Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini Read Free Book Online Page A

the other supporting the stem of a long clay pipe,
at which he was pulling thoughtfully. The pipe and he were all but inseparable; indeed, the year before in London he had given appalling scandal by appearing with it in the Mall, and had there
remained him any character to lose, he must assuredly have lost it then.
    He observed his friend through narrowing eyes — he had small eyes, very blue and very bright, in which there usually abode a roguish gleam.
    "My sight, Anthony," said he, "reminds me that I am growing old. I wonder did it mislead me on the score of your visitor?"
    "The lady who left," said Wilding with a touch of severity, "will be Mistress Wilding by this day se'night."
    Trenchard took the pipe from his lips, audibly blew out a cloud of smoke and stared at his friend. "Body o' me!" quoth he. "Is this a time for marrying? — with these rumours of Monmouth's
coming over."
    Wilding made an impatient gesture. "I thought to have convinced you they are idle," said he, and flung himself into a chair at his writing-table.
    Nick came over and perched himself upon the table's edge, one leg swinging in the air. "And what of this matter of the intercepted letter from London to our Taunton friends?"
    "I can't tell you. But of this I am sure, His Grace is incapable of anything so rash. Certain is it that he'll not stir until Battiscomb returns to Holland, and Battiscomb is still in Cheshire
sounding the Duke's friends."
    "Yet were I you, I should not marry just at present."
    Wilding smiled. "If you were me, you'd never marry at all."
    "Faith, no!" said Trenchard. "I'd as soon play at 'hot-cockles' or 'Parson-has-lost-his-cloak.' 'Tis a mort more amusing and the sooner done with."
     
    CHAPTER V
    THE ENCOUNTER
    RUTH WESTMACOTT rode back like one in a dream, with vague and hazy notions of what she saw or did. So overwrought was she by the
interview from which she came, her mind so obsessed by it, that never a thought had she for Diana and her indisposition until she arrived home to find her cousin there before her. Diana was in
tears, called up by the reproaches of her mother, Lady Horton — the relict of that fine soldier Sir Cholmondeley Horton, of Taunton.
    The girl had arrived at Lupton House a half-hour ahead of Miss Westmacott, and upon her arrival she had expressed surprise, either feigned or real, at finding Ruth still absent. Detecting the
alarm that Diana was careful to throw into her voice and manner, her mother questioned her, and elicited the story of her faintness and of Ruth's having ridden on alone to Mr. Wilding's. So
outraged was Lady Horton that for once in a way this woman, usually so meek and ease-loving, was roused to an energy and anger with her daughter and her niece that threatened to remove Diana at
once from the pernicious atmosphere of Lupton House and carry her home to Taunton. Ruth found her still at her remonstrances, arrived, indeed, in time for her share of them.
    "I have been sore mistaken in you, Ruth!" the dame reproached her. "I can scarce believe it of you. I have held you up as an example to Diana, for the discretion and wisdom of your conduct, and
you do this! You go alone to Mr. Wilding's house — to Mr. Wilding's, of all men!"
    "It was no time for ordinary measures," said Ruth, but she spoke without any of the heat of one who defends her conduct. She was, the slyly watchful Diana observed, very white and tired. "It was
no time to think of nice conduct. There was Richard to be saved."
    "And was it worth ruining yourself to do that?" quoth Lady Horton, her colour high.
    "Ruining myself?" echoed Ruth, and she smiled never so weary a smile. "I have, indeed, done that, though not in the way you mean."
    Mother and daughter eyed her, mystified. "Your good name is blasted," said her aunt, "unless so be that Mr. Wilding is proposing to make you his wife." It was a sneer the good woman could not,
in her indignation, repress.
    "That is what Mr. Wilding has done me the honour to