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Nine
     
    Lady Grey was taking the waters, for reasons of her health. Sea bathing in Brighton was a serious affair, to be undertaken with medical supervision, and was prescribed for all manner of chronic complaints, asthma and deafness and consumption, rheumatism and ruptures and madness—and, in lady Grey’s case, afflicted nerves. One hired a machine, in which one could disrobe privately and don a flannel smock. Then one was pulled out into the water by a horse, and descended from the machine into the water in the strictest seclusion. It was a popular procedure, engaged in occasionally even by royalty. The story was still told of how, when Prinny had gone in too far, his dipper had to drag him in to shore by the ear.
    Lady Grey intensely disliked the whole business. The bathing machines had no awnings, and she was convinced that the gentlemen with their telescopes trained on the shoreline were much less interested in the antics of the fishing fleet than in the beflannelled ladies splashing in the muddy margins of the sea. She was equally convinced that taking the waters had not benefited her nerves. If anything, the sojourn had made them worse. She made a final adjustment to her bonnet, her gray walking dress. Her obligation to her physician fulfilled, she exited the bathing establishment and stepped into the sunlight.
    Wood’s Bath was situated within a few yards of William’s New Bath, near the fish market on the Steyne. Lady Grey averted her gaze from the gentlemen clad for their early morning baths in buff trousers and slight jackets, who shockingly lounged about in this state of undress for all the world to see, and glanced toward the market stalls. A certain gentleman engaged in a transaction at the fish stall attracted her interest. He beckoned to her. Lady Grey ignored him and quickly set out at a good pace.
    Along the Steyne, she traveled; past shops displaying toys and rare china, lace and ribbons and millinery, muslins and chintzes and cambrics, and tea. Neither the parish church nor the Chapel Royal aroused her interest; she did not pause even for Mr. Donaldson’s library, where customers sat under the colonnades reading the London newspapers and watching fashionable Brighton pass by. But then a plaintive voice caught her attention. “I say, Gus! I wish you would slow down, because I can’t stand the pace. That sea bathing seems to be the ticket! Maybe I should take the waters myself.’’
    Lady Grey loathed her nickname and had once boxed her younger brother’s ears for daring to address her in that way. From this source, however, she accepted the detested familiarity. There was satisfaction, also, in the fact that he had trailed after her all this way. She turned.
    Sir Geoffrey smiled. He bore his ladylove no malice, for all she’d led him a merry chase. Gad, but his Gus was a lovely creature, with her bright green eyes and pale fair skin and hair. “Have I put your back up again?” he inquired ruefully. “Because, if not, I have not the least distant guess why you should run away from me!”
    Lady Grey flushed with embarrassment. “I do not mean to be contrariwise! Pray forgive me. It is just that—”
    “My dear, it is I who must apologize.” Sir Geoffrey was charmed by his ladylove’s confusion. He shifted the package that he held, thus bringing it to her attention. It was a very sloppily wrapped package, tied with string, and the aroma that clung to it left little doubt as to what was within.
    Augusta wrinkled her delicate nose. “Gracious, Geoffrey! Are you doing the household shopping now? It is what I might expect from your daughters, but I wonder that your Miss—what was her name?—would allow such a thing.”
    Sir Geoffrey drew Lady Grey’s hand through his arm, guided her toward the seawall that did double duty as an esplanade. “Miss Minchin is a clever little miss. A taking little thing. I make no doubt she’ll take us in hand!” He chuckled at his joke.
    Lady Grey did not