The note to Cecilia was soon finished and closed with a wafer. Sophy rose from the writing table, and Charlbury ventured to ask her whether she desired him to drive her to Ashtead in his curricle.
“No, no, I have hired a post chaise! I daresay it will be here directly. You did not come in your curricle?”
“No, I walked from Brooks’s. You are making a stay in the country?”
“I hardly know. Will you wait while I put on my hat and cloak?”
He assented, and she went away, returning presently with Tina frisking about her in the expectation of being taken for a walk. The hack chaise was already at the door, and Dassett, quite as mystified as Lord Charlbury, had directed a footman to strap Miss Stanton-Lacy’s portmanteau onto the back. Sophy gave her two last notes into his hand, directing him to be sure that Mr. and Miss Rivenhall received them immediately upon their return to the house. Five minutes later she was seated in the chaise beside Charlbury and expressing the hope that the threatened rainstorm would hold off until they had reached Lacy Manor. Tina jumped up into her lap, and she then told his lordship that she had encountered in the Green Park just such another Italian greyhound, who had made no secret of his admiration of Tina. Tina’s coquetry had to be described; this led an amusing account of the jealousy of Mr. Rivenhall’s spaniel, brought up by him from the country for a couple of nights; and in this way, by easy gradations, Lord Charlbury found himself discussing pheasant shooting, fox hunting, and various other sporting pursuits.
These topics lasted until the Kennington turnpike had been passed, by which time his lordship’s faculties, at first bewildered, were very much on the alert. He fancied that the mischief was back in Sophy’s eye. At Lower Tooting, he politely allowed his gaze to be directed to the curious church tower, with its circular form surmounted by a square wooden frame, with a low spire of shingles above it; but when Sophy leaned back again in her corner of the chaise, he said, watching her face, “Sophy, are we by any chance eloping together?”
Her rich chuckle broke from her. “No, no, it is not as bad I as that! Must I tell you?”
“I know very well you have some abominable scheme afoot! Tell me at once!”
She threw him a sidelong look, and he had now no doubt f that the mischief was back in her eye. “Well, the truth is, Charlbury, that I have kidnapped you.”
After a stunned moment, he began to laugh. In this she readily joined him, but when he had recovered from the first absurdity of the notion, he said, “I might have known there was devilry afoot when I saw that your faithful Potton was absent! But what is this, Sophy? Why am I kidnapped? To what end?”
“So that I may be so compromised that you will be obliged to marry me, of course,” replied Sophy matter of factly.
This cheerful explanation had the effect of making him start bolt upright, exclaiming, “Sophy!”
She smiled. “Oh, don’t be alarmed! I have sent John Potton with a letter to Sancia, begging her to come to Lacy Manor at once.”
“Good God, do you place any dependence upon her doing so?”
“Oh, yes, certainly! She has a very kind heart, you know, and would never fail me when I particularly desired her help.”
He relaxed against the squabs again, but said, “I don’t know what you deserve! I am still quite in a puzzle. Why have you done it?”
“Why, don’t you see? I have left behind me a letter for Cecilia, telling her that I am about to sacrifice myself — ”
“Thank you!” interjected his lordship.
“ — and you,” continued Sophy serenely, “so that my uncle may be silenced at last. You know, for I told you so, that I persuaded him to announce to poor Cecy his unalterable decision that she was to wed you! If I know Cecy, the shock will bring her posthaste to Ashtead, to rescue the pair of us. If, my dear Charlbury, you cannot help yourself in that eventuality, I wash my hands of you!”
“I can find it in me to wish you had done so long since!” was his ungrateful response. “Outrageous, Sophy, outrageous! And what if neither she nor the Marquesa comes to Lacy Manor? Let me tell you that nothing will serve to induce me to compromise you!”
“No, indeed! I should dislike it excessively! If that happened, I fear you will be obliged to spend the night at Leatherhead. It is not very far from Lacy Manor, and I believe you may be tolerably comfortable at the Swan. Or you might hire a chaise to carry you back to London. But Sancia at least will not fail.”
“Have you told Cecilia that you have kidnapped me?” he demanded. She nodded, and he exclaimed, “I could murder you! What a trick to play! And what a figure I must cut!”
“She won’t think of that. Do you recall that I told you only the other day that she must be made to pity you instead of Augustus? Besides that, I am persuaded she will suffer perfect torments of jealousy! Only fancy! I was quite at a stand until I remembered what I had once heard pronounced by a most distinguished soldier! ‘Surprise is the essence of attack!’ The most fortunate circumstance!”
“Was it not?” he said sarcastically. “I have a very good mind to get down at the next pike!”
“You will ruin all if you do.”
“It is abominable, Sophy!”
“Yes, if the motive were not pure!”
He said nothing, and she too remained silent for several minutes. At last, having turned it over in his mind, he said, “You had better tell me the whole. That I have only heard half I have no doubt at all! Where does Charles Rivenhall stand in all this?”
She folded her hands on Tina’s back. “Alas! I have quarreled so dreadfully with Charles that I am obliged to seek refuge at Lacy Manor!” she said mournfully.
“And have doubtless left a note behind you to inform him of this!”
“Of course!”
“I foresee a happy meeting!” he commented bitterly.
“That,” she acknowledged, “was the difficulty! But I think I can overcome it. I promise you, Charlbury, you shall come out of this with a whole skin — well, no, perhaps not quite that, but very nearly!”
“You do not know how much you relieve my mind! I daresay I may not be a match for Rivenhall, either with pistols or with my fists, but give me the credit for not being quite so great a poltroon as to fear a meeting with him!”
“I do,” she assured him. “But it can serve no good purpose for Charles to mill you down — have I that correctly?”
“Quite correctly!”
“ — or to put a bullet through you,” she ended, her serenity unshaken.
He was obliged to laugh. “I see that Rivenhall is more to be pitied than I am! Why did you quarrel with him?”
“I had to make an excuse for flying from Berkeley Square! You must perceive that! I could think of nothing else to do but to take out that young chestnut he has bought lately. A beautiful creature! Such grand, sloping shoulders! Such an action! But quite unbroke to London traffic and by far too strong for any female to hold!”
“I have seen the horse. Do you tell me seriously, Sophy, that you took him out?”
“I did — shocking, was it not? I assure you, I suffered a real qualm in my conscience! No harm, however! He did not bolt with me, and Charles came to the rescue before I found myself in real difficulty. The things he said to me — ! I have never seen him in such a fury! If only I could remember the half of the insults he flung at my head! It is no matter, however; they gave me all the cause I needed to fly from his vicinity.”
He closed his eyes for an anguished moment. “Informing him, no doubt, that you had sought my protection?”
“No, there was no need; Cecy will tell him that!”