“Nothing at all, dear boy,” said his lordship.
Outside a groom was clinging to the heads of two magnificent greys, and endeavouring to control their capricious movements.
The Earl’s eye ran over them, “Fresh, eh?”
“Begging your lordship’s pardon, I’d say they were a couple of devils.”
The Earl laughed, and climbed into the curricle and gathered up the reins in one gloved hand. “Let them go.”
The groom sprang to one side, and the greys plunged forward.
The groom watched the curricle flash round a bend in the avenue and sighed. “If I could handle them like that—!” he said, and wandered back to the stables, sadly shaking his head.
Chapter Seventeen
The Sun at Maidenhead was a very popular posting inn, its appointments and kitchens being alike excellent. Lord Lethbridge sat down to dinner in one of the private rooms, a pleasant apartment, panelled with old oak, and was served with a duck, a quarter of mutton with pickled mushrooms, a crayfish, and a quince jelly. The landlord, who knew him, found him to be in an unusually mellow mood, and wondered what devilry he had been engaged on. The reflective smile that hovered over his lordship’s thin lips meant devilry of some sort, of that he was quite certain. For once in his life the noble guest found no fault with the food set before him, and was even moved to bestow a word of praise on the burgundy.
My Lord Lethbridge was feeling almost benign. To have outwitted Mr Drelincourt so neatly pleased him even more than the recovery of the brooch. He smiled to think of Crosby travelling disconsolately back to London. The notion that Crosby could be fool enough to carry an empty tale to his cousin never occurred to him; he himself was not one to lose his head, and although he had a poor opinion of Mr Drelincourt’s intelligence, such heights of folly were quite beyond his comprehension.