All this, however, was forgotten, for she had a new and absorbing interest to distract her. Still holding up the pink domino, she wondered how the new interest would like it; and came to the conclusion that he must be hard indeed to please if he did not.
She was so lost in these agreeable speculations that she did not hear the door open behind her, and had no notion that she was not alone until a dry voice, which made her jump nearly out of her skin, said: ‘Charming!’
She spun about, instinctively bundling the domino into a heap. ‘Oh! I thought you was gone out!’ she gasped.
Mr Wrexham shut the door, and walked forward. He was a tall man, with raven-black hair, and uncomfortably penetrating grey eyes. His air of distinction owed nothing to his dress, for this was careless. Stultz certainly made his coats, but he was never permitted to give his genius full rein. Mr Wrexham preferred to enter his coats without the assistance of his valet; and was so indifferent to the exigencies of the mode that when every Pink of the Ton was to be seen abroad in pantaloons and Hessians in the Bank of England to a Charley’s shelter that he would emerge from Jackson’s Boxing Saloon attired in riding-breeches and top-boots, and with a Belcher handkerchief negligently knotted about his neck. In a lesser man such conduct would have occasioned severe censure; but, as his mama pointed out to his sister, if you were Wrexham of Lyonshall there was nothing you might not do with the approval of Society.
‘It—it is a gown I chose yesterday!’ said Letty.
‘Do you take me for a flat?’ replied her brother. ‘It is a domino.’ He picked up from the floor Madame Celestine’s bill, and his brows rose. ‘Quite an expensive domino, in fact!’
‘I am sure there is no reason why I should not buy expensive things!’ said Letty, trying to turn the issue.
‘None at all, but this seems an extortionate price to pay for something you will not wear.’
Colour rushed up into her exquisite little face. ‘I shall! I shall wear it!’ she declared.
‘I have already told you, my dear sister, that I will not permit you to go to a Pantheon masquerade, least of all in the company of a military fortune-hunter!’
Her eyes blazed with wrath. ‘How dare you say such a thing? You have never so much as set eyes on Edwin!’
‘He would appear to have taken good care of that,’ said Mr Wrexham, with a curl of his lip.
‘It is untrue! He would have been very glad to have met you! It was I who forbade it, because I knew how horrid you would be!’
At this moment, the door opened, and a faded lady came in, saying in a voice that matched her ethereal mien: ‘Oh, here you are, my love! If we are to visit the Exhibition—Oh, is that you, Giles?’
‘As you see, Mama. Pray postpone your visit to the Exhibition, and look at this!’ He twitched the domino out of Letty’s hands as he spoke, and shook it out before his mother’s eyes.
Lady Albinia Wrexham, realizing that a scene highly prejudicial to her enfeebled constitution was about to take place, sank into a chair, and groped in her reticule for her vinaigrette. ‘Oh, dear!’ she sighed. ‘Dearest child, if your brother dislikes it so very much, don’t you think—?’
‘No!’ said Letty. ‘Giles dislikes everything I wish to do, and—and every gentleman who admires me!’
‘With reason!’ said Giles. ‘You have now been on the town for less than a year, my girl, and I have been obliged to repulse no fewer than eight gazetted fortune-hunters!’
‘Edwin is not a fortune-hunter!’
‘Indeed, Giles, I think him an unexceptionable young man!’ interpolated Lady Albinia.
‘Let me remind you, ma’am, that you said the same of Winforton!’
‘To be sure, I could wish that he were not serving in a Line regiment,’ said her ladyship feebly. ‘But his birth is perfectly respectable! I own, I should wish dear Letty to make a far more brilliant match, but—’
‘Not I! I am going to marry Edwin, and follow the drum!’ announced Letty.
Her brother threw her a glance half of amusement, half of exasperation. ‘I should be sorry for any penniless lieutenant of Foot who was saddled with you for a wife, my dear!’
‘But if he married Letty,’ pointed out her ladyship, not entirely felicitously, ‘he would not be penniless, Giles!’
‘Exactly so!’ he said sardonically.
‘You are unjust!’ Letty cried. ‘All you care for is that I should make a splendid marriage, and nothing for my happiness!’
‘At present,’ he returned, ‘I am not anxious to see you make any marriage at all. When you have ceased to imagine yourself to be in love with every man who dangles after you—why, yes! I should wish you to make a good match!’
‘Then I wonder you don’t make one yourself!’ she flashed. ‘I dare say there must be a score of eligible females casting out lures to you!’
‘You flatter me,’ he replied, unmoved.
‘Oh, no, it is very true, Giles!’ his mother assured him. ‘And I wish very much that I could see you creditably established! There is Rothwell’s daughter, or—’
‘Oh, no, Mama!’ Letty struck in, with an angry little titter. ‘Giles does not make Earls’ daughters the objects of his gallantry! When he marries, he will chose a dab of a girl in an outmoded bonnet, and a black pelisse!’
2
A tinge of colour stole into her brother’s lean cheeks, but he said nothing. Lady Albinia, looking very much shocked, exclaimed: ‘Dear child, I do not know what you can possibly mean!’
‘It is wickedly unjust!’ Letty declared, a sob in her throat. ‘Giles will have nothing to say to my dearest Edwin because he has neither title nor fortune, but I know very well that if he could but have discovered where she lived he would have offered for a Nobody that was never at Almack’s or—or anywhere one would look for a lady of quality!’
‘Your imagination is as unbridled as your tongue,’ Mr Wrexham said curtly.
‘But what is this?’ demanded Lady Albinia, greatly bewildered.
‘You may well ask!’ he replied. ‘I hope you mean to enlighten us, Letty: who is the Nobody your fancy has marked down as my bride?’
‘You know very well that I mean the girl who was knocked down in Bond Street, that day you and I were going to Hookham’s Library! You may try to hoax me, but I know why you have been so obliging as to escort me to Almack’s three times this month, and why you have taken to driving your phaeton in the Park every afternoon! You are trying to find her, because you were so much struck by the sweetest face you ever beheld that you lost your wits, and never even discovered what was her name!’
Lady Albinia turned astonished eyes towards her son. He uttered a short laugh. ‘One of Letty’s high flights, ma’am! The truth is merely that some girl had the misfortune to be knocked down by a curricle and pair, and I rendered her such assistance as lay within my power. Had she come by her deserts, she must have suffered serious injury. Happily, she was merely stunned for a minute. I trust that the incident has served to convince her of the folly of stepping into the road before ascertaining that no vehicle is at that moment approaching.’