“You are laughing at me!” Judith said uncertainly. “I am sure you are laughing at me! Do pray tell me you did not give your consent!”
He smiled, but would not answer. They were again separated, and when they met once more he began to talk in his languid way of something quite different. She answered very much at random, trying to read his face, and when the dance came to an end, suffered him to lead her into the tea-room, away from her own party.
He procured a glass of lemonade for her, and took up a position beside her chair. “Well, my ward,” he said, “did you, or did you not, send Clarence to me?”
“Yes, I did—that is to say, he said he should go to you, and I agreed, because I could not make him realize that I don’t wish to marry him. I thought I might depend on you!”
“Oh!” said Worth. “That is not precisely as I understood the matter. The Duke seemed to be in no doubt of the issue once my consent was obtained.”
“If you thought that I would ever marry a man old enough to be my father you did me a shocking injustice!” said Miss Taverner hotly. “And if you had the amazing impertinence to suppose that his rank must make him acceptable to me you insult me beyond all bearing!”
“Softly, my child: I thought neither of these things,” said his lordship, slightly amused. “My experience of you led me instead to suppose that you had sent your suitor to me in a spirit of pure mischief. Was that an injustice too?”
Miss Taverner was a little mollified, but said stiffly: “Yes, it was, sir. The Duke of Clarence would not believe I meant what I said, and the best I could think of was for you to help me. I made sure you would refuse your consent!”
“I did,” said the Earl, taking snuff.
“Then why,” demanded Miss Taverner, relieved, “did you say you wished me joy?”
“Merely to alarm you, Clorinda, and to teach you not to play tricks on me.”
“It was no trick, and you are abominable!”
“I humbly beg your forgiveness.”
She flashed an indignant look at him, and set her empty glass down on the table with a snap. The Earl offered her his snuff-box. “Will you try this mixture? I find it tolerably soothing to the nerves.”
Miss Taverner relented. “I am very sensible of what an honour that is,” she said, helping herself to an infinitesimal pinch. “I suppose you could do no more.”
“Not while I continue to occupy the post of guardian,” he agreed.
She lowered her gaze, and said in a hurry: “Did the Duke mention his plan of inviting me (and you too) to Bushey for Christmas?”
“He did,” said the Earl. “But I informed him that you would be spending Christmas at Worth.”
Miss Taverner drew in her breath sharply, inhaled far more of his lordship’s snuff than she had meant to, and sneezed. “But I am not!” she said.
“I am sorry if it should be repugnant to you, but you are certainly spending Christmas at Worth,” he replied.
“It is not repugnant, precisely, but—”
“You relieve my mind of a weight,” said his lordship satirically. “I was afraid it might be.”
“It is very obliging of you, but since you have refused your consent to the Duke’s paying his addresses to me he cannot now expect me to make one of his party. I should prefer to spend Christmas with Perry.”
“Naturally,” said the Earl. “I was not proposing that you should come to Worth without him.”
“But Perry has no notion of going to Worth!” protested Miss Taverner. “I daresay he has quite different plans in his mind!”
“Then he will put them out of his mind,” replied the Earl. “I prefer to keep Perry under my eye.”
He offered his arm, and after a slight hesitation she rose, and laid her hand on it, and allowed him to lead her back into the ballroom. It had occurred to her that she was by no means averse to going on a visit to Worth.
Chapter XIV
It was fortunate for Miss Taverner that, by reason of Christmas being at hand, she must soon be removed from the Duke of Clarence’s neighbourhood. He by no means despaired of winning her, and though momentarily cast-down, and inclined to be indignant at Worth’s refusing his consent, he was very soon consoling himself with the reflection that Miss Taverner would be free in less than a year from the Earl’s guardianship. He was sanguine, and, calling in Brook Street again, assured Judith that when she came to know him better she would perceive all the advantages of the match as clearly as he did himself.
Peregrine’s feelings upon being informed that he was to go to Worth were not at all complacent. He asserted that he should not go, thought it a great imposition, suspected the Earl of trying to fix his interest with Judith, and had a very good mind to write a curt refusal. However, the intelligence that Miss Fairford had received a most distinguishing invitation from Lady Albinia Forrest, the Earl’s maternal aunt, to make one of the party, quite put an end to his ill-humour. The Earl became immediately a very good sort of a fellow, and from having been disconsolately expecting a party insipid beyond everything, he was brought to look forward to it with no common degree of pleasure.
Judith also looked forward to it in the expectation of considerable enjoyment. She had an ambition to see Worth, which Mrs. Scattergood had described to her in the most eulogistic terms; the party was to be select, comprised for the most part of her most particular friends; and her only regret was that the greatest of her friends, Mr. Bernard Taverner, was not to be present. When she told him of the invitation and saw him look sadly out of countenance, she said impulsively that she wished he might be going with them. He smiled, but shook his head. “The Earl of Worth would never invite me to join any party of which you were a member,” he said. “There is no love lost between us.”
“No love lost!” she exclaimed. “I had thought you barely acquainted with him. How is this?”
“The Earl of Worth,” he said deliberately, “has been good enough to warn me against making your well-being my concern. He does me the honour of thinking me to stand in his way. What will be the issue I do not know. If he is to be believed, I stand in some danger of being put out of his way.” He gave a little laugh. “The Earl of Worth does not like to have his path crossed.”
She was staring at him in great astonishment. “This is beyond everything, upon my word! You cannot, I am persuaded, have properly understood him! Why should he threaten you? When have you met? Where did this conversation take place?”
“It took place,” said Mr. Taverner, “in a certain tavern known as Cribb’s Parlour, upon the day that Perry went out to fight Farnaby. I found his lordship there in close conversation with Farnaby himself.”
“With Farnaby! Good God! what can you mean?”
He took a short turn about the room. “I do not know. I wish that I did. It was not my intention to speak of this to you, but lately I have thought that his lordship has been making headway with you. However little I may relish the office of informer, it is only right that you should be put upon your guard. What Worth’s business with Farnaby may have been I have no means of knowing. It must be all conjecture. To see them with their heads together was to me something of a shock, I own. I impute nothing; I merely tell you what I saw. The Earl, perceiving me, came across the room to my side; what passed between us I shall not repeat. It was enough to assure me that Worth regards me as a menace to whatever scheme he may have in mind. I was warned not to meddle in your concerns. Whether I am very likely to be intimidated by such a threat I leave it to yourself to decide.”