LORD OF MANY SECRETS

TWENTY SIX

On her mettle, Miss Tellaro guided the team down the street at a brisk trot, driving them well up to their bits. She had fine light hands, knew how to point her leaders, and soon showed the Earl that she was sufficiently expert enough in the use of the whip. She flicked the leader, and caught the thong again with a slight turn of her wrist that sent it soundlessly up the stick. She drove his lordship into Lake Park without the least mishap, and twice round it. Forgetting for the moment to be coldly formal, she said impulsively, "I was used to drive all my father's horses, but I never handled a team so light mouthed as these, sir".

"I am thought to be something of a judge of horse flesh, Miss Tellaro", said the Earl. Strolling along the promenade with his arm in the Honorable Fredrick Bush's, Sir Howard Jones gave a gasp, and exclaimed, "Good God, Pascal, look! Curricle Clements!"

"So it is", agreed Mr Pascal, continuing to ogle a party of young ladies.

"But with a female driving his greys! And a devilish fine female too!"

Mr Pascal was sufficiently struck by this to look after the curricle. "Very odd of him. Perhaps it is Miss Tellaro - his ward, you know. I was hearing she is an excessively delightful girl. Worth two hundred thousand Pounds, I believe".

Sir Howard was not paying much attention. "I would not have credited it! Clements must be mad or in love! Harry, too! I tell you what, Pascal... This means I shall get Harry at last!"

Mr Pascal shook his head wisely. "Clements won't let him go. You know how it is - Curricle Clements and his Harry. Almost a mantra. They tell me he was a chimney sweep's boy before Clements found him".

"He was. And if I know Harry, he won't stay with Clements any longer".

He was wrong. When the curricle drew up again in Spear Street, Harry looked at Miss Tellaro with something akin to respect in his sharp eyes. "It ain't what I'm used to, nor yet what I approve of", he said, "but you handled them very well, miss, very well you handled them!"

The Earl assisted his ward down from the curricle. "You may have your perch-phaeton", he said. "But inform Patrick that I will charge myself with the procuring of a suitable pair for you to drive".

"You are very good, sir, but Patrick is quite able to choose my horses for me".

"I make every allowance for your natural partiality, Miss Tellaro, but that is going too far", said the Earl.

The butler had opened the door before she could think of a crushing enough retort. She could not feel that it would be seemly to quarrel with her guardian in front of a servant, so she merely asked him whether he cared to come into the house. He declined it, made his bow, and descended the steps again to his curricle.

Miss Tellaro was torn between annoyance at his high handed interference in her plans, and satisfaction at being perfectly sure now of acquiring just the horses she wanted.

A few days later, the fashionable throng in Lake Park was startled by the appearance of the rich Miss Tellaro driving a splendid match pair of bays in a very smart sporting phaeton with double perches of swan-neck pattern. She was attended by a groom in livery, and bore herself - mindful of Mr Alexandra's advice - with an air of self confidence nicely blended with a seeming indifference to the sensation she was creating.

As good luck would have it, Mr Alexandra himself was walking in the Park with his friend Jack Lee. He was pleased to wave, and Miss Tellaro pulled up to speak to him, saying with a twinkle, "I am amazed, sir, that you should be seen talking to so unfashionable a person as myself".

"My dear ma'am, pray do not mention it!" returned Alexandra earnestly.

"There is no one near us". She laughed, allowed him to present Mr Lee, and after a little conversation drove on.

Within a week, the rich Miss Tellaro's phaeton was one of the sights of town, and several aspiring ladies had attempted something in the same style. But since no one, with the exception of Lady Clinton, who was so vulgar and low-born - having been before her marriage to Sir John the mistress of a highway man known as Sixteen String Jackie - that she could not be thought to count, could drive one horse, let alone a pair, with anything approaching Miss Tellaro's skill, these attempts were soon abandoned. To be struggling with a refractory horse, or jogging soberly along behind a sluggish one, while Miss Tellaro dashed by in her high phaeton could not add to any lady's consequence. Miss Tellaro was allowed to drive her pair unrivaled.

She did not always drive, however. Sometimes she rode, generally with her brother, and occasionally with Lord Angelo's lovely daughters, and very often with her cousin - Mr Bartholomew Tellaro. She rode a very spirited black horse, and it was not long before Miss Tellaro's black was as well known as Lord Martinique's long tailed grey.

She had learned the trick of acquiring idiosyncrasies.

* * *

In a month the Tellaros were so safely launched into Society that even Mrs Andromeda admitted that there did not seem any longer to be anything to fear.

Patrick had not only been made a member of Watier's, but had contrived to get himself elected to White's as well, it's perpetual President, Mr Alexandra, having been induced to choose a white instead of black ball on the positive assurance of Lord Stanley that Patrick would bring into the club not the faintest aroma either is the stables or of bad blacking - an aroma which, in Mr Alexandra's experience, far too often clung to country squires.

He went as Mr Fritzwa's guest to a meeting is the Sublime Society of Beefsteaks at the Laryon, and had the felicity of seeing that the amazing figure, the Duke of Northern Safina, who rolled in looking for all the world like a gross publican, and presided over the dinner in dirty linen and an old blue coat; had more beefsteaks than anyone else; was very genial and good humored, and fell sound asleep long before the end of the meeting.