Frederica

He shrugged. ‘Pure selfishness, ma’am, coupled with a dislike of being bored.’

She looked a little anxiously at him. ‘Would it bore you very much to present me to Lady Alverstoke? And to ask her if she would be so obliging as to lend me her aid?’

‘Possibly not, but the question doesn’t arise: my mother died many years ago.’

‘No, no, I meant your wife!’

‘I am not married.’

‘Not?’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh, how vexatious!’

‘Disobliging of me, isn’t it?’ he said sympathetically.

‘Well, no, not disobliging, precisely, because you couldn’t know that I wished you had been,’ she said, very kindly exonerating him.

He replied sardonically: ‘I collect that if I had known it you would have expected me to rectify the matter?’

She coloured, fixing her eyes anxiously on his face. ‘Oh, pray don’t take an affront into your head!’ she begged. ‘I didn’t mean to be brassy, and I daresay we can contrive well enough without your wife, if we set our minds to it.’

‘We?’

He spoke with quelling hauteur, but his mouth twitched in spite of himself, and under their lazy lids his eyes glinted. These signs were not lost on Miss Merriville. She heaved a sigh of relief, and said disarmingly: ‘Thank goodness! I thought I had put you out of temper! And I must own that I can’t blame you for being provoked, for I am making a shocking mull of it. And I quite thought it would be easy to explain the circumstances to you, if only I could meet you face to face!’

‘Well, what are the circumstances, ma’am?’

She was silent for a moment or two, not, as was evident from her thoughtful

expression, from embarrassment, but from consideration of how best to present her case. ‘You may say, I suppose, that they arose from my father’s death, a year ago.That isn’t to say that I hadn’t thought about the matter before, because I had; but while he was alive there seemed to be nothing I could do.’

‘I am very sorry to learn that your father is dead,’ he interjected, ‘but I must take this opportunity of informing you that my acquaintance with him was of the slightest. As for the relationship between us, I had rather have called it a connection merely. It derives from my grandmother’s family, and is, as far as my memory serves me, so remote as to be almost negligible.’

‘But Papa was used to speak of you as his cousin!’ she objected. He offered no comment; and after a short pause, she said: ‘Yes, and I know we meet somewhere, because I’ve seen your name on the family tree which is in the big Bible at home.’

‘Only through two marriages,’ he answered discouragingly.

‘I see. You don’t wish to recognise us, do you? Then there isn’t the least occasion for me to explain our situation to you. I beg your pardon for having put you to the trouble of visiting me.’

At these words, the Marquis, who had had every intention of bringing the interview to a summary end, irrationally chose to prolong it. Whether he relented because Miss Merriville amused him, or because the novelty of having one of his rebuffs accepted without demur intrigued him remained undecided, even in his own mind. But however it may have been he laughed suddenly, and said, quizzing her: ‘Oh, so high! No, no, don’t hold up your nose at me: it don’t become you! I’ve no objection to recognising you, as you put it: I won’t even repudiate cousinship – though I hold out no promise of lending you my aid in whatever project it is that you have in mind. What, by the way, do you hope I’ll do for you?’

She relaxed, and smiled gratefully at him. ‘I am very much obliged to you! It is quite a small thing: to introduce my sister into the ton!’

‘To introduce your sister into the ton?’ he repeated blankly.

‘Yes, if you please. And perhaps I should warn you that you might have to introduce me too, unless I can persuade my sister that I truly don’t desire it. In general she is the most biddable girl alive, but in this instance she declares she won’t go to parties unless I do, which is excessively tiresome of her, but comes from her having such a loving disposition that –’

He interrupted her without ceremony. ‘My good girl, are you seriously suggesting that you should make your come-out under my aegis? What you need is a matron to chaperon you, not a bachelor!’

‘I know I do,’ she agreed. ‘That was why it came as a severe disappointment to me to learn that you are a bachelor. But I’ve already thought how we might overcome that difficulty! Would you object to it if we pretended that Papa had left us to your guardianship? Not all of us, of course, because Harry has just come of age, and I am four-and-twenty, but the three younger ones?’

‘I should – most emphatically!’

‘But why?’ she argued. ‘You wouldn’t be obliged to do any more for us than to sponsor Charis – and me, perhaps – into society! Naturally I shouldn’t expect you to interest yourself in anything else concerning us! In fact, I shouldn’t relish it above half if you did,’ she added frankly.

‘You need be under no apprehension! What you don’t appear to realise, ma’am, is that you wouldn’t find my sponsorship a passport to the Polite World!’

‘How is this?’ she demanded. ‘I had thought a Marquis must always be acceptable!’

‘That, Miss Merriville, depends on the Marquis!’