CHAPTER SIXTEEN #2
She then bent to retrieve his hat and gloves, and handed them to him, with the reins of his horse.
He thanked her, and offered his arm, which she blushingly declined.
They set off at a strong walking pace, certainly not that of a couple enjoying a clandestine meeting.
The park was not busy, for which both were thankful, and by chance the first carriage they encountered contained the Misses Bosworth, who were friends of Amelia, and their sister-in-law, Lady Ackford, who exclaimed at seeing Miss Ashling on foot, and accepted the reason without giving it any great scrutiny.
They immediately offered her a place in the landau, and Sir Lucius handed her up into it.
She attempted to thank him without revealing the nature of the service that he had rendered her.
In other circumstances, he would have been 218highly appreciative of her confusion, but contented himself with an almost imperceptible squeeze of her fingers before he let them go, and a promise to present himself in Mount Street in the near future, to ascertain that she had sustained no lasting upset.
He bowed, mounted and trotted away, and Elizabeth resolutely kept herself from watching his receding figure.
The young ladies were eager to find out details of the accident, and Elizabeth invented a broken trace and a lamed horse.
Thankfully, none of them enquired why Lord Easby had given the escorting of her home to Sir Lucius Radstock, and Elizabeth made much of requesting that they did not spread the tale to spare poor Lord Easby further embarrassment over an incident that, she said, with truth, had caused him acute discomfort.
Her being set down in Mount Street in a different vehicle from that in which she had departed was bound to cause a stir, but was unavoidable.
Lady Chalford had happened to be looking out of the window, and complaining at the raucous cry of a chair mender, when the landau drew up, and Elizabeth was handed down from it.
She went out onto the landing to intercept her niece as she came upstairs, and instantly observed her serious face.
‘Elizabeth! What has happened? Was that Lady Ackford’s carriage I saw you in?’
Elizabeth smiled weakly, overcome by a lassitude that owed everything to the strain of the last hour. ‘Yes, Aunt, it was. Do but let me change my dress and I will give you explanation.’
219Her aunt frowned, but nodded. ‘And I shall call for tea. I will be in the morning room.’
She had, perforce, to wait some twenty minutes before Elizabeth, tidily attired and with her hair rearranged after being crushed by her hat, stepped into the morning room.
She had had a little time to compose herself and decide just how much of the tale she would relate.
Honesty might be admirable, but the incident was over, and no good would come of agitating her aunt.
She therefore told her that Lord Easby had attempted to show off a piece of rather fancy driving and that in consequence, the vehicle had come to grief, and Lord Easby sustained a very minor, but bloody injury.
She herself, she assured her aunt, was unhurt, and merely rather shaken.
Lady Ackford had been so kind as to take her up.
She would have preferred to keep Sir Lucius’s name out of the tale entirely, but if he was going to pay a call, that might be awkward.
She therefore acknowledged that he had ‘seen’ the occurrence and waited with her until a vehicle had approached in which she might be conveyed home.
If Lady Chalford found this in any way significant, she wisely refrained from comment, but concentrated instead upon Lord Easby’s failings.
‘How foolish of him, and how wrong to offer himself to teach you to drive when he is not competent. You know, my dear, that I never liked you going driving with him. I doubt his motives, truly I do.’
‘You need have no fears on that score, Aunt, for I shall most certainly not go driving with him again. It was a most unpleasant experience, and one that I have no desire to repeat, be he never so apologetic.’
220‘I think that very wise, Elizabeth, very wise. There is something I cannot like about the man.’
Elizabeth could have given a long and detailed list of ‘somethings’ but did not.
And she had been fool enough to imagine him a disinterested acquaintance from whom she had nothing to fear.
The perfidious male of the species! If her heart omitted Sir Lucius from the generic condemnation, her head tried to ignore it.
She told herself that she would have simply driven to the point nearest to Mount Street, halted the horses and dismounted, to stalk off in high dudgeon.
That she had given the swine a swollen lip pleased her, but there was, she had to admit, something particularly uplifting in seeing Sir Lucius knock him to the ground, however much, as a lady, she should have thought it repellent.
She was, naturally, not conversant with the pugilistic art, and could not comment upon Sir Lucius’s ‘science’, but thought he had made it look very easy.
His poor hand, though, how that must have stung.
Sir Lucius’s grazed and slightly swollen knuckles were unimportant to him, at least until he tried to retie his neckcloth and found them stiff.
He regretted, in part, that Miss Ashling had been present when he had taken retribution upon Lord Easby, but the look of concern on her face when she saw his hand was surely not indicative of any anger towards him, even though she had restrained his desire to beat the offending Earl to within an inch of his life, which was wise if unpalatable.
Her expression had been all concern; she had surely nearly taken the injured hand in hers in a gesture of compassion.
They had parted 221too publicly, and his decision to visit Mount Street had been taken in the moment.
Upon reflection, he could see that there might be an awkwardness if he simply sought admission to see that all was well.
Miss Ashling might not have chosen to reveal everything that had taken place in Hyde Park to her relatives, and his blithely asking questions in front of Lady Chalford might create untold difficulties for which Miss Ashling would most certainly place the blame upon him.
He sat for some while considering the problem. What he needed was another excuse to gain admission, one that would arouse no suspicion. Unfortunately, he had no close association with the Chalfords that would make that a simple matter.
The clock upon the mantelshelf chimed the half hour, and he recalled with a start that he was engaged with Giles Godmanchester for luncheon.
He set his concerns temporarily to one side and headed off to Brook Street.
Lady Godmanchester did not join the two gentlemen, feeling, as her lord described it, ‘rather fragile today’, so they ate alone, companionably, though Lord Godmanchester had several times to repeat remarks before receiving a response.
He noticed the right hand also, but did not say anything.
At the end of the meal they adjourned to the billiard room for a quiet game, and there, amid the clink of ivory upon ivory, Sir Lucius unburdened himself to his best friend.
‘Good God, what a commoner Easby is, to be sure. And he actually had a hand laid upon her?’
‘Almost certainly. She had clearly delivered a very neat 222blow, with the butt of the whip as it turned out, and you may be sure she would not have taken such violent action without extreme provocation. That she had set the horses to a pace she was not yet fully competent to handle says much also. I tell you, it was as much as I could do not to strangle the life out of him for frightening her so.’
‘Well, I am sure he will lick his wounds in private, and emerge to seek entertainment elsewhere. Personally, I cannot see what it is about him that attracts the fair sex.’ Lord Godmanchester paused. ‘Do you think it possible that Miss Ashling, er, was in any danger of being taken in by him?’
‘No, certainly not. Well, certainly not this morning for I … we … had discussed him and his driving lessons but yesterday, and I would swear that Miss Ashling had no thought but to keep him at arm’s length.’
‘Which might have been the spur that set him off?’
‘Oh, I do not know, Giles, I really do not. The thing is, I handed Miss Ashling over to Ackford’s wife and sisters, pretending all was very normal of course, but promised to look in at Mount Street to see she was none the worse for the misadventure, for she did look quite shaken.
The deuce of it is, I cannot go barging in and revealing all, and cannot think of a reason to call upon Lady Chalford and the young ladies. ’
Lord Godmanchester paused, cue in hand, and rubbed his chin. Suddenly, he smiled. ‘My friend, I have just the thing. What happens next week?’
‘Next week?’
‘Yes. Goodness, Lucius, your brains must be addled 223by this. The Derby meeting. Say you are getting a party together. Helen and I will expect invitations, of course. It won’t be considered in the least havey-cavey.’
‘Giles, you are a genius.’