Free Romantic Rebel by Joan Smith Page B

into the town proper. It was with a definite sense of disappointment that I realized this was not his intention.
    “I thought we would be driving along the river,” I said, hoping in this oblique way to alter his course. Was no one to view my glory except Millie and Bellows?
    Lord Paton thought less than nothing of the river. “A cold wind blows off it in autumn, but if you care to see it, you can. The Avon curves north at the east side of town.”
    So it did, and I caught a quick glimpse of it as we hurtled down the road. Once free of the city, the nags settled down to a hundred or so miles an hour. As we proceeded in a northeasterly direction away from the coast, the river, the Mendip Hills, and all other scenic wonders that the vicinity offers, the sky joined in my mood and turned from blue to gray. Clouds were blown in on a brisk wind that cut through my serge suit like a knife through soft butter.
    The glory of driving out with Lord Paton was seen by the driver of a cartful of turnips, a farmer with his wife and five children all squeezed into a donkey-driven gig, a mole catcher, and a pair of young boys playing truant from school. The occupants of the one respectable carriage we passed could not possibly have seen us for the cloud of dust they blew up into our faces. I removed my cramped fingers from the carriage edge long enough to draw out my handkerchief and bat at the dust.
    “Perhaps we should turn back. It is getting quite cloudy,” I pointed out.
    “We’re almost there.”
    “I don’t believe you mentioned our destination.”
    “The whole area is pretty,” he said vaguely. “Bowood Park is nearby, a handsome estate designed by the Adams brothers. It belongs to a friend of mine, Lord Lansdowne. Sloperton Cottage, where Thomas More spent his last days, is only a few miles away. Coleridge, the poet, is at Calne, also nearby—or was the last I heard. This is a fascinating area, with many interesting spots to visit. Badminton, too, is only a little north.”
    My mind reeled with all these intriguing possibilities. Was he going to call on his friend, Lord Lansdowne? What a story to take home to Lampards Street. Coleridge, a pre-eminent poet, was even better.
    “Do you know Coleridge?” I asked hopefully.
    “Oh, certainly. I have met him any number of times. A long-winded bore, and Wordsworth is worse. They are both better met in their poetry. Strange, is it not, how writers differ so markedly from their works? One would never have thought, to read ‘A Daughter’s Dilemma,’ that you would be a charming young lady. Had I read your essay before meeting you, I would have expected a harpy.”
    This flattery, while welcome, added nothing to my physical comfort. We had been driving for the better part of an hour. The next milestone said Corsham, one mile. “We had best turn back,” I suggested. I could no longer conceal the bouts of shivering that assailed me.
    “We shall stop first and have tea. The wind is rising. Corsham is the closest village to—” He came to an abrupt stop, but soon continued. “Did I mention Lord Methuen lives at Corsham? A handsome old Elizabethan heap.”
    “No, you didn’t.” But he had mentioned Lord Lansdowne and Coleridge, and as no visit to these luminaries had transpired, I had no real hopes of taking tea with Lord Methuen—nor did we.
    “Our destination is only a stone’s throw from Corsham,” he assured me.
    I consoled myself that he did have a real destination in mind, and kept an eye peeled for either a noble heap of stones or a public inn. I observed a certain anticipatory gleam in Lord Paton’s eye, and was taken with the idea that it was his own estate we were heading to. He was familiar with all the local landmarks, he was living in Bath, the closest city of any size.
    “Where is your country seat, sir?” I inquired.
    “Kent.”
    This killed the possibility that I was being rushed home to meet the family. It was one of his lesser abodes we were to