He laughed suddenly. “Indeed, I hope we shan’t!”
“And you won’t tell Major Daubenay that Lydia’s story was false?”
“What do you want me to tell him?” he asked, succumbing to the coaxing note in her voice, and the pleading look in her candid eyes.
“Why, that I have been with my tutor in Bath, but that I was so troublesome that my Mama—”
“The widow?”
“Yes, and now you will understand why she is a widow!”
“If you are supposed to favour your mythical father, I do understand. He perished on the gallows.”
“That is what Jimmy Yarde calls the Nubbing Cheat.”
“I daresay it is, but I beg you won’t.”
“Oh, very well! Where was I?”