Regency Buck (13 page)

Miss Taverner accepted the cup and saucer with a brief word of thanks, and setting it down on the sofa-table at her elbow, continued to ply her needle.

“Yes, indeed you are,” agreed Mrs. Scattergood. “We have been about for ever this last week. You can have no notion! Balls, assemblies, card-parties, and actually. Worth, an invitation to Lady Cork’s! I tell Judith nothing could be better, for all she may think it tedious! No cards, my love—nothing of that sort, but the company of the most select, and the conversation all wit and elegance. I am sure we have to thank that dear, delightful Emily Cowper for it!”

“On the contrary, you have to thank me for it,” said the Earl, sipping his tea.

“My dear Worth, is it really so? Well, and why should I not have guessed it? To think I should forget the terms your poor Mama was upon with Lady Cork! Of course I might have known it was all your doing. It is very prettily done of you; I am excessively pleased with you for thinking of it. Is that why you are here? Did you come to tell us?”

“Not at all,” said the Earl. “I came at the request of Miss Taverner.”

Mrs. Scattergood turned a surprised, inquiring look upon Judith. “You never told me you had invited Worth, my dear?”

“I did request Lord Worth to call here,” said Miss Taverner, carefully choosing another length of embroidery silk. “I did not, however, mention any particular day or hour.”

“True,” said the Earl. “I had had the intention of calling on you this morning, Miss Taverner, but—er—circumstances intervened.”

“It was fortunate, sir. I was not at home this morning.” She raised her eyes momentarily from her work to find that he was regarding her with a look of so much sarcastic amusement that the unwelcome suspicion crossed her mind that he must have seen her drive out, and changed his own plans immediately.

“This morning!” ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood, with a strong shudder. “Pray do not be talking of it! Three hours—I am persuaded it was no less—at the Botanic Gardens, and I not having the least notion that you cared a rap for all those odiously rare plants!”

“The Botanic Gardens,” murmured the Earl. “Poor Miss Taverner!”

She was now sure that he must somewhere have seen her. She got up. “If you have finished your tea, sir, perhaps you would do me the kindness of coming into the other drawing-room. You will excuse us, ma’am, I know. I have something of a private nature to say to Lord Worth.”

“By all means, my love, though I can’t conceive what it should be,” said Mrs. Scattergood.

Miss Taverner did not enlighten her. She went out through the door his lordship was holding open for her into the back drawing-room, and took up a stand by the table in the middle of the room. The Earl shut the door, and surveyed her with his air of rather bored amusement. “Well, Miss Taverner?” he said.

“I desired you to visit me, sir, to explain, if you please, this letter which you wrote me,” said Judith, pulling the offending document out of her reticule.

He took it from her. “Do you know, I never thought that you would cherish my poor notes so carefully?” he said.

Miss Taverner ground her teeth, but made no reply. The Earl, having looked her over with what she could not but feel to be a challenge in his mocking eyes, picked up his eyeglass, and through it perused his own letter. When he had done this he lowered his glass and looked inquiringly at Miss Taverner. “What puzzles you, Clorinda? It seems to me quite lucid.”

“My name is not Clorinda!” snapped Miss Taverner. “I wonder that you should care to call up the recollections it must evoke! If they are not odious to
you
—”

“How could they be?” said Worth. “You must have forgotten one at least of them if you think that.”

She was obliged to turn away to hide her confusion. “How can you?” she demanded, in a suffocating voice.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said Worth. “I am not going to do it again yet, Clorinda. I told you, you remember, that you were not the only sufferer under your father’s Will.”

Her cousin’s warning flashed into Miss Taverner’s mind. She said coldly: “This way of talking no doubt amuses you, sir, but to me it is excessively repugnant. I did not wish to see you in order to discuss the past. That can only be forgotten. In that letter which you are holding you write that there is no possibility of your consenting to my marriage within the year of your guardianship.”

“Well, what could be plainer than that?” inquired the Earl.

“I am at a loss to understand you, sir. Certain applications have been made to you for—for permission to address me.”

“Three,” nodded his lordship. “The first was Wellesley Poole, but him I expected. The second was Claud Delabey Brown, whom I also expected. The third—now who was the third? Ah yes, it was young Matthews, was it not?”

“It does not signify, sir. What I wish you to explain is how you came to refuse these gentlemen without even the formality of consulting my wishes.”

“Do you want to marry one of them?” inquired the Earl solicitously. “I hope it is not Browne. I understand that his affairs are too pressing to allow him to wait until you are come of age.”

Miss Taverner controlled her tongue with a visible effort. “As it happens, sir, I do not contemplate marriage with any of these gentlemen,” she said. “But you had no means of knowing that when you refused them.”

“To tell you the truth, Miss Taverner, your wishes in the matter do not appear to me to be of much importance. I am glad, of course, that your heart is not broken,” he added kindly.

“My heart would scarcely be broken by your refusal to consent to my marriage, sir. When I wish to be married I shall marry, with or without your consent.”

“And who,” asked the Earl, “is the fortunate man?”

“There is no one,” said Miss Taverner curtly. “But—”

The Earl took out his snuff-box, and opened it. “But my dear Miss Taverner, are you not being a trifle indelicate? You are not proposing, I trust, to command some gentleman to marry you? The impropriety of such an action must strike even so masterful a mind as yours.”

Miss Taverner’s eyes were smouldering dangerously. “What I wish to make plain to you, Lord Worth, is that if any gentleman whom I—if anyone should ask me to marry him whom I—you know very well what I mean!”

He smiled. “Yes, Miss Taverner, I know what you mean. But keep my letter by you, for it tells you just as plainly what I mean.”

“Why?” she shot at him. “What object can you have?”

He took a pinch of snuff, and lightly dusted his fingers before he answered her. Then he said in his cool way: “You are a very wealthy young woman, Miss Taverner.”

“Ah!” said Judith, “I begin to understand.”

“I should be happy if I thought you did,” he replied, “but I feel it to be extremely doubtful. You have a considerable fortune in your own right. More important than this is the fact that under your father’s Will you are heiress to as much of your brother’s property as is unentailed.”

“Well?” said Judith.

“That being so,” said Worth, shutting his snuff-box with a snap and restoring it to his pocket, “there is little likelihood of gaining my consent to your marriage with anyone whom I can at the moment call to mind.”

“Except,” said Miss Taverner through her teeth, “yourself!”

“Except, of course, myself,” he agreed suavely.

“And do you suppose, Lord Worth, that there is any great likelihood of my marrying you?” inquired Judith in a sleek, deceptive voice.

He raised his brows. “Until I ask you to marry me, Miss Taverner, not the least likelihood,” he replied gently.

For fully a minute she could not trust herself to speak. She would have liked to have swept from the room, but the Earl was between her and the door, and she could place no dependence on him moving out of the way. “Have the goodness to leave me, sir. I have no more to say to you.”

He strolled forward till he stood immediately before her. She suspected him of meaning to take her hands, whipped them both behind her, and took a swift step backward. A large cabinet prevented her from retreating further, and the Earl very coolly following, she found herself cornered. He took her chin in his hand, and made her hold up her head, and stood looking down at her with a faintly sardonic smile. “You are handsome, Miss Taverner; you are not unintelligent—except in your dealings with me; you are a termagant. Here is some advice for you: keep your sword sheathed.” She stood rigid and silent, staring doggedly up into his face. “Oh yes, you hate me excessively, I know. But you are my ward, Miss Taverner, and if you are wise you will accept that with a good grace.” He let go her chin, gave her cheek a careless pat. “There, that is better advice than you think. I am a more experienced duellist than you. I have brought you your snuff, and the recipe.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to refuse both, but she bit back the words, aware that they would sound merely childish. “I am obliged to you,” she said in an expressionless voice.

He moved to the door, and held it open. She walked past him into the hall. He nodded to the waiting footman, who at once brought him his hat and gloves. As he took them he said: “I beg you will make my excuses to Mrs. Scattergood. Good night, Miss Taverner.”

“Good night!” said Judith, and turning on her heel, went back into the front drawing-room.

She entered with a somewhat hasty stride and shut the door behind her if not with a slam, at least with a decided snap. Her eyes were stormy; her cheeks looked hot. She flashed a look round the room, and the wrath died out of her face. Mrs. Scattergood was not present; there was only Mr. Taverner, seated by the window, and glancing through a newspaper.

He got up at once, and laid the paper aside. “I am so late. Forgive me, cousin! I was detained longer than I had thought possible—hardly liked to call upon you at this hour, and indeed should have done no more than leave the book with your butler, only that he assured me that you had not retired.”

“Oh, I am glad you came in!” Judith said, holding out her hand to him. “It was kind in you to remember the book. Is this it? Thank you, cousin.”

She picked it up from the table, and began to turn the leaves. Her cousin’s hand laid compellingly over hers made her look up. He was regarding her intently. “What is it, Judith?” he asked in his quiet way.

She gave a little, angry laugh. “Oh, it is nothing—it should be nothing. I am stupid, that is all.”

“No, you are not stupid. Something has occurred to put you out.”

She tried to draw her hand away, but he did not slacken his hold. “Tell me,” he said.

She looked significantly down at his hand. “If you please, cousin.”

“I beg your pardon.” He stepped back with a slight bow.

She put the book aside, and moved towards a. three-backed settee of lacquered wood and cane, and sat down. “You need not. I know you only wish to be kind.” She smiled up at him. “I am not offended with you, for all I may look to be in one of my sad passions.”

He followed her to the settee, and at a sign from her seated himself beside her. “It is Worth?” he asked directly.

“Oh, yes, it is, as usual, my noble guardian,” she replied, with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Mrs. Scattergood informed me that he was with you. What has he been doing or must I not ask?”

“I brought it upon myself,” said Judith, incurably honest. “But he behaves in such a way—oh, cousin, if my father had but known! We are in Lord Worth’s hands. Nothing could be worse! I thought at first that he was amusing himself at my expense. Now I am afraid—I suspect him of a set purpose, and though it cannot succeed it can make this year uncomfortable for me.”

“A set purpose,” he repeated. “I may guess it, I suppose.”

“I think so. It was you who put me a little on my guard.”

He nodded; he was slightly frowning. “You are very wealthy,” he said. “And he is expensive. I do not know what his fortune is; I imagined it had been considerable, but he is a gamester, and a friend of the Regent. He is in the front of fashion; his clothes are made by the first tailors; his stables are second to none; he belongs to I dare not say how many clubs—White’s, Watier’s, the Alfred (or, as I have heard it called, the Half-Read), the Je ne sais quoi, the Jockey Club, the Four Horse, the Bensington—perhaps more.”

“In a word, cousin, he is a dandy,” Judith said.

“More than that. He is of the Bow-window set, I grant, but not of the Unique Four. That is composed, as you know, of only your complete Dandies—Brummell, Alvanley, Mildmay, and Pierrepoint. Worth has other interests, even more expensive.”

“So has Lord Alvanley,” she interposed.

“Very true. Lord Alvanley hunts, for instance, but he does not, I believe, aspire to be first in so many fields as Worth. You may hardly go to a race-meeting but you are sure to find Worth has a horse running, while his curricle-races, the teams he drives, are notorious.”

“It is the only thing I know of to his advantage,” Judith said. “I will admit him to be an excellent whip. But for the rest I find him a mere fop, a creature of affectations, tricked out in modish clothes, thinking snuff to be of more moment than events of real importance. He is proud, he can be insolent. There is a reserve, a lack of openness—I must not say any more: I shall put myself in a rage, and that will not do.”

He smiled. “You’ve no love for the dandies, Judith?”

“Oh, as to that—Mr. Brummell is of all people the most charming companion. Lord Alvanley too must always please. But in general, no, I do not like them. I like a man to be a man, and not a mask of fashion.”

He agreed to it, but said seriously: “I collect there is more than you have said. These faults, though you may despise them, are not enough to anger you as I think you were angered this evening, cousin.”

She was silent for a moment, her eyes smouldering again at the recollection of her interview with the Earl. Mr. Taverner laid his hand over hers, and clasped it. “Do not tell me unless you choose,” he said gently, “but believe that I only wish to serve you, to be, if I may be no more, merely your friend.”

“You are all consideration,” she said. “All kindness.” She smiled, but with a quivering lip. “Indeed, I count you very much my friend. There is no one I can open my mind to, saving Perry, and he is young, taken up with his new acquaintances, and amusements. Mrs. Scattergood is very amiable, but she is related to Worth—a circumstance I cannot forget. I have been thinking how very much alone I am. There is only Perry—but I am falling into a mood of pitying myself, which is nonsensical. While I have Perry I cannot want for protection.” She gave her head a little shake. “You see how stupid Lord Worth makes me! We cannot meet but I find myself picking a quarrel with him, and then I become as odious as he is himself. To-night in particular—he informs me, if you please, that he shall not consent to my marriage with anyone but himself while he is my guardian! It has put me in such a rage that I declare I could almost elope to Gretna Green just to spite him.”