‘No. An … unusual young lady.’
‘Most certainly. Very hot at hand, I would say.’
‘Yes.’ Sir Esmond paused. ‘Do you rub her up the wrong way intentionally?’
‘Ah,’ Lord Rothley’s smile lengthened, ‘I do seem to have that effect upon her, do I not? I won’t let her have her own way, which irritates her, I think because she is unused to any opposition, and perhaps I do goad her a little.’
‘With an end in view?’ Sir Esmond looked sidelong at his friend.
‘Yes. I think so.’ Rothley did not see Sir Esmond’s smile become rather fixed. ‘I would like to prevent her doing something both disastrous to her own position, and unpleasant for Lady Sophy.’
‘A further “why” would be … intrusive?’
‘At this point, my dear fellow, yes. I am not altogether sure how things stand between myself, Miss Tyneham, and indeed her cousinin loco parentis.’
‘I see, or rather I do not see, which is as desired.’ Sir Esmond did not divulge that he too had an interest in the occupants of the Chelmarsh residence, since he was at this stage equally unsure of … matters. ‘It is a situation where one always feels as if treading upon dangerous ground.’
‘It will be if Miss Tyneham becomes even more bloodthirsty.’
‘Yet one has to wonder why that is.’
‘Yes, one has to wonder.’ Lord Rothley frowned, and gave what might have been a sigh. ‘Now, Fawley, before we both become as blue as megrim, what dishes catch your eye?’
It had to be said that when Miss Tyneham rode with her cousins later that day she appeared, if a little thoughtful, happy to behave in a seemly fashion. Sophy actually admired the way she was quite fearless upon huge Hugo, apparently confident that what she lacked in strength of muscle was more than compensated for by her strength of will. They stopped to exchange polite nothings with several ladies in barouches, and one lady in a yellowwheeled phaeton that made Susan wish she had learnt to handle the reins. There was a certain cachet to driving oneself. She found the interchanges rather boring, but revived when they met Sir Esmond Fawley. He smiled, and raised his hat.
‘Good afternoon, ladies. How nice to see you out at the social hour. How are you finding your choices?’
‘I think we can safely say we are all three of us pleased, Sir Esmond.’ Sophy smiled. She had not managed a genuine smile all day. She felt weighed down by an indefinable despondency.
‘And Miss Tyneham, you have not experienced vertigo, I hope?’
‘Not at all, Sir Esmond. I have no fear …’ she paused, and glanced briefly at her cousin, wondering if exchanging badinage with Sir Esmond counted as impropriety, ‘of heights.’
‘I doubt you have a fear of anything, Miss Tyneham,’ he commented, smiling, but looking rather intently at her. He would swear there was fear in her, but he was unsure of its source.
‘I certainly do not possess one over such things as heights, or mice, or the dark.’
‘I dislike spiders,’ offered Harriet, shuddering, and, as if at one with her, the shudder ran along her horse’s neck, rippling the mane. She laughed. ‘And it seems Bramble shares my antipathy.’
‘Bramble? Now that is a nice name for a horse.’
Sir Esmond, thought Sophy, spoke to Harriet as if he were an uncle, even if a young one, and yet he did not do so to her, or to Susan.
‘I have named mine Hugo, partly because Sophy’s first suggestion was Huge, and in part because I could always claim that “I had Hugo doing just what I told him”, which sounds terribly daring.’ Susan felt, rather than saw, Sophy’s warning. ‘Do I shock you, Sir Esmond?’ she enquired, frowning very slightly.
‘No, you do not. You see, I have resolved not to permit you to do so, and I stick to my resolutions.’ He smiled at her in a way she found hard to read. It was in part admiring, part rather too knowing, and part tolerance. The first she liked, the second disturbed her and the third irritated her. He seemed to treat admiring her as a game, knowing that she herself considered it a game.
‘Lord Rothley is not shocked by me either, but I do wish he would not act as if I were some sort of … entertainment,’ Susan remarked.
Sophy felt relief at this comment. She did not want Susan setting her cap at Lord Rothley. It would upset her mama and, secretly, she had to admit it upset her too. If only Mama had not been so sure about him being a man to keep at a distance.
‘Sophy, who is the gentleman riding towards us?’ Harriet was wondering about a man clearly about to draw up and speak to them.
‘That, Lady Harriet,’ answered Sir Esmond, before Sophy had time to trawl through her memory, ‘is Lord Pinkney, who is a gamester, and not the sort of man young ladies should entertain as a friend.’
‘Oh.’ Harriet now looked as if Lord Pinkney might kidnap her upon sight, and he noted the trepidation in her gaze as he made his bow.
‘Lady Sophronia. I do not think we have met for several years. Servant, Fawley. And who are these delightful ladies?’
