Free The Shocking Miss Anstey by Robert Neill Page A

and brandy to follow.
    He was an admirable host, leading the talk so deftly that his guests seemed to talk rather than he. Nor was he solemn about it. He sat back, delicately taking the scent of the madeira, and eyed his nephew quizzically before asking how the pretty horse-breakers fared, these days.
    ‘Or should I ask,’ he added, ‘how you fared with them?’
    ‘Not I, sir. It’s Grant you should be asking. He had a rose from the Anstey.’
    ‘That being a matter for congratulation?’ An eyebrow quivered delicately. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know the lady.’
    ‘Nor I, alas! She prefers the Navy, it seems. Something about a sailor, and who cares then for a marching regiment?’
    ‘That’s not new. It was the same in my day, I remember.
    And---‘ He stopped, and the amusement had left his eyes as he looked for a moment at Grant. ‘My son was in the Navy.’
    ‘Indeed?’ A sudden instinct warned him to be careful. The son should surely have been in the regiment, where all of his line had been. ‘I was wondering if I could have met him?’
    ‘I wondered too. He was in Royal Sovereign at Trafalgar. A midshipman.’
    ‘Oh, I---‘
    Grant stopped short, meeting the older man’s eyes and knowing that he need ask no more. Royal Sovereign had been Collingwood’s flagship in the Lee Division. She had broken the enemy’s line, as Victory had done, and she had paid the price in casualties.
    ‘I see you’ve guessed.’ The quiet voice came again to check his thoughts. ‘I have not had a son, since then.’
    ‘No.’ He spoke shortly, with memories rising that would not lie down. ‘I was in Lysander, also in the Lee Division. Five ships astern, though, and that was easier.’
    ‘But I was asking if you had met him?’
    ‘There wasn’t wind enough.’ He was answering his own thoughts, the memories that would not quite go, and he had to bring himself sharply to what was needed. ‘Midshipman Barford? I think--I think perhaps I did. Not well, but there’s a memory. I was a midshipman myself, you see, and, of course, we did take our boats to the flagship at times--Captain seeing the Admiral, perhaps--and we’d be asked aboard.’
    ‘Exactly.’
    There was silence. Grant stirred slightly in his chair and saw Wickham sitting very still, looking down at his plate and toying with a crumb of bread. The parlour-maids stood waiting. The room was drowsy in the sunlight of the afternoon, and through the open windows came a hum of bees. Beyond was the lawn, soft and green, and then the lake, with the white stone temple set among the trees. It was quiet, and utterly peaceful. It mirrored an England made for the delight of man, where only peace could dwell. Wickham was rolling the breadcrumb into a ball, and he had lost his father and his brother-in-law.
    ‘Very well.’
    Barford spoke suddenly and with a sharp change of tone, as if he were pulling himself together. His nod set the parlour-maids leaping for the plates. The room roused to activity, and he had an easy smile as he turned to his nephew again.
    ‘We seem to be losing this tale, John. You were telling me of the--Anstey, did you say? A daughter of Phryne, I suppose? But what’s she like?’
    ‘Ask Grant, sir. But she’s Phryne, as you say. She burst on the town the other week--in a curricle.’
    ‘Curricle! A woman?’
    ‘Driving it herself. So she’s the talk everywhere.’
    ‘But tell me more of this.’
    It took the next twenty minutes, while the boiled fowls came and went, and it was not a monologue. Barford saw to that, with his lively questions, shrewd comments, and smiling reminiscences of some earlier pretty horse-breakers, as he called them. Wickham was amused and interested, very ready with his interjections, and Grant was willing enough to talk of her--except of the last night. That belonged to him alone, and he made no mention of it, though neither of them would have lifted an eyebrow if he had done. That, he noted thoughtfully, seemed