Memoirs of a Hoyden by Joan Smith Page B

breed we were eating, I spoke up. “Miss Longville tells me you work with her papa at Whitehall, Lord Kestrel,” I said, and smiled innocently across the table.
    He gave me a look that went through me like a knife and replied, “That’s right. Excellent lamb, Sir Herbert. Your own?”
    For five minutes there was no talk worth listening to. I have attended spinsters’ wakes that were livelier than that dinner party. I eased back to Boney via the back door. “When do you think we will see the last of Bonaparte, and you can get those Rambouillet rams, Sir Herbert?”
    “Ewes, madam. I have rams aplenty. These are troubled times,” he said sadly. “The whole coast feels as if it were under siege, with only the Channel between us and Boney. I hope he don’t come during the week, while I am in London. My steward has his orders, but I would prefer to be here myself. I’m afraid of damage to my flock.” He was as cunning at returning to his sheep as I at avoiding them.
    “What you ought to do is leave your daughter at home, Sir Herbert,” Kestrel suggested, with an admiring glance at the provincial.
    “Nel is too valuable to me in London. I need a hostess since my good lady passed away.” Nel scowled at her papa. Was it possible the provincial would have preferred being buried in the country? “She’s better off where I can keep an eye on her,” he added.
    “You can’t expect your daughter to fill that role for long. Some young fellow will steal her away from you,” Kestrel warned. Again his eyes lingered on Miss Longville, who glared at her father. Sir Herbert’s words and her reaction hinted at a liaison that had the father’s disapproval.
    I turned a curious glance toward the blushing beauty and said, “Are you satisfied with such a paltry role in life, Miss Longville? I would not be satisfied arranging dinner parties after spending the last few years much more interestingly. My nephew and I are just returned from the Orient, Sir Herbert,” I said.
    “Ah yes. Our Karakul comes from there. A beautiful tight fur, if you skin them at a young age, but the meat is tough, I believe.”
    “They cook the meat over an open fire, and it is excellent,” I replied, undaunted. “Of course, most foods are cooked over an open fire. In the mountains of Lebanon, they actually eat the flesh raw. Just skin the animal and eat it.”
    “That sounds mighty unappealing to me,” Sir Herbert scowled.
    “I daresay one gets accustomed to anything. Riding camels, living in a tent. Mind you, some of the tents are quite lovely, and very comfortable. I had one lined with satin.”
    “Living in a tent sounds horrid!” Miss Longville frowned. “You must have suffered great deprivations, Miss Mathieson.”
    “Great deprivation, and yet at times, more luxury than you can imagine. I shall never forget entering Pasha Suliman’s marble palace, to find him reclining on a crimson sofa, surrounded by hundreds of guards, all with their swords drawn. That whole trip glows in my memory. It was at the time of the Ramadan, that is, the ninth month of the Mohammedan year, of course, which is holy for them. The whole city ablaze with lights at night, and in the bazaars some of the people poured coffee on the ground before me.”
    “Whatever for?” Miss Longville enquired.
    “Why, it is a mark of respect!”
    “It sounds more like an insult to me! Why, it might have destroyed your gown.”
    Kestrel’s eyelids drooped lazily. “Miss Mathieson obviously speaks ex cathedra on oriental matters, Miss Longville. Did you wear gowns in the desert, Miss Mathieson?”
    Miss Longville snickered into her fist at the image of me in my petticoats. I didn’t take up Kestrel’s childish challenge, but went on to tell them a few of my more outstanding memories. When the dessert arrived, I realized I had run on longer than I intended. “But I don’t want to bore you,” I said, with an arch glance to Kestrel, who couldn’t have looked more bored had