Джорджетт Хейер: The Nonesuch

“God help your Uncle Burford!” said Laurence.

“You needn’t think I have anything to say to you, because I haven’t!” Tiffany informed him. “And I won’t beg your pardon for throwing the clock at you, whatever Ancilla says, because you told lies, and cheated me, and you deserved to have it thrown at you! And, in any event, everything has turned out for the best, and I am going to London! So I’m not sorry about anything. When are you going to London, Sir Waldo?”

“Almost immediately!” he replied promptly.

For an instant his eyes met Miss Trent’s, brimful of laughter. So fleeting was the silent message that passed between them that Tiffany was unaware of it. She looked up at Sir Waldo through her lashes. “I thought you might be,” she said demurely.

But Laurence had not missed that swift, revealing exchange of glances, and he ejaculated: “So I didn’t miss my tip! Well, I had a notion you was shamming it, coz! Now perhaps you’ll own—”

“Laurie!” interrupted Sir Waldo. “I should warn you, perhaps, that if you wish to succeed as a horse-coper you must learn to keep your tongue between your teeth!”

Laurence looked at him. “Are you bamming me?” he asked suspiciously.

“No: merely warning you!”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about!” complained Tiffany, by no means pleased at being overlooked.

“Well, who wants you to?” retorted Laurence. “It’s coming to something, so it is, if I can’t talk to my cousin without having an uppish scrub of a brat prying into what don’t concern her!”

“ Scrub ?” cried Tiffany, colour flaming into her cheeks. “How dare you speak to me like that? I’m not a scrub! I’m not, I’m not!”

“A scrub!” repeated Laurence, with relish. “Distempered into the bargain!”

“Quiet!” commanded Sir Waldo.

“Oh, very well!” said Laurence, subsiding.

“I’d liefer be anything but a Bartholomew baby, which is what Courtenay says you are! And also a—”

“I said, Quiet! ”

Tiffany was so much startled by this peremptory reminder that she gasped, and stood staring up at the Nonesuch as though she could not believe that he was speaking not to his cousin, but actually to her. She drew in her breath audibly, and clenched her hands. Miss Trent cast a look of entreaty at Sir Waldo, but he ignored it. He strolled up to the infuriated beauty, and pushed up her chin. “Now, you may listen to me, my child!” he said sternly. “You are becoming a dead bore, and I don’t tolerate bores. Neither do I tolerate noisy tantrums. Unless you want to be soundly smacked, enact me no ill-bred scenes!”

There was a moment’s astonished silence. Laurence broke it, seizing his cousin’s hand, and fervently shaking it. “I knew you was a right one!” he declared. “‘A great gun, Waldo! Damme, a Trojan! ”