“I must obviously remain in Bath until I’ve settled what’s to be done with Lucilla, and shall certainly come to your party. Accept my best thanks, ma’am!”
She said mischievously: “I warn you, sir, it will be the most boring party imaginable! I have invited all the young persons of my acquaintance, and as many of their parents who don’t care to allow their daughters to go unchaperoned to parties! I daresay you can never have attended any party even half as insipid!”
“I would hazard a guess, Miss Wychwood, that you have never before given such an insipid party!” he said shrewdly.
“No, very true!” she confessed. “To own the truth, I laughed myself into stitches when I read over the list of my invited guests! However, I’m not giving it to please myself, but to introduce Lucilla into Bath society. I am confident that she will make a hit. She did so when I took her to an informal party the other day.”
“So I suppose the next confounded nuisance I shall have to face will be sending either love-lorn cubs, or gazetted fortune-hunters to the rightabout!”
“Oh, no!” she said sweetly. “I don’t number any fortune-hunters amongst my acquaintances! I collect, from certain things she has said, and from her extremely costly wardrobe, that she is possessed of a considerable independence?”
“Lord, yes! She’s rich enough to buy an Abbey!”
“Well, in that case I need not scruple to provide her with a good abigail.”
“I thought she had one. Indeed, I’m sure of it, for I’ve been paying her wages for the past three years. What has become of her?”
“She quarrelled with Mrs Amber, when Lucilla’s flight was discovered, and left the house in a rage,” she responded.
“Women!”he uttered, with loathing. “It’s of no use to expect me to engage an abigail for her: what the devil does she imagine I know about such things? Since you have usurped Mrs Amber’s place, I suggest that it is for you to engage a maid!”
“Certainly!” she replied, quite unruffled.
“Where is Lucilla?” he demanded abruptly.
“She has ridden out to Farley Castle with a party of young friends, and I don’t expect to see her back for several hours yet.”
He looked annoyed, but before he had time to speak an interruption occurred, in the person of Miss Farlow, who came into the room, with her bonnet askew, and words tripping off her tongue. “Such a vexatious thing, dear Annis! I have been all over the town, trying to match that sarcenet, and, would you believe it, not even Thorne’s were able to offer me anything like it! So what with this horrid wind, which has positively blown me to pieces, and—” She stopped, becoming suddenly aware of the presence of a stranger. “Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn’t know! What a sadly shocking thing of me to do, bursting in on you, which of course I should never have done if James had informed me that you had a visitor! But he never said a word about it—just relieved me of my parcels, you know, for it was he who opened the door, not our good Limbury, who I daresay was busy in the pantry, and I desired him to give the large one to Mrs Wardlow, and to have the others carried up to my bedchamber, which he said he would do, and then we exchanged a few words about the way the wind whips at one round every corner, and how dreadfully steep the hill is, particularly when one is burdened with parcels, as, of course, I was, and which has made me quite out of breath, besides tousling me quite abominably!”
Miss Wychwood, having observed with malicious enjoyment the effect on Mr Carleton of this tangled speech, intervened at this point, saying: “I’ve no sympathy to waste on you, Maria! Indeed, I think you very well served for being so foolish as to walk home, instead of calling up a chair! As for ‘bursting in’, I am glad you did, for I wish to make Mr Carleton known to you—Lucilla’s uncle, you know! Mr Carleton, Miss Farlow—my cousin, who is kind enough to reside with me.”
He favoured Miss Farlow with a brief bow, but addressed himself to his hostess, saying, with the flicker of an impish smile: “Lending you countenance, ma’am?”
“Exactly so!” she said, refusing to rise to this bait.
“You astonish me! I hadn’t supposed that any lady so advanced in years as yourself would be conscious of the need of chaperonage! Is your name Annis? A corruption, I believe, of Agnes, but I like it! It becomes you.”
“Well!” exclaimed Miss Farlow, bristling in defence of her patroness, “I’m sure I don’t know why you should, not that I mean to say it is not a very pretty name, for I think it very pretty, but if it is a corruption it cannot be thought to become dear Miss Wychwood, who is not in the least corrupt, let me assure you!”
“Thank you, Maria!” said Miss Wychwood, bubbling over with ill-suppressed mirth. “I knew I might depend on you to establish my character!”
“Indeed you may, dearest Annis!” declared Miss Farlow, much moved. She glared through starting tears at Mr Carleton, and added, with a gasp at her own temerity: “I shall take leave to tell you, sir, that I think it most ungentlemanly of you to cast aspersions on Miss Wychwood!”
“No, no, Maria!” said Miss Wychwood, trying to speak with proper sobriety, “you wrong him! I don’t think he meant to cast aspersions on me—though I own I wouldn’t be prepared to hazard any large sum on such a doubtful chance!”
“Hornet!” said Mr Carleton appreciatively.
She twinkled at him, and awoke a reluctant smile in his hard eyes. “Let us leave my character out of the discussion! You have come to Bath—at great personal inconvenience—to see your niece, but, most unfortunately, she is not here at the moment. So what is to be done? You will scarcely wish to sit here, kicking your heels, until she returns!”
“No, by God I wouldn’t! Any more, I dare swear, than you would wish me to do so!”
“No, indeed! You would be very much in my way! Perhaps it would be best if you were to dine here tonight.”
“No,” he said decisively. “You’re very obliging, ma’am, but it would be best if you brought her to dine with me, at the York House. I’m putting up there, and they seem to keep a tolerable table. I shall expect you both at seven—unless you prefer a later hour?”
“Oh, no! But pray don’t depend upon my joining you! My abigail shall escort Lucilla to York House, and I feel sure I can rely on you to bring her back later in the evening.”
“That won’t do at all!” he said. “Your presence at any discussion about Lucilla’s future is indispensable, believe me! I do depend upon your joining me. Don’t fail me!”
With that, he took his leave, bowing slightly to Miss Farlow, but grasping Miss Wychwood’s hand for a moment, and favouring her with a rueful grin.
Chapter 6
“Well!” uttered Miss Farlow, in accents of strong reprobation, as soon as Limbury had conducted Mr Carleton out of the room. “What a very uncivil person, I must say! To be sure, Sir Geoffrey did warn us, and I do hope, dearest Annis, that you will not dine with him this evening! Such impertinence to have invited you—if an invitation you could call it, though I never heard an invitation delivered so improperly! I quite thought you must have given him a heavy set-down, and was astonished that you did not!”