Two Corinthians (8 page)

“If it is to her benefit.” Lizzie fell silent, pondering his advice.

They were strolling along a path bounded on one side by a hedge. Now they heard voices on the other side of the hedge, and as they drew closer to the speakers they recognised Mr Harrison’s.

“The young ‘un’s a pretty chit,” he said, “but Cousin Caroline mentioned it’s the old maid has the rhino.”

Lord Pomeroy’s voice followed, in a tone of icy contempt. “If I find you have made improper advances to either young lady...”

“No, no, assure you, coz. I know it don’t do to treat respectable young women like serving wenches.”

“Your manners towards serving wenches leave a great deal to be desired.”

“There’s no need to comb my hair with a joint stool.” Mr Harrison sounded injured. “It’s marriage I mean by Miss Sutton. She may be an antidote, but the dibs are in tune and I can tell you, coz, I’m deep in Dun Territory.”

Bursting with indignation, Lizzie did not hear Lord Pomeroy’s response to this confession. George managed to hush her so that her outrage emerged as a hiss instead of the screech she had intended.

“What an odious, odious man!”

“Deplorable,” agreed George.

“I must warn Claire to beware of him for I expect he is quite unscrupulous, whatever he claims. The trouble is, I daresay if I do she will think everyone who courts her is only after her money. I think I will not tell her. I shall just have to keep an eye on him myself. I don’t suppose you...?”

“I am yours to command, ma’am,” he sighed. “I shall endeavour to put a spoke in Horrid Horace’s wheel.”

“Splendid! I know she will be quite safe with you to look after her. You are prodigious obliging, my lord.”

“George, remember?” He looked down at her, smiling, but with a disturbing glint in his eye.

“You are prodigious obliging, George,” she said obediently, as they rounded the end of the hedge.

Lord Pomeroy and Mr Harrison were moving towards Claire and Miss Harrison, who stood looking at a flowerbed.

“Whatever happened to the crocuses?” Lizzie enquired. “They were so pretty and now they are crushed into the ground.”

“I was just telling Miss Harrison,” said Claire. She repeated the tale of the escaped stallion and Lord Pomeroy’s swift, courageous actions.

His lordship came up in time to hear her last few words. Lizzie turned to him, reached up on tiptoe and planted a hearty kiss on his cheek.

“Thank
you, my lord,” she breathed, blue eyes shining.

Lord Pomeroy crimsoned, losing his usual air of imperturbability. “It was nothing,” he said gruffly, looking more embarrassed than gratified. “What an impulsive child you are!”

“No more impulsive in expressing my gratitude than you were in saving Claire, for you cannot have had time to think with Papa’s stallion bearing down upon you. And I am not a child.”

“Which makes your behaviour the less excusable,” pointed out Lord Pomeroy.

Lizzie saw that Claire was distressed by this spirited exchange.

“I apologise, my lord,” she said with stiff dignity, which was spoiled when she added, “I did not realise that gentlemen were so averse to being kissed.”

Mr Harrison snickered, George shouted with laughter, and Lord Pomeroy was surprised into a chuckle.

“It depends who is doing the kissing,” he said wickedly. When she pouted, he added, “Come, let us cry friends, Miss Elizabeth. I cannot be heroically rescuing one sister and coming to cuffs with the other on the same morning. It is too exhausting by far.”

Lizzie was incapable of holding a grudge. She took his offered arm, noting as she did so that Mr Harrison was scowling at her. As they strolled on she mentioned this to her companion.

“Cousin Horace is as eager as Aunt Dorothy for me to marry poor Amelia,” he explained wryly. “He imagines that while I might let a mere cousin sink in the River Tick, I am more likely to feel obliged to haul my wife’s brother out.”

“Would you?”

He raised his eyebrows at this. “Pray do not take offence again, ma’am, but you have a devilish blunt tongue!”

“And you ought not to use that word in the presence of a lady.”

“Touché,”
he acknowledged, grinning.

“I suppose it was an impertinent question,” she admitted. “However, if you did not want me to ask, you ought not to have told me about Horrid Horace.”

“You are quite right, very bad ton washing the family linen in public,” he said, with a puzzled frown, “and I cannot think why I did. Still, you deserve an answer, though it will scarce enlighten you. Since I have not the remotest intention of paying my addresses to Amelia, I see no need to make a decision as to Horrid Horace’s fate.”

“You are quite nice when you are not on your high ropes. Poor Amelia. I expect I had better look about for a husband for her as well.”

“As well?”

“As well as for myself,” she said hastily. Somehow she did not want to explain to Lord Pomeroy that she intended to try to find a suitor for Claire.

“I predict that it will not prove a difficult task to find a husband for you, provided you manage to keep your candour under control!”

Lizzie decided that this was the nearest she was likely to come to a compliment from Lord Pomeroy, so she accepted it gracefully. “I shall be more careful in Town,” she said, then added with the devastating forthrightness he had just warned against, “You see, I should hate to disgrace Claire, but I do not mind in the least if people think Mama has brought me up badly.”

To her delight, though he shook his head he laughed aloud.

Later, on the way back to the house, she whispered triumphantly to Claire, “I made him laugh aloud! He is human after all.”

This opinion was confirmed some time after Lord Pomeroy and his cousins took their leave. Alfie bashfully approached Lizzie and Claire and thrust at each of them a small package wrapped in brown paper.

“Open now,” he urged, his face pink with excitement. “Presents.”

Each parcel contained a pair of gloves of York tan leather, warm and practical yet elegant. Before Lizzie could voice her fear that Alfie must have stolen them, he was eagerly explaining.

“Mr Lord give me money,” he said. “When I tell Miss Claire ‘bout big horse. I want to buy presents for my misses
,
di’n’t know what to get, so axed Mr Lord. He di’n’t mind, Miss Claire, honest. He went to the village with me an’ help me choose. Said gloves is un—unceptable present for a young lady. They all right? All right, Miss Lizzie?”

“Perfect, Alfie,” Lizzie assured him, trying them on. “Look, they fit beautifully.”

“Thank you, dear Alfie,” said Claire. “His lordship was right, they are quite unexceptionable and most welcome.”

Alfie went off with a spring in his step, and they turned to each other.

“I saw these in the shop last week and coveted them,” said Lizzie, “but I decided they were too expensive. How much did he give Alfie?”

“A shilling, I think. Lord Pomeroy must have paid the difference himself. Oh dear! He commented on my bare hands this morning!”

“It was prodigious kind of him,” Lizzie said decisively, “both to Alfie and to us. You will not insist upon returning them?”

“No, I suppose not. Gloves are truly an unexceptionable gift from a gentleman to a lady, though it is perhaps a little premature after such a short acquaintance. But do we thank him for them, or pretend Alfie really bought them? What a dear creature Alfie is, to think of us. A shilling is a rare treat to him, after all.”

“I shall embroider a neckerchief for Alfie. And I shall most certainly thank his lordship, for I suspect it will embarrass him which will be excessively amusing.”

“How can you in one breath praise his kindness and in the next plan to embarrass him?” marvelled Claire. “I wish you will not.”

Lizzie refused to be persuaded and went up to change for dinner feeling pleased with herself.

For a wonder, her mother was pleased with her as well. She bustled into the girls’ chamber looking smug.

“You are managing them both very nicely, Elizabeth. I scarcely hoped that Lord Pomeroy would call on you so soon! That Harrison child is quite out of the running. There is nothing to recommend her at all, for she has no beauty and no countenance and I understand the family is quite to pieces. This competition between the gentlemen is most fortunate, but you must make a push to attach one of them soon, for there is no knowing how long they will stay.”

“What do you suggest, Mama?” asked Lizzie. “Shall I trap one of them into compromising me?”

“Don’t be vulgar, miss. All the same, there are ways to go about it without being obvious. Tomorrow we shall call upon Lady Caroline. Contrive to keep both of them tied to your apron strings until one comes up to scratch. Lord Winterborne is the better catch, of course, but Lord Pomeroy is not to be sneezed at.”

“I should not dream of sneezing at Lord Pomeroy, Mama,” Lizzie assured her. As Lady Sutton departed, satisfied, she added softly, “For teasing is much more fun!”

It was raining next day when the Sutton ladies set out to visit Lady Caroline. Despite the weather, Lord Winterborne chose to accompany them, riding beside the carriage. Adducing this as proof that Lizzie had hooked his lordship, Lady Sutton was in a high good humour. She prattled on about ways to incite a gentleman to jealousy without giving him a disgust of one, until Lizzie could have screamed with vexation.

She was beginning to think that if one must use such underhand wiles to win a husband, she had rather do without one altogether.

The warmth of Lady Caroline’s welcome formed a strong contrast with Lady Harrison’s frosty greeting. At least, Lizzie noted, Lady Caroline welcomed herself and her sister warmly, while Lady Harrison thawed visibly at George’s approach. She watched with interest the stratagems employed by the three older ladies, the end result of which was that George found himself in a tête-à-tête with the silent Miss Harrison, Lord Pomeroy and Claire were sent to the book-room to find a first edition of Gerard’s
Herball,
and Lizzie herself was left without an admirer to hand.

Pleased to see her mother outmanoeuvred, she settled quite happily on a comfortable sofa and pulled out some embroidery from her reticule.

She was close enough to the ladies to hear their speech, yet far enough that they did not mind their tongues because of the presence of an unmarried girl. At first she was bored by a discussion of household matters. She had stopped listening, when she heard her own name.

Lady Sutton was delivering a strong hint that Lord Winterborne was expected to offer for her daughter’s hand any day now. “After all,” she said, “what else should keep him so long in this part of the country?”

Lady Harrison responded by pointing out that at present her Amelia was engaging Lord Winterborne’s attention, while Miss Elizabeth sat alone plying her needle.

Lady Caroline laughed. “George Winterborne has evaded parson’s mousetrap these many years,” she said. “I do not look to see him fall so easy. He is a gazetted flirt, a breaker of hearts. He has been the most eligible gentleman on the Town these ten years and more, yet sensible mothers warn their daughters away. You will do well not to encourage yours to hope, ladies.”

“But his attentions are most particular,” stuttered Lady Sutton, looking uneasy. “I trust he is not the sort of rakeshame who would ruin a young girl of good family.”

“No, rumour has never said that of him. Nor that he seduces the innocent of any class. And they say he never takes a married woman for his mistress. For all that, he has had more barques of frailty in keeping at one time or another than you could count in a month of Sundays.”

“That does not signify,” snorted Lady Harrison, “but I do not like to hear that he will raise a young lady’s hopes only to dash them.” She raised her voice. “Amelia, come here, pray.”

Lizzie was very glad that she had not confided in George her conclusion that he might make her a good husband. She had only agreed to flirt with him to mislead her mother. How lucky that she had not fallen in love with him!

That being the case, she greeted him with her usual friendly smile when, released from Miss Harrison’s side, he sat down beside her.

Lady Sutton immediately called to her. “Elizabeth, go and see what is become of your sister. She will be driving Lord Pomeroy to distraction with her foolishness, I wager.”

“By all means, Miss Lizzie, let us go and find your sister,” said George, rising with her.

“Winterborne,” said Lady Caroline commandingly, “a word with you, if you please.”

George sent Lizzie a comical look of impatience but bowed politely to his hostess and stood waiting until she joined him.

Though a sixteenth-century book sounded interesting, Lizzie had no intention of going in search of Claire, who would doubtless return when she was ready to do so. She did not want Lord Pomeroy to imagine that she was chasing him, though she hoped for a chance to thank him for the gloves. She left the drawing room and spent several minutes studying the family portraits in the front hall, then slipped back into the room.

Lady Harrison was explaining her son’s absence as due to the exigencies of his toilet.

“It sometimes takes him three hours to tie his neckcloth,” she said. “He has a reputation to uphold, for he is an acknowledged Pink of the Ton.”

Lizzie could have told her ladyship something of Mr Harrison’s less savoury reputation. She held her tongue and moved cautiously in the opposite direction, hoping that her mother would not see her and demand to know Claire’s whereabouts. She sank into a chair which she thought was hidden from Lady Sutton by the sofa where George and Lady Caroline were engaged in low-voiced conversation.

Again she found herself inadvertently eavesdropping.

“And now tell me,” said George sardonically, “why I am suddenly an outcast and why you prevented me from going with Lizzie.”

“You are an outcast because I revealed what a shocking flirt you are, so it is entirely your own fault. Never fear, your rank and fortune will soon return to the forefront of their minds, and they will dismiss my warning.”

“And the other?”