Lady Wychwood eyed the potion doubtfully, but obediently took, not a gulp, but a cautious sip. She then took a larger sip, and declared that it was not by half as nasty as Annis had led her to expect.
“By which I collect you to mean that it is not as nasty as they tell me the Harrogate water is! You must let me present Mr Carleton to you: he is Lucilla’s uncle, you know!”
Mr Carleton, who had exchanged a brief greeting with Mrs Stinchcombe, bowed, and said that he was happy to make her ladyship’s acquaintance. He sounded indifferent rather than happy, and Lady Wychwood, somewhat coldly acknowledging his bow, was much inclined to suspect that her dear Geoffrey had been mistaken in believing Annis stood in danger of succumbing to this libertine’s fascinating arts. It did not appear to Lady Wychwood that he had any fascinating arts at alclass="underline" why, he wasn’t even a handsome man! Recalling Annis’s past suitors, all of whom had been blessed with good-looks and distinguished manners, she began to suspect that Annis had been making a May-game of her brother, as (regrettably) she too often did. She could perceive nothing in Mr Carleton that could appeal to any female as critical and fastidious as Annis, and consequently unbent towards him, complimenting him on his charming niece, and saying how much she liked Lucilla.
He bowed again, and said: “You are too kind, ma’am. Are you making a long stay in Bath?”
“Oh, no! That is to say, I hardly know, but not more than a week or two, I think. Are you making a long stay, sir?”
“Like you, I hardly know. It depends on circumstances.” He glanced round, and addressed himself to Annis, saying: “Spare me a moment, Miss Wychwood! I wish to consult you—about Lucilla.”
“Certainly! I am quite at your disposal,” said Annis.
He took civil but unsmiling leave of the two other ladies, and moved apart with Miss Wychwood. No sooner were they out of tongue-shot of her companions than he said abruptly: “How came it about that you permitted Kilbride to escort Lucilla through the town yesterday, ma’am? I thought I had made my wishes plain to you!”
“My permission was not sought,” she replied frigidly. “Mr Kilbride met Lucilla, and her maid, on their way to Laura Place, and turned back to accompany Lucilla.”
“It hardly seems that the maid was an adequate chaperon.”
“I don’t know what you would have had her do,” she said, nettled. “It was not as though Kilbride were a stranger! Lucilla greeted him with pleasure, believing him to be a friend of mine, and I have no doubt Brigham accepted him as such.”
“In which she was justified!”
She heaved an exasperated sigh. “Very well! he is a friend of mine, but I am as well aware as you are, Mr Carleton, that he is not a fit friend for an impressionable and quite inexperienced girl, and I shall do my best to keep him at arm’s length. In future, when I am unable to accompany her myself I will send her out in the carriage! And when she objects, as object she will, I shall tell her that I am merely obeying your orders!”
“But I haven’t given such an unreasonable order!” he said. “I haven’t, in fact, given any order at all.”
“You said that you thought you had made your wishes plain to me, and you might as well have said orders, instead of wishes, for that was what you meant! So detestably top-lofty that you apparently think I must obey your wishes,as though I had no mind or will of my own!”
“Well, where Lucilla is concerned I do think you must,” he said. “Recollect that you took it upon yourself to assume control over her, and not, let me remind you, by any wish of mine! I said then, and I will say again, that I do not think you a fit person to have charge of her.”
“Then I suggest, sir, that you take charge of her yourself!” she said tartly.
“I might have known you would be quick to seize the opportunity to throw me in the close,” he murmured.
She was obliged to laugh. “I collect that is a piece of pugilistic slang, and I suppose I can guess what it means! I only wish it might prove to be true! It would, I daresay, be useless to tell you that it is not at all the thing to employ cant terms when you are talking to a female!”
“Oh, quite!” he said affably.
“You know, you are perfectly abominable!” she said. “And far less a fit and proper person to have charge of Lucilla than I am!”
“You can’t think how relieved I am that you’ve realized that!”he said.
She cast up her eyes despairingly. “I had as well level at the moon as try to get a point the better of you!”
“You are mistaken. You tipped me a settler at our very first meeting, my dear!”
“Did I?” she said, wrinkling her brow. “I can’t imagine how I contrived to do so!”
“No. I am unhappily aware of that,” he replied, with a wry smile. “And this is not the place in which to tell you what I mean!”
Colour rushed into her cheeks, for these words had made his meaning very plain to her. She said hurriedly: “We seem to have strayed a long way from the point, sir. We were discussing Lucilla’s somewhat unfortunate meeting with Denis Kilbride. I shan’t attempt to deny that I regret it, but is it, after all, such a great matter that she should have accepted his escort to Mrs Stinchcombe’s house? What harm could come of it?”
“More than you think!” he answered. “I haven’t sojourned in Bath for long, but for long enough to have arrived at a pretty fair estimate of the amount of tale-pitching that goes on amongst those known, I believe, as the Bath quizzes! Kilbride’s reputation is well-known to them, and I think it of the first importance that Lucilla should not be seen in his company. Tongues are wagging already, and who can say how many of the scandalmongers have friends or relations living in London whom they regale with tit-bits of the local on dits? Don’t think that it was one of these who dropped a word of warning in my ear! It was Mrs Mandeville, with whom I dined last night!”
“Oh, heavens!” exclaimed Miss Wychwood, dismayed. “I wouldn’t for the world have Mrs Mandeville, of all people, think Lucilla to be a coming girl!”
“You have no need to be afraid of that. She doesn’t think it, but she knows as well as I do that nothing can do a pretty innocent more harm than to be seen to encourage the attentions of such men as Kilbride.”
“Oh, nothing! nothing!” said Miss Wychwood fervently. “I can assure you that I shall take good care that it doesn’t happen again!” A rather rueful smile touched her lips. She said, not without difficulty: “I am afraid she is not—not impervious to his charm, and I ought perhaps to tell you that I find it very difficult to know how best to combat this. I think—no, I am sure that I took a false step yesterday, when she was telling me about his escorting her to Laura Place, and how kind and amusing she thought him: I said—funningly, of course!—that I had lost count of the silly girls who had lost their hearts to him, and had been left languishing. If I had said no more than that, it might have given her pause, but when she replied that perhaps he hadn’t truly loved any of them I was betrayed into suggesting that perhaps none of them had been as well-endowed as he had believed them to be. She—she flew out at me, asked me how I could say anything so detestable about him, and fairly ran out of the room. Pray don’t rake me down for having said anything so ill-judged! I have been raking myself down ever since I said it!”
“Then stop raking yourself down!” he replied. “I am not concerned with the possibility that Lucilla might fall in love with him: one doesn’t form a lasting passion at her age, and the experience won’t harm her. All that concerns me is that she should not be beguiled into indiscretion.”
“You don’t feel—it has occurred to me that you might perhaps say something to Kilbride?”
“My dear girl, it is not in the least necessary that I should do so. He may flirt with her, but he won’t go beyond flirtation, believe me! He is no coward, but he is as little anxious to risk a meeting with me, as I am to force one on him. You may rest assured that I shan’t do so, for nothing could be more prejudicial to Lucilla’s reputation than the scandal that would create! Take that anxious frown off your face! It doesn’t become you! I perceive that Lady Wychwood is about to descend on you, so we had better part: she clearly feels it to be her duty to come between us! I wonder what harm she thinks I could do you in such a public place as this?”