Page 29 of The Book of Lost Stories
‘It is Lord Rayven,’ she said to Letty, who was half dozing in front of the fire with Pug. ‘They surely cannot mean to drive back to London now, for it will be dark very shortly.’
‘There should be a good moon,’ Letty said drowsily, then sat up a little straighter. ‘Come away from the window this instant, Alys, in case he should see you.’
But it was too late: Lord Rayven said something to his friend, then looked up directly and laughingly saluted her with his whip before gathering up the reins.
She stepped back, cheeks aflame, muttering ‘Show-off!’ as the curricle bowled out of the archway, turned on a sixpence and vanished from sight.
‘Has he gone, Alys? If so, it would be safe to take Pug for a little airing.’
‘Yes, he has gone.’
‘He did not appear quite the monster I imagined, although his face looks forbidding until he smiles.’
‘“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain”,’ quoted Alys darkly.
‘Well, if you say so, my dear … and of course, if he is the man who so grossly insulted you in Harrogate, then he must be!’
‘Shakespeare. I forget which play,’ explained Alys, thinking not for the first time that had she not been such a voracious reader, a governess hired for her cheapness rather than her educational attainments would have left her sadly lacking in knowledge other than that of how to induce her hens to lay, or the art of providing a good table on a limited income.
‘Lord Rayven’s friend Mr Stavely seemed a very pleasant young man,’ Letty said.
‘Yes, I wonder if he is any relation to Nell’s Cheshire neighbours? But I suppose Stavely is not an uncommon name.’
‘I can see how like all your villains Lord Rayven is, now I have set eyes on him, Alys, right down to that sinister scar. Let us hope he has not read any of your books, for he could not fail to recognize himself.’
‘Oh, I don’t suppose anyone ever does recognize themselves in books, and I should not think him the type of man to read a novel, let alone a Gothic romance, would you?’ she said, although it had given her a jolt, she had to admit, when he had calledhimselfa villain. ‘And anyway, even should he have heard of the likeness, it would never cross his mind that I should have written them.’
‘No, of course not.’
A servant scratched at the door, with a message to say that the last stage of their journey must be put off until midday tomorrow, while the wheel was mended. This was better than they had hoped, for they would still reach London in daylight.
‘I think I will just jot down a few notes, while our mishap is still fresh in my mind,’ Alys said, looking around her for her travelling desk with a purposeful light in her eyes. Simon de Lombard might have mysteriously recast himself as the hero, but she felt in the mood to have him suffer a little torture before rewarding him with Cicely’s hand.
‘And I, when I have walked Pug, will see if I can find the arnica, for I am bruised all over, especially my ribs.
‘Well, youwouldsew my jewellery into your stays, although I told you there was not the least need.’
‘The pendant, the golden pendant,’ whispered Miss Grimshaw, with a nervous look at the door.
‘Oh,that. Yes, I suppose we must keep it safe until I can return it to the Hartwoods, but I am sure locking it into a trunk would have done just as well,’ Alys said. But Letty declared her willingness to suffer any discomfort in order to protect her charge’s property or virtue, in a heroic manner quite suited to the pages of a Gothic novel.
*
‘Come, this is hopeful!’ Harry Stavely quizzed his friend as they drove away from the inn. ‘It is the first sign of interest I have seen you show in the fair sex since I sold out.’
‘I don’t know how you can say so, Harry, when you know very well I have only recently parted company with as pretty – and avaricious – an opera dancer as ever graced the boards.’
‘Oh, opera dancers!’ exclaimed Harry. ‘You know very well that is not what I meant.’
‘No, but if you are waiting for me to fall head over ears in love with one of the society chits that are paraded for my notice, you will wait for a very long time.’
‘But you must marry soon, for you are the last of the Rayvens, just as I … I am now the last of the Cheshire Stavelys,’ Harry said, a pang of loss twisting his face as he thought of his brother.
‘So I must, and I mean to cast the handkerchief this very season, to some placid creature of good birth and beauty, who will be content to stay at Priory Chase and breed while I amuse myself elsewhere, and not, I assure you, to Miss Weston, who hasnoneof the qualities necessary in a wife!’
Harry, who over dinner had been regaled with all the details of his friend’s Harrogate acquaintanceship with Alys and hervery vulgar aunt, grinned. ‘Your placid creature sounds a dead bore to me. And Miss Weston is very taking, even if she is not precisely beautiful. Such expressive grey eyes!’
‘Expressing loathing every time she looked at me, you mean?’
