Free Miss Cresswell's London Triumph by Evelyn Richardson Page A

surreptitious glance over her shoulder at her twin revealed that Freddie, quietly convulsed behind her, was even less successful than she at containing his mirth.
    Arabella did not look best pleased to have her tete-a-tete interrupted, but she recovered quickly and followed her mother to the door. Just as Higgins was preparing to usher the ladies to their carriage she stopped and, as if struck by a sudden thought, exclaimed, "Ned, why do you not accompany us? Our appointment is not so pressing that we may not take a turn around the park before consigning ourselves to an afternoon with Madame Celestine."
    If Ned was somewhat taken aback at being invited to leave directly he had arrived, he did not exhibit the least sign of discomposure. Instead he assisted each of the ladies into the carriage, remarking, "It has been so long since I have been in such a salubrious climate that I welcome every opportunity to enjoy it, especially in the company of two such charming companions."
    Arabella simpered complacently and even her mother's somewhat wooden countenance relaxed into the semblance of a smile.
    Those left behind in the drawing room were left to react as they would to Arabella's stratagems. "Well, of all the impudent..." Cassie sputtered. "She never gave Ned the slightest opportunity to speak for himself."
    "Arf," agreed Wellington, whose own nose had been put slightly out of joint because his old friend had been so occupied by that fussy Arabella who had never liked dogs that he had not even acknowledged Wellington's furiously wagging tail and smile of greeting. "I should have barked to get his attention," he confided to Nelson. "But that would have displeased Frances." With a gusty sigh he dropped his nose between his paws and stared into the fire.
    "Don't refine upon it too much, Cass," admonished Freddie. "He didn't seem to be the least put out."
    "His wits must have gone begging then," Cassie snapped as she went to collect her bonnet and pelisse before seeking the more rational companionship of Horace and the comte.
    Cassie's spirits, which had been somewhat dampened by the alacrity with which Ned had gone off with Arabella, were restored by the warmth of her reception in Hanover Square.
    "Ma chere Cassie, how happy we are to see you!" exclaimed the comte as his general factotum, the lugubrious Jacques, ushered her into the study. "We have been arguing ... no, discussing, the theme represented on this frieze. I believe it to be a procession from the celebration of the Panathenaea, but Horace here has his doubts."
    Picking her way carefully among the bits of frieze here, a torso there, Cassie made her way slowly to the one clear patch of floor that the comte and Horace had left for themselves. Horace, who had been frowning in concentration over a section of frieze, looked up as she approached, remarking, "I don't believe it could be the Panathenaea because nowhere is there any representation of the olive wood figure of Athena which was essential to the ceremony. Furthermore, there are too many male figures for it to be the procession."
    Cassie studied the figures, stepping first to one side and then the other and moving away from it as far back as the clutter would allow. For some time she remained deep in thought, her eyes fixed on the figure of a child handing something to an adult. Horace, glancing surreptitiously at her face, thought the way she bit her lip in concentration infinitely more charming than all the dimpled smiles and simpers cast his way at the various social affairs his mother had forced him to attend. He was far more attracted to her in her total absorption in the frieze than he had ever been to any woman, even those who had lavished their most seductive attentions on him. Here was someone as oblivious as he to the rest of the world, someone who was not only as uninterested as he was in the vagaries of fashion or the latest on-dits, but whose concentration was fixed on the same concerns as his. In all his