Read Online Friday's Child by Georgette Heyer - Free Book Online Page B

head portentously. “Taken one of his pets,” he said. “Came smash up to me in Boodles yesterday, asking where you was. If I’d had my wits about me I’d have said you’d gone off to Leicestershire. Deuced sorry, Sherry! Never at my best before noon!”
    “Oh hang George!” said Sherry. “He needn’t think he’s going to blow a hole through me, because he ain’t.”
    “Seemed very set on it,” said Mr Fakenham doubtfully.
    “Tell him to take a damper! That’s not what I came about. Gil, where does a fellow get hold of a special licence?”
    The effect of this question was to cast his lordship’s two cronies into stunned silence. Mr Fakenham’s rather prominent eyes goggled alarmingly at his cousin; Mr Ringwood’s jaw visibly dropped.
    "Now what’s the matter?” demanded Sherry. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of a special licence! Of course you have!”
    Mr Ringwood swallowed once or twice. “You don’t mean a marriage licence, do you, Sherry?”
    “Yes, I do. What else should I mean? Thing you have to have if you want to get married in a hurry.”
    “Sherry, she’s never accepted you?” gasped Mr Ringwood, his brain tottering.
    “She?” said the Viscount, frowning at him. “Oh, the Incomparable! Oh, lord, no! Wouldn’t look at me! It’s not she.”
    “Good God!” said Mr Ringwood, relaxing. “I wish you will not burst in on a fellow with a shock like that, Sherry, dear old boy! Gave me such a turn—! Who wants this special licence?”
    “I do. Don’t I keep on telling you so? Seems to me you must have shot the cat about as badly as Ferdy last night!”
    Mr Ringwood stared at him, and then, as though mutely seeking guidance, at Mr Fakenham.
    “But you said she wouldn’t look at you!” said Mr Fakenham. “Heard you distinctly. If she won’t look at you, no sense in a special licence. No sense in it either way. Banns: that’s what you want.”
    “No, I don’t,” replied Sherry. “Banns won’t do for me at all. I must have a licence.”
    “Much cheaper to have banns,” argued Mr Fakenham. “Where’s the use in laying out your blunt on a licence? Stupid things: much better stick to banns!”
    “You’re a fool, Ferdy,” said his lordship, not mincing matters. “I’m getting married today, and I can’t do that without a licence.”
    “Sherry, it’s you who must have shot the cat!” exclaimed Mr Ringwood, with a touch of severity. “How can you be married today, when you say she wouldn’t look at you?”
    “Lord, can’t you think of any other female than Isabella Milborne?” demanded Sherry. “I’m going to marry someone else, of course!”
    Mr Ringwood blinked at him. “Someone else?” he said incredulously.
    Mr Fakenham, having thought it over, pronounced: “Oh! Someone else. No reason why he shouldn’t do that, Gil.”
    “I don’t say he can’t do it,” replied Mr Ringwood. “What I say is that it sounds to me like a hum. He went off to Kent to offer for Isabella, didn’t he? Very well, then! Now he walks in here and says he’s going to marry someone else. Well, what I mean is, it’s absurd! No other word for it: absurd!”
    “You’re right!” said Ferdy, forcibly struck by this presentation of the case. “He’s bamming again. You shouldn’t do it, Sherry. Not at this hour of the morning!”
    “Confound you both, I’m in earnest!” Sherry said, setting his tankard down with a crash which made Ferdy jump like a startled deer. “I’m going to marry a girl I’ve known all my life! Damme, I must marry someone! I shan’t have a feather to fly with if I don’t.”
    “Who is she?” asked Mr Ringwood. “You’ve never offered for the Stowe girl, Sherry, dear old boy? Not the rabbity-faced one?”
    “No, of course I haven’t. You don’t know her: never been to London in her life! I ran off with her yesterday.”
    “But, Sherry!” expostulated Mr Ringwood, a good deal shaken. “No, really, dear boy! You can’t do that sort of