A Most Lamentable Comedy Read Free Page A

Her arse seems much reduced, and I suspect she has removed some half-dozen petticoats. Barton will be disappointed.
    ‘Don’t be a fool. It worked— Why, sir, I am much obliged for your kindness.’ Her voice is warm and throaty. ‘May I have the honour of knowing who my rescuer is?’
    ‘Congrevance, madam. Nicholas Congrevance. I trust you’re recovered?’
    ‘I am Lady Caroline Elmhurst.’ She pauses and looks for a reaction. Obviously her name should mean something to me. ‘Have we met in London, sir?’
    Her maid mutters something, curtsies and leaves the room, banging the door behind her.
    I take Lady Elmhurst’s outstretched hand, her fingers warm and supple in mine. ‘No, madam, I’m but lately come back to England.’
    ‘You have been on the Continent, then, Mr Congrevance?’
    ‘Yes, I have. Do you travel alone, madam?’
    She lowers those long eyelashes and sighs. ‘I am a widow. And you, sir?’
    Well, well. She wears no mourning jewellery that I can see, so this cannot be a recent bereavement.
    ‘I travel only with my man, Barton. I am a bachelor, madam.’
    She nods and gives me a discreet, appraising glance as she offers a chair and tea. I accept for the pleasure of seeing the grace of her arms and bosom as she wields the teapot, lashes still modestly lowered.
    ‘I’m bound for Otterwell’s place, as I believe you to be,’ I tell her. ‘Might I offer you and your maid a place in the trap, Lady Elmhurst?’
    ‘You are too kind, sir.’ She raises her eyes to mine – large, blue-grey and enchanting. An extraordinary sensation comes over me; I fall into their depths as surely as I was lost when I sank into the canal.
    Lady Caroline Elmhurst

    I am tempted to lick the crumbs from my plate, but I really feel I do not know Congrevance sufficiently to do so before him. In the interests of propriety, or its appearance, I suggest we leave for Otterwell’s house. I am not so much of a fool, or a hypocrite, to deny the carnal interest that hums between me and Congrevance. He has done nothing but sum up my various parts since we met, and I must admit I have given him every opportunity to do so. My lawn scarf is too creased to wear at my neckline, and I cannot help if my skirt pulls up a little as I enter the trap. I study him with equal interest. I was not entirely unconscious when arried me inside the inn; I heard the pleasing thud of a man’s heartbeat close to mine, and had the opportunity to examine the cloth of his coat (a very fine wool). An excellent sign, as is his absence from London, for chances are he has had little opportunity to squander his money there, or to know the most sordid details of my fall from grace.
    Being pressed against his warm, hard person (his chest, that is) almost made up for the distressing weakness and sickness that assailed me, but happily that was dispelled shortly after by toast and tea (paid for by Congrevance), and now I feel quite restored to health.
    He travels simply, but the quality of his clothes, his air, speak of breeding and undoubted fortune. He is accompanied by a manservant whose ugly face and squat build I find repulsive, but with whom Mary, the shameless slut, flirts and giggles as the trap bowls along the country lanes.
    ‘I have missed this,’ Congrevance says, gesturing in a foreign sort of way.
    ‘Cows, sir?’
    ‘No.’ He shakes his head, smiling. ‘The countryside. It is so very green and soft.’
    ‘You are a great traveller, then?’
    ‘I was most recently in Italy.’
    He doesn’t seem inclined to chat, which is as well – for gentlemen, I find, gnaw upon topics that are of no interest whatsoever, like a dog upon a bone: politics (Bludge), horseflesh (Elmhurst), cricket, surely the worst of the lot (Linsley) and military manoeuvres, a close second (Rotherhithe). So I am quite content to watch Congrevance, and a beautiful creature he is, with his long elegance of bone and his dark grey eyes – a surprise, for I should have