The humorous gleam sprang to her eyes as she glanced at Aubrey, still lost in antiquity. She said: “Aubrey! Dear, odious Aubrey! Do lend me your ears! Just one of your ears, love!”
He looked up, an answering gleam in his own eyes. “Not if it is something I particularly dislike!”
“No, I promise you it isn’t!” she replied, laughing. “Only, if you mean to ride out presently will you be so very obliging as to call at the Receiving Office, and enquire if there has been a parcel delivered there for me from York? Quite a small parcel, dear Aubrey! not in the least unwieldy, upon my honour!”
“Yes, I’ll do that—if it’s not fish! If it is, you may send Puxton for it, m’dear.”
“No, it’s muslin—unexceptionable!”
He had risen, and walked over to the window with his awkward, dragging step. “It’s too hot to go out at all, I think, but I will—Oh, I most certainly will, and at once! M’dear, both your suitors are come to pay us a morning-visit!”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Venetia imploringly. “Not again!”
“Riding up the avenue,” he assured her. “Oswald is looking as sulky as a bear, too.”
“Now, Aubrey, pray don’t say so! It is his gloomy look. He is brooding over nameless crimes, I daresay, and only think how disheartening to have his dark thoughts mistaken for a fit of the sulks!”
“What nameless crimes?”
“My dear, how should I know—or he either? Poor boy! it is all Byron’s fault! Oswald can’t decide whether it is his lordship whom he resembles or his lordship’s Corsair. In either event it is very disturbing for poor Lady Denny. She is persuaded he is suffering from a disorder of the blood, and has been begging him to take James’s Powders.”