His ingenuity was not called upon, as it turned out, for as he glanced about the company in the large room, he discovered thatthe mother having been ousted from the boy’s side, he was being quizzed by none other than Unice Ruishton herself.
“Unice, present me at once,” he said, coming up smilingly and holding out his hand. “Or better still, go away and allow me to present myself. Hawkeridge, dear sir, and delighted —” leaning towards the boy with a confidential air — “to welcome a like-minded spirit in this aged desert.”
Adam shook hands, grinning. “Adam Peverill, sir.”
Unice looked from one to the other of them. She had chosen to beard the boy for Verena’s sake, feeling that the bud of a possible friendship with her might be reinforced if she showed interest in the family. It might serve Denzell quite as well. Finding herself already excluded from the conversation, she shrugged and left them. She could quiz Denzell later for the gist of their conversation.
“Yes, yes, I know who you are,” Denzell was saying. “I was commiserating with your sister only the other day on giving place to a newer, brighter star.”
The young man shook his head, saying in a deprecating way, “I could never compete with Verena. Mama says she gets at least half her looks from her paternal side, although Mama is — was — herself very handsome…”
Denzell ignored the conscious way he corrected himself, and the stammer as he petered out. Capital! The youth was clearly loose-tongued.
“You are then her half-brother, I take it?”
There was reserve in his voice now, but he answered readily enough. “Yes, on Mama’s side.” He gave a light laugh — forced, Denzell thought. “There is little beauty in the Peverill family.”
“But you have taken your colouring from the other side, I think,” Denzell said, glancing at the burnished glow of the boy’s hair that was cut to rest on his collar.Keep it casual. Keep him relaxed.
“That is true.”
The lad was not at all bad-looking, he thought, and he dressed to advantage. The suit was all of a piece in tones of brown, if rather too tight-fitting. Denzell, himself attired once more in his claret coat, but ringing the changes with black satin breeches and the cloth waistcoat with the embroidered lapels once more, thought that the boy would do very well in a few years when he gained a man’s figure.
He smiled at him in a friendly way. “So you are on a visit? Don’t you find this place intolerably slow?”
Adam shrugged. “Oh, well. It is not much different from Fittleworth, I suppose. Except that there are far more of us in the younger bracket.”
“Fittleworth? Is that far?”
“Sussex. It is near Petworth.”
“Has not one of the racing men a stud there?”
“Yes, but we don’t race. We hunt, though. My father is the squire, and so he is Master in the area.”
So Mr Peverill was alive. Then why was his wife living with her daughter in Tunbridge Wells? And how to phrase this innocuously enough that he did not put the boy on his guard?
“So you have a decent inheritance.” He grinned. “I know what that can be like. No doubt you have all the girls of Fittleworth on the hunt for you.”
Adam flushed, stammering, “No — at least — well, I am not much of a catch, you know. Not like Verena, though she has never shown the slightest preference for anyone. And we don’t entertain — very little, in any event. Not at all now that —” He broke off in some confusion.
“Of course not,” Denzell agreed, with a leap of something in his chest. Verena had no lover! “With your mama away, recuperating, no doubt your father has no mind to it.”
The boy looked so conscious that Denzell was almost sorry for him. How readily he showed that this interpretation of the circumstances fell far short of the truth. And how little control he had in comparison with his sister. He was tempted to let the matter rest there, but something — he knew not what — drove him to pursue it. To his cost.
“Do you find your mother in better heart now?”
An icy voice spoke behind him. “Yes, he does, Mr Hawkeridge.”
Denzell turned. Verena Chaceley was at his elbow, her features quite composed, but such a blaze of anger in her eyes that astonishment struck him to silence.
She paid him no further attention, but turned at once to speak to her brother. “Mama is asking for you, Adam.”
“Is she? I mean — yes, of course. I will go to her at once.”
Too discomposed even to take his leave of the other gentleman, the young man departed. Verena’s glance returned to Denzell, scorching him, and her voice took on a metallic quality that was distinctly unnerving.
“I do not know, Mr Hawkeridge, if you are indulging in vulgar curiosity, or if you have some other end in view, but I will thank you to keep out of the affairs of my family.”
