Indiscretion by Jude Morgan Page A

more gracious. I shall be very glad to have Mr Leabrook’s acquaintance also. Your name, sir, suggests a Northampton connection ... ?’
    ‘My family have long been settled in Northamptonshire, yes, ma’am,’ said Mr Leabrook, in an agreeable surprisingly light-toned voice. ‘Your own name is familiar to me from the splendid reputation of the late Colonel — also from your young relatives here, who have spoken much of you, and with the warmest admiration, this last couple of days. I confess it is I who have stuck to them rather, as I have found them such pleasant company, and me an idle fellow without resources. However, here is a family reunion, and I am de trop; so I’ll wish you good day.’
    But Mrs Catling would not hear of that. Mr Leabrook, fashionable and well connected, was just the sort of gentleman to recommend himself to her taste in any event: he was doubly welcome as another stick with which to beat her relatives, for by giving him a deal of attention she still withheld it from them. While she plied him with questions about how he liked Brighton, and had he seen the latest improvements to the Pavilion, and did he know Lord Fitzwilliam up in Northamptonshire, she retained Caroline’s arm with every appearance of possessive fondness.
    Meanwhile Mr and Miss Downey stood by: she had a pretty sulky mouth and looked simply bored, but he was cross and heated, and Caroline felt that the charade had gone on long enough. She disengaged herself from Mrs Catling with the excuse that her bootlace was undone, and hung back, making a long pretence of fixing it. At last she had the satisfaction of seeing her employer walking on with her nephew and niece on each arm, questioning them minutely about the standard of service at the Old Ship, where they were staying. Danglers they might be, she thought, but they had come a long way to see her after all.
    ‘It was well done,’ quietly said Mr Leabrook, falling into step with her. ‘Whether appreciated, who can say? I caught your name, Miss Fortune, and I have gathered from my new friends the position you have taken up. I do not suppose it to be an easy one. But where do you hail from?’
    ‘I have lived mostly in London. I suppose that is where I hail from — which is a curious expression, isn’t it? Hailing sounds rather strong and decided for me. I fear I drizzle if anything. Or mizzle. They are the same, I dare say, though I always fancy mizzle as that little bit wetter — not that you can have rain that isn’t wet.’ Caroline listened to herself with rising mortification: if it were possible to blabber worse nonsense, she could not see how.
    ‘I thought you must be London,’ Mr Leabrook said, looking at her with great attention, only delicately laced with amusement.’There is an air.’
    ‘Why are you at Brighton?’ She meant a polite enquiry: it came out grossly forensic. ‘I wonder,’ she added limply.
    ‘I am here on a family errand also. I have a younger sister — all of thirteen years younger than me, which means that we are just about on a level — and she has been at a boarding-school at Hove, and I have come to bring her home. That was the plan. It has all gone rather awry. First the pole of my carriage broke while I was in London, the very day before I was due to come here and fetch her away in it. Hence my taking the public coach instead — which, of course, was one of those lucky accidents, as it introduced me to our friends here. And now I find that Georgiana, my sister, does not wish to come home. She is invited to Weymouth for the summer by a schoolfellow, whose father has a pleasure-yacht, and Georgiana has a great fancy for sailing. Our place in Northamptonshire is about as far from the sea as it is possible to be in England, so perhaps that accounts for it. So here I am in Brighton with nothing to do. Are they reconciled now, do you suppose?’ he added in a lower tone, nodding at Mrs Catling and her supporters. ‘Downey has been most