Lady of Quality Read online

He was standing before the fireplace, a powerfully built man with dark hair, and a swarthy complexion. His brows were straight and rather thick, and under them a pair of hard gray eyes stared at Miss Wychwood, their expression one of mingled surprise and disapproval. To her wrath, he raised his quizzing glass, as though to appraise her more precisely.

  Her own brows lifted; she moved forward, saying with chilling hauteur: 'Mr Carleton, I believe?'

  He nodded, letting his glass fall, and replied curtly: 'Yes. Are you Miss Wychwood?'

  She inclined her head, in a manner calculated to abash him.

  'Good God!' he said.

  It was so unexpected that it surprised an involuntary laugh out of her. She suppressed it quickly, and made another attempt to put him out of countenance, by extending her hand and saying, in a quelling tone: 'How do you do? You wish to see your niece, of course. I am sorry that she is not at home this morning.'

  'No, I don't wish to see her, though I daresay I shall be obliged to,' he replied, briefly shaking her hand. 'I came to see you, Miss Wychwood – if you are Miss Wychwood?'

  She looked amused at this. 'Certainly I am Miss Wychwood. You must forgive me if I ask you why you should doubt it?'

  And if that doesn't make you apologize for your incivility, nothing will! she thought, waiting expectantly.

  'Because you're by far too young, of course!' he replied, disappointing her. 'I came here in the expectation of meeting an elderly woman – or, at least, one of reasonable age!'

  'Let me assure you, sir, that although I don't think myself elderly I am of very reasonable age!'

  'Nonsense!' he said. 'You're a mere child!'

  'No doubt I should be grateful for the compliment – however inelegantly expressed!'

  'I wasn't complimenting you.'

  'Ah, no! how stupid of me! I recall, now that you have put me so forcibly in mind of it, that my brother told me that you are famed for your incivility!'

  'Did he? Who is your brother?'

  'Sir Geoffrey Wychwood,' she answered stiffly.

  He frowned over this, in an effort of memory. After a few minutes, he said: 'Oh yes! I fancy I've met him. Has estates in Wiltshire, hasn't he? Does he own this house as well?'

  'No, I own it! Though what concern that is of yours –'

  'Do you mean you live here alone?' he interrupted. 'If your brother is the man I think he is, I shouldn't have thought he would have permitted it!'

  'No doubt he would not had I been "a mere child",' she retorted. 'But it so happens that I have been my own mistress for many years!'

  The flash of a sardonic smile vanquished the frown in his eyes. 'Oh, that's doing it much too brown!' he objected. 'Many years, ma'am? Five, at the most!'

  'You are mistaken, Mr Carleton! I am nine-and-twenty years of age!'

  He put up his glass again, and looked her over critically before saying: 'Yes, obviously I was mistaken, for which your youthful appearance is to blame. Your countenance belongs to a girl, but your assured manner has nothing to do with infantry. You will allow me to say, however, that being nine-and-twenty years old doesn't render you a fit guardian for my niece.'

  'Again you are mistaken, Mr Carleton! I am neither Lucilla's guardian, nor have I the least ambition to supplant Mrs Amber in that post. I conclude, from your remarks, that you have come here from Chartley Place, where, I don't doubt, you have heard –'

  'Well, that, Miss Wychwood, is where you are mistaken! What the devil should take me to Chartley Place? I've come from London – and damnably inconvenient it was!' His penetrating gaze searched her face; he said: 'Oh! Are we at daggerdrawing? What have I said to wind you up?'

  'I am not accustomed, sir, to listen to the sort of language you use!' she replied frostily.

  'Oh, is that all? A thousand pardons, ma'am! But your brother did warn you, didn't he?'

  'Yes, and also that you don't hesitate to ride rough-shod over people you think beneath your touch!' she flashed.

  He looked surprised. 'Oh, no! Only over people who bore me! Did you think I was trying to ride rough-shod over you? I wasn't. You do put me out of temper, but you don't bore me.'

  'I am so much obliged to you!' she said, with ironic gratitude. 'You have relieved my mind of a great weight! Perhaps you will add to your goodness by explaining what you imagine I have done to put you out of temper? That, I must confess, has me in a puzzle! I had supposed that you had come to Bath to thank me for having befriended Lucilla: certainly not to pinch at me for having done so!'

  'If that don't beat the Dutch!' he ejaculated. 'What the deuce have I to thank you for, ma'am? For aiding and abetting my niece to make a byword of herself? For dragging me into the business? For –'

  'I didn't!' she broke in indignantly. 'I did what lay within my power to scotch the scandal that might have arisen from her flight from Chartley; and as for dragging you into the business, nothing, let me tell you, was further from my intention, or, indeed, my wish!'

  'You must surely have known that that fool of a – that Clara Amber would write to demand that I should exercise my authority over Lucilla!'

  'Yes, Ninian Elmore told us that she had done so,' she agreed, with false affability. 'But since nothing Lucilla has said about you led me to think that you had either fondness for her, or took the smallest interest in her, I had no expectation of receiving a visit from you. To own the truth, sir, my first feeling on having your name brought up to me was one of agreeable surprise. But that was before I had had the very doubtful pleasure of making your acquaintance!'

  The effect of this forthright speech was not at all what she had intended, for instead of taking instant umbrage to it he laughed, and said appreciatively: 'That's milled me down, hasn't it?'

  'I sincerely hope so!'

  'Oh, it has! But it's not bellows to mend with me! I warn you, I shall come about again. Now, instead of sparring with me, perhaps you, in your turn, will have the goodness to explain to me why you didn't restore Lucilla to her aunt, but kept her here, dam– dashed well encouraging her in a piece of hoydenish disobedience?'

  This uncomfortable echo of what Sir Geoffrey had said to her brought a slight flush into her cheeks. She did not immediately answer him, but when, looking up, she saw the challenge in his eyes, and the satirical curl of his lips, she said, frankly: 'My brother has already asked me that question. Like you, he disapproves of my action. You may both of you be right, but I set as little store by his opinion as I do by yours. When I invited Lucilla to stay with me, I did what I believed – and still believe! – to be the right thing to do.'

  'Fudge!' he said roughly. 'Your only excuse could have been that you were bamboozled into thinking that she had suffered ill-treatment at her aunt's hands, and if that is what she told you she must be an unconscionable little liar! Clara Amber has petted and cosseted her ever since she took her in charge!'

  'No, she didn't tell me anything of the sort, but what she did tell me made me pity her from the bottom of my heart. Little though you may think it, Mr Carleton, there is a worse tyranny than that of ill-treatment. It is the tyranny of tears, vapours, appeals to feelings of affection, and of gratitude! This tyranny Mrs Amber seems to have exercised to the full! A girl of less strength of character might have succumbed to it, but Lucilla is no weakling, and however ill-advised it was of her to have run away I can't but respect her for having had the spirit to do it!'

  He said, rather contemptuously: 'An unnecessarily dramatic way of showing her spirit. I am sufficiently well acquainted with Mrs Amber to know that she would not indulge in tears and vapours if Lucilla had not offered her a good deal of provocation. I conclude that the tiresome chit has been imposing on her aunt's good-nature yet again. Mrs Amber has frequently complained of her wilfulness to me, but what else could she expect of a girl brought up with excessive indulgence? I guessed how it would be from the outset.'

  'Then I wonder at it that you should have given your ward into her care!' exclaimed Miss Wychwood hotly. 'One would have supp