Charles paused in the act of chewing his bacon. “And why is that?"

“Nothing serious. It's just that I have acquired the habit of dealing with my uncle, and I might have been able to give you a few suggestions. But you did nothing seriously amiss."

Charles rolled his eyes. “You flatter me, Miss Davenport."

“Hssst!” she said. “Remember-Louisa."

Charles looked about him at the empty room and then back at her. “I doubt if anyone heard me,” he said pointedly.

Louisa agreed, but with reservations. “We humans are creatures of habit, Charles. If you persist in being so formal, you are likely to slip up when it is most important. You won't object, I hope, if I caution you."

Her air of wisdom caused the corners of his lips to tug. “I shall take it under advisement. In the meantime, perhaps you will tell me honestly what I should have said to your uncle."

Louisa grimaced. “It is not,” she said delicately, “anything you left out so much as something you put in."

At his air of enquiry, she continued, “If I were you, I shouldn't have mentioned a chaperone I could not produce. When one does not follow through with a plan, the general tends to discount one's judgment."

Charles wiped his lips with his napkin, confident that what he was about to say would finally impress her. “Perhaps it is time I made my other plans known to you."

She leaned her elbows on the table. “Have you plans? How exciting!"

“Miss-Louisa! I fail to see how you can derive so much humour from this situation!"

“I know. It is wrong in me.” She sat back and folded her hands primly in her lap. “You must not regard it. Go on."

Charles looked at her without much hope that this contrite spirit would last. He endeavoured not to smile. “I hope you will find my plans acceptable to you…” he said. Then he went on before she could throw any doubt on the question.

“I have an acquaintance-an old school friend, Lord Conisbrough-whose estates are near Snaithby in Yorkshire. He is seldom there, but even he ought to be home this time of year. The village is hardly out of our way. I think it would be a good idea to pass by his house and consult him."

Louisa looked at him inquisitively. “Even he, you said. Why ‘even he?"

Charles avoided her eyes. “Because he is not the sort of person-not the sort who takes much care of his estates. But, in this instance, he might be thought to have more… shall we say… pertinent experience than I have."

Louisa looked confused for a moment. Then, light dawning, she said, “Ahhh. You mean he is a rake and is more accustomed to hiding plaguey females!"

“Not precisely,” Charles said, though he had meant something of the kind. “But he can hardly condemn me for such an innocent escapade when I daresay the world knows less than half of his own exploits. Perhaps he can find us a suitable female to accompany you from among his household. He has a mother and a sister, if I recollect."


* * * *

Louisa seemed to have no objections to their trying Lord Conisbrough, though later that morning she was disappointed to be told she would not get a glimpse of the rake.

“Your uncle would have just cause to reproach me if I exposed you to a man of Ned's morals,” Charles told her sternly.

Their breakfast was over, Charles's bags had been loaded and he had handed her up into the carriage and taken the seat across from her. “There are times when I almost prefer not to deal with him myself."

“If you fear doing so, you certainly must not on my account,” Louisa said.

Charles's temper had just been tried by the arch looks his coachman had thrown him; so this aspersion cast on his courage annoyed him more than it might have otherwise.

“I did not say I feared dealing with him,” he said irritably. “It is merely a matter of conscience. Ned and I were friends when we were younger, but somewhere along the way he became quite wild. If I hope to be effective in the House of Lords, I cannot be wasting my time with persons of questionable morals."

“Are you active in the government, Charles?” Louisa's ears pricked up at the news.

“Yes,” he said after a moment's pause. He reckoned it best that she know. Then, perhaps, she would conduct herself with his reputation in mind.

He was gratified by the respect he saw on her face.

“How wonderful!” she said. “I had not expected this good stroke of luck. Which only goes to show that my elopement was not for nothing!"

Charles looked at her warily. “Why does it matter to you that I am active in government?"

“Oh, I often have ideas that I wish someone would act upon,” she said, much to his surprise. “And now that I know you, I shall have someone to propose them to, shan't I?"

Her tone was so ingenuous that Charles had to smile.

“And what sort of ideas are these?” he said, trying to keep the condescension from his voice.

“They could be anything,” Louisa answered, gesturing airily. “I have a number of concerns. For instance-” she turned on him suddenly “-what does the government propose to do with all the men who will be returning from the war?"

Charles was taken aback, first by her look, which seemed to accuse him of something dishonourable, but also by the strange topic. “What do you mean ‘do with them'?” he said.

Louisa looked at him as if he had not much sense. “Hasn't it occurred to you, Charles, that a large number of men shall be returning to this country without any work to occupy them?"

He frowned. “Of course it has occurred to me. The government is fully aware of the problem, Louisa. We do not need a girl of eighteen years to bring such common problems to our attention."

“Then what do you propose to do about them?"

“You are not making yourself clear."

“Let me express myself differently, then. I hope you do not mean to turn them off at the shore without a feather to fly with?"

“Of course not,” he said, growing indignant. “They will be given all their back pay."

“With interest?"

“Certainly not! That would break us! We've had to finance the allies for years as it is."

Louisa frowned at him. “But what about the wounded, the ones who will be too injured to work again?"

“They shall have their wound-pension-sixpence a day."

Louisa arched her brows. “And live off strawberries and cream, I daresay."

“Louisa,” Charles protested, feeling ruffled, “you must leave such things to the men charged with running this country. They are not matters you could easily understand."

Louisa looked at him wryly. “It takes very little experience or schooling to understand what it will be like to live off sixpence a day, Charles."

He blustered, “But magnify that cost several hundred times over and you will see what a heavy toll it makes on the government. You could not possibly understand the treasury's limits, Louisa! I refuse to discuss them with you."

She put her nose in the air and turned to look out her window.

After a moment, Charles addressed her profile stiffly, “Besides… their families will shelter them."

“And the ones without families?"

He did not respond to this unanswerable query. Instead, after a pause, he asked, “Why do you concern yourself with such things?"

She gave him a look as if to say the reason should be obvious. “Do not forget that I am an heiress,” she said. “I have been raised to understand my own finances-enough, at least, that I know how much a loaf of bread and a joint of beef cost. And how quickly your six pennies shall be spent on beer."

Charles folded his arms. “They are not my six pennies."

Louisa gave her attention to the outdoors, and after a short while began to make polite conversation about the countryside.

The low stone walls of Yorkshire seemed to delight her, running as they did in all directions, seemingly without end or reason. They varied from grey to black-sometimes both, depending on the rock available-criss-crossing the wild and otherwise empty moors.

As Louisa made comments, Charles maintained a sulky silence, responding only in single syllables to her remarks.

After a few minutes, however, he found himself thinking over what she had said. If the truth be told, he had not given much thought to the demobilization of the army. He and everyone in government had been concentrating on the war for so long that they had not had time to devote to the future. But now that Boney was on the run, defeated in Russia, and with the allies in France, the war would soon be concluded.

Louisa's chatter, undiminished by his sullenness, made a comfortable background to his thoughts-computations of how much money might be squeezed from the treasury for the wounded men. He might introduce a measure in the Lords, discuss it first with the PM. Something might be managed-ought to be managed, if he were honest.

A bit ashamed to have had his attention brought to the problem by a girl, however, Charles said nothing to her of his thoughts.

The shortness of the winter day made progress difficult, but they managed to draw into Snaithby soon after sunset. Fortunately, they discovered that neither of them had cause to avoid an inn in this village. Snaithby lay off the Great North Road to the west. Louisa had had no reason to stop there on her way north, and Charles hadn't had occasion to visit his friend Ned's estate in several years.

Charles stepped down from the carriage and gave Louisa his hand to assist her. Immediately they were greeted by the proprietors-Sammy and Nan Spadger-at The Crown and Pear.

This time, Louisa gave a rather glib performance of her story. Perhaps it had worked so successfully in Appleby that she had lost all concern for its credibility, but Charles had the impression that relating it a second time merely bored her. Whatever her reason for doing such a poor job, he ended up wishing she had imbued her tale with more conviction.

At Louisa's finish, Nan Spadger, the innkeeper's wife, eyed them both with hostility, and Charles found he was no more immune to her suspicion than he had been to his coachman's. As she hesitated over giving them rooms, he felt his face growing warmer and warmer.

“Ta be certain,” Mrs. Spadger said, “seein’ as how tha folks be o’ t’ nobility, I'd not like ta think owt was amiss. But we've no got t’ custom o’ givin’ rooms ta no ladies wit'owt bags."

“It is a bore, isn't it?” Louisa said, turning her charm on the woman at last. “But my bags are not expected to catch up with us until morning. Fortunately, for my comfort, I did manage to bring away my toothbrush and comb, and perhaps you would be kind enough to press my gown for me."

Mrs. Spadger seemed to consider this, her arms folded snugly over her apron, while her husband hovered indecisively over Charles's bags. The crest on his carriage impressed them, Charles could see, but they were respectable people and they did not like the notion of their hospitality being abused. He had a notion of how to appease them.

“I shall be calling on my friend Lord Conisbrough this evening,” he said, reasoning that all they needed was a reference. “I gave my servants instructions to stop at his estate, and it is possible they shall be there when I arrive. In that case, of course, I shall be bringing my cousin's bags back to her."

Mrs. Spadger placed her hand on her hips. The light of battle lit her features. With a sinking stomach, Charles recognized the flaw in his strategy.

“Lord Conisbrough, is't? An’ tha art friends wi’ him! Then, happen it wor better that tha stays wi’ him!"

Charles cursed his own carelessness and tried to find a diplomatic solution to this development. Ned's reputation as a rake was certain to be well known in his home village. He should have thought of that. Now that she knew them to be Ned's friends, Mrs. Spadger seemed more convinced than ever of their wickedness.

But having used Ned as an excuse, Charles could not see his way to backing out of their assumed friendship now.

He started to bluster, but Louisa, flashing him a brilliant smile, began to chuckle. Then her chuckle turned into a bubbling laugh. Nan Spadger and her husband turned surprised eyes upon her.

“That would be like asking my cousin to deliver me to the wolves, as I understand it,” she explained to them. “You must forgive him if he appears offended, but perhaps you are not aware of Lord Conisbrough's reputation. My cousin takes any injury to my good repute quite seriously, and he has refused quite firmly to introduce me to such a rake, even though we might reasonably have begged lodgings from Lord Conisbrough for the night."

Seeing that Louisa's words had raised a sympathetic look on the innkeeper's face, Charles reluctantly took her story up. “You should be more discreet, Louisa,” he said looking at her sternly. “It is not for us to be telling tales."