Free A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer

but, indeed –’
    ‘Well, so you may be, but it’s only reasonable you should want to make a few enquiries. You won’t catch Jonathan Chawleigh buying a pig in a poke, and do as you’d be done by is my motto. If you’re satisfied, which you will be, my idea is you should do us the honour of taking your pot-luck with us in Russell Square one evening, and get acquainted with Jenny. There’ll be no company: just me, and Jenny, and Mrs Quarley-Bix. She’s the good lady I hired to bear Jenny company, and take her into society. And why I call her a good lady I don’t know, for to my mind she’s no great thing. In fact, there are times when I think that I was regularly taken in over her,’ said Mr Chawleigh darkly. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if I was to discover that she was no more related to these Quarleys of hers than what I am. Or if she is, she’s one of the dirty dishes you get in the best of families, according to what his lordship tells me, and which they don’t own by more than a common bow in passing. I don’t say she hasn’t got an air of fashion, but what I do say is that you’ve only to set her up beside my Lady Oversley to see she ain’t up to the rig. What’s more, the only time I went out driving in the Park with her and Jenny, there was a lot of bowing, and simpering, and waggling of hands, but nobody came up to speak to her. Though that,’ he added fairly, ‘might have been because I was in the barouche, and no one would take me for a man of mode, not if I was to dress myself up to the nines they wouldn’t! Well, well, I’ll be mighty interested to know what you think, my lord, for you’re one as is up to the rig – bang-up to it, as I saw at a glance! Mind, that’s assuming Jenny’s agreeable! I haven’t spoken to her yet, but I will.’
    Adam, feeling much like a man caught in a tidal wave, made a desperate attempt to battle against an irresistible force. ‘Mr Chawleigh, I beg you most earnestly to do no such thing! I am fully sensible – I assure you I appreciate –’
    He was once more checked by that large, upflung hand. ‘You think it over!’ recommended Mr Chawleigh kindly. ‘If you don’t like the notion, when you’ve slept on it, I’ll have no more to say, and so I promise you! But think it over carefully! I know you’re all to pieces, and trying to bring yourself off honourably, and I think the better of you for it. But if you was to make my Jenny a ladyship – and treat her right into the bargain, which I’m pretty sure you would do, and you’d have me to reckon with if you didn’t – there’d be no more worriting about debts or mortgages: that you can depend on! You could hang it up to any tune you please – and there’s my hand on it!’
    He held it out as he spoke, saying, as Adam, in a sort of trance, put his own into it: ‘I’ll bid you good-day now, and that’s my last word for the present!’

Four
    Adam was left to recover from the effects of this shattering visit, which he soon did, passing from revulsion to amusement, and presently banishing the interlude from his mind. It recurred when he sat down to finish his interrupted letter to his sister, and with it the echo of her voice, saying: ‘ One ought to be ready to make sacrifices for one’s family, I think .’ She was certainly ready to do so, but she was too young to know what it meant, and she had not yet been in love. He smiled, recalling the naïve plan she had made for his relief; but the smile was not a happy one, and it soon faded. He wondered what her ultimate fate would be, and tried to picture her living with Lady Lynton in Bath. Not such a dreadful prospect, it might have been thought; but he found himself looking forward to it with misgiving, and thought that besides securing a part at least of her dowry from the wreck of his fortunes he must contrive to provide her with an allowance, for he could not doubt that whatever economies were practised by Lady Lynton would be at