Джорджетт Хейер - Regency Buck

“Very well, let us by all means drown him in the lake,” said the Captain gaily. “Plainly, he must be disposed of.”

“He is being disposed of,” said the Earl, without the least trace of emotion in his level voice. “For the past five days he has been inhaling poisoned snuff.”

The arrival of Captain Charles Audley was a happy circumstance, for the departure to London on that day of Mr. Brummell, Lord Petersham, and both the Marleys had produced all the inevitable languor attendant on the breaking-up of a party. The Taverners, with Miss Fairford and Lord Alvanley, were engaged to remain at Worth over the week-end, but although an Assembly at a neighbouring town, where some militia were quartered, a day’s hunting, and a card-party were promised, there was an insipidity, a flatness, that was hard to shake off. The appearance, however, of Captain Audley banished every feeling of regret for the absence of four of the original members of the party. His gaiety was infectious and his manners, for all their oddity, were so generally charming as to render him always acceptable. His having but just come from the Peninsula made him first in consequence; the ladies hung on his lips, and the gentlemen, in a quieter fashion, were very ready to hear all the information he could give them of the state of affairs in Spain. The only respect in which he fell short of the female expectations at least was his refusal to describe the act of dashing gallantry to which it was felt that his wound must have been due. He would not talk of it, insisted that the wound was not the result of any noble action at all, and beyond learning that it had been incurred at the affair of Arroyo del Molinos upon the twenty-eighth day of October, and that he had been lying in hospital ever since (which Lady Albinia and Mrs. Scattergood were aware of already), they could discover nothing about it. But on any other subject he was ready to converse, and his arrival was soon felt to be an advantage. He paid unblushing court to Miss Taverner, was kind to Miss Fairford, quizzed his aunt and cousin, took Peregrine secretly over to a dingy tavern in the nearest town to witness a cockfight, and was voted in less than no time to be a most amiable young man. He was not above being pleased; he could derive as much enjoyment from making up a pool of quadrille to oblige his aunt as from playing whist for pound points; and found as much to amuse him at the local Assembly as he would have found at Almack’s.

“You are blessed with the happiest nature, Captain Audley,” Miss Taverner said smilingly. “Whatever you do, you are pleased to be doing, and your spirits infect everyone else with the same liveliness.”

“If I could not be pleased in such company I must be an insufferable fellow!” he replied warmly.

“You are certainly a flatterer.”

“Only so modest a creature as yourself could think so.”

“I am silenced. Do you find this mode of address generally acceptable amongst the heiresses of your acquaintance?”

“Miss Taverner, I appeal to your sense of what is fair! Is this kind? Is this right?”

“It was irresistible,” she replied mischievously.

“What is to be done? How shall I convince you?”

“You cannot; you are completely exposed.”

“I shall come about again, I warn you. My dependence is all on my brother. If he has the slightest regard for me he must assist me to convince you of my disinterestedness.”

“Dear me, how is he to do that, I wonder?”

“Why, very simply! He has only to sell you out of the three-per-cents and gamble away your whole fortune on ‘Change. I may then offer you my hand and heart with a clear conscience.”

“It sounds very disagreeable. I had rather keep my fortune, I thank you.”

“Miss Taverner, you are guilty of the most shocking cruelty to one wounded in the service of his country!”

“That is very bad, certainly. What shall I do to atone?”

“You shall drive me out in Worth’s curricle,” he said promptly.

“I am quite willing, but Lord Worth might view the matter in a different light.”

“Nonsense! His cattle must be honoured in being driven by you.”

“I wish he may think so, but I believe we shall do well to obtain his permission.”

“You shall be held blameless,” he promised. “You can have no objection to my ordering the curricle to be sent round.”

She wavered. “To be sure, I have once driven it. I suppose if you order it there can be nothing against it. You cannot do wrong in your own home after all.”

He grinned. “We will hear my brother’s comments on that. His greys are in the stable: can you handle them?”

“I can, but I have a notion I ought not. Are—are his chestnuts in the stable, too?”

“Miss Taverner,” said Captain Audley solemnly, “Julian is the best of good fellows, and the kindest of brothers, but he has the most punishing left imaginable! Frankly, I dare not!”

“I do not know what you mean by a punishing left, but you are very right. We must not take his chestnuts. I daresay he will not mind his greys being exercised.”

“He will know nothing of the matter, in any case. He has rid over to Longhampton. The word is, en avant!”

The greys, which were soon brought round to the house by a reluctant groom, had not been out for several days, and were consequently very fresh. Captain Audley looked them over, and said: “We had better take Johnson along with us. Miss Taverner, do you feel yourself to be equal to the task of driving them, or shall we send them away, and have out the gig?”

“A gig! By no means! I have driven this team before, and know them to be beautifully mouthed. I will engage to drive you without mishap. We will take no groom.”

“So be it!” said the Captain recklessly. “I have one sound arm, after all.”

It was not needed, however. Miss Taverner’s skill soon showed itself, and the Captain, who, never having driven with her before, had been at first holding himself in readiness to seize the reins, presently relaxed, and paid Miss Taverner the compliment of saying that she was as good a whip as Letty Lade. He directed the way, and since he gave the road to Longhampton a wide berth, it was a piece of the most perverse ill-luck that upon the way back to Worth they should come plump upon the Earl.

His lordship had stopped by the roadside to exchange a few words with one of his tenant-farmers, and was bestriding a raking bay mare. Judith was the first to catch sight of him, at a distance of a hundred yards, or more, and she gave a dismayed gasp, and exclaimed: “What is to be done? There is your brother!”

Captain Audley regarded her quizzically. “Oh, oh! I believe you would like to turn around and make off in the other direction!”

“Nonsense!” said Miss Taverner, sitting very erect. “Yours is the blame, after all.”

“But I have only one arm. I depend on your protection.”

“How can you be so absurd? Ten to one he will think nothing of it.”

“You are too sanguine. We had better turn our heads away and trust to his not recognizing us.”

“A man not recognize his own horses!” said Miss Taverner scornfully. “Oh, you are laughing at me! You are quite abominable!”

At the first sound of the curricle’s approach the Earl had raised his head and glanced casually up the lane. He was in the middle of making a civil inquiry into the health of his tenant’s family, but he broke off abruptly. The farmer followed the direction of his eyes, and said in no little surprise: “Why, here come your lordship’s greys, or I’m much mistaken!”

“You are not mistaken,” said the Earl grimly, and wheeled his mare across the lane.

Miss Taverner, observing this manoeuvre,, said: “There! You see! We shall have to stop.”

“I see no necessity. Drop your hands and drive over him.”

Miss Taverner threw him a look of withering contempt and checked her horses. In another minute the curricle had pulled up alongside the Earl, and Miss Taverner was meeting his gaze with an expression half of defiance, half of apology, in her blue eyes. “I am taking your brother for a drive, Lord Worth,” she said.

“So I see,” replied the Earl. “It was very civil of you to pull up to greet me, but you must not let me be detaining you.”

Miss Taverner eyed him doubtfully. “You must wonder at it, but—”

“Not at all,” said the Earl. “The only thing I wonder at is that you are not driving my chestnuts.”

“I should have liked to,” said Miss Taverner wistfully,

“but Captain Audley said he dared not, and of course I knew I must not without your leave. If you are displeased I beg your pardon. Captain Audley, how odious it is of you to sit laughing, and not to say a word in my defence!”

“My brother would never listen to my excuses with half so much complaisance, I assure you,” said the Captain, with a twinkle.

Miss Taverner turned her attention to the Earl again. “I hope you are not very angry, sir?”

“My dear Miss Taverner, I am not in the least angry, except on one account. My horses are at your service, but what are you about to have no one but that one-armed rattle by your side? If any accident occurred, as it might well, he would be of no assistance to you.”

“Oh, if that is all,” returned Judith, “you must know that I have been used to drive alone. My father saw no objection.”

“Your father,” said the Earl, “never saw you with one of my teams in hand.”

“Very true,” agreed Judith. “But what is to be done? Will you lead the horses, or shall Captain Audley alight and lead yours?”

“Captain Audley begs leave to inform Miss Taverner that he will die rather!”