Regency Buck (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 3)

Miss Taverner tore the letter into shreds, and swept upstairs in a mood of considerable exasperation.

She dined at home with only Mrs Scattergood for company, but in the expectation of receiving her cousin later in the evening. He had promised to bring her a volume from his libr

ary which he believed she would like to read, and would call at Brook Street on his way home from Limmer’s hotel, where he was engaged to dine with a party of friends.

At ten o’clock, as the butler was bringing in the tea-table, a knock was heard. Mrs Scattergood was just wondering who could be calling on them so late, and Miss Taverner had gladly put away her embroidery frame, when not her cousin, but the Earl of Worth was announced.

‘Oh, is it you, Julian?’ said Mrs Scattergood. ‘Well, to be sure, this is very pleasant.You are just come in time to drink tea with us, for we are alone this evening, as you see, which has become a very strange thing with us, I can tell you.’

Miss Taverner, having bowed slightly to her guardian, picked up her embroidery again, and became busy with it.

Mrs Scattergood began to make tea. ‘I thought you was out of town, my dear Worth. This is quite a surprise.’

‘I have been at Woburn,’ he replied, taking the cup and saucer she held out to him, and carrying it to Miss Taverner. ‘I am fortunate to find you at home.’

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.’