Read Online A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer - Free Book Online Page B

that nothing came of it.’ He sighed, and shook his head. ‘Well, it’s not often I’ve been taken at fault, but I own I was beginning to think myself at a stand when his lordship came to me, to propose I should consider whether a Viscount wouldn’t answer the purpose, because if so he rather fancied he might be able to put me in the way of getting next and nigh the very man for my money. Very frank and open he was with me, and a rare good character he gave you, my lord, if you won’t take snuff at my saying so. Nor at my telling you that I wasn’t by any means mad after the scheme. Letting alone a Viscount’s not an Earl, whichever way you look at it, I wouldn’t want to rivet my Jenny to anyone that was ready to marry a midden for muck, as the saying is. Nay, you’ve no need to take an affront into your head, my lord! The first thing my Lord Oversley told me was that the chances were you wouldn’t like the notion – which I took leave to doubt, begging your pardon, until he told me who you was. Lord Lynton was what he called you, and, barring that I knew your pa was a member of what they call the Carlton House Set, and a buck of the first cut, by all accounts, I was none the wiser. But, of course, as soon as he disclosed to me that you were Captain Deveril – well, that put a different complexion on the matter!’
    ‘Did it?’ said Adam, regarding him with a fascinated eye. ‘I can’t think why it should, but – but pray continue, sir!’
    ‘Ay, it did,’ nodded Mr Chawleigh. ‘Not that I’d ever clapped eyes on you myself, but I’ve always had a strong notion that my Jenny liked you better than any of the sprigs of fashion she was acquainted with.’
    Startled, Adam said: ‘But have I ever met – ?’ He stopped, realizing, too late, the infelicity of this involuntary exclamation.
    Mr Chawleigh, to his considerable relief, was unoffended. ‘Ay, you’ve met her,’ he replied indulgently. ‘Often, you’ve met her, but it don’t surprise me that you shouldn’t call her to mind, for that’s how it always is: she lets the other girls shine her down. She’s no gabster, but when you were in town last year, worn to a bone with what was being done to you by a pack of surgeons, as they call themselves, though to my way of thinking butchers would be nearer the mark, and not one of ’em will I have lay a finger on me, for I’d as lief be put to bed with a shovel and be done with it – well, when you were hobbling about, as blue as megrim,’ said Mr Chawleigh, unexpectedly picking up the main thread of his argument, ‘she used to speak of you now and now: nothing much, you know, but enough to make me prick up my ears. Seems you weren’t so taken up with Miss Julia but what you could find the time to behave civil to Jenny.’
    A vague memory of having on several occasions found a strange female visiting Julia flickered in Adam’s mind, but as he was quite unable to remember what she had looked like, or what he could conceivably have done to earn her approval, he prudently refrained from any pretended recognition. Mr Chawleigh might be discursive, but no one encountering his shrewd eyes could suppose him to be one whom it would be easy to deceive.
    ‘Well, there it is!’ said Mr Chawleigh. ‘I don’t know that there’s much more I’ve got to say at this present, except that I’m not looking for an answer until you’ve had time to turn it over in your mind, my lord.’
    Adam got up. ‘You are very obliging, sir, but –’
    ‘Nay, think it over before you commit yourself!’ interrupted Mr Chawleigh. ‘Acting hasty is bad business, take my word for it! There’s no saying, after all, that my Jenny would be any more willing than you are. You sleep on it! Ay, and have a talk with his lordship, or your man of business. You want to be sure you’re not being bobbed, and you’ve only got my word for it that I’m a man of substance.’
    ‘I am quite sure you are all you say you are, sir,