Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online

smile.
    Judith laid a hand on her brother’s arm, and said coldly: “You have not told us yet by what name we may describe you to Lord Worth.”
    His smile lingered. “I think you will find that his lordship will know who I am,” he said, and took Lord Worcester’s arm, and strolled with him into the coffee-room.
     
    Chapter IV
    It was with difficulty that Miss Taverner succeeded in preventing her brother from following the stranger and Lord Worcester into the coffee-room and there attempting to force an issue. He was out of reason angry, but upon Judith’s representing to him how such a scene could only end in a public brawl which must involve her, as the cause of it, he allowed himself to be drawn away, still declaring that he would at least know the stranger’s name.
    She pushed him up the stairs in front of her, and in the seclusion of her own room gave him an account of her adventure. It was not, after all, so very bad; there had been nothing to alarm her, though much to enrage. She made light of the circumstance of the stranger’s kissing her: he would bestow just such a careless embrace on a pretty chambermaid, she dared say. It was certain that he mistook her station in life.
    Peregrine could not be content. She had been insulted, and it must be for him to bring the stranger to book. As she set about the task of arguing him out of this determination, Judith realized that she had rather bring the gentleman to book herself. To have Peregrine settle the business could bring her no satisfaction; it must be for her to punish the stranger’s insolence, and she fancied that she could do so without assistance.
    When Peregrine went downstairs again to the coffee-room the strange gentleman had gone. The landlord, still harassed and busy with the company, could not tell Peregrine his name, nor even recall having served Lord Worcester. So many gentlemen had crowded into his inn to-day that he could not be blamed for forgetting half of them. As for a team of blood-chestnuts, he could name half a dozen such teams; they might all have drawn up at the George for anything he knew. Peregrine could only be sorry that Mr. Fitzjohn was already on his way back to London: he might have known the stranger’s name.
    By dinner-time Grantham was quiet. A few gentlemen stayed on overnight, but they were not many. Miss Taverner could go to bed in the expectation of a night’s unbroken repose.
    She thought herself reasonably safe from any further talk of the fight. It had been described to her in detail at least five times. There could be no more to say.
    There was no more to say. Peregrine realized it, and beyond exclaiming once or twice during breakfast next morning that he never hoped to see a better mill, and asking his sister whether he had told her of this or that hit, he did not talk of it. He was out of spirits; after the excitement of the previous day, Sunday in Grantham was insipid beyond bearing. He was cursed flat, was only sorry Judith’s scruples forbade them setting forward for London at once.
    There was nothing to do but go to church, and stroll about the town a little with his sister on his arm. Even the gig had had to be returned to its owner.
    They attended the service together, and after it walked slowly back to the George. Peregrine was all yawns and abstraction. He could not be brought to admire anything, was not interested in the history even of the Angel Inn, where it was said that Richard the Third had once lain. Judith must know he had never cared a rap for such fusty old stuff. He wished there were some way of passing the time; he could not think what he should do with himself until dinner.
    He was grumbling on in this strain when the pressure of Judith’s fingers on his arm compelled his attention. She said in a low voice: “Perry, the gentleman who gave up his rooms to us! I wish you would speak to him: we owe him a little extraordinary civility.”
    He brightened at once, and looked round him. He would