Patricia Wynn by Lord Tom Page A

admired his style of dress. And the captain had never been so unwise as to criticize his sovereign’s less successful attempts to emulate Beau Brummel. Captain Johnstone’s heroism in the Peninsula, too, should go a long way in his favour. Prinny was a sentimentalist. He had been known to break down in tears upon hearing a sad story. Surely he could be made to forgive the rash act of a tenderhearted daughter upon seeing her father, a national hero, near death.
    Yes, he must request an audience with the Regent as soon as possible. It would then be just a matter of weeks. Meanwhile, he could be priming the Regent’s advisers to smooth his way, and it would not hurt to broach the subject with Lady Hertford, the Prince’s current object of affection.
    Tom had just reached this point in his thinking when something ahead on the road captured his attention. It appeared to be an overturned carriage, and as he approached he spied two figures seated beside it in the ditch.
    He pulled up the chaise and called back to Susan. “There seems to be an accident up ahead, madam. Shall I stop the carriage?”
    Susan stuck her head out the window and uttered a little cry at the forlorn sight in front of her. “Oh, yes, Tom. Zat is, oui, oui, bien sûr!”
    The carriage and its inhabitants, as they saw when they came nearer, made a rather peculiar picture. The coach itself, enormous in size, was covered in black silk and, although it might have been in the first style of elegance more than fifty years before, was now something of a relic. It appeared to have lost an axle; the wheel must have collapsed. Indeed, the whole contraption appeared to be crumbling before their very eyes.
    Beside it were two elderly people. A lady of unbelievable antiquity—also in black silk—sat in some disarray with her feet in the ditch. Her companion, a servant of some kind, was, if possible, even older and more fragile. They both were clearly shaken by the disaster.
    “Oh, you poor dears!” cried Susan, scarcely waiting for Tom to hand her down. A squeeze from Tom’s hand reminded her to play her role, so she hastily added, “Les pauvres! What ’as ’appened?” She lifted her veil in order to speak to the aged victims.
    The two elderly people struggled to their feet, each endeavouring to help the other, and Tom and Susan hurried to add their assistance.
    “How good of you to stop,” said the lady in a quavering voice. “Our carriage overturned, as you can see. I cannot think what happened. It is my best travelling coach.”
    Susan glanced back at the coach with some surprise and avoided Tom’s eye. “Of course you cannot. Such a ’andsome carriage as it was —I am certain somes’ing can be done for it. But we must get you to a place of comfort. My name is Suzanne Faringdon.” She had decided rather abruptly that she could no longer pretend to have a limited vocabulary. The situation demanded complete sentences at the very least. Tom would have to be satisfied with a slight Gallic intonation.
    “And I am Lady Mewhinny, my dear,” replied the old lady. “That is mew, like a cat, and whinny, like a horse. Mewhinny. Are you from Scotland?”
    Susan started and, as Tom turned away to hide a smile, replied in a rather wounded voice, “Non, non, my lady. I am French. My ’usband, ’e was an Englishman.” She hoped a slight exaggeration would settle the matter.
    “And you are widowed,” Lady Mewhinny guessed sadly. “And you such a pretty young woman. I am a widow, too, my dear, though Sir William died when I was somewhat older than you are now. Could your man take a look at my carriage to see what needs to be done to right it? Perhaps we can go along in it.”
    Susan eyed the miserable heap of wood and black silk with a great deal of doubt, but, trying to make her request sound like an order, asked Tom to do his best. Then she offered Lady Mewhinny her arm to take her back to Lord Harleston’s carriage where she could be seated more