The Reluctant Widow Read online

  This he would by no means do, insisting that Carlyon’s assistance was not needed to deal with such a paltry fellow as Francis, and she went off to her own room quite out of charity with him.

  The party which presently sat down to dinner was, with the exception of Miss Beccles, who dignified the occasion by wearing her best lavender silk, as funereal as the most exacting critic could have desired. Francis had arrayed himself in a black coat and satin knee-breeches which looked more fit for Almack’s Assembly Rooms than a country house; Elinor wore her black silk; and Nicky, not to be outdone by Francis, had put himself into a similar attire to his, though not, he enviously realised, of such extremely fashionable cut.

  Nothing could have exceeded the affability of the guest, but Miss Beccles would not be lured into contributing her mite to the conversation; Elinor laboured under a sense of indefinable alarm; and Nicky’s attempts to conceal his dislike of Francis only served to emphasise it. Elinor wondered how they were to get through a whole evening. When she and Miss Beccles withdrew to the parlour, Miss Beccles confided to her that she owned she could not quite like the tone of Mr Cheviot’s conversation, and very much feared he was not a good man.

  ‘I think him a dreadful man!’ Elinor said.

  ‘Well, my love, since you say so, I shall not scruple to tell you that I thought that tale he told, about Mr Romeo Coates – such an odd name, too! – rather too warm, and not at all the sort of thing your dear Mama would have wished you to be listening to.’

  ‘I wish he had not come here! I am afraid of him!’

  ‘My dear Mrs Cheviot! Oh, dear, dear! My love, lock your door! Or, no! I will sleep on the couch in your room!’

  Elinor could not help laughing. ‘Oh, no, indeed, Becky! I am very sure he has no designs upon my virtue! But now that I have spent a couple of hours in his company I cannot doubt the justice of Carlyon’s suspicions. He is the very man to be doing some wicked, treacherous thing! We must not leave him alone in the house an instant! If only that odious boy would have sent to advise Carlyon! And beyond all else, how in the world are we to pass the evening? I was never so uncomfortable in my life!’

  ‘Well, my love,’ said Miss Beccles doubtfully, ‘if you think he might like it, I could offer to play at backgammon with him.’

  Happily, she was not obliged to do so. Hardly had the gentlemen entered the parlour than all the bustle of an arrival was heard in the hall; and within a very few minutes the door was opened to admit Carlyon, his brother John, and a lady and gentleman who bore all the air of being in the first rank of fashion.

  The lady, who came in on Carlyon’s arm, was decidedly younger than Elinor. She was extremely pretty, with such golden ringlets and such sparkling blue eyes that it did not need Nicky’s shout of ‘Georgy!’ or Carlyon’s quiet introduction to ‘My sister, Lady Flint,’ to inform Elinor of her identity. She rose at once, blushing, and curtsying, and found her hand seized between two warm little ones, and heard herself addressed in a sweet, mischievous voice.

  ‘Mrs Cheviot! My new cousin! Oh, you are such a heroine! I made Carlyon bring me to see you! This is Flint, my husband, you know! Oh, Nicky!’

  Elinor’s hand was dropped; the engaging creature was off in a mist of gauze to throw her arms round Nicky’s neck; then to bestow hand and smile on Francis; and, upon Elinor’s murmuring her companion’s name, a handshake on Miss Beccles. She chattered all the while, explaining that she was on her way into Hampshire, to spend a few weeks with the Dowager, but could not rest until she had discovered all the truth of what John had been telling her. Nothing would do but Flint must bring her not so very much out of their way, after all, to spend a night with Carlyon. While she rattled on in this style, her husband, a sensible-looking man, some years her senior, stood watching her in fond admiration, and Nicky pelted her with questions which she never paused to answer.

  Carlyon took advantage of her vivacity to draw near to Elinor, and to explain that his sister, having heard John’s account of her marriage, had had such a desire to meet her that he had set dinner forward an hour so as to be able to drive the whole party over to drink tea at Highnoons. ‘I would not bring them to dinner,’ he said. ‘It must have incommoded you. I trust we are not now unwelcome?’

  ‘No, indeed!’ she returned, in a low voice. ‘I have been wishing all the evening that Nicky would but have sent over to advise you of that gentleman’s arrival!’

  ‘It is certainly interesting,’ he said, glancing towards Francis, who was conversing with Flint.

  ‘I knew you would say so, provoking creature!’

  ‘Where is Bedlington?’

  ‘Prostrate! With the gout!’

  He looked thoughtful, but made no answer.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, my lord, what would you have me do?’

  ‘I will discuss it with you at a more convenient opportunity.’

  ‘Meanwhile he may prowl about the house all night, in search of you well know what!’

  ‘I hardly think so. Is not Nicky’s dog with you? Let him roam at large!’

  There was no time for more. Lady Flint came fluttering up to them, determined to make the further acquaintance of her new cousin. It was soon made plain that John had told her nothing of the strange events which had taken place in the house. It was the marriage which had captivated the lively lady’s fancy. She soon drew Elinor to the sofa, and sat down beside her there, engaging her in conversation, interrupted every now and then by her throwing a word to one of her brothers, or to Francis, with whom she seemed to be on excellent terms. But presently, upon some pretext, she flitted up with Elinor to her bedchamber, and said to her with her pretty air of candour: ‘Carlyon said we should put you out of countenance, so many of us, and arriving without the least warning! But you do not regard it, do you? Oh, when I saw that notice in the Morning Post, you may suppose how ready I was to drop! I sent at once to Mount Street, to John! I declare, I would have made my poor Flint storm the Home Office I was in such a fever to know more! Tell me – do not think me impertinent, though to be sure I am! – how came you to do it?’

  Elinor replied with a little reserve: ‘Indeed, I scarcely know! Lord Carlyon persuaded me, but I must suppose myself to have been out of my senses.’

  Her ladyship gave a little gurgle. ‘Dearest Carlyon! how I shall tease him! But what is this story of housebreakers? I declare it is like a romance! How happy it must have made Nicky to be shot at! I have a very good mind to make Flint stay here for an age, for I was never so diverted in my life! But I dare say it will not do. I am in the family way, you know, and my poor dear Flint has taken such crotchets into his head! I was never so well, I vow! But nothing will do but I must go into the country, and ten to one Carlyon will aid and abet him. Do you like him?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Elinor said, quite taken aback, ‘Lord Flint appeared to me a most amiable –’

  ‘Stupid! Not Flint! Carlyon!’

  Elinor was vexed to feel herself colouring. She replied stiffly: ‘Certainly. I am sure his manners and address are such as must universally please.’

  There was a pout, an arch look. ‘Oh – ! Sad stuff! Do you quarrel with him? Does he make you very cross?’

  ‘If you must have the truth,’ said Elinor, ‘he is the most odious, overbearing, inconsiderate, abominable man I ever met!’

  She was instantly embraced. ‘Famous! How often I have said the same! You will deal admirably together. I am glad I have seen you. Oh, but it is enough to make oneself wish to be a widow to see you look so very becoming in that black dress! How shocking of me to say so, for you must know that I dote on Flint! Does Francis Cheviot stay long with you? I was so much surprised!’

  ‘Only a night, I fancy. It is a little awkward, but he comes as proxy for his father, for – for the funeral.’

  The delicate brows rose. ‘Ah, you do not like him! But there is no harm in him, you know, and you may