Regency Buck (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 3)

Peregrine looked over his shoulder, and said belligerently: ‘I shall be sending to Yorkshire, for certain of my horses, but we shall be needing others, and a carriage for my sister.’

‘Surely you can buy a carriage without my assistance?’ said Worth in a weary voice. ‘You will probably be cheated in buying your horses, but the experience won’t harm you.’

Peregrine choked. ‘I did not mean that! For sure, I don’t need your assistance! All I meant was – what I wished to make plain –’

‘I see,’ said Worth. ‘You want to know whether you may set up your stable. Certainly. I have not the least objection.’ He came away from the secretaire, and walked slowly across the room to the fireplace. ‘There remains, Miss Taverner, the problem of finding a lady to live with you.’

‘I have a cousin living in Kensington, sir,’ said Miss Taverner. ‘I shall ask her if she will come to me.’

He glanced down at her meditatively. ‘Will you tell me, Miss Taverner, what precisely is your object in having come to London?’

‘What is that to the point, sir?’

‘When you are better acquainted with me,’ said the Earl, ‘you will know that I never ask pointless questions. Is it your intention to live upon the fringe of society, or do you mean to take your place in the world of Fashion? Will the Pantheon do for you, or must it be Almack’s?’

She replied instantly: ‘It must be the best, sir.’

‘Then we need not consider the cousin living in Kensington,’ said Worth. ‘Fortunately, I know a lady who (though I fear you may find her in some ways extremely foolish) is not only willing to undertake the task of chaperoning you, but has the undoubted entrée to the world you wish to figure in. Her name is Scattergood. She is a widow, and some sort of a cousin of mine. I will bring her to call on you.’

Miss Taverner got up in one swift graceful movement. ‘I had rather anyone than a cousin of yours, Lord Worth!’ she declared.

He drew out his snuff-box again, and took a pinch between finger and thumb. Over it his eyes met hers. ‘Shall we agree, Miss Taverner, to consider that remark unsaid?’ he suggested gently.

She blushed to the roots of her hair. She could have cried from vexation at having allowed her unruly tongue to betray her into a piece of school-girlish rudeness. ‘I beg your pardon!’ she said stiffly.

He bowed, and laid his snuff-box down open on the table. He had apparently no more to say to her, for he turned to Peregrine, and called him away from the window. ‘When you have visited a tailor,’ he said, ‘come to me again, and we will discuss what clubs you want me to put your name up for.’

Peregrine came to the table, half sulky, half eager. ‘Can you have me made a member of White’s?’ he asked rather shyly.

‘Yes, I can have you made a member of White’s,’ said the Earl.

‘And – and – Watier’s, is it not?’

‘That will be for my friend Mr Brummell to decide. His decision will not be in your favour if you let him see you in that coat. Go to Weston, in Conduit Street, or to Schweitzer and Davidson, and mention my name.’

‘I thought of going to Stultz,’ said Peregrine, making a bid for independence.

‘By all means, if you wish the whole of London to recognise your tailor at a glance,’ shrugged his lordship.

‘Oh!’ said Peregrine, a little abashed. ‘Mr Fitzjohn recommended him to me.’

‘So I should imagine,’ said the Earl.

Miss Taverner said with an edge to her voice: ‘Pray, sir, have you no advice to offer me in the matter of my dress?’

He turned. ‘My advice to you, Miss Taverner, is to put yourself unreservedly in the hands of Mrs Scattergood. There is one other matter. While you are under my guardianship you will, if you please, refrain from being present in towns where a prizefight is being held.’

She caught her breath. ‘Yes, my lord? You think, perhaps, that my being in such towns might lay me open to some insult?’

‘On the contrary,’ replied the Earl, ‘I think it might lay you open to an excess of civility.’

Five

THE EVENTS AND IMPRESSIONS OF HER FIRST WEEK IN LONDON left Miss Taverner with her brain in a whirl. On the very afternoon of the day she and Peregrine called on their guardian he not only brought Mrs Scattergood to see her, but later sent Mr Blackader to discuss the question of servants.

Mrs Scattergood took Miss Taverner’s breath away. She was a very thin lady of no more than medium height, certainly on the wrong side of forty, but dressed in an amazingly youthful fashion, with her improbably chestnut-coloured hair cropped short at the back, and crimped into curls in front, and her sharp, lively countenance painted in a lavish style that quite shocked the country-bred Judith.

She was dressed in a semi-transparent gown of jaconet muslin, made up to the throat with a treble ruff of pointed lace, and fastened down the back with innumerable little buttons. Her gown ended in a broad embroidered flounce, and on her feet she had lace stockings and yellow kid Roman boots. A lavender chip hat, tied under her chin with long yellow ribands, was placed over a small white satin cap beneath, and she carried a long-handled parasol, and a silk reticule.