Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer Page B

himself.
    “Then do not be in a hurry again. Cravats are not to be tied in an instant. I hear you bought Scrutton’s bay mare at Tattersall’s.”
    “Yes,” said Peregrine.
    “I thought you would,” murmured his lordship. Peregrine looked suspicious, but judged it wiser not to ask the meaning of this somewhat cryptic remark.
    The Earl’s gaze returned to Miss Taverner. He said softly: “You should ask me to sit down, you know.”
    Her lips quivered: she could not but appreciate his lordship’s methods. “Pray be seated, sir!”
    “Thank you, Miss Taverner, but I do not stay. I came only to discuss your affairs with Peregrine,” said Worth with marked politeness.
    It was too absurd; she had to laugh. “Very well, sir. I understand there is nothing to be done with my father’s unfortunate Will.”
    “Nothing at all,” he said. “You had better accept me with a good grace. You will only be made to appear ridiculous if you don’t, you know.” Then, as she stiffened, he laughed, and putting out his hand tilted her face up with one careless finger under her chin. “Poor Beauty in distress!” he said. “But the smile was all that I hoped it might be.” He turned. “Now, Peregrine, if you please.”
    They went out of the room together, nor did she again set eyes on the Earl that day. Peregrine came running up the stairs half an hour later, and finding his sister with Mrs. Scattergood, who was deep in the pages of a fashion journal, he announced impetuously that he rather thought they might do very well with Worth for their guardian.
    Judith looked warningly towards Mrs. Scattergood, but Peregrine was not to be checked. He had very early in their acquaintanceship insinuated himself into that lady’s good graces, and treated her already with a marked lack of respect, and a good deal of affection. “Oh, Cousin Maria don’t give a fig for Worth!” he said airily. “But he has been talking to me, and I can tell you something, Judith, he don’t mean to keep too tight a hold on the purse-strings. I fancy we shall have no trouble with him at all. Cousin Maria, do you think Worth will trouble us?”
    “No, indeed, why should he? My love, I read here that strawberries crushed on the face and left all night will clear sunburn and give a delicate complexion. I wonder whether we should try it? You know, you have just the suspicion of a freckle, Judith. You will always be going out in the sun and wind, and my dear, nothing is so destructive of female charms as contact with fresh air.” ‘
    “My dear ma’am, where will you find strawberries at this season!” said Miss Taverner, amused.
    “Very true, my love; I was forgetting. Then it must be the Denmark Lotion after all. I wish you will buy some, if you mean to drive with Perry.”
    Judith promised and went away to put on her hat and her gloves. When she drove out presently alone with her brother, she spoke to him seriously of their guardian. “I cannot like him, Perry. There is something in his eye, a hardness, a—mocking look—which I don’t trust. There is a lack of civility, too—oh, worse! His whole manner, his being so familiar with me—with us! It is very bad. I don’t understand him. He would have us think that he wanted to be our guardian as little as we wished to be his wards, and yet is it not odd that he should busy himself so particularly with our affairs? Even Mrs. Scattergood thinks it strange he should not be content to let the lawyers settle everything. She says she has never known him to exert himself so much as he does now.”
    Thus Miss Taverner, in a mood of disquiet. The Earl, however, seemed to be in no hurry to repeat his call. They saw nothing of him for some days, though their visitors were many. Lady Sefton came with one of her daughters, and Mr. Skeffington, a very tall thin man with a painted face and a yellow waistcoat. He was lavishly scented, which set the Taverners instantly against him, and talked a great deal about the