brandy spreading through his body like liquid fire. Then he felt a hand on his sleeve and Joanna was beside him.
Her smile faded as she saw his face. “What is it, Clay?” she said. “What’s happened?”
He laughed harshly. “Why nothing. I suddenly feel in need of a little fresh air, that’s all.”
He beckoned to one of the footmen and asked to have his carriage brought round to the front door, and Joanna grasped his arm and said in a whisper, “Clay, I’m frightened. You look like the Devil himself.”
He smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry about me, my dear. I’m subject to these moods now and then. What I need is a gallop to blow the cobwebs away.”
She came with him to the door and he collected his cloak and hat. As they moved out onto the steps, she smiled up at him, face pale in the lamplight. “I’ll see you again?”
He took her hands in his and held them for a moment. “Try and keep me away.”
Her face broke into a radiant smile and she moved very close and said softly, “Don’t do anything foolish, Clay.”
He turned away down the steps, and as he climbed into his coach, one of the footmen said to a groom who lounged against the wall, “Mr. Marley wants his coach to be ready for eleven.”
For a moment, Clay paused as he watched the footman run back up the steps and enter the house, and then he knew, with complete surety, what he had to do. He hammered on the roof with his fist and Joshua whipped up the horses and took them away in a burst of speed.
5
When they reached Claremont, he went straight up to his bedroom and started to change. As he pulled on his riding boots, Joshua appeared in