Careful, Georgy, thought Apple. This style of speech would only infuriate Marjorie. So it proved.
“So that’s your attitude, is it? I’m more than seven, Lady Georgiana Edginton, and your name has come up in my investigations more than once, I’ll have you know.”
“My name?” Georgy’s tone was a model of disbelief. “I cannot imagine what you mean.”
“She’s lying!” Walter was in again. “She can’t keep her eyes still, watch.”
Oh, this was intolerable! Poor Georgy! What should Apple do? If she burst out to succour her friend, all would be lost.
“Lady Georgiana, I’ll ask you straight,” said Marjorie with deliberation, “where is your brother?”
“I have not the least idea,” Georgy snapped, abandoning her pose of outraged aristocracy. “Nor do I know why you should suppose I keep track of his movements.”
“He’s been here, though, and within the last few days.”
Georgy remained silent. Again, Apple was hard put to it not to enter the scene. Her fright had given way to fury. It was monstrous of Marjorie to subject Georgy to this rude catechism.
“And he had my cousin with him when he came, that much I do know.”
Georgy rallied. “Do you indeed? Then you know a deal more than I.”
“What’s more,” pursued Marjorie in that inexorable way that had so often driven Apple into frenzy, “I’ve since discovered you’ve a young girl staying with you.”
“Indeed?”
“You were at Emmeline’s with her. The woman couldn’t wait to boast of having your custom. That’s how we found you, Lady Georgiana. Not that we wouldn’t have done in any event, but it was a deal easier to follow the delivery boy than to cast about asking all and sundry how to find Merrivale House.”
From Georgy’s silence, it was evident this impertinence had flummoxed her. In all the panic and flurry, Apple had not noticed the cart that must have come through either ahead or before the Greenaway’s coach. It would have gone around the back of the house in any event, though Apple was surprised none of them had heard a clopping horse.
“Well?” Walter spoke again, in a horrid crowing growl, as if he knew Georgy was beaten. “Nothing to say, eh? I wasn’t convinced, Marje, but I am now.”
It was too much. Apple set her hand on the door knob. She was stayed by the sound of the parlour door opening, and a new voice spoke.
“What the deuce is to do here? Who are you people? And what the devil do you mean by badgering my sister?”
Chapter Eleven
Satisfied to see the stunned expressions of the unwelcome visitors, Alex stalked into the parlour, sizing them up. The woman, whom he took to be Apple’s cousin Marjorie, was of middling stature but rather too much girth and a large bosom, with hard grey eyes in a round countenance, high-coloured just now and hostile.
The man was stocky, but a protruding belly indicated an addiction to the fleshpots and veining to his nose and cheeks suggested an avid partiality to the wine he sold. Since he resembled the female in face if not form, Alex took him for Walter Greenaway rather than the despised Cumberledge.
Before he could say anything further, Georgy chimed in.
“Thank goodness you are here, Alex! How you came so opportunely I have no notion, but I am so glad and I wish you will rid me of these people at once!”
His arrival on the scene was not as fortuitous as it appeared, but he could explain all that later. No time now, when Marjorie Greenaway, having evidently recovered from surprise, was turning on him with an ominous look.
“So am I glad to see you, Lord Dymond, if that is who you are. Answer me this. Where is my cousin?”
Alex regarded her with hauteur. “Ain’t about to answer your question, ma’am, until you’ve answered mine. Who are you?”
“We’re Appoline’s cousins, sir, as you must very well guess. It’s no use denying you abducted Apple because we’ve followed your movements from Winchester, and we know you brought her here.”
“My movements ain’t your concern, ma’am, and as for abduction, boot’s on the other leg.”
The woman’s jaw dropped open. “Well, if I ever heard the like!”
Here the fellow Walter took a hand, jerking forward. “What’s this? What are you saying? What does he mean, Marje?”
