Talk of the Town by Joan Smith Page B

once heard, and thrice beaten!’”
    “I agree with you, Sir, and wonder that you lie to me. Ask your elderly friends and relatives whether your St. Papa-Duke was not in love with my aunt, whether he did not sit on her doorstep night after night, begging her to run off and marry him. Yes, my ‘unfortunate’ maternal relation might almost have been your mother. She was tempted to accept his persuasions, being divorced herself, but she could not care for the little actress he kept on the side. Neither did your mother, according to the memoirs.” She knowingly tampered with the truth to make him angrier and realized that the inkling she had given him of the truth had not been given in any form Aunt Effie would approve of; but it was really intolerable that he should speak so of Effie after she had saved his family from ruin.
    “We hear a good deal about these apocryphal memoirs. I make no doubt the two of you sit up nights inventing them and scribbling them in blood.”
    “No, no. Vitriol! Blue vitriol. Auntie dislikes red, and her blood is not the right shade of blue.”
    “I had not observed her to have much sense of discernment in her shadings of blue,” he answered with a contemptuous glance at the many tints of it present in the room.
    “Not so fine an eye for shading as your ladybird, perhaps, but I think Amy stole the idea from Auntie all the same.” She didn’t think it could be possible for him to look any angrier than he already did, but it was. He had jumped to his feet several insults ago and now took a step towards her chair. She thought he meant to strike her and was delighted rather than frightened. Even Papa had never been in such a towering rage as this.
    She continued with her attack. “When I am writing up my epilogue on the present generation, Society might be interested to hear what St. Bacchus Junior is up to between visits to the House of Parliament and the Archbishop’s Palace. Tell me, Your Grace, for I like to get all the little details correct, does your mistress favour the French spelling of Aimée for her name, or does she acknowledge her English background and call herself plain Amy?”
    He stood stock still, his face red with the stress of controlling his hands from going around her neck. “I don’t want to see your face or form at my sister’s party,” he said.
    “Then you had better stay away from it, for I have changed my mind—a lady’s prerogative you know, along with a little gossiping—and have decided to attend.”
    “I will stay away, and so will the rest of London.”
    “How disappointed your sister will be, after writing up all those cards and having a batch of food prepared. You are not very considerate of her. I have often suspected as much. Mr. Brummell will be disappointed, too. He has been begging me to go with him and has assured me it is the only place to be tomorrow afternoon.”
    “You are a good pair! An upstart clerk’s son and a..."
    “A baronet’s daughter. But the title only dates from James I, of course. Give us another five hundred years and we may achieve your degree of arrogance. Ah, you are leaving, Your Grace,” she said in surprise as he turned on his heel. “And I didn’t think to offer you a glass of wine. How remiss of me. I had the hemlock all prepared as a special treat for you, too.” The door slammed, and she was not sure he had appreciated her parting shot.
    Left alone, Miss Ingleside sat down with a pensive face. Now should she go to Lady Elizabeth’s tea party or not? Having refused made it difficult, and having pretended she would have Mr. Brummell’s escort made it almost impossible to go, as she wished to, without him.
    But Fate, so kind to us in our less noble schemes, gave her a hand out of the latter difficulty. Having learned from the tattle-mongers that he had induced his fat enemy to call at Upper Grosvenor Square, Brummell must make sure the Prince continued his calls by a few more outings with Mrs. Pealing