The Earl and the Hoyden. Mary Nichols

and a run-down estate. It will be interesting to see how he comes about.’

      ‘No doubt he will marry an heiress.’

      ‘What happened to the Spanish wife?’ Charlotte asked mischievously.

      ‘Charlotte, is it in your nature to be perverse? Or is it simply that you enjoy provoking me?’

      ‘Oh, I am definitely perverse,’ Charlotte said, laughing.

      They had reached her curricle, with its patient horse standing in the lane, and she bade her ladyship goodbye and drove herself home. In spite of telling herself what Roland Temple did was no concern of hers, that she despised him, she had frequently found herself thinking about him since his return and wondering how they would go on when they met again, because in a village as small as Amerleigh, they could not fail to meet. And now she knew. It was war.