A Poached Peerage Part 35

It's a lovely day."

"So Ulrica thought," the astutely suave lady responded. "And the park looked so tempting. Yes, a short stroll would be delightful."

Accordingly they made their way down the drive at a pace which, set by the deliberate old peeress, ill accorded with Gage's impatience.

Naturally Peckover had foreseen this move, and had proposed a circuitous and covert route to the house. Ulrica, quite privy to the scheme, offered no objection.

"Sun's rather hot," Peckover observed, when the carriage with its guileful occupant had rolled away from them. "Let's keep under the trees."

Ulrica laughed, and took without comment the path he indicated.

CHAPTER XXVIII

"This is a real pleasure to me," Peckover remarked, determined to get on flirting terms without wasting precious time in preliminary small-talk.

"This lovely day?" Ulrica responded, with an obvious pretence of misunderstanding his drift. "Yes, it is quite a treat."

"I meant," he pursued, with a stimulating glance at the fresh, pretty face, highly provocative now with a roguish smile, "a walk with you.

I've been longing for this moment ever since I first set eyes on you."

Her glance of amused surprise suggested that she thought he was plunging _in medias res_ with a vengeance. "Clearly," she commented, "patience is one of your virtues."

"I don't know about patience," he replied. "If I've waited a long time for my chance, it has not been exactly patience, but because I couldn't get it sooner."

"Everything comes to him who waits," Ulrica observed with a careless laugh, to show she was not taking him too seriously.

"I hope you don't mind the change?" he suggested.

"In the weather?" she asked mischievously.

"Bother the weather! No. From Quorn to me."

"That remains to be seen," she answered. "So far, I have no objection to it."

"Same here. Lady Ormstork is a proper old grandee, but, well, naturally she's not exactly my idea of an afternoon's fun."

"I dare say not," Ulrica said dryly.

"Now you are," he declared boldly.

She ignored the compliment together with the amorous look which accompanied it. "I have often wondered how you and dear old Ormstork were getting on;" she remarked with self-possessed blandness. "One hears of such curious matches nowadays."

For a moment Peckover hardly realized the drift of the remark. Then he stopped dead. "Why, you don't mean to say," he gasped, "you thought I was making love to the old gal?"

She looked intensely amused at his face of disgust. "Lady Ormstork is not bad looking for her age," she suggested wickedly. "You must admit she is rather handsome."

"I dare say," he returned, not certain how far she was in earnest. "It never occurred to me to take stock of her."

Ulrica kept her countenance steady, but her eyes were dancing. "Then your devotion was purely Platonic?" she observed.

"You may call it what you like," he replied, playing for safety. "As I wasn't taking any."

"Ah, then, I suppose it was devotion to your friend, Lord Quorn," she pursued, the corners of her mouth twitching with mischief. "Of course.

He saved your life, didn't he? And you--yes; how generous of you."

"Oh, bother my life," Peckover exclaimed with an impatient laugh. They had covered a good deal of ground without getting on very far towards the end he had in view, and any moment now Quorn might run them down.

"I expect poor old Quorn is feeling rather sick by now," he remarked pointedly, "at your giving him the slip and going off with me."

"You don't think he'll be jealous?" she asked with a laugh.

"Shouldn't be surprised."

"There is no real reason why he should be," she said.

"Nor no reason why he shouldn't be--if you like," he rejoined insinuatingly.

"I don't understand you, Mr. Gage," she said, looking at the same time as though she understood him perfectly.

"If you liked me half as well as I like you," he explained bluntly, under the compelling spur of her charms.

"You think it would matter to Lord Quorn?"

"You ought to know best," he returned. "I know it would matter a lot to me. The question is, which do you prefer?"

"Oh, his lords.h.i.+p, of course," she answered mockingly.

"Because he is a lord?"

"Naturally."

"I see," said Peckover catching her tone. "Is that your own original idea or Lady Ormstork's?"

"It is certainly Lady Ormstork's," was the evasive answer.

"But not yours. Not altogether," he urged wickedly. "You might have room in your heart for a little fondness for me?"

She laughed. "Why should I?"

"It would be such a treat," he pleaded.

"You are very, what Lady Ormstork calls, unconventional," she said quizzingly.

"Does that mean nice?"

"It may."