He laughed. “You wouldn’t keep it long! In fact, you’ll very likely lose it before the night’s out.”
“Oh no! I shall hold my finger crooked, so that it can’t drop off. Sherry, when your cousin said ‘Lady Sheringham’ — did he mean me?”
“Of course he did. Though to tell you the truth, it sounded very odd to me too,” admitted his lordship.
Hero turned wide eyes upon him. “Sherry, I know I am Lady Sheringham, but it doesn’t seem possible! I have the horridest feeling that I shall suddenly wake up and find that it has been all a dream!”
“I know what you mean,” nodded his lordship, “though when I think of all the things I’ve had to do today it seems to me more like a nightmare.” He encountered a dismayed look, and said hastily: “No, no, not being married! I didn’t mean that! I dare say I shall like that very tolerably once I’ve grown used to it. But that Bishop of George’s! Do you know I had to swear an oath, or whatever they call it, that you had the consent of your guardians, Kitten?”
“But, Sherry, I haven’t!”
“No, I know that, but you wouldn’t have had me let a trifling circumstance like that stop me, would you? Besides, there’s no harm done: your precious Cousin Jane ain’t going to kick up a dust, you mark my words! She’ll be thankful to be so well rid of you, I dare say.”
Hero agreed to it, but a little doubtfully. The Viscount said in a bracing tone that what they both needed was a bottle of something to set them up.
They arrived presently at Fenton’s Hotel, to find that Bootle was already installed there, and had not only unpacked his master’s trunks, but had loftily instructed a chambermaid to perform the same office for my lady. As much to preserve his own dignity as Hero’s, he let drop, in the most casual way possible, the information that her ladyship’s maid had been smitten with the jaundice, leaving her mistress temporarily unattended. His grand manners, the slightly contemptuous glance he cast round the best suite of apartments in the hotel, and the nicety of taste which led him to rearrange the ornaments on the mantelpiece of the sitting-room which separated my lord’s from my lady’s bedchamber, quite overawed the chambermaid and the boots, and inspired them with a belief in the propriety of Lord and Lady Sheringham which only the appearance upon the scene of this erratic couple would dispel.
His lordship’s first act, on his arrival, was to ring for a waiter to bring up a bottle of burgundy, and another of ratafia; his second was to produce from one pocket a small package, which he handed over to his bride, saying as he did so: “Almost slipped my mind! There’s a wedding gift for you, brat: frippery things, but I’ll buy you better ones, once the blunt’s my own.”