A Virtuous Lady by Elizabeth Thornton

hurdle," he would be punctilious in presenting himself at Half Moon Street. Briony was uneasy in her mind about leaving her younger brother for it seemed to her that in the months since they had taken up residence in Richmond, Vernon had thrown off the moderating influence of his temperate parents and gave every evidence of becoming as dandified and as indolent a gentleman as any of the young bucks of his new circle of friends. She was sadly aware that there was little to restrain the natural impulses of a callow youth inclined to levity, for a sister's influence was all but negligible.
    On one person, however, Briony's proximity was having a profound effect. Harriet, in the months since Briony's near disastrous accident in the curricle, had been suffering from the worst pangs of guilt that she had ever experienced in her life. That Briony had never so much as intimated the least displeasure in having the fatal cheroot thrust upon her simply to save Harriet's face swelled that young lady's sense of remorse immeasurably. She felt that her conduct had been worse than reprehensible, but when she had tried to make her heartfelt apologies, they had been brushed aside as being quite unnecessary. To be forgiven so freely and easily made Harriet's iniquity weigh even more heavily upon her. Lord Ravensworth and Avery had wasted no scruples in calling her to account for her irresponsible conduct, but from Briony there had been not even a mild rebuke. Harriet's conscience smote her heavily.
    She soon came to perceive that cousin Briony, in her own way, was as much an original and as unconventional as Harriet had ever aspired to be, but she took no pleasure in that knowledge. On the contrary, it worried her to death. That her own outrageous behavior had on many occasions scandalized the more august members of the ton had never troubled Harriet overmuch in the past. But she would tolerate no disparagement, no ridicule, no ostracism of the gentle cousin whom she had come so much to admire. Her mind was resolute. No outre act of hers should ever again lure Briony into committing a social solecism. Harriet resigned herself to becoming a Model Girl.
    Harriet's pride, however, was deeply wounded. Lord Avery she had jilted in a fit of pique when he had had the effrontery to issue an ultimatum. He had summarily ordered her to mend her ways or to cry off from their betrothal. Well, she had sent him to the roustabouts with a flea in his ear, even although her heart had been breaking. Harriet had her pride. Since then, Avery had been, with his friend Ravensworth, intermittently in her company for the last number of months. Her feminine intuition told her that her erstwhile fiancé was not immune to her charms. Moreover, her present deportment was everything he had said he wished it to be, but there had been no renewal of those offers which she had in her fury spurned. Harriet was troubled.
    Briony was no less troubled by the attentions of Avery's friend. As her acquaintanceship with Ravensworth progressed, it had occurred to her, on occasion, that his lordship was cherishing a tendre for her. That notion she had soon put out of her head when he had explained with a confiding air that the heir to His Grace, the Duke of Dalbreck , might not marry where his fancy lay but that he was expected to make a match of the first consequence. Briony heard these words with a ripple of regret for she found the Marquess the most attractive man of her acquaintance even though she freely admitted that he was not a suitable mate for a respectable Quaker girl. When, therefore, she began to suspect that she was becoming enamored of a man with whom she had little in common, a man who, moreover, was an openly confessed libertine and against whom every feeling of delicacy recoiled, she ruthlessly suppressed these tender emotions and directed her wayward thoughts in a direction more fitting for one of her gentle upbringing.
    It was impossible to avoid his company