A delighted Sandford reined his horses in to a halt and motioned to the widely grinning Tiptree to jump down and hold their heads. Taking out his handkerchief, the gleeful viscount then proceeded to mop up the tears of merriment that were spilling down Harriet’s cheeks.
‘Not fair—not fair,’ she gasped, pushing him away. Her lips still quivering, she attempted to straighten her bonnet, which had somehow cast itself adrift, and regarded Sandford disapprovingly from beneath her wet lashes.
‘Ah, but don’t they say ‘'all’s fair …''?’ he said, reaching out to take her hand and leaning towards her but, just at that precise moment, there came the sound of horses’ hooves on the lane and Tiptree’s low warning, ‘'Ware ‘'parkers'', guv.’
Harriet looked on with undisguised interest as Tiptree vaulted back on to his seat and the viscount spurred his team once more into action.
The occupants of the oncoming chaise saluted Sandford as the two vehicles passed one another and his lordship, although smilingly lifting his whip in reply, wished them in Hell.
Truth to tell, he was feeling slightly abashed at his conduct.
He knew perfectly well that he would have tried to kiss Harriet had it not been for the interruption, but knew equally well that their relationship was far too tenuous to survive such precipitant action. Glancing down at her, he wondered if his rash behaviour had indeed set his cause back still further. He immediately resolved to make up any lost ground without further ado, but found himself forestalled.
‘I do believe you were setting up a flirtation, my lord,’ said Harriet cheerfully, rearranging her skirts.
Sandford, totally unprepared for this challenge, reddened and could only stammer, ‘Not at all—you are mistaken—I must apologise …’
‘Oh, come now, sir,’ Harriet apostrophised. I am not a schoolgirl—you surely do not think that you are the first gentleman who has tried to kiss me? Although, upon reflection, I must confess that I have never before been ravished on the public highway!’
‘Ravished, madam!’ Sandford was appalled. ‘I have never ravished anyone in my entire life—I’ll have you know …’ He stopped, having caught sight of her laughing countenance, and grinned ruefully. ‘Touché—your hit.’
He drove on in sheepish silence for some minutes until a thought occurred to him.
‘Where did gentlemen try to kiss you, may I ask? Not since you have been under my protection, I trust?’
‘Certainly not, my lord,’ replied Harriet, demurely peeping up at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet. ‘There was a very dashing subaltern in Lisbon, I recall—two, as a matter of fact.’
‘And did they succeed?’ asked Sandford, all agog for her reply.
‘Succeed? Oh, I see.’ Harriet laughed in delight at his masculine phraseology. ‘Well, one did—kiss me, that is— but then the other discovered us in the alcove and offered to ‘'darken his daylights''—I believe that was the expression …?’
Sandford’s lips twitched. ‘Sounds about right,’ he said carefully. ‘What happened then?’
‘Well, my first gallant appeared to doubt the other’s ability to do any such thing and responded with a similar offer of his own—something about ‘'drawing his cork” and ‘'spilling his claret''—as I recollect.’ Harriet said mischievously.
‘Your memory serves you well,’ said Sandford, grinning as he pictured the scene. ‘And then?’
Harriet sighed deeply. ‘They then seemed to be more intent on having a mill than making love to me,’ she said, in rueful reminiscence. ‘So I returned myself to the party!’
The viscount gave a shout of laughter and lightly flicked his whip at the horses’ heads, his good humour having suddenly returned.
‘I wish I had known you in those far-off days,’ he said, recalling some of the headier moments of his own time in Portugal.
‘We were introduced on one occasion, my lord,’ she offered. ‘I doubt you will remember—I was only sixteen at the time—a mere child curtseying to your exalted personage. I fancy that your thoughts were more occupied with the very colourful señora two paces to my left …’ She dimpled at his look of shocked recollection. ‘I see that you recall the lady—a capitano’s wife, I believe?’
‘Yes—well, perhaps the least said about that particular incident, the better,’ Sandford interposed hurriedly, ignoring his passenger’s laughing eyes. ‘And that was the only time we met?’
Harriet considered. ‘My friends and I used to run to watch you ride past at the head of your company—you were something of a hero to us,’ she said, her lips curving in memory. Then she collected herself and laughed a little selfconsciously. ‘We were only children, of course—I doubt if you noticed us.’
‘I never thought of myself as a hero, certainly,’ protested Sandford, remembering many such scenes. ‘But I am sorry that I was not better acquainted with you—I wish I might have doffed my hat to you all as we rode out of town!’
‘And what ecstasies we would have fallen into then, my lord,’ replied Harriet gravely, although her mouth twitched at the corners.
Sandford’s eyes gleamed with amusement.
‘If you are trying to provoke me, Miss Cordell,’ he said, his enjoyment mounting, ‘you would do well to remember that you are no longer a child—and must therefore be prepared to accept the consequences of such fulsome encouragement.’
Harriet laughed out loud and shook her head at him. I withdraw all such comments, my lord,’ she chuckled. ‘And you may be assured that I had outgrown all such adulation well before my teens had ended.’
‘Now that is a pity,’ Sandford groaned, in mock despair.
‘I was quite prepared to accept just a modicum of adulation.’
‘Oh, no, sir,’ replied Harriet, mirthfully aware that she had won the round. ‘You have persuaded me that I must seize every opportunity to discourage such vanity!’
‘Hoist by my own petard, dammit!’ he laughed, pulling in the reins.
The curricle had reached a fork in the lane and Sandford had slowed the horses to negotiate the narrower of the two ways. This smaller track led down to a row of ramshackle dwellings, the furthest of which had obviously been destroyed by fire.
‘Mr Potter’s cottage, I collect?’ said Harriet, looking about her with interest as, with Sandford’s assistance, she descended from the carriage.
He nodded, surprised but gratified that she had remembered Ridgeway’s tale.
‘We’d been trying to persuade him to move out for months,’ he said, walking over to the ruin. ‘The rest of the tenants were rehoused last year in the new cottages by Top Meadow …’ He gesticulated back towards the fork in the lane. ‘Old Josh refused to go—said he’d lived here since he was first married and he intended to die here.’
‘Pretty near did, too, by all accounts,’ interjected Tiptree, who, having tethered the horses, had joined them. ‘Set fire to his bed with his pipe, so I hear. Lucky for him Jack Rawlings was driving his cart along the top lane and got him out.’
‘Was he hurt?’ Harriet asked, her sympathy for the old tenant immediately aroused.
‘Not really, so I’m told,’ replied the viscount, ‘superficial burns to his hands and legs. Meggy—his daughter—soon sorted him out, according to Charles, but she’s had the Devil’s own job trying to keep him away from here.’ Sandford indicated the blackened roof timbers. ‘Going to fall in any minute, I should say. We’d