Free Arabella by Georgette Heyer

curst fine woman!”
    “It wasn’t.”
    Lord Fleetwood regarded him, half-curious, half-amused. Is anything worth while to you, Robert?” he asked quizzically,
    “Yes, my horses!” retorted Mr. Beaumaris. “And, talking of horses, Charles, what the devil possessed you to buy one of Lichfield’s breakdowns?”
    “That bay? Now, there’s a horse that fairly took my fancy!” said his lordship, his simple countenance lighting up with enthusiasm. “What a piece of blood and bone! No, really, Robert—!”
    “If ever I find myself with a thoroughly unsound animal in my stables,” said Mr. Beaumaris ruthlessly, “I shall offer him to you in the happy certainty that he will take your fancy!”
    Lord Fleetwood was still protesting with indignation and vehemence when the butler entered the room to inform his master, rather apologetically, that a carriage had broken down outside his gates, and the two ladies it bore were desirous of sheltering for a short time under his roof.
    Mr. Beaumaris’s cool gray eyes betrayed no emotion, but his mouth seemed for an instant to harden. He said calmly: “Certainly. There should be a fire in the saloon. Tell Mrs. Mersey to wait upon the ladies there.”
    The butler bowed, and would have withdrawn, but Lord Fleetwood checked him, exclaiming: “No, no, too shabby by half, Robert! I won’t be fobbed off so! What do they look like, Brough? Old? Young? Pretty?”
    The butler, inured to his lordship’s free and easy ways, replied with unimpaired solemnity that one of the ladies was both young, and—he ventured to think—very pretty.
    “I insist on your receiving these females with a proper degree of civility, Robert!” said his lordship firmly. “Saloon, indeed! Show ’em in, Brough!”
    The butler glanced for guidance towards his master, as though he doubted whether the command would be endorsed, but Mr. Beaumaris merely said with his usual indifference: “As you please, Charles.”
    “What an ungrateful dog you are!” said Lord Fleetwood, when Brough had left the room. “You don’t deserve your fortune! This is the hand of Providence!”
    “I should doubt of their being Paphians,” was all Mr. Beaumaris found to say. “I thought that was what you wanted?”
    “Any diversion is better than none!” replied Lord Fleetwood.
    “What a singularly infelicitous remark! I wonder why I invited you.”
    Lord Fleetwood grinned at him. “Now, Robert, did you think— did you think—to come Tip Street over me? There may be plenty of toadies ready to jump out of their skins at the very thought of being invited to the Nonpareil’s house—and no better entertainment offered than a rubber of piquet, I dare swear—”
    “You are forgetting the cook.”
    “ But ,”continued his lordship inexorably, “I ain’t amongst ’em!”
    Mr. Beaumaris’s habitual aspect was one of coldness, and reserve, but sometimes he could smile in a way that not only softened the austerity of his countenance but lit his eyes with a gleam of the purest amusement. It was not the smile he kept for social occasions—a faintly sardonic curl of the lips, that one—but those who were honoured by a glimpse of it generally revised their first impressions of him. Those who had never seen it were inclined to think him a proud, disagreeable sort of a man, though only the most daring would ever have uttered aloud such a criticism of one who, besides possessing all the advantages of birth and fortune, was an acknowledged leader of society. Lord Fleetwood, no stranger to that smile, saw it dawn now, and grinned more broadly than ever.
    “How can you, Charles? When you must know that almost your only claim to fashion is being noticed by me!”
    Arabella entered the room to find both its occupants laughing, and thus had the felicity of seeing Mr. Beaumaris at his best. That she herself was looking remarkably pretty, with her dusky curls and charming complexion admirably set off by a high-crowned bonnet, with