False Colours by Georgette Heyer Page A

in London: the present mode, sir, is for high crowns.’
    ‘Never mind my dowdy rig!’ said Kit. ‘What the devil is my brother doing?’
    ‘I don’t know any more than you do, sir, and it’s got me all of a twitter! It might be that he went off in one of his distempered freaks, and yet I don’t think it, somehow. My lady will have told you that he’s in a way to become buckled?’
    ‘She did, but he has never so much as given me a hint of it,’ replied Kit grimly. ‘Something damned brummish about the business! Well, if anyone knows the truth you do, so tell it to me, without any hiding of the teeth! Is he turning short about?’
    ‘No, that I’ll go bail he’s not!’ Fimber replied. ‘No one knows better than me the sort of bobbery he’ll get up to when he’s in high leg, but he wouldn’t play nip-shot now—not when he’s made the young lady an offer! What’s more, he wasn’t poking bogey when he told me, and her ladyship too, that he would be back within the sennight, for he bid me to be sure to engage the barber to come to trim his hair today. He will be here, sir, at noon.’
    ‘And what, pray, has that to do with me?’ asked Kit, eyeing him with misgiving.
    ‘It occurs to me, sir, that you are wearing your hair too long. His lordship favours more of a Corinthian cut.’
    ‘Oh, does he? Now, you may stop pitching your gammon, and tell me this!—Are you thinking that I might take my brother’s place tonight?’
    ‘Well, sir,’ said Fimber apologetically, ‘the notion did cross my mind! It seems as if it was meant ,you coming home without a soul’s being the wiser, and not bringing that foreigner with you—and no need to worry about your baggage, for you may leave it to me to see it safely stored. No need to worry about your clothing either, because his lordship has enough and to spare for the pair of you. Nor it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve changed shoes with him, not by any means it wouldn’t be!’
    ‘The circumstances were very different. I’ve told my mother that already.’
    Fimber turned a shocked countenance towards him. ‘You told my lady you wouldn’t help his lordship to bring himself home? Well! Never did I think to see the day when you would not be ready to through stitch in anything for his sake, Mr Christopher! As he would for you, no matter what might come of it!’
    ‘I know that. Nor would I hang back an instant, however much against the pluck it might be, if I were convinced it was what he wished me to do. But that’s where the water sticks, Fimber: I’ve a strong feeling that there’s nothing he wishes less than to marry Miss Stavely. If that’s so, I should be better employed trying my possible to bring him safe off.’
    ‘You can’t do that, sir! Why, he’s offered for her! You wouldn’t have him play the jack, putting such a slight on the poor young lady—no, and he wouldn’t do it! I don’t say he hasn’t often set people in a bustle with his starts, but I’ve never known him behave ungentlemanly, not in all the years I’ve served you both!’
    ‘I was wondering rather if I couldn’t contrive to get Miss Stavely to cry off. I wish you will be open with me! Don’t try to persuade me that he isn’t blue-devilled: I know he is!’
    ‘Well, sir, since you ask me, in my opinion he wasn’t near as blue-devilled when I saw him last as what he has been ever since—’ Fimber broke off in embarrassment.
    ‘Ever since when? Go on, man!’ said Kit impatiently.
    Fimber began with finicking care to fold the despised waistcoat. His reply was evasive. ‘It is not my place, Mr Christopher, to speak of the circumstances which might have caused his lordship to offer for Miss Stavely, but he didn’t make up his mind to it in the twinkling of a bedpost, as you might say. So don’t you get to thinking that he did it on the spur of the moment, and was sorry for it after, because that’s not so. I’m not saying it was what he’d have chosen to