‘Having been so inconsiderate, I feel that a little mud upon the seat would be the least penalty I could pay, ma’am.’ The smile lengthened. He was a man used to getting his own way.
‘Entirely insufficient, sir. I suggest that you continue upon your way and please, please, do not give me another thought.’ She ended with heavy sarcasm, and he was taken aback. However, the wind was chill and his horses stamping, and in the face of intransigence he would be a fool to abase himself further.
‘Then I can but repeat my apology, ma’am, and hope50that we will meet again in better circumstances.’ He touched his hand to his hat brim, waited the moments while his tiger got back up behind him, and set his pair back in motion.
‘It is not a hope I share,’ muttered Miss Lound, her shudder one of mixed revulsion and cold as the wet reached through the arm of her pelisse, and the sleeve beneath. She glared after the receding curricle with uncharitable thoughts of wheels and ditches.
She was still fuming when she entered the dower house and drew off her gloves, tugging at them rather violently. Atlow pursed his lips and shook his head.
‘There are some young gentlemen, Miss Mary, as think it a lark to spatter innocent pedestrians.’
‘Well, this “gentleman” had not even the excuse of being a callow youth. I am only thankful that it is such an old pelisse and fit only for my long walks.’
‘Let me take it and give it to Jane, miss, and get it dry before the range. She will have the worst of the marks brushed off, and can then set about rubbing out any stains that remain.’ He set the gloves upon a walnut side table, and tenderly assisted her from the soiled pelisse. ‘I will send up some hot water to your room. Ahem, there are some splashes of mud upon your cheek.’
‘Oh dear.’ Mary’s fingers went to her cheek. ‘I must look a mess.’
‘A trifle disordered, if I might be so bold, miss.’ As51one who had known her from the cradle, he knew that he might indeed be that bold, and received a rueful grin in response.
‘I will change and then tea would be nice.’
‘Her ladyship has Mrs Lissett with her, Miss Mary. Shall I inform her that you will join them shortly?’
‘Yes please, Atlow.’ Mary set her foot upon the stair. ‘Oh, and you will be sure not to say anything about … no, of course you will not.’ She could trust good old Atlow. Mrs Lissett was one of her mama’s closest friends, but was a notorious local gossip who loved a little light embellishment. If she had the truth of the incident, it would soon become ‘she was nearly run down’.
It was therefore a Miss Lound with her temper under strict control who entered the morning room some ten minutes later, with a polite smile for Mrs Lissett and an airy comment that it was ‘very fresh outside’.
‘Oh yes. Why my bonnet was very near blown from my head as I came,’ declared Mrs Lissett. ‘You really would not think it was still but the first week of August. I think the leaves will be coming off the trees by the middle of next month, and I always say the winter feels it is here when there is not a leaf left, excepting the holly and other evergreens, of course. It is not the best time of year to see the area, and what with the new Lord Cradley and the owner of your … of Tapley End,’ Mrs Lissett had the grace to blush, ‘due any day, one wonders what they will make of our little52corner of Gloucestershire. They say that Lord Cradley is not a bit like his predecessor, but young and rather fashionable. I have no doubt he will set hearts aflutter.’
Mary vouchsafed a rather unladylike ‘hmm’ and frowned.
‘We must hope he is more civil, at any rate,’ said Lady Damerham, not wishing her daughter to give a long list of reasons why no sane woman should have her heart touched by a Risley.
‘Oh, I am sure he will be. Fashionable gentlemen know just what to say.’ Mrs Lissett was eager, after the irascible and unfriendly person of the late Lord Cradley, to encounter someone who exuded good manners.
‘You mean, ma’am, that they are masters of insincerity.’ Mary currently had a low opinion of fashionable men, especially those who drove curricles with red wheels. Two such in the vicinity might be too much for her temper. Lady Damerham gave her a swift look that was both mild reproof and supplication that she would withhold her frank views.
Mrs Lissett, unsure as to whether Miss Lound was serious or not, tittered hesitantly, which made Mary very nearly grind her teeth.
‘I think Mary means that having a silvered tongue is not, in every case, indicative of a pleasing nature.’
‘You mean he might be a,’ Mrs Lissett dropped her voice, theatrically, ‘rake. Have you heard anything that—?’53
‘I have heard nothing, Mrs Lissett, I assure you,’ Lady Damerham interjected. ‘However, London beaux are noted for their cozening ways, and if he is as fashionable as you say …’
‘If he is that fashionable, our little corner of Gloucestershire can have no interest for him, and he will make his visit swift and brief, and we shall not miss him in the least,’ asserted Mary, adding, as her mother’s eyes pleaded once more, ‘for of course we will not have had time to become acquainted with him.’
Lady Damerham gave an audible sigh of relief. When Mrs Lissett departed she gave Mary a long look.
‘Something upset you on your walk, dear?’
‘Someone, Mama, very nearly upset me into the ditch. Sir Rowland Kempsey, I can report, has arrived in the vicinity, and drives a spanking pair of high-stepping chestnuts and a red-wheeled curricle that I am sure is all the crack. He came out of the lodge gates of the house and went past me at such speed, regardless of the large puddle in the road, that I was splashed right up to getting mud upon my cheek and was very nearly thrust into the ditch. When I remonstrated with him, his apology, if you can call it such, was to offer to take me up beside him and drive me home! Had you seen the look upon his face, Mama, you would have agreed with me that nothing should induce any decent woman to do any such thing. He leered like a libertine.’
Lady Damerham did not point out that, to her almost certain knowledge, Mary had never encountered54a libertine, leering or otherwise.
‘Well, there is nothing you can do now but calm yourself, dearest.’
‘Yes, there is, Mama.’
