Talk of the Ton. Mary Nichols

of course. I should like to study exotic plants in their own habitat, collect specimens and seeds to bring back. That is how you obtained those wonderful shrubs you have in your own garden and conservatory, is it not? Someone had to bring them to this country.’

      ‘Yes, but not a woman.’ His severe look softened. ‘It appears that I have misjudged you, my dear, but are plants all you think of? Surely you sometimes dream of a husband and children? You are very good with Jamie and he adores you.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘Though he is to blame for telling me you had arrived. He heard your voice and left his bed to greet you.’

      ‘It was Jamie?’

      ‘Yes. Did you hope I would not discover your presence in my house?’

      ‘No,’ Sophie put in quickly, before Beth could confirm that. ‘But we hoped to defer it until the morning. I was not expecting you back until late.’

      ‘The King decided he would visit Lady Conyngham and no longer needed me. I think he realises I disapprove of his affairs especially since he came to the throne. In any event, it enabled me to look forward to an evening at home with you, my dear. I was never so put out as when I saw a strange man in my drawing room, chatting gaily to my son as if he belonged here.’

      ‘He is the sort to make himself at home anywhere,’ Beth put in. ‘A more self-opinionated man, I have yet to meet.’

      ‘Not self-opinionated,’ her aunt said. ‘Self-assured would be more accurate and perhaps he has had to be, travelling the world as he has.’

      ‘You travelled all over the place and it did not make you arrogant,’ Beth said, referring to the fact that Sophie had been dragged all over the continent with her parents before they both died in exile and she came back to England to throw herself on the mercy of her mother’s cousin, who just happened to fall in love with her and marry her.

      ‘Let us leave the subject of Mr Melhurst’s character,’ James said, spearing a piece of succulent ham on his fork. ‘It is getting us nowhere. The important thing is what is to be done.’

      Beth was about to tell him that if he thought he could marry her off willy-nilly, he was way off the mark, but thought better of it and remained silent.

      ‘We have sent for your mama,’ the Duchess told her. ‘If she is able to come at once, she should be here the day after tomorrow, or perhaps Friday. Until she arrives, you must stay indoors. It must look as though you all arrived together.’

      ‘Very well,’ Beth agreed, though the prospect of spending three days confined to the house was not one she relished. She had always been one for the outdoors, walking, riding and gardening, none of which would be easy in South Audley Street. ‘But the servants know I am here…’

      ‘They know better than to gossip, certainly not outside these four walls,’ her uncle told her.

      But they bargained without the strange way the ton had of finding things out and passing them on, adding their own embellishments for good measure.