Miss Taverner gave her horses the office to start, and said imperatively: “Stand away from their heads! If you are afraid, await us here.”
The tiger let go the wheelers and made a dash for his perch. As he scrambled up into it he said with strong emotion: “I’ve sat behind you sober, guv’nor. and I’ve sat behind you foxed, and I’ve sat behind you when you raced Sir John to Brighton, and never made no complaint, but I ain’t never sat behind you mad afore!” with which he folded his arms, nodded darkly, and relapsed into a disapproving silence.
On her mettle, Miss Taverner 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 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 Hyde 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 Taverner,” said the Earl.
Strolling along the promenade with his arm in the Honourable Frederick Byng’s, Sir Harry Peyton gave a gasp, and exclaimed: “Good God. Poodle, look! Curricle Worth!”
“So it is,” agreed Mr. Byng, continuing to ogle a party of young ladies.
“But with a female driving his greys! And a devilish fine female too!”
Mr. Byng was sufficiently struck by this to look after the curricle. “Very odd of him. Perhaps it is Miss Taverner—his ward, you know. I was hearing she is an excessively delightful girl. Eighty thousand pounds, I believe.”
Sir Harry was not paying much attention. “I would not have credited it! Worth must be mad or in love! Henry, too! I tell you what, Poodle: this means I shall get Henry at last!”
Mr. Byng shook his head wisely. “Worth won’t let him go. You know how it is—Curricle Worth and his Henry: almost a byword. They tell me he was a chimney-sweep’s boy before Worth found him.”