The Emperor Read Online Free Page A

Tonbridge,' said Mr Brummell with a seraphic smile, 'how can you possibly refuse to lend them to her ladyship after that?'
    ‘ And when she has spoke of them so handsome, too!' Mr Wiske added, and could only look on in bewilderment when Lucy and Mr Brummell burst simultaneously into laughter.

Chapter Two
     
      The news of Lucy's race to Brighton was, on the whole, well received in a Season whose scandals were otherwise of the bad-tempered sort. One or two high-sticklers — what Mr Wiske called 'mossy-backs' — thought it shocking, not so much that Lucy should drive herself in an open carriage down a busy road accompanied only by her groom, for indeed she was a Countess, and what was the world coming to if a peeress could not travel according to her fancy; but because she had made herself the subject of a wager, and won a great deal of money by backing her own perform ance.
    ‘ Envy,' said Mr Wiske tersely. 'Wish they'd thought of it themselves. Wonder if we don't see dowagers organizin' wheelchair races and madeira-drinkin' contests, hoping to win enough to pay off their mortgages.’
    Danby Wiske had constituted himself Lucy's faithful attendant, admirer, and unofficial protector. That he admired her to distraction was obvious from the way he gazed at her with his mouth open and hung on her every word as though it were Holy Writ. He had attended her during the race, riding behind the curricle on horseback, despite the serious disadvantage of the dust and mud thrown up at him.
    ‘ See fair play,' he offered as an explanation, when Charles at the starting line looked surprised; and then added with a blush, 'Take care of her la'ship — see no harm comes to her.’
    When the race was done, and Lucy had beaten the Prince of Wales's time by a full fifteen minutes, Mr Wiske's admiration was secured for ever. His continual appearance thereafter by her side, or rather half a pace to the rear, might have created a real scandal, had his devotion not been so evidently dog-like and innocent. As it was, Lady Aylesbury was in general considered a dashing and enter prising young woman; her health was drunk at Carlton House twice in one week, and in the officers' mess of the 10th Light Dragoons every night for a fortnight; and Mr Wiske's devotion was thought no more than her due.
    At Morland Place, her brother James laughed and called her 'a trump', and her brother Edward wanted to know where she had changed horses. Her mother sighed and shook her head and said that there was no taming Lucy; and her husband, though laughing with James and Edward and agreeing that it was a capital stunt, and a great joke against His Highness, grew very thoughtful afterwards, and cut his visit short. Her escapade had served to remind him that he had married her in the first place to provide him with an heir, and that if she broke her neck with one of her hoyden ish pranks before she had done so, he would have to go through it all again with another woman. The idea turned him cold, and he hurried home to remind her of her duty and, if possible, to make her pregnant.
    The one person at Morland Place who remained unmoved by the event was James's wife, Mary Ann. She listened without either admiration or disapproval, indeed with no other emotion than a faint surprise that any female should wish to expose herself to so much dirt and discomfort. Her life so far had not contained such desires. As Miss Hobsbawn, her father's adored only child, she had lived a well-regulated and peaceful life in their large modern house in Manchester. Her mother had died when she was very young, and she had been brought up by a nurse, now her maid, Dakers. At the age of nine she had been sent to a convent school for three years, where she had learned to read and write and sew_ and speak French; thereafter she had had a fashionable governess for four years to teach her the accomplishments, and at sixteen had entered into society as her father's companion and housekeeper.
    Her