Free Grace Gibson by The Lost Heir of Devonshire

bad.” Mr. Fanley agreed. “Yes, Will, take Oscar to see how an estate should never look. And look at it yourself, for I want you to take a lesson there.”
    “Oh, well, certainly we can go see it if you’d like,” Will replied sulkily, “but indeed it is quite boring. You passed it on the way here, Oscar, and I had much rather go up to the Himmels for a visit.”
    “Well, if it is the schoolroom you are in the mood for, the Himmels it is.” Neville winked at Mary. There was a certain young miss of sixteen at the Himmels who was not yet out, and ever since he discovered that Will had a tender eye for the girl, Neville never missed an opportunity to apply a little friendly ridicule.
    “Roger has a new hunter I’d like to see, that’s all,” Will exclaimed with unmasked frustration and a faint blush. “But if you are so keen on the Green Man, then by all means, let us go.”
    “Is the Green Man an inn in Hampton?” Mary asked.
    Glances were exchanged. “Yes, a rather homey place, I’d say, wouldn’t you Will? Most wholesome. With a good landlord, who looks after young bucks who’ve come for some roadside refreshment.”
    “Hm,” Will assented, but he passed a look to his friend that spoke a homily on repression.
    “I’ve a mind to stop in then,” Mary said breezily. “I have been meaning to spend some of my pin money at the drapers and Maria says the shop in Hampton is uncommonly well set up.”
    Will looked up sharply. “You cannot be thinking you will ride all the way to Hampton for some muslin, when our village shop is just as good. Papa, you must not let her do it!”
    “Do what? Oh, ride to Hampton? I say, Mary, if you do go, there is a book seller’s shop I would like you to visit for me. There is a publication I would like; I will write it down if you will remind me.”
    With a hint of mischief, Oscar Neville added his voice to the subject. “Miss Fanley, if you arrive in time for tea, stop and find us at the Green Man.”
    When Will responded to this suggestion with a fiery glare at his friend, Mary relented. She could not see her brother made so miserable and she had discovered what she had set out to learn. “Well, if you do not think it is a good idea then I will give it up.”
    Her brother looked at her with resignation, for he knew he was caught. He returned to making conversation with Oscar, although he showed no inclination for it. They talked languidly of horseflesh, with a few references to Newmarket and cart racing which distressed Mary a little, but she kept her father comfortable and distracted until the meal was finished.
    That evening, while in her bedchamber, Will knocked lightly on her door. She opened it without surprise and welcomed him to a chair. “So are you betting on horses Is that what goes on below stairs at the Green Man?”
    “I only borrowed the money, Mary. I promise you. I’d no intention you’d ever know.” Here he paused, and said in a disapproving voice, “You have a shocking amount of pin money lying around. I’d no idea father was so good to you , and my pockets are always hanging outside my breeches.”
    “Papa is not so good to me as you suppose. I have saved my pin money for quite some time now, since I’m not much in the way of dress parties. And, I economize, Will, where you do not.”
    He flashed her a surrendered look. “I know I’m devilishly loose, but I’ll pay you back in two days’ time.”
    “You’ll not need to pay me back at all, if you will but tell me what sort of game you are getting into.”
    “You are not my mother,” he said a little savagely, “and I said I will pay you back.”

Chapter Seventeen
    But in two days’ time, all Mary saw from Will was a cavalier face. Indeed, he seemed to laugh loudly and speak with devil-may-care abandon on any subject. Oscar Neville encouraged this reckless mood, occasionally offering to walk out with Mary and thereby causing Will a moment of undisguised terror. She could only guess