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  ‘No, no! I did not mean to be unkind – you must not think that! You don’t think it, do you, Dick?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ he sighed.

  ‘Good Dicky!’ She patted his cheek coaxingly. ‘Then, you will allow me to go – ah, but yes, yes, you must listen! You know how dull I am, and how silly – ’tis because I need a change, and I want to go to Andover. I want to go!’

  ‘Yes, dear, I know. But my father is not yet dead six weeks, and I cannot think it seemly –’

  ‘Please, Dick, please! Please do not say no! ’Twill make me so unhappy! Oh, you will not be so unkind? You will not forbid me to go!’

  ‘I ask you not to, Lavinia. If you need a change, I will take you quietly to Bath, or where you will. Do not pain me by going to Andover just now.’

  ‘Bath! Bath! What do I want with Bath at this time of the year? Oh, ’tis kind in you to offer, but I want to go to Andover! I want to see all the old friends again. And I want to get away from everything here – ’tis all so gloomy – after – after my lord’s death!’

  ‘Dearest, of course you shall go away – but if only you would remember that you are in mourning –’

  ‘But ’tis what I wish to forget! Oh, Dicky, don’t, don’t, don’t be unkind.’

  ‘Very well, dear. If you must go – go.’

  She clapped her hands joyfully.

  ‘Oh thank you, Dicky! And you are not angry with me?’

  ‘No, dear, of course not.’

  ‘Ah! Now I am happy! ’Tis sweet of you, Dicky, but confess you are secretly thankful to be rid of me for a week! Now are you not?’ She spread out her fan in the highest good-humour and coquetted behind it. Richard was induced to smile.

  ‘I fear I shall miss you too sadly, dear.’

  ‘Oh!’ She dropped the fan. ‘But think how you will look forward to see me again, and I you. Why, I shall be so thankful to be back after a week away, that I shall be good for months!’

  His face lightened, and he caught her hands in his.

  ‘Darling, if I thought you would miss me – !’

  ‘But of course I shall miss you, Dick – oh, pray, mind my frock! Shall I not miss him, Tracy?’

  Richard suddenly remembered his brother-in-law’s presence. He turned and went to the foot of the stairs.

  ‘So you are determined to wrest my wife from me?’ he smiled.

  Tracy descended leisurely, opening his snuff-box.

  ‘Yes, I require a hostess,’ he said. ‘And I have’ – he paused – ‘induced her to honour Andover with her presence. Shall we have the felicity of seeing you at any time?’

  ‘I thank you, no. I am not, you will understand, in the mood for the gaiety for which my poor Lavinia craves.’

  The Duke bowed slightly, and they all three went out on to the terrace, Lavinia laughing and talking as Richard had not heard her laugh or talk for days. She was the life and soul of the little dinner-party, flirting prettily with her husband and exerting herself to please him in every way. She had won her point; therefore she was in excellent spirits with all the world, and not even the spilling of some wine on her new silk served to discompose her.

  Six

  Bath: 29 Queen Square

  The autumn and the winter passed smoothly, and April found the Carstares installed at Bath, whither Lady Lavinia had teased her husband into going, despite his desire to return to Wyncham and John. She herself did not care to be with the child, and was perfectly content that Richard should journey occasionally to Wyncham to see that all was well with him.

  On the whole, she had enjoyed the winter, for she had induced Richard to open Wyncham House, Mayfair, the Earl’s town residence, where she had been able to hold several entirely successful routs, and many select little card-parties. Admirers she had a-many, and nothing so pleased her vain little heart as masculine adulation. Carstares never entered his home without stumbling against some fresh flame of hers, but as they mostly consisted of what he rudely termed the lap-dog type, he was conscious of no jealous qualms, and patiently submitted to their inundation of his house. He was satisfied that Lavinia was happy, and, as he assured himself at times when he was most tired, nothing else signified.

  The only flaw to Lavinia’s content was the need of money. Not that she was stinted, or ever refused anything that he could in reason give her; but her wants were never reasonable. She would demand a new town chariot, upholstered in pale blue, not because her own was worn or shabby, but because she was tired of its crimson cushions. Or she would suddenly take a fancy to some new, and usually fabulously expensive toy, and having acquired it, weary of it in a week.

  Without a murmur, Richard gave her lap-dogs (of the real kind), black pages, jewels, and innumerable kickshaws, for which she rewarded him with her highest smiles and tenderest caresses. But when she required him to refurnish Wyncham House in the style of the French Court, throwing away all the present Queen Anne furniture, the tapestries, and the countless old trappings that were one and all so beautiful and so valuable, he put his foot down with a firmness that surprised her. Not for any whim of hers was Jack’s house to be spoiled. Neither her coaxing nor her tears had any effect upon Richard, and when she reverted to sulks, he scolded her so harshly that she was frightened, and in consequence silenced.

  For a week she thought and dreamt of nothing but gilded French chairs, and then abruptly, as all else, the fancy left her, and she forgot all about it. Her mantua-maker’s bills were enormous, and caused Richard many a sleepless night, but she was always so charmingly penitent that he could not find it in his heart to be angry; and, after all, he reflected, he would rather have his money squandered on her adornment than on that of her brothers. She was by turns passionate and cold to him: one day enrapturing him by some pretty blandishment, the next snapping peevishly when he spoke to her.

  At the beginning of the season he dutifully conducted her to routs and bals masqués, but soon she began to go always with either Andrew or Robert, both of whom were in town, and whose casual chaperonage she much preferred to Richard’s solicitous care. Tracy was rarely in London for more than a few days at a time, and the Carstares, greatly to Richard’s relief, saw but little of him. Carstares disliked Colonel Lord Robert Belmanoir, but the Duke he detested, not only for his habitual sneer towards him, but for the influence that he undoubtedly held over Lavinia. Richard was intensely jealous of this, and could sometimes hardly bring himself to be civil when his Grace visited my lady. Whether justly or not, he inwardly blamed Tracy for all Lavinia’s crazy whims and periodical fits of ill-temper. It did not take his astute Grace long to discover this, and with amused devilry he played upon it, encouraging Lavinia in her extravagance, and making a point of calling on her whenever he was in town.

  Carstares never knew when not to expect to find him there; he came and went to and from London with no warning whatsoever. No one ever knew where he was for more than a day at a time, and no one was in the least surprised if he happened to be seen in London when he should, according to all accounts, have been in Paris. They merely shrugged their shoulders, and exchanged glances, murmuring: ‘Devil Belmanoir!’ and wondering what fresh intrigue he was in.

  So altogether Richard was not sorry when my lady grew suddenly sick of town and was seized with a longing for Bath. He had secretly hoped that she might return to Wyncham, but when she expressed no such wish, he stifled his own longing for home, shut up the London house, and took her and all her baggage to Bath, installing her in Queen Square in one of the most elegantly furnished houses in the place.

  Lady Lavinia was at first charmed to be there again, delighted with the house, and transported over the excellencies of the new French milliner she had discovered.

  But the milliner’s bills proved monstrous, and the drawing-room of her house not large enough for the routs she contemplated giving. The air was too relaxing for her, and she was subject to consta