“A thousand thanks. My Lord Gore should delight even the psalmist. But my coach is waiting. I wish you no broken furniture. Anne—come.”
There was a short, pregnant silence when he had departed with his child-wife on his arm. Stephen Gore shrugged his shoulders and smiled at Hortense.
“Most serious of swains! Oh, sage Solomon, who would grudge him the responsibility of taming even one wife!”
“Alas, another unfortunate who has not learned to laugh.”
Sir Marmaduke Thibthorp was standing sheepishly beside the door, striving to look amused.
“Such is fate,” he giggled.
“And such is a stool!” quoth Thomas Temple, sticking out a leg with a blotch of blood on his stocking.
My Lord Gore took leave of Hortense after talking with her a moment alone by the window.
“Bring her to me, my friend,” she said, as he made his bow.
“If you cannot cure her—”