Regency Masquerade by Vera Loy Page B

make an extra effort to do something boyish
such as cracking a walnut in her hand or skinning the rabbit she had shot.
    Meanwhile
Squire Herbert was wrestling with a dilemma.  Such a shocking thing had
occurred that he would not have believed it if he had not seen it with his own
eyes.  He was very worried.  He valued his own standing in the neighbourhood as
a respectable man that others could look up to as an example, but he was also
old fashioned, with a deeply inbred awe of those he considered his betters. 
The two qualities warred within him until he reached a reluctant decision.  He
would seek a meeting with Lord Carleton the very next morning.

 
    CHAPTER
EIGHT
     
    Carleton
was just finishing a rather late breakfast with Peter when the message was
brought to him that the Squire was wishful of speaking to him urgently on a
serious matter.
    “I
had better see him now,” he apologised to his companion, with whom he had been
about to engage in a fencing match when they finished eating.
    “Of
course, go ahead, I am nearly done here.” Frances drained her coffee cup.
    Carleton
sent back a message for the Squire to await him in the study and soon joined
him after brushing the crumbs from his waistcoat and straightening his cravat.
    “Yes
Squire?” he asked, pulling the door closed behind him but failing to notice
that it had not latched. “What’s the problem?”  Squire Herbert did not return
his smile but continued to look very solemn.  Clearing his throat, he replied,
“I’ve come to tell you my Lord, that I won’t be sending young Jeremy over
here.  I’ve changed my mind.”
    “Oh?”
queried Carleton in surprise.  “Doesn’t he want to be an agent anymore?”
    “Well
yes, but I thought I would send him up to Oxford for a year or so first, give
him a wider experience.”
    “But
I thought one of the main reasons for him to stay here and learn from Martin
was because his health was not good enough to risk college life!” protested the
other man, puzzled.
    Squire
Herbert looked somewhat flurried but repeated doggedly.  “It will do him good,
a year at Oxford.  Make a man of him, after all he is young yet to be choosing
a career.”
    Carleton
considered him frowningly.  Something was not right here, Will Herbert, whom he
had known for years as a blunt man, had not quite met his eyes once, almost if
he had offended him in some way.
    In
a different tone, he said, “Come on Will, stop pitching me a Banbury story! 
What is the real trouble?  Why don’t you want Jeremy to come here?”
    The
Squire reddened then burst out uncomfortably, “I saw you, my Lord,
yesterday in Hough’s Wood.  I can’t let the boy come here!”
    Neither
man noticed the door had opened slightly further behind them.
    For
a minute Carleton stared uncomprehendingly at him.  Then he remembered, he had
been walking in the wood with Frances.  They had left their horses tied to a
tree on the edge and gone for a walk down a narrow winding path bordered with
occasional clumps of bluebells to where he had promised to show her a large
patch of blackberries to pick.  Hastily he searched his memory, what on earth
had he done?  Nothing that he could think of.  The Squire must have been
walking through the wood, taking the shortcut to the village but what the deuce
had he seen? 
    Frances
had been delighted with the ripe luscious blackberries and he had helped her
pick a basketful to take back.  True, he had carried the basket for her but
that was unexceptional surely? They had laughed a good deal and he had helped
untangle her from the brambles yes – but nothing to cause a scandal there ... Well,
certainly not for a man and a woman, but ... for two men? Perhaps not!  It was
not the done thing for one man to help another out of a patch of briars and
laughingly wipe away the blackberry juice around his mouth with a handkerchief.
    And
so the Squire did not want to send young Jeremy to him to be corrupted.  A
furious protest