“Not at all, Louisa. You don’t understand the situation at all. One of them must marry me.”
“That I can believe,” she said dryly. “But this nonsense about Horatia? What is the truth of it?”
“Only that Horatia offered herself to me in her sister’s place. And that—but I need not tell you—is quite for your ears alone.”
Lady Louisa was not in the habit of giving way to amazement, and she did not now indulge in fruitless ejaculations. “Marcus, is the girl a minx?” she asked.
“No,” he answered. “She is not, Louisa. I am not at all sure that she is not a heroine.”
“Don’t she wish to marry you?”
The Earl’s eyes gleamed. “Well, I am rather old, you know, though no one would think it to look at me. But she assures me she would quite like to marry me. If my memory serves me, she prophesied that we should deal famously together.”
Lady Louisa, watching him, said abruptly: “Rule, is this a love-match?”
His brows rose; he looked faintly amused. “My dear Louisa! At my age?”
“Then marry the Beauty,” she said. “That one would understand better.”