“My dear Crosby, why not say a very young lady? I feel sure you know her age.”
Mr Drelincourt sniffed. “I scarcely credited it, cousin, I confess. A schoolroom miss, and you well above thirty! I wish you may not live to regret it.”
“Are you sure,” said his lordship, “that you won’t have some of this excellent beef?”
An artistic shudder ran through his cousin. “I never—positively never—eat flesh at this hour of the morning!” said Mr Drelincourt emphatically. “It is of all things the most repugnant to me. Of course you must know how people will laugh at this odd marriage. Seventeen and thirty-five! Upon my honour, I should not care to appear so ridiculous!” He gave an angry titter, and added venomously: “To be sure, no one need wonder at the young lady’s part in it! We all know how it is with the Winwoods. She does very well for herself, very well indeed!”
The Earl leaned back in his chair, one hand in his breeches pocket, the other quite idly playing with his quizzing-glass. “Crosby,” he said gently, “if ever you repeat that remark I am afraid—I am very much afraid—that you will quite certainly predecease me.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Mr Drelincourt looked down at his cousin and saw that under the heavy lids those bored eyes had entirely lost their smile. They held a very unpleasant glint. Mr Drelincourt cleared his throat, and said, his voice jumping a little: “My dear Marcus—! I assure you I meant nothing in the world! How you do take one up!”
“You must forgive me,” said his lordship, still with that alarming grimness about his mouth.
“Oh, certainly! I don’t give it a thought,” said Mr Drelincourt. “Consider it forgotten, cousin, and as for the cause, you have me wrong, quite wrong, you know.”
The Earl continued to regard him for a moment; then the grimness left his face, and he suddenly laughed.
Mr Drelincourt picked up his hat and cane, and was about to take his leave when the door opened briskly, and a lady came in. She was of middle height, dressed in a gown of apple-green cambric with white stripes, in the style known as vive bergere, and had a very becoming straw hat with ribands perched upon her head. A scarf caught over one arm, and a sunshade with a long handle completed her toilet, and in her hand she carried, as Mr Drelincourt saw at a glance, a copy of the London Gazette.
She was an extremely handsome woman, with most speaking eyes, at once needle-sharp, and warmly smiling, and she bore a striking resemblance to the Earl.
On the threshold she checked, her quick gaze taking in Mr Drelincourt. “Oh—Crosby!” she said, with unveiled dissatisfaction.
Rule got up, and took her hand. “My dear Louisa, have you also come to breakfast?” he inquired.
She kissed him in a sisterly fashion, and replied with energy: “I breakfasted two hours ago, but you may give me some coffee. I see you are just going, Crosby. Pray don’t let me keep you. Dear me, why will you wear those very odd clothes, my good creature? And that absurd wig don’t become you, take my word for it!”
Mr Drelincourt, feeling unable to cope adequately with his cousin, merely bowed, and wished her good morning. No sooner had he minced out of the room than Lady Louisa Quain flung down her copy of the Gazette before Rule. “No need to ask why that odious little toad came,” she remarked. “But, my dear Marcus, it is too provoking! There is the most nonsensical mistake made! Have you seen it?”
Rule began to pour coffee into his own unused cup. “Dear Louisa, do you realize that it is not yet eleven o’clock, and I have already had Crosby with me? What time can I have had to read the Gazette?”
She took the cup from him, observing that she could not conceive how he should care to go on drinking ale with his breakfast. “You will have to put in a second advertisement,” she informed him. “I can’t imagine how they came to make such a stupid mistake. My dear they have confused the names of the sisters! Here it is! You may read for yourself: “The Honourable Horatia Winwood, youngest daughter of—” Really, if it were not so vexing it would be diverting! But how in the world came they to put “Horatia” for “Elizabeth”?”
“You see,” said Rule apologetically, “Arnold sent the ad-vertisement to the Gazette.”
“Well, I never would have believed Mr Gisborne to be so big a fool!” declared her ladyship.
“But perhaps I ought to explain, my dear Louisa, that he had my authority,” said Rule still more apologetically.
Lady Louisa, who had been studying the advertisement with a mixture of disgust and amusement, let the Gazette drop, and twisted round in her chair to stare up at her brother in astonishment. “Lord, Rule, what can you possibly mean?” she demanded. “You’re not going to marry Horatia Winwood!”
“But I am,” said his lordship calmly.
“Rule, have you gone mad? You told me positively you had offered for Elizabeth!”
“My shocking memory for names!” mourned his lordship.
Lady Louisa brought her open hand down on the table. “Nonsense!” she said. “Your memory’s as good as mine!”
“My dear, I should not like to think that,” said the Earl. “Your memory is sometimes too good.”
“Oh!” said the lady critically surveying him. “Well, you had best make a clean breast of it. Do you really mean to marry that child?”
“Well, she certainly means to marry me,” said his lordship.
“What?” gasped Lady Louisa.
“You see,” explained the Earl, resuming his seat, “though it ought to be Charlotte, she has no mind to make such a sacrifice, even for Elizabeth’s sake.”
“Either you are out of your senses, or I am!” declared Lady Louisa with resignation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and how you can mean to marry Horatia, who must be still in the schoolroom, for I’m sure I have never clapped eyes on her—in place of that divinely beautiful Elizabeth—”
“Ah, but I am going to grow used to the eyebrows,” interrupted Rule. “And she has the Nose.”
“Rule,” said her ladyship with dangerous quiet, “do not goad me too far! Where have you seen this child?”
He regarded her with a smile hovering round his mouth. “If I told you, Louisa, you would probably refuse to believe me.”
She cast up her eyes. “When did you have this notion of marrying her?” she asked.
“Oh, I didn’t,” replied the Earl. “It was not my notion at all.”
“Whose, then?”
“Horatia’s, my dear. I thought I had explained.”
“Do you tell me, Marcus, the girl asked you to marry her?” said Lady Louisa sarcastically.
“Instead of Elizabeth,” nodded his lordship. “Elizabeth, you see, is going to marry Mr Heron.”
“Who in the world is Mr Heron?” cried Lady Louisa. “I declare, I never heard such a farrago! Confess, you are trying to take me in.”
“Not at all, Louisa. You don’t understand the situation at all. One of them must marry me.”
“That I can believe,” she said dryly. “But this nonsense about Horatia? What is the truth of it?”
“Only that Horatia offered herself to me in her sister’s place. And that—but I need not tell you—is quite for your ears alone.”
Lady Louisa was not in the habit of giving way to amazement, and she did not now indulge in fruitless ejaculations. “Marcus, is the girl a minx?” she asked.
“No,” he answered. “She is not, Louisa. I am not at all sure that she is not a heroine.”
“Don’t she wish to marry you?”
The Earl’s eyes gleamed. “Well, I am rather old, you know, though no one would think it to look at me. But she assures me she would quite like to marry me. If my memory serves me, she prophesied that we should deal famously together.”
Lady Louisa, watching him, said abruptly: “Rule, is this a love-match?”
His brows rose; he looked faintly amused. “My dear Louisa! At my age?”
“Then marry the Beauty,” she said. “That one would understand better.”