Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer Page B

means pleased at this cool way of dismissing her, but she was too anxious to prove her driving skill to stay to argue the point. She whisked herself out of the room, and up the stairs, set a bell pealing for her maid, and informed her astonished chaperon that there would be no walk in the Park. She was going driving with my Lord Worth.
    She joined his lordship again in just a quarter of an hour, having changed her floating muslins for a severely cut habit made of some dark cloth, and a small velvet hat turned up on one side from her clustering gold ringlets, and with a curled feather hanging down on the other. “I am ready, my lord,” she said, drawing on a pair of serviceable York tan gloves.
    He held open the door for her. “Permit me to tell you, Miss Taverner, that whatever else may be at fault, your taste in dress is unimpeachable.”
    “I do not admit, sir, that there is anything at fault,” flashed Miss Taverner.
    At sight of her the waiting tiger touched his hat, but bent a severely inquiring glance on his master.
    Miss Taverner took the whip and reins in her hands, and mounted into the driving-seat, scorning assistance.
    “Take your orders from Miss Taverner, Henry,” said the Earl, getting up beside his ward.
    “Me lord, you ain’t never going to let a female drive us?” said Henry almost tearfully. “What about my pride?”
    “Swallow it, Henry,” replied the Earl amicably.
    The tiger’s chest swelled. He gazed woodenly at a nearby lamppost and said in an ominous voice: “I heard as how Major Forrester was wanting me for his tiger. Come to my ears, it did. Lord Barrymore too. I dunno how much he wouldn’t give to get a hold of me.”
    “You had much better go to Sir Henry Payton,” recommended Worth. “I will give you a note for him.”
    The tiger turned a look of indignant reproach upon him. “Yes, and where would you be if I did?” he demanded.
    Miss Taverner gave her horses the office to start, and said imperatively: “Stand away from their heads! If you are afraid, await us here.”
    The tiger let go the wheelers and made a dash for his perch. As he scrambled up into it he said with strong emotion: “I’ve sat behind you sober, guv’nor. and I’ve sat behind you foxed, and I’ve sat behind you when you raced Sir John to Brighton, and never made no complaint, but I ain’t never sat behind you mad afore!” with which he folded his arms, nodded darkly, and relapsed into a disapproving silence.
    On her mettle, Miss Taverner guided the team down the street at a brisk trot, driving them well up to their bits. She had fine light hands, knew how to point her leaders, and soon showed the Earl that she was sufficiently expert in the use of the whip. She flicked the leader, and caught the thong again with a slight turn of her wrist that sent it soundlessly up the stick. She drove his lordship into Hyde Park without the least mishap, and twice round it. Forgetting for the moment to be coldly formal, she said impulsively: “I was used to drive all my father’s horses, but I never handled a team so light-mouthed as these, sir.”
    “I am thought to be something of a judge of horse-flesh, Miss Taverner,” said the Earl.
    Strolling along the promenade with his arm in the Honourable Frederick Byng’s, Sir Harry Peyton gave a gasp, and exclaimed: “Good God. Poodle, look! Curricle Worth!”
    “So it is,” agreed Mr. Byng, continuing to ogle a party of young ladies.
    “But with a female driving his greys! And a devilish fine female too!”
    Mr. Byng was sufficiently struck by this to look after the curricle. “Very odd of him. Perhaps it is Miss Taverner—his ward, you know. I was hearing she is an excessively delightful girl. Eighty thousand pounds, I believe.”
    Sir Harry was not paying much attention. “I would not have credited it! Worth must be mad or in love! Henry, too! I tell you what, Poodle: this means I shall get Henry at last!” Mr. Byng shook his head wisely. “Worth won’t