Lord Horbury

In the novel Death in the Clouds, Stephen, Earl of Horbury is the husband of Lady Cicely Horbury, one of the passengers on board the Prometheus when Madame Giselle was murdered.

Lord Horbury is twenty-seven years old, and has a narrow head and long chin. He is described as looking "very much like what he was--a sporting out-of-door kind of man without anything very spectacular in the way of brains". He is "kind-hearted, slightly priggish, intensely loyal and invincibly obstinate".

He had been passionately in love with Cicely at one time, but now he dislikes and even hates her. He even says that if she died, he would feel like a man who had been let out of prison. Because they do not get along, they live separately, he at Horbury Chase, and she at their town house in Grosvenor Square. He says that he would divorce her if he had a cause, but otherwise he doubts that she would accept a divorce.

Lord Horbury has known Venetia Kerr since they were children, and is fond of her.

Portrayals
In the the film adaptation of Death in the Clouds in Series 4 of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot drama series, the part of Lord Horbury is played by David Firth. Here he has a larger role than in the original novel. He is present in Paris with Cicely and Venetia at the beginning of the episode to watch the Roland Garros tennis tournament. Upset that Cicely seems to spend all her time drinking and running up debts by gambling, he decided to skip the tennis finals and fly home early, and was thus not on board the fateful flight of the Prometheus. After his wife becomes a suspect in the murder of Madame Giselle, he calls on Poirot and tells Poirot to give him some background. According to Horbury, his marriage to Cicely is going badly. Cicely was becoming bored with the country life. She had taken to drinking and gambling and indeed know Madame Giselle and owed her a large sum of moeny. However he did not think the debts was sufficient motive for murder. It just did not fit her character. Like in the book, Horbury and Venetia Kerr were attracted to each other and shared common interests. However here, Cicely seemed to know a lot about it and didn't seem to mind, as long as they left her free to pursue her own pastimes of drinking and gambling.