Free Cotillion by Georgette Heyer Page A

offer!”
    “No, but—”
    “And Claud has not offered at all, besides being an odious person!”
    “No, is he?” said Freddy, interested. “Haven’t seen him, myself, since he first joined, but I daresay you’re right. To tell you the truth, I never liked any of the Rattrays above half. Now, take George, for instance! Know what he—”
    “Well, I can’t take George, because he is married already,” said Kitty, ruthlessly cutting short this discursion. “Besides being quite as odious as Claud! Freddy, you know I would not hold you to it!”
    “Yes, that’s all very well, but—”
    “If this one opportunity—the only one I can ever be offered:—is denied me,” declared Kitty dramatically, “all hope is at an end!”
    “Yes, but—I mean—No, dash it, Kitty—!”
    “And it will be you , whom I have always believed to be the kindest of my cousins—at least, you are not indeed my cousin, for I am quite alone in the world, but I have ever regarded you as my cousin—it will be you who have inexorably slammed to the gates upon my aspirations!”
    “Done what ?” demanded Freddy.
    “Condemned me to a life of misery and—and of indigent old age!”
    “No, that’s coming it too strong!” protested Freddy. “I never—”
    “I should not have asked you to help me,” said Kitty, stricken by remorse. “Only it seemed to me that here, perhaps, was a chance offered me of escaping from my wretched existence! I see that it will not do! I beg your pardon, Freddy: pray do not think of it again!”
    With these noble words, Miss Charing rose from the table, and retired to stand before the fire with her back to the room. A stifled sob, a sniff, the flutter of Mr. Standen’s maltreated handkerchief, bore witness to the courageous attempt she was making to suppress her tears. Mr. Standen regarded her bowed shoulders with dismay. “Kit! No, Kit, for God’s sake—!” he said.
    “Do not give it another thought!” begged Miss Charing, brave but despairing. “I know I am alone in the world—I have always known it! It was stupid of me to suppose that there was one person to whom I might turn! There is no one!”
    Horrified, Mr. Standen uttered: “No, no, I assure you—! Anything in my power—! But you must see, my dear girl—dash it, it’s impossible!”
    Ten minutes later Miss Charing, restored to smiles, was thanking him warmly for his exceeding kindness. “And perhaps we ought to return to Arnside,” she suggested. “I must say, Freddy, I shall like very much to see Hugh’s face when he learns that we are betrothed!”
    Mr. Standen agreed that the prospect of making a pigeon of his cousin went some way towards reconciling him to the pitfalls ahead of him; but Kitty’s words recalled to his mind the question which had been for some time troubling him. “How am I to take you back to Arnside without creating the devil of a dust?” he demanded. “If no one’s to know it’s all a fudge, it won’t do to let it be known you’ve been here with me this evening. George and Hugh would be bound to guess it was a take-in.”
    “Oh, there will not be the least difficulty!” she declared optimistically. “I will draw my hood well over my face, and if you will stop the chaise at the gates, and set me down, I can slip through the shrubbery to the side-door, and up the backstairs to my own bedchamber. I told Fish I should lock my door, because I would not see anyone, I was so cross; and you may depend upon it that no one has the smallest notion I am not at this moment laid down upon my bed. And if you pay off the postboy, he will not be able to gossip in the stables. There is no cause for any apprehension!”
    “Yes, but I don’t want to pay off the postboy!” objected Freddy. “Hired the chaise for the whole journey, you see.”
    “Oh, well, the postboy must take it to the Green Dragon for the night!” said Kitty, dealing summarily with this problem. “You may easily contrive that! And when you