Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini Read Free Book Online Page B

propose," Ruth answered bitterly, and left them gaping. "We are to be married this day se'night."
    A dead silence followed the calm announcement. Then Diana rose. At the misery, the anguish that could impress so strange and white a look on Ruth's winsome face, she was smitten with remorse,
her incipient satisfaction dashed. This was her work; the fruit of her scheming. But it had gone further than she had foreseen; and for all that no result could better harmonize with her own
ambitions and desires, for the moment — under the first shock of that announcement — she felt guilty and grew afraid.
    "Ruth!" she cried, her voice a whisper of stupefaction. "Oh, I wish I had come with you!"
    "But you couldn't; you were faint." And then — recalling what had passed — her mind was filled with sudden concern for Diana, even amid her own sore troubles. "Are you quite yourself
again, Diana?" she inquired.
    Diana answered almost fiercely, "I am quite well." And then, with a change to wistfulness, she added, "Oh, I would I had come with you!"
    "Matters had been no different," Ruth assured her. "It was a bargain Mr. Wilding drove. It was the price I had to pay for Richard's life and honour." She swallowed hard, and let her hands fall
limply to her sides. "Where is Richard?" she inquired.
    It was her aunt who answered her. "He went forth half an hour agone with Mr. Vallancey and Sir Rowland."
    "Sir Rowland had returned, then?" She looked up quickly.
    "Yes," answered Diana. "But he had achieved nothing by his visit to Lord Gervase. His lordship would not intervene; he swore he hoped the cub would be flayed alive by Wilding. Those were his
lordship's words, as Sir Rowland repeated them. Sir Rowland is in sore distress for Richard. He has gone with them to the meeting."
    "At least, he has no longer cause for his distress," said Miss Westmacott with her bitter smile, and sank as one exhausted to a chair. Lady Horton moved to comfort her, her motherliness all
aroused for this motherless girl, usually so wise and strong, and seemingly wiser and stronger than ever in this thing that Lady Horton had deemed a weakness and a folly.
    Meanwhile, Richard and his two friends were on their way to the moors across the river to the encounter with Mr. Wilding. But before they had got him to ride forth, Vallancey had had occasion to
regret that he stood committed to a share in this quarrel, for he came to know Richard as he really was. He had found him in an abject state, white and trembling, his coward's fancy anticipating a
hundred times a minute the death he was anon to die.
    Vallancey had hailed him cheerily.
    "The day is yours, Dick," he had cried, when Richard entered the library where he awaited him. "Wild Wilding has ridden to Taunton this morning and is to be back by noon. 'Odsbud, Dick! —
twenty miles and more in the saddle before coming on the ground. Heard you ever of the like madness? He'll be stiff as a broom-handle — an easy victim."
    Richard listened, stared, and, finding Vallancey's eyes fixed steadily upon him, attempted a smile and achieved a horrible grimace.
    "What ails you, man?" cried his second, and caught him by the wrist. He felt the quiver of the other's limb. "Stab me!" quoth he, "you are in no case to fight. What the plague ails you?"
    "I am none so well this morning," answered Richard feebly. "Lord Gervase's claret," he added, passing a hand across his brow.
    "Lord Gervase's claret?" echoed Vallancey in horror, as at some outrageous blasphemy. "Frontignac at ten shillings the bottle!" he exclaimed.
    "Still, claret never does lie easy on my stomach," Richard explained, intent upon blaming Lord Gervase's wine — since he could think of nothing else — for his condition.
    Vallancey looked at him shrewdly. "My cock," said he, "if you're to fight we'll have to mend your temper." He took it upon himself to ring the bell, and to order up two bottles of Canary and one
of brandy. If he was to get his man to the ground