Free The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer

a horse-whip, but this was generally allowed to be improbable, for Lethbridge, however infamous his behaviour, was not a lackey. It was a pity that no one had the true version of the affair, for it was all delightfully scandalous. But none of the three actors in the drama ever spoke of it and if Lady Louisa was reported to have eloped with Lethbridge one night, she was known twenty-four hours later to be visiting relatives in the neighbourhood of Grantham. It was quite true that Robert Lethbridge disappeared from society for several weeks, but he reappeared in due course without wearing any of the symptoms of the baffled lover. The town was agog to see how he and Rule would comport themselves when they met, as they were bound to meet, but once again disappointment awaited the scandal-mongers.
    Neither showed any sign of enmity. They exchanged several remarks on different subjects, and if it had not been for Mr Harry Crewe, who had actually seen Rule drive his racing curricle out of town at the extremely odd hour of ten in the evening, even the most inveterate gossip-mongers would have been inclined to have believed the whole tale a mere fabrication.
    Lady Massey knew better than that. She was well acquainted with Lord Lethbridge and would have wagered her very fine diamonds that the sentiments he cherished towards the Earl of Rule were tinged with something more than a habitual maliciousness.
    As for Rule, he betrayed nothing, but she was not inclined to run the risk of losing him by encouraging too openly the advances of Robert Lethbridge.
    She finished the arrangement of her flowers and turned, a gleam of rueful humour in her fine eyes.
    ‘Marcus, my dear,’ she said helplessly, ‘something much more important! Five hundred guineas at loo, and that odious Celestine dunning me! What am I to do?’
    ‘Don’t let it worry you, my dear Caroline,’ said his lordship. ‘A trifling loan, and the matter is settled.’
    She was moved to exclaim: ‘Ah, how good you are! I wish – I wish you were not to be married, Marcus. We have dealt extremely, you and I, and I have a notion that it will all be changed now.’
    If she referred to their pecuniary relations she might have been thought to have reason for this speech. Lord Rule was likely to find himself with new demands on his purse in the very near future. Viscount Winwood was on his way home to England.
    The Viscount, having received in Rome the intelligence of his youngest sister’s betrothal, was moved to comply with his parent’s desire for his immediate return, and set forward upon the journey with all possible speed. Merely halting a few days in Florence, where he happened to chance upon two friends, and spending a week in Paris upon business not unconnected with the gaming-tables, he made the best of his way home, and would have arrived in London not more than three days later than his fond mother expected him had he not met Sir Jasper Middleton at Breteuil. Sir Jasper, being on his way to the Capital, was putting up at the Hôtel St Nicholas for the night, and was in the midst of a solitary dinner when the Viscount walked in. Nothing could have been more providential, for Sir Jasper was heartily bored with his own company, and had been yearning this many a day to have his revenge on Pelham for a certain game of piquet played in London some months before.
    The Viscount was delighted to oblige him; they sat up all night over the cards and in the morning the Viscount, absent-minded no doubt through lack of sleep, embarked in Sir Jasper’s post-chaise and was so borne back to Paris. The game of piquet being continued in the chaise, he noticed nothing amiss until they arrived at Clermont, and since by that time there were only some seven or eight posts to go before they reached Paris, it needed no great persuasion to induce him to continue the journey.
    He arrived eventually in London to find the preparations for Horatia’s nuptials in full swing; and he expressed