The Corinthian by Georgette Heyer Page A

first heard of his disappearance—for you must know that he did not sleep in his bed last night, and when I saw him he was foxed—I felt the gravest alarm. But—'
    'Suicide, by God!' Cedric gave a shout of laughter. 'I must tell Melissa that! Driven to death! Ricky! Oh, by all that's famous!'
    'Cedric, you are quite abominable!' said Louisa roundly. 'Of course Richard has not committed suicide! He has merely gone away. I'm sure I don't know where, and if you say anything of the sort to Melissa I shall never forgive you! In fact, I beg you will tell Melissa nothing more than that Richard has been called away on an urgent matter of business.'
    'What, can't I tell her about the lock of yaller hair? Now, don't be a spoil-sport, Louisa!'
    'Odious creature!'
    'We believe the lock of hair to be a relic of some long-forgotten affair,' said George. 'Possibly a boy-and-girl attachment. It would be gross impropriety to mention it beyond these walls.'
    'If it comes to that, old fellow, what about the gross impropriety of poking and prying into Ricky's drawers?' asked Cedric cheerfully.
    'We did no such thing!' Louisa cried. 'It was found upon the floor in the library!'
    'Dropped? Discarded? Seems to me Ricky's been leading a double life. I'd have said myself he never troubled much about females. Won't I roast him when I see him!'
    'You will do nothing of the sort. Oh dear, I wish to heaven I knew where he has gone, and what it all means!'
    'I'll tell you where he's gone!' offered Cedric. 'He's gone to find the yaller-haired charmer of his youth. Not a doubt of it! Lord, I'd give a monkey to see him, though. Ricky on a romantic adventure!'
    'Now you are being absurd!' said Louisa. 'If one thing is certain, it is that Richard has not one grain of romance in his disposition, while as for adventure—! I dare say he would shudder at the mere thought of it. Richard, my dear Cedric, is first, last, and always a man of fashion, and he will never do anything unbefitting a Corinthian. You may take my word for that!'
     
    Chapter 4
     
    T he man of fashion, at that precise moment, was sleeping heavily in one corner of a huge green-and-gold Accommodation coach, swaying and rocking on its ponderous way to Bristol. The hour was two in the afternoon, the locality Calcot Green, west of Reading and the dreams troubling the repose of the man of fashion were extremely uneasy. He had endured some waking moments, when the coach had stopped with a lurch and a heave to take up or to set down passengers, to change horses, or to wait while a laggardly pike-keeper opened a gate upon the road. These moments had seemed to him more fraught with nightmare even than his dreams. His head was aching, his eyeballs seemed to be on fire, and a phantasmagoria of strange, unwelcome faces swam before his outraged vision. He had shut his eyes again with a groan, preferring his dreams to reality, but when the coach stopped at Calcot Green to put down a stout woman with a tendency to asthma, sleep finally deserted him, and he opened his eyes, blinked at the face of a precise-looking man in a suit of neat black, seated opposite him, ejaculated: 'Oh, my God!' and sat up.
    'Is your head very bad?' asked a solicitous and vaguely familiar voice in his ear.
    He turned his head, and encountered the enquiring gaze of Miss Penelope Creed. He looked at her in silence for a few moments; then he said: 'I remember. Stage-coach—Bristol. Why, oh why, did I touch the brandy?'
    An admonitory pinch made him recollect his surroundings. He found that there were three other persons in the coach, seated opposite to him, and that all were regarding him with interest. The precise-looking man, whom he judged to be an attorney's clerk, was frankly disapproving; a woman in a poke-bonnet and a paduasoy shawl nodded to him in a motherly style, and said that he was like her second boy, who could not abide the rocking of the coach either; and a large man beside her, whom he took to be her husband,