‘But you are fond of the Duchess, I collect?’ Phoebe asked, in the hope of giving Ianthe’s thoughts a happier direction. ‘She is kind to you?’

‘Oh, yes, but even she does not perfectly understand the misery of my situation! And I dare not hope that she will even try to prevail upon Sylvester not to tear my child from my arms, because she quite idolises him. I pity his wife! She will find herself expected to defer in everything to Mama-Duchess!’

‘Well, perhaps he won’t have a wife,’ suggested Phoebe soothingly.

‘You may depend upon it he will, just to keep poor little Edmund out of the succession. Mama is persuaded that he is hanging out for one, and may throw the handkerchief at any moment.’

‘I daresay! It takes two to make a marriage, however!’

‘Do you mean he might meet with a refusal?’

‘Why not?’ said Phoebe.

‘Sylvester? With all that he has to offer? Of course he won’t! I wish he might, for it would do him good to be rebuffed. Only ten to one if it did happen he would set to work to make the girl fall in love with him, and then offer for another!’

‘I see no reason for anyone to fall in love with him,’ declared Phoebe, a spark in her eyes.

‘No, nor do I, but you would be astonished if you knew how many girls have positively languished over him!’

‘I should!’ said Phoebe fervently. ‘For my part I should suppose them rather to have fallen in love with his rank!’

‘Yes, but it isn’t so. He can make girls form a tendre for him even when they have started by not liking him in the least. He knows it, too. He bet Harry once that he would succeed in attaching Miss Wharfe, and he did!’

‘Bet-?’ gasped Phoebe. ‘How-how infamous! How could any gentleman do such a thing?’

‘Oh, well, you know what they are!’ said Ianthe erroneously. ‘I must own, too, that Miss Wharfe’s coldness was one of the on-dits that year: she was a very handsome girl, and a great heiress as well, so of course she had dozens of suitors. She snubbed them all, so that it got to be a famous jest. They used to call her the Impregnable Citadel. Harry told Sylvester-funning, you know: they were always funning!-that even he would not be able to make a breach in the walls, and Sylvester instantly asked him what odds he was offering against it. I believe they were betting heavily on it in the clubs, as soon as it was seen that Sylvester was laying siege to the Citadel. Men are so odious!’

With this pronouncement Phoebe was in full agreement. She left Albemarle Street, amply provided with food for thought. She was shrewd enough to discount much that had been told her of Sylvester’s treatment of his nephew: Master Rayne did not present to the world the portrait of an ill-used child. On the other hand, his mama had unconsciously painted herself in unflattering colours, and emerged from her various stories as a singularly foolish parent. Probably, Phoebe decided, Sylvester was indifferent to Edmund, but determined, in his proud way, to do his duty by the boy. That word had no very pleasant connotation to one who had had it ceaselessly dinned in her ears by an unloving stepmother, but it did not include injustice. Lady Marlow had always been rigidly just.

It was Ianthe’s last disclosure that gave Phoebe so furiously to think. She found nothing in it to discount, for the suspicion had already crossed her mind that Sylvester’s kindness had been part of a deliberate attempt to make her sorry she had so rudely repulsed him. His manners, too, when he had called in Green Street, even the lurking smile in his eyes when he had looked at her, were calculated to please. Yes, Phoebe admitted, he did know how to fix his interest with unwary females. The question was whether to repulse him, or whether, safe in the knowledge that he was laying a trap for her, to encourage his attentions.

The question remained unanswered until the following day, when she met him again. She was riding with her Ingham cousins in the Park in a sedate party composed of herself, Miss Mary and Miss Amabel, young Mr. Dudley Ingham, and two grooms following at a discreet distance; and she was heartily bored. The Misses Ingham were very plain, and very good, and very dull; and their brother, Lord Ingham’s promising second son, was already bidding fair to become a solid member of some future government; and the hack provided for her use was an animal with no paces and a placid disposition.

Sylvester, himself mounted on a neatish bay, and accompanied by two of his friends, took in the situation in one amused glance, and dealt with it in a way that showed considerable dexterity and an utter want of consideration for Lord Yarrow and Mr. Ashford. Without anyone’s knowing (except himself) how it had come about, the two parties had become one; and while his hapless friends found themselves making polite conversation to the Misses Ingham, Sylvester was riding with Phoebe, a little way behind.

‘Oh, my poor Sparrow!’ he said, mocking her. ‘Never have I encountered so heartrending a sight! A job-horse?’

‘No,’ replied Phoebe. ‘My cousin Anne’s favourite mount. A very safe, comfortable ride for a lady, Duke.’

‘I beg your pardon! I have not seen him show his paces, of course.’

She cast him a glance of lofty scorn. ‘He has none. He has a very elegant shuffle, being just a trifle tied in below the knee.’

‘But such shoulders!’

Gravity deserted her; she burst into laughter, which made Miss Mary Ingham turn her head to look at her in wondering reproof, and said: ‘Oh, dear, did you ever set eyes on such a flat-sided screw?’

‘No-or on a lady with a better seat. The combination is quite shocking! Will you let me mount you while you are in town?’

She was so much astonished she could only stare at him. He smiled, and said: ‘I keep several horses at Chance for my sister-in-law’s convenience. She was used to ride a great deal. There would be nothing easier than for me to send for a couple to be brought up to London.’

‘Ride Lady Henry’s horses?’ she exclaimed. ‘You must be mad! I shouldn’t dream of doing such a thing!’

‘They are not her horses. They are mine.’

‘You said yourself you kept them for her use: she must consider them as good as her own! Besides, you must know I couldn’t permit you to mount me!’

‘I suppose you couldn’t,’ he admitted. ‘I hate to see you so unworthily mounted, though.’

‘Thank you-you are very good!’ she stammered.

‘I am what? Sparrow, I do implore you not to let Lady Ingham teach you to utter civil whiskers! You know I am no such thing, but, on the contrary, the villain whose evil designs drove you from home!’ He stopped, as her eyes flew involuntarily to meet his. The look held for no more than an instant, but the expression in her eyes drove the laughter from his own. He waited for a moment, and then asked quietly: ‘What is it? What did I say to make you look at me like that?’

Scarlet-cheeked, she said: ‘Nothing! I don’t know how I looked.’

‘Very much as I saw you look once at your mother-in-law: stricken!’

She managed to laugh. ‘How absurd! I am afraid you have too lively an imagination, Duke!’

‘Well, I hope I may have,’ he returned.

‘There can be no doubt. I was-oh, shocked to think that after all that has passed you could suppose me to regard you in the light-in the light of a villain. But you were only funning, of course.’

‘I was, but I’m not funning when I tell you that I was not maliciously funning-to distress you.’

She turned her head to look at him again, this time in candid appraisal. ‘No. Although it is a thing you could do, I fancy.’

‘You may believe that I did not.’

‘And you may believe I don’t think you villainous!’

‘Oh, that is a much harder task!’ he protested, rallying her. ‘When I think of the reception I was accorded at that appalling inn I have the gravest misgivings!’

She laughed, but tacitly refused the challenge. He did not pursue the subject; and after riding beside him in silence for a few minutes she introduced another, saying: ‘I had almost forgotten to tell you that I had the pleasure of meeting your nephew yesterday, Duke! You must be very proud of him: he is a most beautiful child!’

‘He is a very spoilt one. Are you acquainted with my sister-in-law?’

‘I made her acquaintance a few days ago, and she was so kind as to invite me to spend the afternoon with her yesterday.’

‘Ah, now I understand the meaning of that stricken look!’ he remarked. ‘Did I figure as the Unfeeling Brother-in-law, or as the Wicked Uncle?’

She was not obliged to answer him, for as the words left his tongue his attention was diverted. A lady who was walking beside the carriageway just then waved to him. He recognized his cousin, Mrs. Newbury, and at once desired Phoebe to rein in. ‘If you are not already known to one another I should like to introduce you to Mrs. Newbury, Miss Marlow. She is quite the most entertaining of my cousins: I am persuaded you would deal extremely!-Georgie, what a stunning sight! How comes it about that you are walking in this demure style? No faithful husband to ride with you? Not one cicisbeo left to you?’

She laughed, stretching up her hand to clasp his. ‘No, isn’t it infamous? Lion has a spell of duty, and all my cicisbeos have failed me! Those who are not still buried in the country have their feet in mustard-baths, so that I’ve sunk to walking with a mere female. No, you can’t see her, because we have parted company.’

He had leaned down to take her hand, and now, just before he released it, he pressed it meaningly, saying: ‘Sunk indeed! Are you acquainted with Miss Marlow, or may I introduce her to you?’