The lady had lifted her head at the first sound of Cloud’s hooves, and Gervase, raising his beaver, found himself looking down into a charming, wilful countenance, framed by the sweep of a hat-brim, and a cascade of pale, wind-tossed ringlets. A pair of large blue eyes, lighter and merrier than his own, met his with a rueful twinkle; a roguish dimple hovered at the corner of a kissable mouth striving unavailingly to preserve its gravity.
‘I beg pardon!’ Gervase said, his gaze riveted on the fair face upturned to his. ‘Can I be of assistance, ma’am? Some accident, I apprehend! Your horse – ?’
He dismounted, as he spoke, and pulled the bridle over Cloud’s head. The fair Diana broke into a ripple of laughter. ‘Depend upon it, the horrid creature is by now standing snugly in her stall! Was ever anything so vexatious? Papa will so roast me for parting company at such a paltry fence! Only the mare pecked, you know, and over her head I went, and perhaps I was foolish, or perhaps I was stunned – shall I declare that I was stunned? – and I released the bridle. You would have thought, after all the carrots and the sugar I have bestowed on her, that Fairy would have come to me when I coaxed her! But no! Off she set, thinking of nothing but her comfortable stable, I daresay!’
‘Ungrateful indeed!’ Gervase said, laughing. ‘But you must not sit upon that bank, ma’am, perhaps catching your death of cold! Is your home far distant?’
‘No, oh, no! But to be walking through the village in my muddied habit, advertising my folly to the countryside – ! You will allow it to be unthinkable, my lord!’
‘You know me, then, ma’am? But we have not previously met, I think – I am sure! I could not have forgotten!’
‘Oh, no! But a stranger in this desert: one dressed, moreover, in the first style of elegance! I could be in no doubt. You are – you must be – Lord St Erth!’
‘I am St Erth. And you, ma’am? How comes it about that this is our first encounter?’
She replied, with the most enchanting primming of her face, wholly belied by the mischievous look in her eyes: ‘Why, you must understand that one would not wish to appear pushing, by too early a visit, nor uncivil, by too late a one! Mama has formed the intention that Papa shall pay a morning-call at Stanyon next week!’
He was very much amused, and said: ‘I could not receive that morning-call too early, I assure you! It will be quite unnecessary, however, for Papa to be put to the trouble of a formal visit, for I shall forestall him. If I were to lift you on to Cloud’s back, ma’am, will you permit me to lead him to your home?’
She jumped down from the bank, catching up the skirt of her voluminous habit, and casting it over her arm. ‘Oh, yes! Will you do that? I shall be so very much obliged to you!’
On her feet, she was seen to be a slim creature, not above the average height, but exquisitely proportioned. Her movements, though impetuous, were graceful, and the Earl was permitted a glimpse of a neatly-turned ankle. She tucked her primroses into the buttonhole of her coat, where, mingling with her curls, they seemed almost exactly to blend with them. The Earl lifted her on to the saddle; she contrived to arrange one leg over the pommel, and declared herself to be perfectly safely established.
‘Now, where am I to take you?’ asked Gervase, smiling up at her.
‘To Whissenhurst Grange, if you please! It is only a mile from where we stand, so you will not be obliged to trudge so very far!’
‘I should be glad if it were twice as far. But did you mean to sit upon that bank for ever, ma’am?’
‘Oh, they would have found me in a little while!’ she said airily. ‘When Fairy reached the stables, you know, they would be thrown into such a pucker! I daresay everyone may already be searching the countryside for me.’
She spoke with all the unconcern of a spoiled child; and it was easy for him to guess that she must be the pet of her father’s establishment. With some shrewdness he asked her if her parents were
aware of her riding out without a groom, and glanced quizzically up in time to see her pouting prettily.
‘Oh, well, there can be no objection, after all, in the country! In town, of course, I could not do so. If only I had not jumped that wretched little hedge! Nothing was ever so mortifying! Indeed, I am not in the habit of tumbling off my horse, Lord St Erth!’
‘Why, the best of riders must take a toss or two!’ he reassured her. ‘It was used to be said of the Master of the Quorn, when I was living at Stanyon previously, that he would have as many as fifty falls in a season!’
‘Ah, you are talking of Mr Assheton Smith, I collect! His name, you must know, is for ever on the tongues of the Melton men! You must have heard your brother deplore his leaving Quorndon Hall, I daresay! This has been his last season with the Quorn: he is coming into Lincolnshire, to hunt the Burton, and that will put him many miles beyond poor Martin’s reach!’
‘I have indeed heard of it from Martin,’ said Gervase, with a droll look. ‘Not all his calculations and his measurements will bring Reepham closer to Stanyon than fifty miles. He sees nothing for it but to put up at Market Rasen, if he should wish for a day with the Burton.’
‘Martin is one of Mr Smith’s upholders. A great many of the sporting gentlemen, however, complain that he draws his coverts too quickly, and will not lift as often as he should in Leicestershire.’
‘You hunt yourself, ma’am?’
She threw him one of her roguish looks. ‘Yes, when hounds meet in the vicinity, and I will faithfully promise to do just as Papa bids me!’
‘I hope you keep your promises!’
‘Yes, yes, in general I am very good!’
‘You will think me abominably stupid, I fear, but I think I can never have met your Papa, and thus do not know what I shall call him when we meet.’
‘Papa is Sir Thomas Bolderwood,’ she replied at once. ‘Very likely you might not have encountered him, for we came to live at Whissenhurst only a few years ago, and you have all the time been abroad.’
‘I must be grateful to whatever lucky chance it was that brought Sir Thomas into Lincolnshire,’ said Gervase.