“You sound sanctimonious!”
“I thought you were complaining that I indulged myself too often,” the Earl said with a twist of his lips.
“Not where food and drink is concerned,” Lord Yaxley said, “but in other ways.”
“Then if it is not wine it must be ‘women and song’, although I cannot imagine why you take it upon yourself to give me a lecture.”
“It is because I happen to be very fond of you,” Lord Yaxley answered, “and because we have been friends for such a long time, I just hate to see you growing more bored and more indifferent year by year.”
“Who said I was bored?” the Earl enquired sharply.
“It is very obvious,” Lord Yaxley replied. “I was watching your face on the course today. There was not even a glint of satisfaction in your eyes as Delos beat Arkrie’s horse. That is unnatural, Osric, as you well know.”
The Earl did not reply but merely lay back in his deep armchair staring at the flames.
“What is the matter?” Lord Yaxley asked in a different tone of voice. “Is it Genevieve?”
“Perhaps.”
“Do you intend to marry her?”
“Why should I?”
“Unlike Arkrie she is proclaiming her love for you to all and sundry.”
“I cannot prevent her from making a fool of herself,” the Earl said, “but I assure you that it is not based on any encouragement from me.”
“She would look well at the head of your table and undoubtedly most ravishing in the Helstone diamonds.”
The Earl said nothing for a moment and then he persisted slowly,
“I have no wish to marry Genevieve.”
Lord Yaxley gave a little sigh.
“Quite frankly, Osric, I am glad. I was not certain if your heart was involved or not but Genevieve would doubtless bore you in time just as much as every other charmer you have discarded one by one.”
He gave a short laugh and then added,
“Have you ever noticed how she always sits so that you are looking at her profile? She told me once that someone, I have forgotten who, had said to her that, if Frances Stewart had not been the model for Britannia, they would have chosen her.”
“Frances Stewart, if my history is still correct,” the Earl said with a sarcastic note in his voice, “refused her favours to King Charles II, which was why he remained infatuated with her until her face was disfigured by smallpox.”
Lord Yaxley laughed again.
“So no one can accuse Genevieve of refusing you.”
The Earl did not reply and after a moment Lord Yaxley continued,
“But then you never are refused, are you, Osric? I am beginning to think that that is the trouble.”
“What trouble?” the Earl enquired.
“It could account for your boredom. Now that I think about it, it must in time become tedious to know that you are always going to turn up the winning card, always bring down the bird you aim at and always be in at the kill.”
“More flattery!”
“At the same I am speaking the truth and you know it,” Lord Yaxley said, “and the truth is you are bored, Osric.”
“Then what do you suggest I do about it?” the Earl enquired.
“I wish I could answer that question. There must be some prize you covet somewhere, some mountain you have not yet climbed or some battle you have not won.”
“Perhaps a war would be a solution,” the Earl remarked. “At least then one would be dealing with the fundamental effort of staying alive.”
“You know, I am not certain,” Lord Yaxley said as if he was following his own train of thought, “that it would not be best for you to get married! It might induce you to spend more time in the country for I do realise that that huge mansion of yours, filled with the portraits of your ancestors, would be excessively gloomy if you lived in it by yourself.”
“You think that marriage would be a solution?”
“Not for Genevieve, she would not settle down anywhere!” Lord Yaxley said quickly. “But there must be a woman somewhere who would take your fancy and would not bore you to tears.”
“There are quite a number.”
“I am not talking about love affairs, you idiot!” Lord Yaxley exclaimed. “I am talking about marriage to a nice, respectable young woman who will give you children, especially a son. That at least would be an interest that you have not tried so far.”
“But to obtain a son I would have to suffer all the banal conversation and the half-witted meanderings of the respectable young girl,” the Earl said. “I assure you, Yaxley, Genevieve would be preferable to that!”
“I must admit, I looked over this Season’s debutantes at a ball last week,” Lord Yaxley said. “I had to put in an appearance because it was being given for one of my nieces. I have never seen a more depressing sight.”
“That is the answer to your suggestion.”
“A debutante would be far too young for you, that I agree,” Lord Yaxley conceded. “We will both be thirty next year and that is far too old for nursery games.”
“And what is the alternative?”
‘There must be a sophisticated, charming, intelligent widow about somewhere.”
“So we are back to Genevieve again.”
There was silence between them as they were both thinking of the alluring, irrepressible and at times outrageous Lady Genevieve Rodney.
She had been widowed two years previously and the moment she was out of mourning she had set the Social world by the ears by the way that she defied convention.
But the gentlemen all found her irresistible and her small house in Mayfair was besieged day and night by her innumerable admirers.
It was not surprising that she had set her cap at the Earl of Helstone.
He was not only one of the richest men in the whole of England but he was, in many women’s opinion, by far the best-looking.
It was, however, with reason that he was nicknamed ‘The Elusive Earl’.
Ever since he had left school he had been pursued by ambitious mothers and by women who found both his handsome face and his well-filled pockets desirable.
But he had eluded every effort to lure him into the matrimonial net and was extremely fastidious in selecting the recipients of his affections.
It had, however, amused him, when Lady Genevieve was the toast of St, James’s and pursued by every buck and beau of the Social world, to sweep her off from under their very noses.
She had made no pretence that he was the first man to capture her heart. Nor was he the first lover she had taken after her husband’s death.
But during the months that they had been together she had made it very clear that she intended that he should be the last. Lady Genevieve’s heart was a vacillating organ and the Earl was never quite certain how much her protestations of true love rested on the fact that he could provide for her as lavishly as she desired and give her a position in Society that would be unequalled by anyone outside the Royal family.
The Helstones had Royal blood in their veins and it was known that their genealogical