His family was an old and a distinguished one, but the present holder of the title was considered by the respectable to be the neighbourhood’s only blot. It was almost a social solecism to mention his name in polite company. Innocent enquiries by the children, who wanted to know why Lord Damerel never came to live at the Priory, were repressed. They were told that they were too young to understand, and that there was no need for them to think about him, much less talk about him: it was to be feared that his lordship was not a good man; and now that was quite enough, and they might run away and play.

That was what Miss Poddemore told Venetia and Conway, and they naturally speculated on the possible (and often impossible) nature of his lordship’s crimes, rapidly creating a figure of lurid romance out of Miss Poddemore’s mysterious utterances. It was years before Venetia discovered that Damerel’s villainy included nothing as startling as murder, treason, piracy, or highroad robbery, and was more sordid than romantic. The only child of rather elderly parents, he had no sooner embarked on a diplomatic career than he fell head over ears in love with a married lady of title, and absconded with her, thus wrecking his own future, breaking his mama’s heart, and causing his papa to suffer a paralytic stroke, from which he never entirely recovered. Indeed, as it was succeeded, three years later, by a second and fatal stroke it was not too much to say that the shocking affair had actually killed him. All mention of his heir had been forbidden in his household; and after his death his relict, who seemed to Venetia to have had a marked affinity with Sir Francis Lanyon, lived in semi-seclusion in London, visiting the Yorkshire estates only at rare intervals. As for the new Lord Damerel, though many were the rumours about his subsequent actions no one really knew what had happened to him, for his scandalous behaviour had coincided with the short-lived Peace of Amiens, and he had spirited his stolen lady out of the country. All that was thereafter known about her was that her husband had refused to divorce her. For how long she had remained with her lover, where they had fled when the war broke out again, and what had been her ultimate fate were problems about which there were many conjectures. The most popular of these was that she had been cast off by her lover, and left to fall a prey to Bonaparte’s ravening soldiers; which, as the villagers did not fail to point out to their erring daughters, was what she deserved, and the sort of thing that was bound to befall any girl careless of her virtue.

Whatever the truth might be, one thing was sure: the lady was not with Damerel when he returned to England, some years later. Since that date he appeared (if only half the stories told of him were true) to have devoted himself to the pursuit of all the more extravagant forms of diversion, going a considerable way towards dissipating what had once been a handsome fortune, and neglecting no opportunity that offered to convince his critics that he was every bit as black as he had been painted. Until the previous year his occasional visits to the Priory had been too brief to allow any of his neighbours to do more than catch sight of him, and very few had even done that. But he had spent one whole week at the Priory in August, under perfectly outrageous circumstances. He had not come alone; he had brought a party of guests with him—and such a party! They had come for the races, of course: Damerel had had a horse running in one of them. Poor Imber, the old butler who had been caretaker at the Priory for years, had been thrown into the greatest affliction, for never had such a fast, ramshackle set of persons been entertained at the Priory! As for Mrs. Imber, when she had discovered that she was expected to cook for several rackety bucks and for three females whom she recognized at a glance for what they were, she had declared her intention of leaving the Priory rather than so demean herself. Only her devotion to the Family had induced her to relent, and bitterly did she regret it, when (as might have been expected) none of the villagers would permit their daughters to go to work in what was little better than a Corinth, and it had been necessary to hire in York three far from respectable wenches to wait on the raffish company. As for the amusements of these dashing blades and their convenients, his late lordship, declared Imber, must have turned in his grave to see such lewd goings-on in his ancestral home. If the guests were not indulging in vulgar rompings, such as playing Hunt the Squirrel, with those shameless lightskirts squealing fit to bring the rafters down, and egging on the gentlemen to behave in a very scandalous way, they were turning the house into a gaming-hell, and drinking the cellar dry. Not one but had had to be put to bed by his valet, and that my Lord Utterby (a loose-screw, if ever Imber had seen one!) had not burnt the Priory to the ground was due only to the chance that had carried the smell of burning to the nostrils of Mr. Ansford’s peculiar, who had not scrupled to track it to its source, though she had been clad only in her nightgown—not but what that was a more decent cloak to her opulent form than the dress she had worn earlier in the day!—and had torn down the smouldering bed-curtains, screeching all the time at the top of her very ungenteel voice.

These orgies had lasted for seven days, but they had provided the neighbouring countryside with food for gossip that lasted for months.

However, nothing further had been heard of Damerel. He had not come north for York Races this year, and, unless he meant to come later for the pheasant-shooting, which (from the neglected state of his preserves) seemed unlikely, the North Riding might consider itself free from his contaminating presence for another year. It came, therefore, as a surprise to Venetia, serenely filling her basket with his blackberries, when she discovered that he was much nearer at hand than anyone had supposed. She had been making her way round the outskirts of the wood, and had paused to disentangle her dress from a particularly clinging trail of bramble when an amused voice said: “Oh, how full of briars is this working-day world!”

Startled, she turned her head, and found that she was being observed by a tall man mounted on a handsome gray horse. He was a stranger, but his voice and his habit proclaimed his condition, and it did not take her more than a very few moments to guess that she must be confronting the Wicked Baron. She regarded him with candid interest, unconsciously affording him an excellent view of her enchanting countenance. His brows rose, and he swung himself out of the saddle, and came towards her, with long, easy strides. She was unacquainted with any men of mode, but although he was dressed like any country gentleman a subtle difference hung about his buckskins and his coat of dandy gray russet. No provincial tailor had fashioned them, and no country beau could have worn them with such careless elegance. He was taller than Venetia had at first supposed, rather loose-limbed, and he bore himself with a faint suggestion of swashbuckling arrogance. As he advanced upon her Venetia perceived that he was dark, his countenance lean and rather swarthy, marked with lines of dissipation. A smile was curling his lips, but Venetia thought she had never seen eyes so cynically bored.

“Well, fair trespasser, you are justly served, aren’t you?” he said. “Stand still!”

She remained obediently motionless while he disentangled her skirt from the brambles. As he straightened himself, he said: “There you are! But I always exact a forfeit from those who rob me of my blackberries. Let me look at you!”

Before she had recovered from her astonishment at being addressed in such a style he had an arm round her, and with his free hand had pushed back her sunbonnet. In more anger than fright she tried to thrust him away, uttering a furious protest. He paid no heed at all; only his arm tightened round her, something that was not boredom gleamed in his eyes, and he ejaculated: “But beauty’s self she is ... !”

Venetia then found herself being ruthlessly kissed. Her cheeks much flushed, her eyes blazing, she fought strenuously to break free from a stronger hold than she had ever known, but her efforts only made Damerel laugh, and she owed her deliverance to Flurry. The spaniel, emerging from the undergrowth to find his mistress struggling in the arms of a stranger, was cast into great mental perturbation. Instinct urged him to fly to her rescue, but dimly understood precept forbade him to bite anything that walked on two legs. He tried compromise, barking hysterically. It did not answer, and instinct won the day.

Since Damerel was wearing topboots Flurry’s heroic assault drew no blood, but it did cause him to glance down at the spaniel, relaxing his hold on Venetia just enough to enable her to wrench herself away.

“Sit!” commanded Damerel.

Flurry, recognizing the voice of a Master, promptly abased himself, ears dipped, and tail deprecatingly wagging.

“What the devil do you mean by it, eh?” said Damerel, catching him by the lower jaw, and forcing up his head.

Flurry recognized that voice too, and, much relieved, did his best to explain that the regrettable incident had arisen from a misunderstanding. Venetia, who, instead of seizing the opportunity to run away, had been angrily re-tieing the strings of her sunbonnet, exclaimed: “Oh, have you no discrimination, you idiotic animal?”

Damerel, who was patting the repentant Flurry, looked up, his eyes narrowing.

“And as for you, sir,” said Venetia, meeting that searching stare with a flaming look, “your quotations don’t make your advances a whit more acceptable to me—and they don’t deceive me into thinking you anything but a pestilent, complete knave!”