Regency Buck (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 3)

‘Wrong? No, how should it be? You weren’t asleep, were you? I didn’t think you had been asleep yet. It is quite early, you know.’

‘Well, I am not asleep now,’ she said, smiling. ‘Do move the candles a little, my dear! You will have me burned in my bed.’

He complied with this request, and sat himself down on the edge of the bed, hugging one knee. Judith waited patiently for him to tell her why he had come, but he seemed to have fallen into a pleasant sort of dream, and sat staring at the candle flames as though he saw a picture in them.

‘Perry, have you or have you not something you wish to tell me?’ demanded his sister between amusement and exasperation.

He brought his gaze round to dwell on her face. ‘Eh? Oh no, nothing in particular. Do you know Lady Fairford, Ju?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think I do. Ought I to?’

‘No – that is – I believe – I am nearly sure she is going to call on you.’

‘I am very much obliged to her. Shall I like her?’

‘Oh yes, excessively! She is a most agreeable woman. I was presented to her at Covent Garden tonight. I was dining with Fitz, you know, and we thought we might as well go to the play, and they were there, in a box. Fitz is a little acquainted with the family, and he took me up, and the long and the short of it was we joined them afterwards at the ball, and Lady Fairford asked very particularly after my sister, and said she had had it in mind to call on you, but from the circumstance of her having been out of London just lately – they have a place in Hertfordshire, I believe – it had not so far been in her power. But she said she should certainly come.’ He gave her a fleeting glance, and began to study his finger-nails. ‘She may – I do not know – but she may bring her daughter,’ he added, rather too off-handedly.

‘Oh!’ said Judith. ‘I hope she will. Has she only the one daughter?’

‘Oh no, I believe she has a numerous family, but Miss Fairford is the only one out. Her name,’ said Peregrine rapturously, ‘is Harriet.’

Miss Taverner knew her duty, and immediately replied: ‘What a pretty name, to be sure.’

‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’ said Peregrine. ‘She – I think she is very pretty too. I do not know how she may strike you, but I certainly consider her uncommonly handsome.’

‘Is she dark or fair?’ inquired his sister.

But to this question he could not give any very certain answer. He rather thought Miss Fairford’s eyes were blue, but they might be grey: he could not be sure. She was not tall, quite the reverse, yet Judith must not be imagining a dab of a girl. It was no such thing: but she would see for herself.

After a good deal in this strain he took himself off to bed, leaving his sister to her reflections.

She had not been used to see him in the toils of a young woman, and could hardly be blamed for feeling a certain jealousy. She did her best to banish it, and succeeded very fairly. When Lady Fairford, who turned out to be a kindly sensible woman in the early forties, came to pay her promised call, she did bring her eldest daughter with her, and Judith had leisure to observe Peregrine’s charmer.

Miss Fairford was not long out of the schoolroom, and had all the natural shyness of her seventeen years. She regarded Judith out of a pair of large dove-like eyes with a great deal of awe, coloured a little when directly addressed, and allowed her soft mouth to tremble into a fugitive, appealing smile. She had pretty brown curls, and a neat figure, but to Judith, who was built on Juno-esque lines, she could not seem other than short.

When Peregrine came in, which he presently did, Lady Fairford greeted him with marked complaisance, and took the opportunity to beg the company both of him and his sister to dinner on the following Tuesday. The invitation was accepted: Peregrine had in fact accepted it before Judith could recollect her own engagements. On the pretext of showing Miss Fairford a book of views which Judith had previously been looking at, he contrived to draw her a little apart, a manoeuvre which was observed by the lady’s mama without provoking her to any other sign than a faint smile. Miss Taverner concluded that her visitor would be inclined to look favourably upon a possible match. She was not surprised. Peregrine was well-born, handsome, and possessed of a large fortune. No mother with five daughters to see suitably established could be blamed for giving so eligible a suitor just a little encour

agement.

Upon inquiry, the Fairfords were found to be a very respectable family living in good style in Albemarle Street. They moved in the best circles, without aspiring to belong to the Carlton House set; had one son in the army, one at present at Oxford, and a third at Eton.

When Tuesday came the company invited to dinner was found to be not numerous, but extremely select, and the party went off without any other hitch than that occasioned by Lord Dudley and Ward, who, from the circumstance of his being excessively absent-minded and fancying himself in his own house, apologised very audibly to Miss Taverner for the badness of one of the entrées. He said that the cook was ill.

The gentlemen soon joined the ladies after dinner; a whist-table was formed, and the rest of the party sat down, some to play a few rubbers of Casino, and the rest to a game of lottery tickets. Miss Fairford having placed herself at the lottery-table, Judith was amused but not surprised to see Peregrine taking a chair beside her. She reflected with an inward smile that this was just such an evening as a week ago he would have voted very poor sport.

Eight

CONTRARY TO HIS SISTER’S EXPECTATIONS, PEREGRINE’S INFATUATION for Miss Fairford showed no sign of abating. He continued to go about town a great deal, but whenever opportunity offered he was to be found, if not on the Fairford doorstep, certainly at any party where they were likely to be present. Miss Taverner informed her cousin that she did not know whether to be cross or glad. A love-lorn Peregrine was tiresome, but if Miss Fairford’s attractions could keep him out of gaming clubs and taverns she must certainly be glad. When she found his thoughts to be dwelling on marriage she was a little dubious. He seemed to her to be too young to be thinking of such a thing.

However that might be, within one month of having met Miss Fairford he had come to such a good understanding with her that he took his courage in both hands, and sought an interview with her parents.

Lady Fairford, who besides wishing to see her daughter so triumphantly bestowed, was in a fair way to loving Peregrine quite for his own sake, showed a marked inclination to accept him into her family without any more ado, but Sir Geoffrey, with greater common sense, thought the young couple would do well to wait. He was by no means anxious to lose his daughter, and might conceivably feel some doubt of her suitor’s stability, but even he must feel that the match would be a better one than he had ever hoped to see his Harriet make. He would not forbid the engagement, but his notions of propriety, which were very nice, made him refuse to listen to any offer that was made without Lord Worth’s knowledge or approval.

This pronouncement had the effect of sending Peregrine off hot-foot to his guardian.

Worth, however, proved to be somewhat elusive. Three con secutive calls at his house failed to discover him, and after an abortive attempt to compose a letter which should explain everything to his lordship, Peregrine hit upon the notion of looking for him at his clubs.

This plan was more successful. After being told at White’s that the Earl had gone out of town, and at the Alfred that he had not been inside the club for six months, he finally ran him to earth at Watier’s, where he was playing macao.