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‘If you force me to do so, I shall pay a visit to the Horse Guards, and enquire of them there if they can furnish me with the direction of a captain of infantry, a Brigade-Major, sent home from the Peninsula with a ball in his shoulder, but now in hourly expectation of rejoining. I expect they will be able to help me, though I can’t but feel that Neil would infinitely prefer to be discovered in a rather more private style. That is for you to decide.’
She did not speak for several moments; then she said, in a gritty little voice: ‘You think you’ve worsted me, but you have not! I shan’t tell you anything, and I promise you I – I shall come about!’
‘Very well,’ he replied equably.
‘I believe,’ said Amanda, after another seething pause, ‘that kidnappers are sent to prison, or even transported! You would not like that, I daresay!’
‘No, indeed!’
‘Well! I am just warning you!’ she said.
‘Thank you! I am very much obliged to you.’
‘And if you,’ declared Amanda, bethinking herself of the groom, and twisting round to address him, ‘had one grain of manliness, you would not permit your master to carry me off!’
Trotton, a deeply interested audience, was unprepared for this attack, and nearly lost his balance. Much discomposed, he could only stammer an unintelligible answer, and glance imploringly at Sir Gareth’s back-view.
‘Oh, you mustn’t blame Trotton!’ said Sir Gareth. ‘Consider how difficult is his position! He is obliged to obey my orders, you see.’
‘He is not obliged to assist you in kidnapping people!’ she retorted.
‘I engaged him on the strict understanding,’ said Sir Gareth firmly, ‘that that would form an important part of his duties.’
‘I w-wish you will not be so absurd!’ said Amanda, struggling to suppress a giggle.
He turned his head to smile down at her. ‘That’s better!’
She laid a mittened hand on his sleeve, directing a beseeching look up at him. ‘Oh, will you please let me go? You are ruining everything!’
‘I know I am, and I do beg your pardon. I must be quite the most abominable marplot imaginable.’
‘Well, you are! And I thought you were so very agreeable!’
‘I too have been badly deceived in myself,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Would you believe it? – I had no notion that I was such a monster of inhumanity as I have proved myself to be.’
‘Well, it is being a monster to betray me, and then to try to roast me!’ she said, turning away her flushed countenance, and biting her lip.
‘Poor Amanda! You are perfectly right: it is a great deal too bad of me, and I won’t roast you any more. Let me tell you instead where I am taking you!’
‘I shan’t listen to a word you say,’ she informed him coldly.
‘That will teach me a lesson,’ he observed.
‘I think you are the horridest creature!’ she exclaimed. ‘Yes, and now I come to think of it, if you are taking me to your own home, it is most improper, and far worse than letting me go to an inn!’
‘It would be,’ he agreed. ‘But my home isn’t in this part of the country. I am taking you to Brancaster Park, where I think you will find a very kind hostess in Lady Hester Theale.’
Upon hearing these words, Trotton, who was much attached to his master, very nearly allowed a protest to escape him. If Sir Gareth meant to arrive at Brancaster Park with this dazzling young beauty on his arm, he was unquestionably out of his senses, and ought to be restrained. But it was not the business of his groom to point out to him the unwisdom of introducing his chance-met bit of muslin to the Lady Hester. Trotton dared to do no more than give a warning cough, to which Sir Gareth paid no heed at all.
Sir Gareth stood in no need of a warning. Had any other solution for the safe disposal of Amanda occurred to him, he would have seized it, for he was well aware that to present himself at Brancaster Park, with the declared intention of proposing marriage to Lady Hester, accompanied by Amanda must be as prejudicial to his interests as it was ludicrous. But he believed that he could rely on Hester to receive Amanda kindly; and he hoped that she would understand that he had no other choice than to bring that headstrong damsel to the shelter of her home.
Amanda, meanwhile, was demanding to be told who lived at Brancaster Park. When she learned that she was to be the uninvited guest of Lord Brancaster, and of his daughter, she protested vehemently, saying that so far from being anxious to regain possession of her, her grandfather would in all probability be delighted to know that she was guest in an Earl’s country seat. Sir Gareth suggested helpfully that she should prevail upon Lady Hester to hire her as an abigail.
Amanda audibly ground her teeth. ‘If you force me to go there with you, I shall make you very, very sorry!’ she warned him.
‘I expect you will, and am already in a quake of terror,’ he agreed.
‘I trusted you!’ she said tragically. ‘Now you are going to betray my confidence, besides ruining all my schemes!’
