Free Charity Girl by Georgette Heyer Page A

good, my lord,' but the Viscount had taken barely two steps towards the door into the inn before his feelings overcame him, and he said, explosively: 'My lord!'
       'Well?' said the Viscount, over his shoulder.
       'It ain't my place to speak,' said Stebbing, with careful restraint, 'but being as I've known your lordship ever since you was a little lad, which I taught to ride your first pony – ah, and pulled you out of scrapes! and being that – '
       'You needn't go on!' interrupted Desford, quizzing him. 'I know just what you are trying to say! I must take care I don't fall into yet another scrape, mustn't I?'
       'Yes, my lord, and I hope you will – though it don't look to me, the way things is shaping, that you will!'
       But Desford only laughed, and went into the inn. The mistress of the establishment had taken Miss Steane upstairs, and when she presently joined his lordship in the coffee-room she had washed her face, tidied her unruly hair, and was carrying her cloak over her arm. She looked much more presentable, but the round dress of faded pink cambric which she wore was rather crumpled, besides being muddied round the hem, and in no way became her. She was looking very grave, but when she saw the chicken, and the tongue, and the raspberries on the table her eyes brightened perceptibly, and she said gratefully: 'Oh, thank you, sir! I am very much obliged to you! I ran away before breakfast, and you can't think how hungry I am!'
       She then sat down at the table, and proceeded to make a hearty meal. Desford, who was not at all hungry, sat watching her, his tankard in his hand, thinking that for all her nineteen years she was very little removed from childhood. While she ate he forbore to question her, but when she came to the end of her nuncheon, and said that she now felt much better, he said: 'Do you feel sufficiently restored to tell me all about it? I wish you will!'
       Her brightened eyes clouded, but after a slight hesitation she said: 'If I tell you why I've run away, will you take me to London, sir?'
       He laughed. 'I am making no rash promises – except to carry you straight back to Maplewood if you don't tell me!'
       She said with quaint dignity, but as though she had a lump in her throat: 'I cannot believe that you would do anything so – so unhandsome!'
       'No, I am sure you cannot,' he said sympathetically. 'But you must consider my position, you know! Recollect that all I know at this present is that although you told me last night that you were not very happy I am persuaded you had no intention then of running away. Yet today I come upon you, in a good deal of distress, having apparently reached a sudden decision to leave your aunt. Did you perhaps have a quarrel with her, fly up into the boughs, and run away without giving yourself time to consider whether she had really been unkind enough to warrant your taking such an extreme course? Or whether she too had lost her temper, and had said much more than she meant?'
       She looked forlornly at him, and gave her head a shake. 'We didn't quarrel. I didn't even quarrel with Corinna. Or with Lucasta. And it wasn't such a sudden decision. I've wished desperately – oh, almost from the moment my aunt took me to Maplewood! – to escape. Only whenever I ventured to ask my aunt if she would help me to find a situation where I could earn my own bread she always scolded me for being ungrateful, and – and said I should soon wish myself back at Maplewood, because I was fit for nothing but a – a menial position.' She paused, and, after a moment or two, said rather hopelessly: 'I can't explain it to you. I daresay you wouldn't understand if I could, because you have never been so poor that you were obliged to hang on anyone's sleeve, and try to be grateful for a worn-out ribbon, or a scrap of torn lace which one of your cousins gave you, instead of throwing it away.'
       'No,' he replied. 'But you are mistaken when