LORD OF MANY SECRETS

FIFTY SIX

Miss Tellaro had had time to reflect while Clements was engaged with Miss Crews that he had not shown any surprise on meeting her. When Miss Crews had walked off she asked him in her abrupt way whether he had expected to find her at Belview.

"Why, yes", he replied. "I believe I was informed of it". The gleam in his eyes made her suspect him strongly of having had some say in her being invited. She said, "Oh! I, on the other hand, had not the least notion of finding you here".

"If you had you would not have come, I daresay".

She raised her brows. "I hope I am not so prejudiced that I cannot be staying in the same house with you".

"That is very encouraging", said the Earl. "Do you know, I was presumptuous enough to think that you were quite glad to see me when I came in?"

She hesitated, and then said with a rueful smile, "well, perhaps I was a little glad. I have been feeling rather strange amongst a set of company I don't know. That lady - Miss Crews, I think you called her - has been trying for the past twenty minutes to show me what a countrified nobody I am, and that, you know, when one knows it to be the melancholy truth, makes one feel sadly out of place".

"You will have your revenge upon her if you mean to hunt tomorrow", remarked the Earl. "She has the worst hands imaginable, and is generally off at the first fence".

She laughed. "Yes, I do mean to hunt, but I hope I am not ill-natured enough to wish Miss Crews a tumble. Shall you hunt also?"

"Certainly, to keep an eye on my ward".

She put up her chin, a quizzical gleam in her eye. "I will give you a lead", she promised.

He was amused. "Come, we begin to understand one another tolerably well", he said. "How do you like your snuff?"

"To tell you the truth I don't often take it", confided Elizabeth. "I only pretend".

"You are in excellent company then, for you follow the Prince Regent. Let me see you take a pinch".

She obeyed him, extracted from her reticule a gold box with enameled plaques on the lid and sides.

He took it from her to inspect it more closely. "Very pretty, where did you get it?"

"At Ryan's and Bruce. I bought several from there".

He gave it back to her. "You have good taste".

"Thank you", said Elizabeth. "To have earned the approval of so notable a connoisseur as yourself must afford me gratification".

He smiled. "Do not be impatient, Miss Tellaro".

She flicked open the box, and offered it to him. "You mistake me, Lord Clements. I was being civil - in your own manner".

"You have not mastered the precise way of it", he answered. "No, don't offer your box to me. It is not a mixture that I like".

"Indeed! How odd!" said Miss Tellaro, raising a pinch to one nostril with a graceful turn is her wrist. "I do not like it either".

"That is probably because you have drenched it with Vinagrillo", said the Earl calmly. "I warned you to be sparing in the use of it".

"I have not drenched it with Vinagrillo!" said Miss Tellaro, indignantly shutting her box. "I used two drops, just to moisten the whole!"

A gentleman who was standing beside Colonel Albany in the middle of the saloon had been looking at Miss Tellaro in a dreamy, unconcerned way, but when he saw her take out her snuff-box a look of interest came into his eyes, and he wandered away from the Colonel, and came towards the sofa. He said very earnestly to Clements, "please present me! Such a pretty box! What I should call a nice visiting box, but not suitable for morning wear. I was tempted when they showed it to me, but it did not happen to be just what I was looking for".

Elizabeth stared at him in a good deal of astonishment, but Lord Clements, betraying no hint of surprise, merely said, "Lord Peterson, Miss Tellaro", and got up.

Lord Peterson begged permission to sit beside Miss Tellaro. "Tell me", he said anxiously, "are you interested in tea, I wonder?"

She was not interested in tea, but she must know that his lordship had a room lined with canisters of every imaginable kind, from Gunpowder to Lapsang Souchong. She confessed her ignorance, and felt that she had disappointed him.

"It is a pity, a great pity", he said. "You would find it almost as interesting as snuff. And you are interested in that, are you not? You have your own mixture, I saw the jar at Ryan's and Bruce".

Miss Tellaro produced her box. "I wish you will do me the honor of trying my sort", she said.

"Mine will be the honor", said his lordship, bowing. He dipped his finger and thumb in her box, and held a pinch to his nostrils, half-closing his eyes. "Spanish bran - a hint of Brazil - something else besides, possibly a dash of masulipatan". He turned. "It reminds of a mixture I think I have had in your house, Gabriel".

"Impossible!" said Clements.

"Well, perhaps it is not precisely the same", conceded Lord Peterson, turning back to Miss Tellaro. "A very delicate mixture, ma'am. It is easy to detect the hand and unerring taste of an expert".

Miss Tellaro, with her guardian's ironic eye upon her, had the grace to blush.

It was soon time to go upstairs and change her gown for dinner. She was placed at the table between Lord Robert Martini and Mr Patusho, nowhere near the Earl, and as he joined the Duke of York after dinner, with his host and another inveterate whist-player, whom everyone called Chig, she did not speak to him again that evening.

* * *

She was not the only lady to join the hunt next day, but no more than three others had enough energy or enthusiasm to appear, and by no means all the gentlemen. She was somewhat surprised to find Mr Alexandra attired for riding when she came down to an early breakfast, and rested her eyes on him.