Free Sprig Muslin by Georgette Heyer Page A

had best take you upstairs! You will wish to change your dress before dinner. I daresay they will have unpacked your trunk by now."
    "Yes," said Amanda doubtfully. "I mean—that is—" She stopped, blushing, and looking imploringly towards Sir Gareth.
    He responded at once to this mute appeal, saying, with the flicker of a reassuring smile: "That is the most awkward feature of the whole business, isn't it, Amanda? Her trunk, ma'am, I must suppose to be at Oundle, for it was despatched by carrier yesterday. We could find room only for a couple of bandboxes in my curricle."
    "Despatched yesterday?" said the Earl. "Seems an odd circumstance, then, that these relations of hers shouldn't have kept their engagement to meet her! What the devil should she send her trunk for, if she didn't mean to follow it?"
    "That, sir," said Sir Gareth, quite unshaken, "is what makes us fear some mischance."
    "I expect it has been delayed," said Lady Hester. "How vexing! But not of the least consequence."
    "Lord, Hetty, what an addle-brained creature you are! If it ain't of any consequence, it ain't vexing either!"
    "How silly of me!" murmured Hester, accepting this rebuke in an absentminded way. "Will you let me take you upstairs, Miss Smith? Don't put yourself about, Almeria! I will attend to Miss Smith."
    Amanda looked rather relieved; and Sir Gareth, who had moved to the door, said, under his breath, as Hester paused beside him to let her guest pass before her out of the room: "Thank you! I knew I might rely on you."
    She smiled a little wistfully, but said nothing. He closed the door behind her, and she paused for a moment, looking at Amanda, and blinking as though in an attempt to bring that enchanting face into focus. Amanda gave her back stare for stare, her chin well up, and she said, in her shy, soft voice: "How very pretty you are! I wonder which room Mrs. Farnham has prepared for you? It must be wretchedly uncomfortable for you, but pray don't heed it! We will think just what should be done presently."
    "Well," said Amanda, following her to the staircase, "for my part, I can see that it is most uncomfortable for you to be obliged to receive me when I haven't an evening-gown to wear, and as for Sir Gareth, it is all his fault, and he told you nothing but the most shocking untruths, besides having abducted me!"
    Hester paused, with her hand on the banister-rail, and looked back, startled. "Abducted you? Dear me, how excessively odd of him! Are you quite sure you are not making a mistake?"
    "No, it is precisely as I say," replied Amanda firmly. "For I never set eyes on him before today, and although at first I was quite deceived in him, because he looks just like all one's favourite heroes, which all goes to show that one shouldn't set any store by appearances, I now know that he is a most odious person—though still very like Sir Lancelot and Lord Orville," she added conscientiously.
    Lady Hester looked wholly bewildered. "How can this be? You know, I am dreadfully stupid, and I don't seem able to understand at all, Miss Smith!"
    "I wish you will call me Amanda!" suddenly decided that damsel. "I find I cannot bear the name of Smith! The thing is that it was the only name I could think of when nothing would do for Sir Gareth but to know who I was. I daresay you know how it is when you are obliged, on the instant, to find a name for yourself?"
    "No—that is, I have never had occasion—but of course I see that one would think of something very simple," Hester replied apologetically.
    "Exactly so! Only you can have no idea how disagreeable it is to be called Miss Smith, which, as it happens, was the name of the horridest governess I ever had!"
    Utterly befogged, Hester said: "Yes, indeed, although— You know, I think we should not stay talking here, for one never knows who may be listening! Do, pray, come upstairs!"
    She then led Amanda to the upper hall, where they were met by her abigail, a middle-aged woman of hostile aspect, whose