Marrying Miss Hemingford by Nadia Nichols Page A

Gosforth pretending not to notice, though I know he did.’
    â€˜Oh, Aunt, don’t take on so.’ She took her aunt’s arm and they began to walk from the churchyard. ‘It was all very innocent. The parson insulted poor Dr Tremayne, bowing and scraping to me when he realised you were myaunt and ringing a peel over the doctor for not going regularly to church. I had to do something to extricate him.’
    â€˜Why? You do not know him and he is not a gentleman.’
    â€˜Oh, he is,’ Anne said, steering her aunt towards The Steine where they had arranged to meet the others who were going to see the monster and to join the picnic. Lord and Lady Mancroft had left in their carriage and would no doubt meet up with them again later. ‘I believe he is a very fine gentleman.’
    â€˜He lives and works among the lower ranks.’
    â€˜By choice, Aunt, and I admire him for it.’
    â€˜One can admire someone without becoming familiar with them. Anne, I despair of you. It is no wonder you have not found a husband if you cannot tell a gentleman from a mushroom.’
    â€˜Dr Tremayne is certainly not a mushroom,’ she said. ‘He is making no pretensions to be something he is not. He told me he was a ship’s surgeon in the war and sustained a wound that meant he could not go to sea again. He decided to help the poor instead.’
    â€˜You seem to have learned a great deal about him in a very short time, Anne. I understood you had only met him briefly.’
    â€˜So I did,’ Anne said, feeling guilty about that second visit to the Doctor, but, judging by her aunt’s reaction to being introduced to him, she was glad she had said nothing of it. ‘But it took no longer for him to tell me than it did for me to tell you.’
    â€˜Why did he tell you?’
    â€˜Because I asked him. I was interested in the workhe was doing. He spends nearly all his time and money on it.’
    â€˜No doubt he was boasting to gain your sympathy.’
    â€˜No, he is not a boastful man. And in any case I learned some of it from the little girl’s mother. She said he was a saint.’
    â€˜Saints are rare beings on this earth, Anne. For all you know, he may be the very opposite. He may have pretensions to be a gentleman and how do you know he does not have some dark secret in his past?’
    Anne hesitated only a moment before replying, admitting to herself that she did find Dr Tremayne a little mysterious. His poor dress and mode of living belied his courteous manners and cultured way of speaking, which was, she supposed, what her aunt had meant. ‘Fustian! You have been reading too many of those romantic novels you are so fond of.’
    â€˜I could say the same of you, Anne, making the man out to be a saint, indeed! He is a man, an ordinary man, not even a gentleman, and you will ruin your reputation if you are not more selective in those you consort with.’
    â€˜Consort, Aunt?’ Anne laughed. ‘I pass the time of day with a perfectly respectable man and I am consorting…’
    â€˜It is how it will be interpreted by society.’
    â€˜Then society is a ninnyhammer!’
    â€˜Anne, I beg you to be more circumspect. You will have us gossiped about.’
    Anne conceded her aunt was probably right and, though she did not care for herself, she would not for the world have hurt or embarrassed her sponsor. ‘I am sorry,’ she said, squeezing her aunt’s arm. ‘I did not think.’
    They said no more because they had reached The Steine where their friends were gathering. It was an open grassy area, used by fishermen to dry their nets and by the beau monde to congregate to walk and gossip. Neither side welcomed the other. According to the wealthier inhabitants of the town, the nets were an eyesore and the ladies often caught their heels in them and there were plans afoot to stop the fishermen drying them there. Naturally the