Frederica Read online

  ‘But if she doesn’t care for those things – doesn’t wish to make a creditable marriage – I shall have done it all for nothing!’ she pointed out.

  ‘Nonsense! You at least are enjoying London life.’

  ‘That doesn’t signify!’ she said impatiently. ‘As though I should have dreamt of dragging the boys to London to gratify my own wishes!’

  ‘I daresay Jessamy would have preferred to have remained at home, but it won’t hurt him to see something of the world. As for Felix, he’s as happy as a grig! I’m a little curious, however, to know what it was that made you think that Charis shares your own tastes.’

  She shook her head. ‘I didn’t think that. Only that it was shameful to keep her hidden away, or to allow her to marry young Rushbury, or any of the other men of our acquaintance, before she had had a season.’ She hesitated, and then said rather shyly: ‘The thing is, you see, that she is so very persuadable! She is much inclined to agree to whatever is suggested to her, and although her principles are firm, her disposition is so yielding that I own it does sometimes sink my spirits!’

  ‘I imagine it might – if she yields to the importunities of every callow youth who dangles after her! Does she fall in love with them?’

  ‘I don’t think she falls in love with anyone,’ replied Frederica candidly. ‘I mean, not more with one than with another! She is a most affectionate girl, and so kind-hearted that it is enough to cast anyone into high fidgets!’

  ‘Universally benevolent, eh? Poor Frederica!’

  ‘You may well say so! It is such a responsibility, you see. She is bound to marry someone, and only think how shocking it would be if I allowed her to be snapped up by a callow youth, as you phrase it, who wouldn’t know how to make her happy, or by some – some basket-scrambler!’

  His lips twitched, but he replied gravely: ‘Shocking indeed! But – er – basket-scrablers are, in general, on the catch for heiresses.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t mean that precisely,’ she conceded. ‘And perhaps I ought not to say that Charis doesn’t fall in love with people. I’ve never done so myself, so I can’t judge. It doesn’t seem to me that she does.’

  He had been listening to her with idly appreciative amusement, but this startled him. ‘Never fallen in love?’ he repeated incredulously. ‘Never, Frederica?’

  ‘No – that is, I don’t think so! I did once feel a tendre, but that was when I was young, and I recovered from it so quickly that I shouldn’t think I was truly in love. In fact, I am much disposed to think that if I hadn’t met him at a ball, when he was wearing regimentals, I shouldn’t have looked twice at him.’ She added earnestly: ‘Do you know, cousin, I am strongly of the opinion that gentlemen should not be permitted to attend balls and assemblies rigged out in smart dress-uniforms? There is something about regimentals which is very deceiving. Fortunately, since I believe he was quite ineligible, I chanced to meet him the very next week, when he was not wearing regimentals, so I never had time to fall in love with him. It was the most disillusioning thing imaginable!’

  ‘Who was this unfortunate?’ he asked, his eyes warm with laughter.

  ‘I don’t recall his name: it was so long ago!’

  ‘Ah, yes!’ he said sympathetically. ‘Before you became so old cattish!’

  ‘Old cattish – !’ She checked herself, and then said, with a rueful smile: ‘Oh, dear! I suppose that is what I am!’

  ‘Do you indeed? Then let me tell you, my child, that when you talk of when you were young you are being foolish beyond permission!’

  ‘No, I’m not! I’m four-and-twenty, and have been on the shelf for years!’ she retorted.

  ‘Alas!’ he mocked.

  ‘Nothing of the sort! Pray, what do you think would have become of them all if I were not on the shelf?’

  ‘I neither know nor care.’

  ‘Well, I do know, and I care very much! What’s more, I find it very agreeable to be an old maid, and rid of tiresome restrictions! If I were of marriageable age, I couldn’t, for instance, be sitting here at this moment, talking to you without the vestige of a chaperon! Everyone would suppose me to be setting my cap at you, besides being fast! But if the Countess Lieven, or even Mrs Burrell, were to pass by at this moment they wouldn’t lift one of their detestably haughty eyebrows, any more than they would if I were Miss Berry!’

  This comparison of herself with a lady who had some six-and-fifty years in her dish almost overset his lordship. He contrived to keep his countenance, but there was a distinct tremor in his voice when he said: ‘Very true! I wonder that that shouldn’t have occurred to me.’

  ‘I daresay you never gave it a thought,’ said Frederica kindly.

  ‘No,’ he acknowledged. ‘I didn’t!’

  ‘Why should you? Gentlemen aren’t troubled with chaperons,’ she said, somewhat wistfully contemplating this happy state.

  ‘I assure you, I have frequently been troubled by them! Very irksome I have found them!’

  The wistful look vanished in a twinkle. ‘What a shocking creature you are, cousin!’ she said affably.

  ‘Yes, an ugly customer! Didn’t I warn you of it?’

  ‘Very likely, but you tell so many whiskers about yourself that I daresay I wasn’t attending.’ She turned her head towards him, and said, with a smile in her frank eyes: ‘A great many people have warned me that you are excessively dangerous! You have a sad reputation, cousin! But to us you have been more than kind – in spite of not in the least wishing to befriend us! So I don’t give a button for what anyone says of you.’

  He met her clear gaze, an expression hard to read in his own eyes. ‘Don’t you? But that puts me on my mettle!’

  ‘I wish you will rid your mind of the notion that I am a wet-goose!’ she said severely. ‘Instead of talking nonsense, tell me what you know of Sir Mark Lyneham!’

  ‘What, is he another of Charis’s suitors? My dear child, he won’t see thirty again!’

  ‘No, but – something she said to me the other day made me wonder if perhaps she wouldn’t be happier with an older man. Someone she could depend upon for guidance, and who would take care of her, and not come to cuffs with her if he chanced to be out of temper. From what I have seen, young husbands often fly into miffs, and that would never do for Charis! She has so much sensibility that even when the boys fall into a quarrel she is made miserable. And the mildest scold utterly sinks her spirits! Well – well, I think Sir Mark would be very gentle, don’t you?’

  ‘Since I’ve no more than a nodding acquaintance with him, I can’t say. Judging him by myself, I should think he would murder her – or seek consolation elsewhere! I can think of few worse fates than to be married to a watering pot.’

  ‘She is not a watering pot! And Sir Mark would not seek consolation elsewhere! His reputation is – is spotless!’

  ‘Ah! Well, I always did think he was a dull dog,’ said his lordship.

  ‘A man need not be dull merely because he is respectable!’ she retorted.

  ‘No, he need not, but he too often is.’

  ‘I am informed, on good authority, that Sir Mark suffered a disappointment in his youth, and he never, until now, looked at another female!’ said Frederica frostily.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ ejaculated his lordship, in accents of acute nausea. ‘No, no, don’t tell me more! I haven’t a strong enough stomach!’

  ‘I shan’t,’ said Frederica, eyeing him with hostility. ‘You don’t seem to me to have any sense of propriety at all!’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Well, it’s nothing to be proud of!’

  ‘Oh, I’m not proud! Tell me, Frederica, is that the kind of milkiness you admire?’

  ‘Certainly!’ she replied. ‘Respectability must always command admiration!’

  ‘Humbug!’ he remarked. ‘Trying it on rather too rare and thick, my child! I’m considerably more than seven, you know.’

  ‘Well, one ought to admire it, at any rate,’ she said defensively.