Cupid's Dart Read Online Free PDF Page B

Inchquist's poor opinion of his daughter's mettle, Sarah-Louise did not shriek and run away, or turn faint with fright. Hounds were not among the countless things she regarded with trepidation, for Sarah-Louise had survived considerable exposure to her papa's own hounds, though none of her papa's hounds were so queer-looking as this. "Halt, sir!" she said sternly, and held out a commanding hand.
    It was the hand that held the reticule. Tassels swayed. Lump parted his great jaws. "Galumphus!" snapped his master, at the same moment the young lady demanded, "Sit!" Astonished at being addressed in so forceful a manner, Lump flopped down on the bricks, directly in his master's path. Andrew, too, would have flopped down on the bricks, had not the young lady caught his arm. "Oh!" she said. "Sir, are you all right?"
    Of course Andrew was not all right. He was mortified by his weakness, and embarrassed that he had been saved from a nasty tumble by a female. Granted, the female was almost as tall as Andrew himself, but it still rankled that his rescuer was a member of the weaker sex. In the proper scheme of things, the boot would have been on the other leg. But he had regained his balance, and with it his manners. "Thanks to you, I am, ma'am," he said stiffly, and glowered at Lump, who lay panting at his feet. "You and I shall have a word later, muttonhead." Stricken with conscience by the realization that his master was looking queer as Dick's hatband, Lump meekly wagged his tail.
    Sarah-Louise could not but smile, so ridiculous did the hound appear, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, and his great plumed tail waving, and his eyes fixed wistfully on her reticule. "You must not blame the creature for following his nature. Tassels are a particular temptation, I have found." Again she peered into the crowd.
    Andrew would not ordinarily have approached a young lady to whom he had not been introduced— would probably not have approached a young lady at all, not being in the petticoat line, and certainly not one who resembled a great freckled Maypole—but Lump had precipitated matters, and now the damsel's anxious demeanor led him to wonder what was amiss. If Lump was unaware of the oddity of a very young lady of obvious breeding strolling about unescorted, Andrew was not. Brighton was a favorite meeting-place not only of fashionable society, and some of those others would not hesitate to take advantage of innocence in distress. Fortunately she was an unlikely candidate for some of the worse fates that might lie in wait for an unaccompanied female, being so freckled and so tall.
    "Permit me to introduce myself," Andrew said, and did so. "That wretched beast groveling before you goes by the name of Lump."
    Sarah-Louise blushed. So deep had she been in her own thoughts that she had not realized the young man still stood by her side. Her aunt, not to mention her papa, would hardly approve of Sarah-Louise conversing with someone to whom she had not been properly introduced. But her aunt, and her papa, approved of little that Sarah-Louise could see, and she didn't wish to be rude. "I cry your pardon. I am not usually so skitterwitted," she murmured, and in turn gave him her name.
    Andrew shifted positions, leaning heavily on his cane. "I could not but notice—are you looking for someone, Miss Inchquist?"
    Sarah-Louise lamented her tendency to blush, even as she felt her cheeks flame again. "Yes! That is, I mean, no. Oh, it is too complicated to explain, and my aunt—"
    Andrew understood perfectly. He was being cosseted and doted upon by his sister's entire household, and allowed scarcely a moment's peace. "Escaped your keeper, did you?" he inquired. The young lady looked startled. "A regular Gorgon, I suppose?"
    What an apt description of her aunt, and supplied by a perfect stranger. Sarah-Louise felt very much in charity with him. "Lieutenant Halliday, you have no idea," she sighed.
    "Sarah-Louise! What are you doing?" snapped a voice