Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online Page A

desire is to ensure my—my happiness, and he believes that because, when we were children, Lucy and I were used to play together, and—did indeed like each other very much, we should deal famously together as husband and wife. But we shouldn't!" declared Ninian, with unnecessary violence.
    "No, I don't think you would!" agreed Miss Wychwood, amusement in her voice. "Indeed, it has me in a puzzle to guess what made your parents think you would!"
    "They believe that Lucy's wildness comes of her being young, and kept too close by Mrs Amber, and that I should be able to handle her," said Ninian. "But I shouldn't, ma'am! I never could keep her out of mischief, even when we were children, and—and I don't wish to be married to a headstrong girl, who thinks she knows better than I do always, and says I have no spirit when I try to stop her doing something outrageous! I did try to stop her running away from Chartley, but, short of taking her back by force, there was no way of doing it. And," he added candidly, "by the time I caught up with her she had reached a village, and she said if I so much as laid a finger on her she would scream for help, besides biting and scratching and kicking, and if it was pudding-hearted of me to have hung up my axe, very well, I'm a pudding-heart! Only think what a scandal it would have created, ma'am! She would have roused the whole place—and several of the farmworkers were already going to start work in the fields! I was obliged to knuckle down! Then she said that since they would none of them believe her when she said nothing would prevail upon her to marry me, the best way of proving it to them was by running away. And I'm bound to own that I did feel it might be a good thing to do. But when she tried to persuade me to go home, and pretend I knew nothing about her having left the house before dawn, I did not knuckle down! Well, what a miserable fellow I should be to let such a stupid chit jaunter about quite unprotected!"
    "Is that what she did?" asked Miss Wychwood, unable to repress a note of appreciation in her voice.
    "Yes, and if only I hadn't been woken up by the moonlight on my face I shouldn't have known a thing about it!" said Ninian bitterly. "Of course I got up to pull the blinds closely together, and that's why I saw Lucy. She was making off down the avenue, and carrying a portmanteau. I wish I hadn't seen her, I don't mind owning, but since I did see her, what could I do but follow her?"
    "I can't imagine!" confessed Miss Wychwood.
    "No, well, you see how it was! I had to dress, of course, and then creep out of the house, to the stables, and by the time I'd harnessed a horse to my gig, and fobbed off Sowerby—he's one of our grooms, and what must he do but come out in his nightshirt to see who was stealing a horse and carriage!—Lucy was half-way to Amesbury. I guessed she must be going that way, for I naturally supposed her to be trying to go back to Cheltenham, and I am pretty sure there's a coach which goes to Marlborough from Amesbury, and Marlborough's on the post-road to Cheltenham. I thought that was as bird-witted as it could be, but it wasn't as bird-witted as her precious Bath-scheme! I said all I could to persuade her to abandon such a hare-brained notion, but it was to no purpose, so when it came to her saying that by hedge or by style she would get to Bath, it seemed to me that the only thing to be done was to drive her there."
    He ended on a defensive note, and looked so sheepish that Miss Wychwood had no difficulty in realising that Lucy, by far the stronger character, had, in fact, talked him into reluctant compliance. She said, however, that he had certainly done the right thing; and advised him to tell his father, without reserve, what were his sentiments on the subject of the marriage proposed to him. "Depend upon it," she said, "he will hardly feel surprise now that Lucilla has made it abundantly clear what her sentiments are! I shouldn't wonder at it if he