He laughed. ‘No. But you will ruin all if you call me “sir” in this inn! Remember that I am your brother, and say “Charles”!’
5
A NIGHT’S REST did much to restore Miss Massingham to the enjoyment of her usual spirits. She partook of an excellent breakfast; hoped that Duke, in whose company Sir Charles had endured a disturbed night, had not discommoded her protector; and demonstrated the ease with which she could, with the aid of a stick, hop about on one foot. Sir Charles, who had been relieved to find, on pulling back his blinds, that only a light powdering of snow lay upon the road, recommended her to sit quietly on the sofa, and went out to see a pair of horses put-to. It was upon his return to the inn that, entering from a door at the back of the house, he was halted in his tracks by the sight of a handsome young woman, who had just come in through the front door.
This lady, catching sight of him, exclaimed: ‘Charles! You here?’
‘Almeria!’ returned her betrothed, in hollow accents.
‘But how comes this about?’ demanded her ladyship, advancing towards him with her hand held out. ‘Is it possible you can have come to meet me? We spent the night at the Pelican, you know. A broken trace has made this halt necessary, or we must have missed you. There was not the least occasion for you to have come all this way, my dear Charles!’
‘I am ashamed to say,’ replied Sir Charles, dutifully kissing the hand extended to him, ‘that such was not my intention. I am bound for London – to keep an engagement I must not break!’
She did not look to be very well pleased with this response, but just as she was about to demand the nature of his engagement, the landlady came down the stairs, with a large bolster in her arm. ‘This will be just the thing, sir!’ she announced. ‘It has been laying in the loft these years past, and I’m sure Miss is welcome to take it, the sweet, pretty young lady that she is! I’ll carry it out directly, and see if it can’t be arranged so as to make her comfortable!’
With this kindly speech, she disappeared through the door opening on to the stable-yard. Sir Charles, closing his eyes for an anguished moment, opened them again to find that his betrothed was regarding him through unpleasantly narrowed eyes.
‘Miss?’ said the Lady Almeria icily.
‘Why, yes!’ he returned. ‘I am escorting the granddaughter of an old friend home from her school in Bath.’
‘Indeed?’ said Lady Almeria, her brows rising.
‘Oh, good God, Almeria!’ he said impatiently. ‘There is no occasion for you to assume the air of a Siddons! It’s only a child!’
‘A new come-out for you, Charles, to be taking care of children! May I know why a bolster is necessary to her comfort? An infant in arms, I collect?’
‘Nothing but a romp of a schoolgirl, who had the misfortune to sprain her ankle yesterday!’
It was at this inopportune moment that Nan, dressed for the road, hopped out of the parlour, Duke frisking beside her, and announced brightly that she was ready to set forward on the journey. Duke, perceiving that the door to a larger freedom stood open, made a dash for it.
‘Charles! Stop him!’ shrieked Nan.
The voice in which Sir Charles commanded Duke to come to heel startled that animal into cowering instinctively. Before he could recover his assurance, he had been picked up, and tucked under Sir Charles’s arm.
‘You frightened him!’ said Nan reproachfully. She found that she was being surveyed from head to foot by a lady with an arctic eye and contemptuously smiling lips, and glanced enquiringly at Sir Charles.
‘So this,’ said Lady Almeria, ‘is your schoolgirl!’
Sir Charles, only too well aware of the impression likely to be created by Miss Massingham’s hat, sighed, and prepared to embark on what was (as he ruefully admitted to himself) an improbable explanation of his circumstances.
‘Sir Charles is my brother, ma’am!’ said Miss Massingham, coming helpfully to the rescue.
Lady Almeria’s lip curled. ‘My good girl, I am well acquainted with Sir Charles’s sister, and I imagine I need be in no doubt of the relationship which exists between you and him!’
‘Be silent!’ Sir Charles snapped. He put Duke into Nan’s free arm. ‘Go back into the parlour, Nan! I will be with you directly,’ he said, smiling reassuringly down at her.
He closed the parlour door upon her, and turned to confront his betrothed. That he was very angry could be seen by the glint
in his eyes, but he spoke with studied amiability. ‘Do you know, Almeria, I never knew until today how very vulgar you can be?’ he said.
The Lady Almeria then lost her temper. In the middle of the scene which followed, her brother walked into the inn and stood goggling. His intellect was not quick, and it was several minutes before he could understand anything beyond the appalling fact that his sister, whose uncertain temper had chased away many a promising suitor, was engaged in whistling down the wind a bridegroom rich beyond the dreams of avarice. He looked utterly aghast, and seemed not to know what to say. Sir Charles, who had been refreshing himself with a pinch of snuff, shut his box, and said: ‘The lady in question, Stourbridge, as I have already informed Almeria, is a schoolgirl, whom I am escorting to London.’
‘Well, then, Almeria –!’ said his lordship, relieved.
‘Don’t be a fool!’ said Almeria. ‘I have seen the creature!’
‘I should be loth to offer you violence, Almeria,’ said Sir Charles, ‘but if you again refer to that child in such terms I shall soundly box your ears!’