Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online Page B

mourning, she must always have done, but she might, had either Fanny or her cousin shared her passion, have enjoyed some gallops. But Fanny was a very nervous horsewoman, willing to amble with her along the lanes, but cast into an agony of apprehension at the mere suggestion of jumping the smallest obstacle; and Hartley regarded horses as nothing more than a means of getting from one place to another.
    She had felt herself obliged to send her hunters to Tattersall’s, retaining only one little spirting thoroughbred mare, which could be stabled at the Dower House. The stables there had not been built to accommodate more than six horses, and although Hartley had politely begged her to consider the Milverley stables as much her own as they had ever been her pride would not allow her to be so much beholden to him. Fanny, knowing what a grief it must be to her, was aghast, but Serena, who could not bear to have a wound touched, or even noticed, said lightly: ‘Oh, fiddle! What’s the use of keeping hunters one can’t ride? I can’t afford to have them eating their heads off, and I know of no reason why my cousin should!’
    Shortly before Christmas, they received a visit from Lord Rotherham. One of his estates, not his principal seat, which was situated in quite another part of the country, but a smaller and more favoured residence, was Claycross Abbey, which lay some ten miles beyond Quenbury. He rode over on a damp, cheerless day, and was ushered into the drawing-room to find Serena alone there, engaged, not very expertly, in knotting a fringe. ‘Good God, Serena!’ he ejaculated, checking on the threshold.
    She had never been more glad to see him. Every grudge was forgotten in delight at this visit from one who represented at that moment a lost world. ‘Rotherham!’ she cried, jumping up, and going to him with her hand held out. ‘Of all the charming surprises!’
    ‘My poor girl, you must be bored!’ he said.
    She laughed. ‘Witness my occupation! To tears, I assure you! I was so extravagant as to send to London for a parcel of new books, thinking to be kept well entertained for at least a month. But having been so improvident as to swallow Guy Mannering almost at one gulp – has it come in your way? I like it better, I think, than Waverley – I am left with The Pastor’s Fireside , which seems sadly flat; a History of New England , for which I am not in the correct humour; a most tedious Life of Napoleon , written in verse, if you please! and, of all imaginable things, an Enquiry into Rent ! Fanny has failed miserably to teach me to do tambour-work that doesn’t shame the pair of us, so, in desperation, I am knotting a fringe. But sit down, and tell me what has been going on in the world all this time!’
    ‘Nothing that I know of. You must have seen that Wellington and Castlereagh carried it against old Blucher. For the rest, the only on-dits which have come in my way are that Sir Hudson Lowe has his eye on a handsome widow, and that the Princess of Wales has now taken to driving about the Italian countryside in a resplendent carriage drawn by cream-coloured ponies. Rehearsing an appearance at Astley’s, no doubt. Tell me how you go on!’
    ‘Oh – tolerably well! What has brought you into Gloucestershire? Do you mean to spend your Christmas at Claycross?’
    ‘Yes: an unwilling sacrifice on the altar of duty. My sister comes tomorrow, bringing with her I know not how many of her offspring; and my cousin Cordelia, labouring, apparently, under the mistaken belief that I must be pining for a sight of my wards, brings the whole pack down upon me on Thursday.’
    ‘Good heavens, what a houseful! I wonder you should not rather invite them to Delford!’
    ‘I invited them nowhere. Augusta informed me that I should be delighted to receive them all, and as for taking Cordelia’s eldest cub into Leicestershire at this season, no, I thank you! I have more regard for my horses, and should certainly prefer Gerard