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‘Oh,’ said Miss Taverner foolishly, ‘I was afraid you meant me to marry your brother!’
‘Were you indeed? And was all the determined flirting I have been watching between you merely to show me how willing you were to oblige me? Nonsensical child! I have been in love with you almost from the first moment of setting eyes on you.’
‘Oh, this is dreadful!’ said Miss Taverner, shaken by remorse. ‘I disliked you amazingly for weeks!’
The Earl kissed her again. ‘You are wholly adorable,’ he said.
‘No, I am not,’ replied Miss Taverner, as soon as she was able. ‘I am as disagreeable as you are. You would like to beat me. You said you would once, and I believe you meant it!’
‘If I only said it once I am astonished at my own forbearance. I have wanted to beat you at least a dozen times, and came very near doing it once – at Cuckfield. But I still think you adorable. Give me your hand.’
She held it out, and he slipped a ring on the third finger. ‘You see, I had got a birthday present for you, Clorinda.’
Miss Taverner raised the hand shyly to touch the Earl’s cheek. He caught it, and pressed it to his lips. She blushed, and said: ‘I thought – after Cuckfield – I had no power to attach you any more. You made me so unhappy! There was no continued obser vance, none of that distinguishing notice which had become, insensibly, so necessary to my comfort!’
‘That I should have given you one moment’s pain!’ he said. ‘But your words to me at Cuckfield, the tone in which you uttered them, convinced me that nothing could avail to banish that disgust of me which our first meeting had given you.’
She smiled saucily up at him. ‘You must be so well aware of how little delicacy of principle I have that I need have no scruple in telling you that it is many weeks since I have recalled that first meeting without feeling a strong desire of having your shocking conduct repeated. But after Cuckfield all seemed at an end! I had offended beyond forgiveness. And then the mortification of being found by you in the Yellow Drawing-room that miserable evening! Shall I ever forget my dismay at what you must have been thinking!’
‘That evening?’ he said, holding her closer. ‘Shall I ever forget the look that came into your eyes when you opened them, and saw me; or the way your hand clung to
mine! Till then I had thought my case to be hopeless. But you begged me not to leave you! Had Prinney not been standing at my elbow I must have thrown every consideration of honour to the winds, and spoken then! But his being there compelled me to remain silent, and by the time he was gone all the impropriety of speaking to you while I was still your guardian had been recollected. I had come, moreover, straight from delivering Peregrine into my captain’s hands! I shall not allow the evils of your situation to have been comparable to mine!’
‘There was a constraint,’ she agreed. ‘I was sensible of it even when you forgave me for my conduct at Cuckfield. It was not until you knocked my cousin down that I dared to entertain the notion that your affection had re-animated towards me. But your expression then! No mere indignation at my cousin’s villainy, I was persuaded, could have brought that look into your face! I thought you were going to kill him!’
‘I had momentarily forgotten your presence. You must forgive me for having given way to impulse.’
‘Oh,’ said Miss Taverner archly,‘there can be no need for apology when you consider how much I am in the habit of staying in towns where a prize-fight is to take place! To own the truth, I had not the least objection to seeing you knock my cousin down. I would have liked to have done it myself. And until then, you know, I had never suspected that you could knock a man down.’
‘Never suspected that I could knock a man down?’ repeated the Earl, a good deal surprised.
‘No, how should I? I was used to think you were just a dandy. But Captain Audley once said you had the most punishing left imaginable, and although I did not know what he meant at the time, it occurred to me when you hit my cousin that frightful blow that perhaps that was it. For you did use your left hand, did you not?’
‘Yes,’ said the Earl gravely. ‘I expect I did.’
‘You were so quick too!’ said Miss Taverner admiringly. ‘I quite thought my cousin would have borne you backwards through the window, for he rushed on you with such fury! But I daresay you have been in the habit of boxing a little.’
‘Yes,’ said the Earl again. His lips quivered. ‘I think I may be said to have been in the habit of boxing a little.’
‘You are laughing at me!’ said Miss Taverner suspiciously.
‘My darling,’ said the Earl, ‘I used to spar with the great Jem himself !’
‘Oh?’ said Miss Taverner. ‘And was he a good boxer?’
‘He was the greatest of them all,’ replied the Earl.
‘Oh no!’ said Miss Taverner, glad to be able to display her knowledge. ‘Belcher was the greatest of them all. I have often heard my father say so.’
‘There is nothing for it,’ said the Earl, ‘I shall have to kiss you again, Clorinda. Jem Belcher was the man I meant.’
‘Good God!’ cried Miss Taverner, struck by a sudden thought. ‘I had no notion – Oh, I do hope you did not kill my cousin!’
‘Not quite,’ said the Earl.
‘And I was afraid you might be hurt! You must have thought me ridiculous!’
‘I thought you enchanting,’ said the Earl.
