Crossed Quills by Carola Dunn Page A

daresay you will deliver the speech with more conviction if at least some of the imagery is your own. Papa said he could always tell in the House when a man had had his words written for him. The spark of enthusiasm would be missing.”
     “A fate I wish to avoid! Pray use your influence with Prometheus.” Wynn observed her closely as he spoke, hoping for a hint as to how much influence she expected to have.
     Again she lowered her lashes, and her porcelain-pale skin flooded with a rosy blush as she nodded.
     Damn! he thought, she does love him. But as to whether she fancied Prometheus returned her love, Wynn was none the wiser.
    * * * *
     “Prometheus has had a first consultation with Lord Selworth, I hear,” said Mrs Lisle, as the Debenhams’ landau rolled along Charles Street. “How did it go?”
     The landau’s hoods were up against a fine rain, so the Lisles were able to talk freely without fear of the coachman overhearing. Mrs Lisle had refused to take a footman, who would draw too much attention in the districts they were bound for.
     “I rubbed through unscathed,” Pippa said doubtfully, “I think.”
     “Was he troublesome? I should not have expected it of him. Still, gentlemen become amazingly defensive when their competence is called into question, even when they have already admitted to being in difficulties.”
     “No, he took criticism like a lamb. And I trust he still has no notion that I am Prometheus.”
     Yet he had studied her face when he mentioned her influence with Prometheus, and she had felt her cheeks grow stupidly hot. With luck he would put the blush down to his scrutiny—especially as she had still more stupidly flushed when he smiled. But no doubt he was accustomed to young ladies swooning when he smiled, she told herself tartly. She must hope to grow sufficiently accustomed to his smile for it to cease to ruffle her.
     “Pippa, he did not attempt any familiarities? It was unwise of Kitty to leave you alone together!”
     “He did not even try to flirt, Mama. I am quite sure my only attraction for him is as his conduit to Prometheus. At my age, I have no need of a chaperon when we are discussing business in his sister’s house.” Nor at any other time or place, she thought, a trifle wistful.
     “Let us have no more of this nonsense about your age, my love. No man of sense thinks the worse of a woman for being beyond the first foolishness of youth.”
     “Do you mean that I am foolish, Mama,” Kitty cried, laughing, “and must marry a fool? I shall defy you and marry a man of genius.”
     Mrs Lisle smiled. “You are a sensible girl for your age, Kitty, but remember that a fool is sometimes easier to deal with than a man of genius. Not that I wish you to choose your husband by his intellectual attainments. However, when you fall in love, as no doubt you will, ask yourself whether you can imagine the gentleman in question as a friend as well as a lover.”
     Pippa recalled receiving the same advice before her first Season. It had undoubtedly prevented her making a cake of herself over more than one beau of handsome face or insinuating charm. She had been quite unable to picture them taking a vigorous country walk with her, or talking politics at the breakfast table.
    * * * *
     The longest, most vigorous of country walks would have exhausted her less than their afternoon of shopping. Muslins and shawls from Waithman’s at Ludgate Hill; Irish linen from Newton’s in Leicester Square; poplins from Layton and Shear at Bedford House; all these and the silk-merchants and haberdashers of Cheapside blurred in Pippa’s mind.
     “Thank heaven for Bina’s carriage,” she said, leaving the shelter of a shop-assistant’s umbrella to climb into the landau for what she hoped was the last time today. “If we had had to traipse about in hackneys, I doubt I should have survived.
     “Cranbourne Alley next, for bonnets,” Kitty proposed, lively as ever, “now that we