“Don’t be alarmed!” Ravenscar told Miss Grantham. “They are only a little fresh.”

“I wonder you can hold them so easily!” she confessed, repressing an instinctive desire to clutch the side of the curricle.

He smiled, but returned no answer. They swept round the corner into King Street, turned westwards, and bowled along in the direction of St James’s Street.

There was sufficient traffic abroad to keep Mr Ravenscar’s attention fixed on his task, for the greys, though perfectly well-mannered, chose to take high-bred exception to a wagon which was rumbling along at the side of the road, to shy playfully at a sedan, to regard with sudden misgiving a lady’s feathered hat, and to decide that the lines of white posts, linked with chains, that separated the footpaths from the kennels and the road, menaced them with a hitherto unsuspected danger. But the gates leading into Hyde Park were reached without mishap, and once within them the greys settled into a fine, forward action, satisfied, apparently, to find themselves in surroundings more suited to their birth and lineage.

There were several other equipages in the Park, including some phaetons, and a number of barouches. Mr Ravenscar touched his hat every now and then to acquaintances, but presently, drawing away from the other vehicles, he was able to turn his attention to his companion.

“Are you comfortable, Miss Grantham?”

“Very. Your carriage is beautifully sprung. Do you drive it in your race?”

“Oh, no! I have an especially built racing-curricle for that.

“Shall you win?” she asked, looking up at him with a slight smile.

“I hope so. Do you mean to hazard your money on my greys?”

“Oh, I must certainly do so! But I have never the least luck, I must tell you, and shall very likely bring you bad fortune.”

“I am not afraid of that. Your luck was out last night, but I hope you may come about again.”

“That is very pretty of you, Mr Ravenscar, but I fear it was my skill rather than my luck which was at fault,” she owned.

“Perhaps.” He looped his rein dexterously as the greys overtook a gig, and let it run free again as they shot past. “It is to be hoped that your ill-luck is not consistent. It would surely be disastrous to the success of your delightful establishment if this were so.”

“It would indeed,” she agreed somewhat ruefully. “The world is too apt to imagine, however, that a gaming-house must be a source of enormous wealth to its proprietors.”

“I collect that this is not so, Miss Grantham?”

“By no means.”

He turned to look down at her, saying with the abruptness which she found disconcerting: “Are you in debt, Miss Grantham?”

She was quite taken aback, and did not answer for a moment. She said then, in a stiffened voice: “What prompts you to ask me such a question, sir?”

“That is no answer,” he pointed out.

“I know of no reason why I should give you one.”

“I should have set your scruples at rest at the outset by informing you that I am not entirely ignorant of your circumstances,” he said.

She regarded him in astonishment. “I cannot conceive how you should know anything about my circumstances, sir!”

“You—or should I say your amiable aunt?—are in debt to Lord Ormskirk.”

“I suppose he told you so,” she said in a mortified tone. “On the contrary, my young cousin told me.”

“Adrian told you?” she exclaimed. “You must be mistaken. Adrian knows nothing of Lord Ormskirk’s dealings with my aunt!”

He reined in his horses to a walk. He thought her a remarkably good actress, but her artlessness irritated him, and it was with a sardonic inflexion that he said: “It is you who are mistaken, Miss Grantham. Mablethorpe seemed to me to be singularly well-informed.”

“Who told him?” she demanded.

He raised his brows. “You would have preferred him to remain in ignorance of your indebtedness to Lord Ormskirk? Well, I can appreciate that.”

“I should prefer everyone to remain in ignorance of it!” she said hotly. “Am I to understand that Ormskirk took your cousin into his confidence? I must tell you that I find it incredible!”

“No, I apprehend that your friend, Mr Kennet, was the source of my cousin’s information.”

She bit her lip, and was silent for a few moments, a good deal discomfited. When she spoke again, it was with studied lightness. “Well! And if this is so I do not immediately perceive why you should interest yourself in the matter, Mr Ravenscar.”

“I might help you out of your difficulties.”

She suffered from a momentary dread that he was about to make her a dishonourable proposal, and gripped her hands together in her lap. It would not be the first time she had been the recipient of such proposals; she was aware that her position in her aunt’s house laid her open to such attacks, and had never permitted herself to receive them in the tragic manner, rather turning them off with a laugh and a jest, but she found herself desperately hoping that Mr Ravenscar was not going to prove himself to be just like other men. Then she recalled the hard light in his eyes, and felt so sure that whatever his motive might be it was not amorous that she dared to ask: “Why?”

“What would you wish me to reply?” he inquired. “I will endeavour to oblige you, but the truth is that I am no fencer.”

She was by now quite bewildered, and said in as blunt a manner as his own: “I don’t understand you! We met for the first time last night, and I did not suppose that—in short, I fancied that you were much inclined to dislike me, sir! Yet today you tell me that you might help me out of what you call my difficulties!”

“Under certain circumstances, Miss Grantham.”

“Indeed! And what circumstances are these?”

“You must be as well aware of them as I am myself,” he said. “I am perfectly willing to be more explicit, however. I am prepared to recompense you handsomely, ma’am, for whatever disappointment you may suffer from the relinquishment of all pretensions to my cousin’s hand and heart.”

She had been so much in the habit of regarding Lord Mablethorpe’s infatuation for her as an absurdity that this forthright speech fell upon her ears with stunning effect. She was quite unable to speak for several moments. A tumult of emotion swelled her bosom, and her brain seethed with a jumble of thoughts. The deepest chagrin battled with a furious desire to slap Mr Ravenscar’s face, to assure him, without mincing her words, that she would rather die a spinster than marry his cousin, and, after telling him her opinion of his manners, morals, and abysmal stupidity, to demand to be set down instantly. A strong inclination to burst into tears accompanied these more violent ambitions, and was followed almost immediately by a resolve to punish Mr Ravenscar in the most vindictive way open to her, and a perfectly irrational determination to show him that she was every bit as bad as he imagined her to be, if not worse. To relinquish her pretensions, as he had the insolence to call them, to Lord Mablethorpe’s hand and heart for the mere asking, was no way of punishing him. She perceived that she must forgo the pleasure of slapping his face. Overcoming the constriction in her throat, she said, with very tolerable command over her voice: “Pray, what do you think a handsome recompense, Mr Ravenscar?”

“Shall we say five thousand pounds, ma’am?”

She gave a tinkle of rather metallic laughter. “Really, sir, I am afraid you are trying to trifle with me!”

“You rate your claims high,” he said grimly. “Certainly: Your cousin is quite devoted to me.”

“My cousin, Miss Grantham, is a minor.”

“Oh, but not for long!” she said. “I am not impatient: I can afford to wait for two months, I assure you.”

“Very well,” he said. “I do not choose to haggle with you, ma’am. I will give you exactly double that sum for my cousin’s release.”

She leaned back in the curricle, very much at her ease, schooling her lips to smile. Mr Ravenscar observed the smile, but failed to notice the dangerous glitter in the lady’s eyes. “Paltry, Mr Ravenscar,” she said gently.

“Come, Miss Grantham, that won’t serve! You will get not a penny more out of me, so let us waste no time in haggling!”

“But only consider, sir!” said Miss Grantham, smoothing her lemon kid gloves over her wrists. “You would remove from my grasp at one stroke a fortune and a title!”

“Rest assured, ma’am, that there is not the slightest possibility of your enjoying the possession of that particular fortune or title!” said Ravenscar unpleasantly.

“My dear sir, you underrate my intelligence, believe me!” said Miss Grantham, softly chiding. “You would not have offered me money had it been possible to detach Adrian from me by any other means. You are quite in my power, you know.”

“If you refuse my terms, you will discover your mistake!” said Ravenscar, anger hardening his voice.

“Nonsense!” said Miss Grantham coolly. “Do, I beg of you, be reasonable, sir! You cannot, I am persuaded, think me so big a fool as to let such an advantageous marriage slip through my fingers for the sake of a mere ten thousand pounds!”

“How old are you?” he demanded.

“I am twenty-five, Mr Ravenscar.”

“You would do well to accept my offer. Nothing but unhappiness could be the sequel to your marriage with a boy barely out of his tutor’s hands. Think this over carefully, Miss Grantham! Adrian’s calf-love will not endure, I assure you.”

“It is very possible,” she acknowledged. “But I do not anticipate that it will wane within the next two months. I shall be at such pains, you see, to keep it alive.”