“Why n-not?” Horatia asked.
“No reason in the world, ma’am,” he replied. “If you wish it of course I will drive with you.” He stepped down into the road again, and summoned up the groom, telling him to mount the bay horse. The groom, who was looking shamefaced from his late encounter with the coachman, hastened to obey him. Lord Lethbridge again climbed into the coach; the door was shut; and in a few minutes the vehicle began to move forward in the direction of London.
Inside it Horatia said with the frankness her family considered disastrous: “I quite thought you d-did not like m-me very much, you know.”
“Did you? But that would have been very bad taste on my part,” said his lordship.
“W-well, but you p-positively avoid me when we meet,” Horatia pointed out. “You know you d-do!”
“Ah!” said his lordship. “But that is not because I do not like you, ma’am.”
“W-why, then?” asked Horatia bluntly.
He turned his head. “Has no one warned you that Robert Lethbridge is too dangerous for you to know?”
Her eyes twinkled. “Yes, any number of people. Did you g-guess that?”
“Of course I did. I believe Mamas all warn their daughters against my wicked wiles. I am a very desperate character, you know.”