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then looked from the corner of her eyes to hear the details.
    “Personal comments are always in poor taste. We’ll have no more jibes at his impoverished background. I begin to think he was not so deprived as I had thought. He speaks very good French at least.”
    “He is the one who started it by running down the aristocracy.”
    “There’s something to be said for his views, but that is strictly entre nous . In public one must pretend to admire tired old blood or you’d never be invited anywhere. It is a pity Guy is so Whiggish. On the other hand, the Whig aristocrats are much more amusing and stylish. I wonder if he has the entrée to polite Whig saloons.”
    “Lady Marie Struthers does some reporting for him,” Faith mentioned.
    “Marie Struthers! You don’t mean it! Why, she is top of the trees. I daresay he hopes to nab her and establish himself in society.” This was hard news, indeed. Lady Lynne was astute enough to realize her own worn charms would be hopeless against such stiff competition as the incomparable Lady Marie.
    Before they had gone a mile, she had hatched a new scheme. If it was an unexceptionable bride Mr. Delamar was after, he might replace Lord Thomas. She did hate to ruin her record for making matches, and upon hearing that Thomas had been the banker for the stolen funds, she assumed him to be guilty. She slid a sly eye at her niece and said, “I slept very poorly last night, Faith. When we stop to change horses, I wonder if you’d mind removing to Guy’s carriage for one stage. It will give me a chance to put my feet up on the other seat and catch a few winks.”
    “I’d sooner walk all the way in tight shoes.”
    This was entirely the correct response. Lady Lynne was perfectly aware of the antagonism between them and welcomed it. There was nothing so stimulating to the blood as hot argument. How she and John used to battle—and how they made up afterward!
    “Walk, then, by all means,” she said, “unless you’d prefer to sit up on the driver’s bench with Nubbins, for I mean to put you out of my bedchamber.”
     

Chapter Five
     
    Lady Lynne made good her threat. When the two carriages stopped at Horsham to change teams and allow the passengers to refresh themselves, she sent her niece off to buy newspapers while she got Delamar aside and asked him if he would mind having company in his rig. The mischievous sparkle in her eye filled him with foreboding as to her intentions of attaching him, for she had been gay almost to giddiness over lunch to cover up Faith’s silence.
    “I would be a poor traveling companion,” he said. “I am writing as we go along. The rag still has to be got out, you know, even if I am not sitting behind my desk.”
    The sparkle in her eye turned to steely determination.
    “Surely you do not require two banquettes to do your writing?”
    “I do my best writing when I am alone. Such a charming companion as yourself, Lady Lynne, would distract me no end.”
    She smiled at this graceful put-off and then revealed his error. “If you are that easily distracted, sir, then there is no point in telling you it is my niece who wished to share your coach. It goes without saying her charms exceed my own.”
    She noticed the leap of interest in his eyes and the dismay that he had misjudged the situation. In different circumstances, she would have let him stew, but time was limited, so she went on to clinch the matter. “Well, it is mighty uncivil of you, Guy,” she said jokingly. “I am so fatigued with the jostling that I thought I might catch a few winks if I could get my carriage to myself, but your work must take precedence, of course.”
    “Never let it be said I robbed a lady of her beauty sleep. I shouldn’t think Lady Faith will overburden me with chatter. Is she generally so untalkative?”
    “Not usually, but you need not fear she’ll prose your ear off today. Ah, here she is now!” she exclaimed as Faith returned to the parlor with the