Джорджетт Хейер: April Lady

“Bed at ten o’clock!” she said, by no means pleased.

“Yes, bed at ten o’clock. If you are not exhausted after a day of unbridled passion, you should be! Don’t argue with me! My patience won’t stand it.”

“Indeed, you should go, love!” Nell urged her. “You are quite worn out. I will come up to you, and—”

“No, you will not,” Cardross interrupted.

Overawed by this display of cool and sweeping authority the young lovers withdrew circumspectly. Nell showed her husband a laughing countenance. “Well, really , Giles!” she expostulated.

He caught her up from the sofa, and held her a little away from him, looking down into her face with bright, smiling eyes. “Yes, really, Giles! ” he retorted. “How much longer did you think I would wait to get you to myself?”

She did not answer him, but blushed a little, meeting his gaze shyly but very openly.

“There’s so much to say to you, Nell—and, God forgive me, so much to unsay! My darling, I wish I had cut my tongue out before—”

“No, there is nothing to unsay, because you didn’t say those things to me,” she intervened. “They hurt me only a very little—not as much as I deserved, perhaps! For I am afraid I have been extravagant, and—and deceitful, and very foolish!”

“And above all very foolish,” he agreed, turning her words into a caress. “It seems I have been a great deal too easy with you, Madam Wife! That will not happen again! So you thought I offered for you because I wanted a wife, and saw nothing in you to disgust me, did you? Nell, how could you be such a goose?”

The blush deepened; she hung her head... “Mama said—that you were disposed to be fond of me, and considerate, and she warned me not to hang on you, or—or appear to notice it if—perhaps—you had Another Interest.”

“I am obliged to Mama! And did it seem to you that I had Another Interest?”

“No. But I knew,” she said simply. “The first time we met Letty said that I was prettier than your mistress.”

“She was right. I wish I could think that Allandale would beat her regularly every week, but I fear he won’t. The lady with whom I enjoyed an agreeable connection for several years need never have troubled you. We parted without regret or ill-will, and when we meet in company today it is with the indifferent pleasure of old acquaintances. From the moment I saw you, Nell, you have had all my heart. That is the truth.”

“Dysart said that. He said that everyone knew it, too.”

“I infinitely prefer your brother to my sister. But why, my foolish little love, did you then keep me at an even greater distance?”

She looked up again. “You see, I owed Lavalle more than three hundred pounds, so how could I do anything else, until that dreadful debt was paid? With that on my conscience I couldn’t tell you that I had been agonizingly in love with you from the very beginning; and if you had discovered the debt you would never have believed me. But I was, Giles.”

Farley, quietly entering the room at that moment, beheld his mistress locked in a crushing embrace, and with instant presence of mind stepped noiselessly back into the hall. There he remained for some few minutes, after which, with a little fumbling with the door-handle, he entered the book-room for the second time. My lord, before the mirror above the fireplace, was pensively absorbed in some delicate adjustment to the folds of his cravat; my lady, a trifle dishevelled, but otherwise a model of fashionable decorum, was seated in a large armchair. “I don’t know how it comes about, my lord,” she said, in a light, languid voice, “but we do not increase our covers for guests tonight.”

“By why, my love, did you not inform me of this circumstance earlier?” enquired my lord reproachfully. “I should then have used my best endeavours to have persuaded your brother and his amiable friend to have given us the pleasure of their company.”

“Yes, indeed! How—how stupid of me!” said my lady; with very creditable command over her voice.

“And Allandale,” pursued my lord ruthlessly, “in case the conversation should have flagged.”

Pained to see such a want of chivalry in my lord, Farley came to the rescue of his sore-tried mistress, and, in a few dignified and well-chosen words, put an end to this scene. “Supper, my lady, is served!” he announced.