Free April Lady by Georgette Heyer Page A

do, after all." He looked her over critically, and observed with brotherly candour: "What a quiz of a hat!"
    "It is an Angouleme bonnet, and the height of fashion!" retorted Nell, with spirit. "And as for quizzes—Dy, I never saw you look so odd as you do in those yellow pantaloons!"
    "Devilish, ain't they?" agreed his lordship. "Corny made me buy 'em. Said they were all the crack."
    "Well, if I were you I wouldn't listen to him!"
    "Oh, I don't know! Always up to the knocker, is Corny. If you ain't in a scrape, why do you want my advice?"
    She gave his arm a warning pinch, and began to talk of indifferent subjects in a careless way which (as he informed her upon their arrival in Grosvenor Square) made him wish that he had not chosen to walk down Bond Street that morning. "Because you can't bamboozle me into believing you ain't in a scrape," he said. "I thought you were looking hagged, but I set it down to that bonnet."
    Nell, who had led him upstairs to her frivolous boudoir, cast off her maligned headgear, saying wretchedly: "I am in a dreadful scrape, and if you won't help me, Dy, I can't think what I shall do!"
    "Lord!" said the Viscount, slightly dismayed. "Now, don't get into a fuss, Nell! Of course I'll help you! At least, I will if I can, though I'm dashed if I see— However, I daresay it's all a bag of moonshine!"
    "It isn't," she said, so tragically that he began to feel seriously alarmed. She twisted her fingers together, and managed to say, though with considerable difficulty: "Dysart, have—have you still got the—the three hundred pounds I gave you?"
    "Do you want it back?" he demanded.
    She nodded, her eyes fixed anxiously on his face.
    "Now we are in the basket!" said his lordship.
    Her heart sank. "I am so very sorry to be obliged to ask you!"
    "My dear girl, I'd give it you this instant if I had it!" he assured her. "What is it? a gaming debt? You been playing deep, Nell?"
    "No, no! It is a court dress of Chantilly lace, and I cannot— cannot!— tell Cardross!"
    "What, you don't mean to say he's turned out to be a screw?" exclaimed the Viscount.
    "No! He has been crushingly generous to me, only I was so stupid, and it seemed as if I had so much money that— Well, I never took the least heed, Dy, and the end of it was that I got quite shockingly into debt!"
    "Good God, there's no need to fall into flat despair, if that's all!" said the Viscount, relieved. "You've only to tell him how it came about: I daresay he won't be astonished, for he must know you haven't been in the way of handling the blunt. You'll very likely come in for a thundering scold, but he'll settle your debts all right and regular."
    She sank into a chair, covering her face with her hands. "He did settle them!"
    "Eh?" ejaculated Dysart, startled.
    "I had better explain it to you," said Nell.
    It could not have been said that the explanation, which was both halting and elusive, very much helped Dysart to a complete understanding of the situation, but he did gather from it that the affair was far more serious than he had at first supposed. He was quite intelligent enough to guess that the whole had not been divulged to him, but since he had no desire to plunge into deep matrimonial waters he did not press his sister for further enlightenment. Clearly, her marriage was not running as smoothly as he had supposed; and if that were so he could appreciate her reluctance to disclose the existence of yet another debt to Cardross.
    "What am I to do?" Nell asked. "Can you think of a way, Dy?"
    "Nothing easier!" responded Dysart, in a heartening tone. "The trouble with you is that you ain't up to snuff yet. The thing to do is to order another dress from this Madame Thing."
    "Order another?" gasped Nell.
    "That's it," he nodded.
    "But then I should be even deeper in debt!"
    "Yes, but it'll stave her off for a while."
    "And when she presses me to pay for that I buy yet another! Dy, you must be mad!"
    "My dear girl, it's always done!"
    "Not by me!" she