Miss Creed and Mr Luttrell, partaking of midday refreshment in Keynsham’s best inn, and exhaustively discussing the details of the elopement, were neither of them troubled by doubts of the wisdom of the gentleman’s whisking his betrothed off to Scotland at a moment when that lady had become entangled in a case of murder. Indeed, Mr Luttrell, a single-minded young man, was in a fair way to forgetting that he had ever had Beverley Brandon to stay with him. He had left his mother trying to write a suitable letter to Lady Saar, and if he thought about the unfortunate affair at all it was to reflect comfortably that Lady Luttrell would do everything that was proper. His conversation was confined almost exclusively to his own immediate problems, but he digressed several times animadvert on Pen’s unconventional exploits.
“Of course,” he conceded, “it is not so shocking now that you are betrothed to Wyndham, but I own it does surprise me that he—a man of the world!—should have countenanced such a prank. But these Corinthians delight in oddities, I believe! I dare say no one will wonder at it very much. If you were not betrothed it would be different, naturally!”
Pen’s clear gaze met his steadily. “I think you make a great bustle about nothing,” she said.
“My dear Pen!” He gave a little laugh. “You are such a child! I believe you haven’t the smallest notion of the ways of the world!”
She was obliged to admit that this was true. It occurred to her that since Piers seemed to be well-informed on this subject she might with advantage learn a little from him. “If I were not going to marry Richard, would it be very dreadful?” she asked.
“Pen! What things you do say!” he exclaimed. “Only think of your situation, travelling all the way from London in Wyndham’s company, without even your maid to go with you! Why, you must marry him now!”
She tilted her chin. “I don’t see that I must at all.”
“Depend upon it, if you do not, he does. I must say, I think it excessively strange that a man of his years and—and milieu— should have wished to marry you, Pen.” He realized his speech was scarcely complimentary, and hastened to add: “I don’t mean that precisely, only you are so much younger than he is, and such a little innocent!”
She pounced on this. “Well, that is one very good reason why I need not marry him!” she said. “He is so much older than I am that I dare say no one would think it in the smallest degree odd that we should have taken this journey together.”
“Good Gad, Pen, he is not as old as that! What a strange girl you are! Don’t you wish to marry him?”