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  “Haven’t you got an opera dancer after all?” asked Miss Wantage. “Because if you haven’t, I will tell Isabella so myself, and then perhaps you can be comfortable.”

  “You won’t say anything about it at all!” said the harassed Viscount.

  “Yes, but Sherry — ”

  “No, I tell you! For one thing, a pretty behaved female don’t mention such subjects; and for another — Well, you wouldn’t understand!” He encountered an inquiring look from the eyes which met his so frankly, and cast about in his brain for a suitable explanation. “Confound you, Hero, there’s nothing in it! Everyone has a fancy piece or two, but it don’t signify a jot, take my word for it!”

  Miss Wantage was perfectly ready to take his word, but she felt that the question had not been thoroughly thrashed out. “Well, but, Sherry, perhaps you did not explain it to Isabella quite well? Don’t you think — ”

  “No, I don’t,” said his lordship hastily. “The long and the short of it is that Bella don’t care a rap for me.”

  Miss Wantage, finding this hard to believe, suggested that poor Isabella must have had the headache.

  “No, it wasn’t that. Not but what she did look a trifle pale, now you put me in mind of it. But Incomparable as ever!” he added loyally.

  “She is very pretty,” said Miss Wantage. “She even looked pretty when she had spots.”

  “Spots?” repeated the Viscount, in a stunned voice. “She never had a spot in her life!”

  “Well, not ordinary spots, like Sophy, but the ones you have with the measles, I mean.”

  “Isabella didn’t have the measles!”

  “Yes, she did,” replied Hero. “That’s why her Mama brought her home. She felt dreadfully poorly, and Mrs Milborne told Cousin Jane that the spots came all over her.”

  “No!” said the Viscount, revolted.

  “They do, you know,” explained Hero.

  “Of course I know that! But Isabella can’t have had the measles! They said she was worn down by the gaieties of London!”

  Hero looked surprised at this. “Well, I don’t know why they should have said that, because they must have known it was the measles. Two of the abigails had it as well, besides Mrs Milborne’s page.”

  “Good God!” said the Viscount. A grin dispelled the look of shocked dismay on his face. “So that’s why she wouldn’t receive anyone! Poor girl! By Jove, I’d give a monkey to see Severn’s face, if he knew! Deuced romantic fellow, Severn! Wouldn’t like it at all!”

  “Is he the Duke?” inquired Hero interestedly.

  Gloom descended once more upon her companion. He nodded.

  “Is — is she going to marry him, Sherry?”

  “It’s my belief he won’t come up to scratch,” replied the Viscount frankly. “Not that I care. My hopes are quite cut-up!”

  “Oh, Sherry, do you mind very much?” asked Hero, her heart wrung.

  “Of course I mind!” said his lordship testily. “My whole life is blighted! Might as well go to the devil without more ado. Which is what I very likely shall do, because if I don’t get my hands on my fortune I shall be punting on tick before you know where you are, and we all know what that means!”

  Hero nodded wisely. The Viscount laughed, and pinched her nose. “You haven’t a notion what it means! Never heard of a cent-per-cent in your life, have you, brat? Or of a poor devil finding himself in the basket?”

  “Yes, I have! That’s on all the stagecoaches, and you ride in it if you are very poor!”

  “Well, it may come to that yet,” grimaced Sherry. “The thing is that my principal’s tied up in the stupidest Trust anyone ever thought of. Would you believe it, I’m kept on a beggarly allowance until I reach the age of twenty-five, unless I’m married before then? A couple of my damned uncles manage everything — or they should, but Prosper’s too curst lazy to keep an eye on the other old scoundrel! He can’t stand the fellow any more than I can — none of my father’s relatives can bear the sight of my mother’s family, and God knows I don’t blame them, for a bigger set of spongers I’ll swear you never clapped eyes on! — but will he bestir himself to get rid of the fellow? Not he! There he sits, in my house, living at my expense, and ten to one feathering his nest with my money, not to mention putting a lot of nonsensical notions into my mother’s head, and pretending he’s disappointed Bella wouldn’t have me! Disappointed! He was so glad he couldn’t keep the smile off his greasy face! Damme if I know why I haven’t napped him a rum’un any time these past six years!” He broke off, the look of bewilderment on Hero’s face recalling him to a sense of his company. “Here, don’t you let me hear you using cant like that!” he admonished her. “If they hadn’t made me as mad as Bedlam between the lot of them, I shouldn’t have said it. At least, I should, but not to a female.”

  “No, I won’t,” said Miss Wantage obediently.

  “That’s what you say now,” retorted the Viscount, “but I know you, Hero! I never could let my tongue go when you were within hearing but what, as sure as check, out you’d come with it, with never less than half a dozen tabbies in the room, too! ‘But Anthony says it, Cousin Jane!’ You can’t be surprised I used to box your ears now and then!”

  “Well, I truly won’t this time,” Hero assured him. “I couldn’t very well, because I don’t know what it means.”

  “No, and you are not going to know, so it’s no use plaguing the life out of me to tell you! All that signifies is that there was no bearing it any longer. When it comes to being told — by my own mother, mark you! — that no woman of sensibility would accept of me, it’s the outside of enough! All because I had the curst bad luck to upset old General Ware’s phaeton! Anyone would have thought I’d murdered the fellow, but no such thing! He shot into the hedge, all right and tight, not a penny the worse for it! What’s more, I pulled him out, and considering it was his devilish bad handling of the ribbons which lost me my wager there are plenty of fellows in my place who would have left him there! But was he grateful? No! Tottered straight off to write and complain of me to my mother!”

  “Never mind, Sherry!” Miss Wantage said, squeezing his arm. “They are all horrid, and unkind! They always were. Only I did think that Isabella — ”

  “I’ll not hear a word against her!” said the Viscount nobly. “She is, and will always be, the Incomparable! But if she thinks I’m going to wear the willow for her sake, she’s mightily mistaken! And it wouldn’t surprise me above half if that’s just what she’d like me to do, for of all the heartless baggages I ever encountered — But that’s neither here nor there.”

  “What are you meaning to do, Sherry?” asked Miss Wantage solicitously.

  “Just what I told my mother, and my platter-faced uncle! Marry the first female I see!”

  Miss Wantage gave a giggle. “Silly! That’s me!”

  “Well, good God, there’s no need to be so curst literal!” said his lordship. “I know it’s you, as it turns out, but — ” He stopped suddenly, and stared down into Miss Wantage’s heartshaped countenance. “Well, why not?” he said slowly. “Damme, that’s exactly what I will do!”

  Chapter Three

  FOR ONE DAZED MOMENT MISS WANTAGE COULD only gaze blankly up at him. “M-marry me, Sherry?” she stammered.

  “Yes, why not?” responded his lordship. “This is, unless you have some objection, and considering the way you were ready to marry the curate I can’t for the life of me see why you should have!”

  “No, no, I wasn’t ready to marry the curate!” protested Hero. “I told you that I would prefer to be a governess!”

  “Well, never mind about that,” said his lordship. “It’s no use your saying that you’d prefer to be a governess to marrying me, because it’s absurd! No one would. Dash it, Hero, I don’t want to talk like a coxcomb, and I dare say I may want for principle, and have libertine propensities, and spend all my time in gaming hells, besides being the sort of ugly customer no woman of sensibility could stomach, but you can’t prete
nd that you wouldn’t be far more comfortable with me than at that curst school you keep on prosing about!”

  Miss Wantage was far from wanting to pretend anything of the sort, but the notion of marrying one who had for a number of years appeared to her in much the same light as he appeared to his Tiger seemed so fantastic that she could neither credit him with any serious intentions, nor believe that such a dazzling change in her bleak future could really take place. “Oh, Sherry, don’t please!” she begged, a catch in her voice. “I know it’s a hum, but, please, I wish you will not!”

  “It’s no such thing!” the Viscount said. “In fact, the more I think of it the more it seems to me an excellent plan.”

  “But, Sherry, you love Isabella!”

  “Of course I love Isabella!” responded Sherry. “Though, mind you, I don’t say I’d have offered for her if I hadn’t been so deuced uncomfortably circumstanced, for to tell you the truth, Hero, I’d as lief not be married. However, it’s no use thinking of that! Married I must be, and if I can’t have the Incomparable I’d as soon have you as any other. Sooner,” he added handsomely. “I’m devilish fond of you, Hero. It’s my belief we should deal famously, for you don’t take pets, or go off into odd humours, and you won’t expect me to alter all my habits, and spend my time dancing attendance on you.”

  “Oh, no, no!”

  “Of course, I know it ain’t a love match,” pursued his lordship. “For my part, I’ve done with love, since Isabella cut up all my hopes. I dare say there is nothing that would please her more than to think that she had embittered my life, just as she seems like to do to poor George’s, but I’ll be damned if I mean to administer to her vanity by letting her know it!”

  A sympathetic sigh from his companion brought his attention round to her. He surveyed her somewhat doubtfully, as an unwelcome thought occurred to him. “I wish you weren’t so devilish young!” he complained. “A pretty pickle we shall be in if you take it into your head to fall in love with some fellow or other after we’re tied up! Come to think of it, you’re too young to be married at all. Damme, you’re nothing but a baby!”

  “Augusta Yarford was married when she was only just seventeen, Sherry,” offered Miss Wantage hopefully.

  “That’s a very different matter. She’d been out a couple of seasons, and if ever a girl was up to snuff it was Gussie Yarford! But you have never been into society at all, or met anyone besides your precious cousin Edwin, and some dab of a parson.”

  “And you, Sherry,” she said, smiling shyly at him.

  “Yes, but I don’t signify, any more than if I had been your brother.” A qualm seized him. “I suppose I ought not to do it,” he said, with a vague feeling of chivalry. “I don’t mind people calling me a libertine, but I’m damned if I’ll have them saying I took advantage of a chit not out of the schoolroom!”

  Miss Wantage clasped her hands together in her lap, and said rather breathlessly: “Sherry, if you think I might suit, please — please do marry me, for I know I should like it above all things!”

  “Yes, but you’ve no more notion of what it means than that sparrow,” said the Viscount bluntly. He thought this over for a moment, and added: “In fact, much less.”

  “But I should like very much always to be with you, Sherry, because you are never cross with me, and I should enjoy such fun, and go to London, and see all the things I’ve only heard of, and go to parties, and balls, and not be scolded, or sent to that dreadful school, and — oh, Sherry, it wasn’t k-kind in you to put it into my head if you d-didn’t really mean it!”

  The Viscount patted her shoulder in a perfunctory way, a slightly rueful grin quivering on his lips. Shatter-brained he might be, but the full implication of this artless speech was not lost on him. “Oh, lord!” he said.

  Miss Wantage swallowed a sob, and said valiantly: “You were only funning. Of course I should have known that. I didn’t mean to tease you.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” said his lordship. “Damme, why shouldn’t I marry you? I know you haven’t had time to fix your affections, but ten to one you never will, and in any event you won’t find me the sort of husband who’s for ever kicking up a dust over trifles. I shan’t interfere with your pleasures, as long as you keep ’em discreet, my dear. And you needn’t fear I shall be forcing my attentions on you. I told you I was done with love. A marriage of convenience, that’s what it will be! Dash it, it may not be as romantic as I dare say you’d have liked, but you can’t deny it will be more amusing than being a governess!”

  Miss Wantage nodded fervently, her eyes like stars. “And I do think it is romantic,” she said.

  “That’s because you know nothing about it,” replied Sherry cynically. “Never mind! You’ll enjoy cutting a dash in London, at all events.”

  Miss Wantage agreed to this with enthusiasm. But the next instant a thought occurred to her which quenched the sparkle in her eyes. “Oh, how I wish we could! But they will never, never let us, Sherry!”

  “Who’s to stop us?” he demanded. “That’s one thing my father didn’t put into the damned Trust! I can marry anyone I please, and no one can say a word.”

  “But they will,” said Hero bodingly. “You know they will, Sherry! Your Mama wishes you to make a Brilliant Match, and she will do everything in her power to prevent your throwing yourself away upon me. I have no fortune, you see.”

  “I know that, but it don’t signify in the least. Once the Trust ends, I shall have plenty for the pair of us.”

  “Lady Sheringham will not think so. And Cousin Jane would pack me off to Bath tomorrow if she knew!”

  “Hang it, I don’t see that, Hero, dashed if I do! She’ll say it’s a devilish good match: she’s bound to!”

  “That’s just it, Sherry: she would say it was far too good for me! She would be so angry! Because, you know, she does hope that perhaps you might take a liking to Cassy, or even Eudora.”

  “Well, I shan’t. Never could abide the sight of either of them, or of Sophy, for that matter, and it’s not likely I shall change at my time of life. However, there’s a good deal in what you say, Hero, and if there’s one thing I detest more than another it’s a parcel of women arguing at me, and having the vapours every five minutes, which is what would happen, sure as check! And if your cousin did pack you off to Bath I should be obliged to go there to rescue you, and I can’t bear the place. There’s only one thing for it: we must go off without saying a word about it to anyone. Once the knot’s tied, and we can do that fast enough if I get a special licence, they won’t say anything — or, at any rate, if they do, it won’t be to us.”

  “Won’t it?” Hero asked doubtfully.

  “No, because for one thing there’d be no sense in it, and for another we can show them the door,” said the Viscount.

  “You don’t think Cousin Jane will say that I am under age, and have it put at an end? People can, can’t they, Sherry?”

  The Viscount gave this his profound consideration. “No,” he pronounced finally. “She won’t do that. Don’t see how she could. I mean, only think, Hero! I’m not a dashed adventurer, eloping with an heiress! I’m devilish eligible! She’ll be obliged to swallow it with a good grace. Dare say she’ll look to you to find husbands for those insipid girls.”

  “Well, if you think I could, I would try very hard to do so,” said Hero seriously.

  “No one could find husbands for such a parcel of dowdies,” replied his lordship, with brutal candour. “Besides, I don’t like them, and I won’t have them in my house. Come along! We’ve wasted enough time. Someone will be bound to come looking for you, if we dawdle here much longer. Hi, Jason!”

  “Come now?” gasped Miss Wantage. “But I have nothing with me, Sherry! Must I not pack a portmanteau, or at least a bandbox?”

  “Now, will you have sense, Hero? Do you expect me to come driving up to the front door to pick you up? If you go back, and start packing a portmanteau you’ll be discovered.”

  “Oh, yes, but — Yo
u don’t think I should creep out of the house when it is dark, and join you here?”

  “No, I don’t,” replied his lordship. “I don’t want to kick my heels in this damned dull place for the rest of the day! Besides, there’s no moon, and if you think I’m going to drive up to town in the dark, you’re mightily mistaken, my girl! I can’t see what you want with a portmanteau. If the rest of your gowns are anything like the one you have on now, the sooner you’re rid of them the better! I’ll buy you everything you want when we get to London.”

  “Oh, Sherry, will you?” cried Miss Wantage, her cheeks in a glow. “Thank you! Let us go quickly!”

  The Viscount sprang down into the lane, and held up his hands. “Jump, then!”

  Miss Wantage obeyed him promptly. Jason, who had led the horses up to them, regarded her fixedly, and then turned an inquiring eye upon his master.

  “I’m taking this lady up to London, Jason,” announced the Viscount.

  “Ho!” said the faithful henchman. “Ho, you are, are you, guv’nor?”

  “Yes, and what’s more, I don’t want a word said about it. So no tattling in whatever boozing-ken you go to, mind that! And no tattling in the stables either!”

  “I can keep my chaffer close,” replied Jason, with dignity, “but it queers me what your lay is this time!”

  The Viscount tossed Miss Wantage up into the curricle, gathered the reins in his hand, and prepared to mount beside her. “I’m going to be married.”

  “You never!” gasped Jason. “But she ain’t the right one, guv’nor! Lor’, you must have had a shove in the mouth too many, and I never suspicioned you was lushy, so help me bob! Werry well you carries it, guv’nor! werry well, indeed! Gammoning me wot knows you you was sober as a judge, and all the time as leaky as a sieve! But what’ll you say when you comes about, me lord? A rare set-out that’ll be, and you a-blamin’ of me for letting you make off with the wrong gentry-mort!”