“She is very pretty,” said Miss Wantage. “She even looked pretty when she had spots.”
“Spots?” repeated the Viscount, in a stunned voice. “She never had a spot in her life!”
“Well, not ordinary spots, like Sophy, but the ones you have with the measles, I mean.”
“Isabella didn’t have the measles!”
“Yes, she did,” replied Hero. “That’s why her Mama brought her home. She felt dreadfully poorly, and Mrs Milborne told Cousin Jane that the spots came all over her.”
“No!” said the Viscount, revolted.
“They do, you know,” explained Hero.
“Of course I know that! But Isabella can’t have had the measles! They said she was worn down by the gaieties of London!”
Hero looked surprised at this. “Well, I don’t know why they should have said that, because they must have known it was the measles. Two of the abigails had it as well, besides Mrs Milborne’s page.”
“Good God!” said the Viscount. A grin dispelled the look of shocked dismay on his face. “So that’s why she wouldn’t receive anyone! Poor girl! By Jove, I’d give a monkey to see Severn’s face, if he knew! Deuced romantic fellow, Severn! Wouldn’t like it at all!”
“Is he the Duke?” inquired Hero interestedly.
Gloom descended once more upon her companion. He nodded.
“Is — is she going to marry him, Sherry?”
“It’s my belief he won’t come up to scratch,” replied the Viscount frankly. “Not that I care. My hopes are quite cut-up!”
“Oh, Sherry, do you mind very much?” asked Hero, her heart wrung.
“Of course I mind!” said his lordship testily. “My whole life is blighted! Might as well go to the devil without more ado. Which is what I very likely shall do, because if I don’t get my hands on my fortune I shall be punting on tick before you know where you are, and we all know what that means!”
Hero nodded wisely. The Viscount laughed, and pinched her nose. “You haven’t a notion what it means! Never heard of a cent-per-cent in your life, have you, brat? Or of a poor devil finding himself in the basket?”
“Yes, I have! That’s on all the stagecoaches, and you ride in it if you are very poor!”
“Well, it may come to that yet,” grimaced Sherry. “The thing is that my principal’s tied up in the stupidest Trust anyone ever thought of. Would you believe it, I’m kept on a beggarly allowance until I reach the age of twenty-five, unless I’m married before then? A couple of my damned uncles manage everything — or they should, but Prosper’s too curst lazy to keep an eye on the other old scoundrel! He can’t stand the fellow any more than I can — none of my father’s relatives can bear the sight of my mother’s family, and God knows I don’t blame them, for a bigger set of spongers I’ll swear you never clapped eyes on! — but will he bestir himself to get rid of the fellow? Not he! There he sits, in my house, living at my expense, and ten to one feathering his nest with my money, not to mention putting a lot of nonsensical notions into my mother’s head, and pretending he’s disappointed Bella wouldn’t have me! Disappointed! He was so glad he couldn’t keep the smile off his greasy face! Damme if I know why I haven’t napped him a rum’un any time these past six years!” He broke off, the look of bewilderment on Hero’s face recalling him to a sense of his company. “Here, don’t you let me hear you using cant like that!” he admonished her. “If they hadn’t made me as mad as Bedlam between the lot of them, I shouldn’t have said it. At least, I should, but not to a female.”
“No, I won’t,” said Miss Wantage obediently.
“That’s what you say now,” retorted the Viscount, “but I know you, Hero! I never could let my tongue go when you were within hearing but what, as sure as check, out you’d come with it, with never less than half a dozen tabbies in the room, too! ‘But Anthony says it, Cousin Jane!’ You can’t be surprised I used to box your ears now and then!”
“Well, I truly won’t this time,” Hero assured him. “I couldn’t very well, because I don’t know what it means.”
“No, and you are not going to know, so it’s no use plaguing the life out of me to tell you! All that signifies is that there was no bearing it any longer. When it comes to being told — by my own mother, mark you! — that no woman of sensibility would accept of me, it’s the outside of enough! All because I had the curst bad luck to upset old General Ware’s phaeton! Anyone would have thought I’d murdered the fellow, but no such thing! He shot into the hedge, all right and tight, not a penny the worse for it! What’s more, I pulled him out, and considering it was his devilish bad handling of the ribbons which lost me my wager there are plenty of fellows in my place who would have left him there! But was he grateful? No! Tottered straight off to write and complain of me to my mother!”
“Never mind, Sherry!” Miss Wantage said, squeezing his arm. “They are all horrid, and unkind! They always were. Only I did think that Isabella — ”
“I’ll not hear a word against her!” said the Viscount nobly. “She is, and will always be, the Incomparable! But if she thinks I’m going to wear the willow for her sake, she’s mightily mistaken! And it wouldn’t surprise me above half if that’s just what she’d like me to do, for of all the heartless baggages I ever encountered — But that’s neither here nor there.”
“What are you meaning to do, Sherry?” asked Miss Wantage solicitously.
“Just what I told my mother, and my platter-faced uncle! Marry the first female I see!”
Miss Wantage gave a giggle. “Silly! That’s me!”
“Well, good God, there’s no need to be so curst literal!” said his lordship. “I know it’s you, as it turns out, but — ” He stopped suddenly, and stared down into Miss Wantage’s heartshaped countenance. “Well, why not?” he said slowly. “Damme, that’s exactly what I will do!”
Chapter Three
FOR ONE DAZED MOMENT MISS WANTAGE COULD only gaze blankly up at him. “M-marry me, Sherry?” she stammered.
“Yes, why not?” responded his lordship. “This is, unless you have some objection, and considering the way you were ready to marry the curate I can’t for the life of me see why you should have!”
“No, no, I wasn’t ready to marry the curate!” protested Hero. “I told you that I would prefer to be a governess!”
“Well, never mind about that,” said his lordship. “It’s no use your saying that you’d prefer to be a governess to marrying me, because it’s absurd! No one would. Dash it, Hero, I don’t want to talk like a coxcomb, and I dare say I may want for principle, and have libertine propensities, and spend all my time in gaming hells, besides being the sort of ugly customer no woman of sensibility could stomach, but you can’t pretend that you wouldn’t be far more comfortable with me than at that curst school you keep on prosing about!”
Miss Wantage was far from wanting to pretend anything of the sort, but the notion of marrying one who had for a number of years appeared to her in much the same light as he appeared to his Tiger seemed so fantastic that she could neither credit him with any serious intentions, nor believe that such a dazzling change in her bleak future could really take place. “Oh, Sherry, don’t please!” she begged, a catch in her voice. “I know it’s a hum, but, please, I wish you will not!”
“It’s no such thing!” the Viscount said. “In fact, the more I think of it the more it seems to me an excellent plan.”
“But, Sherry, you love Isabella!”
“Of course I love Isabella!” responded Sherry. “Though, mind you, I don’t say I’d have offered for her if I hadn’t been so deuced uncomfortably circumstanced, for to tell you the truth, Hero, I’d as lief not be married. However, it’s no use thinking of that! Married I must be, and if I can’t have the Incomparable I’d as soon have you as any other. Sooner,” he added handsomely. “I’m devilish fond of you, Hero. It’s my belief we should deal famously, for you don’t take pets, or go off into odd humours, and you won’t expect me to alter all my habits, and spend my time dancing attendance on you.”