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.These must be your sisters?”“Sarah and Prudence, my lord,” Harriet told him shyly.The little girls curtsied.Prue, at six years old, had not quite mastered the art and she wobbled.The viscount put out a hand to steady her.She beamed at him.“I'm getting better,” she assured him.“We're going for a walk.Do you want to come?”To Mimi's astonishment the top-o'-the-trees nobleman, after a moment of grave consideration, said that that was a delightful idea and offered Harriet his arm.As they strolled away, the children running ahead, she stared after them, then glanced disconsolately down at her soiled riding habit.Oh well, all in a good cause, she thought, shrugging her shoulders.It was a pity, though, that Harriet had not had a chance to talk to Mr.Hurst.“Do you mean to help us, Princess?”Simon and Jacko were tying the buckets full of plants to the patient Brownie's saddle.Mimi picked up her hat and went to join them.“Thank you, sir, we should never have managed without you.” She held out her hand to Simon.He took it, but replied, “We're not finished yet.There's the planting to be done.”“Oh, but I didn't expect.” she began, disconcerted.“I never leave a task unfinished.Let us be on our way before those clouds I see in the west arrive.”To ride when he was walking would have been rude, she felt, even though he looked more like a laborer than a bailiff with the fork and spade over his shoulder.Leading Deva Lal, she fell into step beside him.“You did a splendid job of pinning up your train,” he congratulated her with a grin.“I quite thought I was going to have to leave Sir Josiah's boots behind me in the lake.”Suddenly the day was sparkling again.She laughed.“You looked so very funny.That was further proof that you're not a frog, whatever your horse may think.Whoever heard of a frog getting stuck in a pond?”* * * *“I can't be a sailor anymore and I'll never make a town beau,” Simon pointed out to Gerald that evening as they sipped Sir Josiah's ruby port.“I might as well make the best of it and accustom myself to rustic pursuits.”“I am acquainted with a number of gentlemen who enjoy the pursuit of rustic beauties,” his cousin drawled, “but devil if I know any who pursue them through knee-deep mud.”“I've no intention of pursuing Miss Lassiter, I assure you.” To himself, he qualified that statement: except to gain my promised rewards.“I'm damned if I know how she inveigled me into this morning's escapade.”“I have met Miss Lassiter before,” Gerald mused, holding his glass up to the light and admiring the rich color.“I thought her a well-behaved, insipid miss no different from a hundred of her kind.How wrong I was! To what do we owe the transformation, I wonder?”“I don't know, but I'm quite certain there's method to her madness.She's more or less admitted to some deep-laid plan, to what end I've no notion.”“One shudders to think.Pray do not allow yourself to be ensnared by the tiresome child.”“I'm in no danger—she thinks me a bailiff.But what of you and Miss Cooper, coz? I near fell back in the lake when I saw you walking off with her on your arm as if you were strolling in Hyde Park with a blue-blooded debutante.”“With a blue-blooded debutante, as you vulgarly put it, or even with Miss Lassiter, I might indeed arouse expectations.The daughter of a country parson has more sense than to let her hopes be raised.”“You mean no more than a flirtation, then?” Simon hoped he didn't sound disapproving.He rather liked Harriet Cooper and would be sorry to see her hurt.“Gad no,” said Gerald, bored.“Miss Cooper has not a flirtatious bone in her undeniably shapely body.We spoke of parish business.Shall we join Aunt Georgina?”Simon drank down the remains of his glass of port and followed the viscount from the dining room.Gerald paused with his hand on the drawing-room door handle
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