Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer Page A

home is in the immediate vicinity, and until her mother's death she was as much a part of Iverley's household as her own, and no doubt formed friendships with his children—particularly, as I recollect, with Iverley's son, who is the nearest to her in age."
    "Are you quite positive that she didn't tell you of the scheme she and the Iverleys hatched between them?" she demanded incredulously.
    "No," he replied. "I am not positive that she didn't, but I was unable to decipher more than the first page of her letter—and that with difficulty, since she had spattered it with her tears! The second sheet baffled me, for not only did she weep over it, but she crossed and recrossed her lines—no doubt with the amiable intention of sparing me extra expense."
    Her eyes had widened as she listened to him, but although she was shocked by his indifference she could not help being amused by it. Amusement quivered in her voice as she said: "What an extraordinary man you are, Mr Carleton! You received a letter from your ward's aunt, written in extreme agitation, and you neither made any real effort, I am very sure, to decipher that second sheet, nor—if the blotches did indeed baffle you—to go down to Chartley to discover precisely what had happened!"
    "Yes, it seemed at first as though that hideous necessity did lie before me," he agreed. "Fortunately, however, the following day brought me a letter from Iverley, which had the merit of being short, and legible. He informed me that Lucilla was in Bath, that her aunt was prostrate, and that if I wished to rescue my ward from the clutches of what he feared was a designing female, calling herself Miss Wychwood, I must leave for Bath immediately."
    "Well, if that is not the outside of enough!" she said wrathfully. "Calling myself Miss Wychwood, indeed! And in what way am I supposed to have designs on Lucilla, pray?"
    "That he didn't disclose."
    "If he knew that Lucilla was staying with me, he must have written to you after Ninian's return to Chartley, for he couldn't otherwise have known where she had gone to, or what my name is! Yes, and after Ninian had given Mrs Amber the letter I had written to her, informing her of the circumstances of my meeting with Lucilla, and begging her to grant the child permission to stay with me for a few weeks! I should be glad to know why, if she thought me a designing female, she sent Lucilla's trunks to her! What a ninnyhammer she must be! But as for Iverley! How dared he write such damaging stuff about me? If he talked like that to Ninian I'm not surprised Ninian ripped up at him!"
    "Your conversation, ma'am, bears a strong resemblance to Clara Amber's letter!" he said acidly. "Both are unintelligible! What the devil has Ninian to do with this hotch-potch?"
    "He has everything to do with it! Mrs Amber and the Iverleys are determined to marry him to Lucilla! That is why she ran away!"
    "Marry him to Lucilla?" he repeated. "What nonsense! Are you trying to tell me the boy is in love with her? I don't believe it!"
    "No, I am not trying to tell you that! He wants the match as little as she does, but dared not tell his father so for fear of bringing about one of the heart-attacks with which Iverley terrorizes his family into obeying his every whim! I don't think you can have the least notion of what the situation is at Chartley!"
    "Very likely not. I haven't visited the house since my sister-in-law's death. Iverley and I don't deal together, and never did."
    "Then I'll tell you!" promised Miss Wychwood, and straightway launched into a graphic description of the circumstances which had goaded Lucilla into precipitate flight.
    He heard her in silence, but the expression on his face was discouraging, and when she came to the end of her recital he was so far from evincing either sympathy or understanding that he ejaculated, in exasperated accents: "Oh, for God's sake, ma'am! Spare me any more of this Cheltenham tragedy! What a kick-up over something that might have