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reason. But do not accept him when he does pluck up the courage to ask you.”
    “I shall do as I choose, and you have no right to interfere! I am not Haymarket ware for men to fight over!” Mary said furiously. “We are discussing Matthew’s marriage, not mine!”
    “Oh, but his marriage does not interest me nearly so much as yours, or mine,” he replied blandly.
    “Yours may interest you, but mine can be of no concern to you,” she snapped, and again he chuckled.
    “Well, then let us discuss Matthew’s. Where are the culprits? Not fleeing for the border, I trust?”
    “Teresa has a sick headache, and is prostrate, poor girl. It’s no wonder after all the excitement yesterday! Matthew seldom rises so early.”
    “So Teresa is fighting shy of meeting me, is she?”
    “She is ill! I have seen her,” Mary protested, annoyed at his insinuation and lack of feeling.
    “Oh yes, she is very convincing, I grant you. You have not had the advantage that I have of seeing these headaches develop whenever there is something distasteful to be done. She would recover in a miraculous fashion if you informed her I had departed and there was to be an expedition to some milliner’s shop.”
    “I am not surprised Teresa is terrified of you,” Mary commented acidly, having recovered her composure.
    “So Teresa has favoured you with her version of my character? I do hope I am never dependent on her veracity in a court of law! I would rate my chances low indeed! The fact remains that I am her legal guardian and I will not permit her to make a fool of herself, which she would be doing by marrying your brother.”
    “Matthew is good enough to marry anyone,” his sister declared, and Sir Ingram looked at her in amusement.
    “Possibly. That is not what concerns me. Teresa is not fit to marry a boy who could not control her. Come, Miss Wyndham, you must confess you would not like to see him married to a flighty, high-spirited girl who lacks all common sense and would give him not a moment’s peace?”
    “If that is the way it would be, no,” Mary admitted. “Yet they maintain they love one another, and surely she would not wish to do anything that might distress him then?”
    “She may not wish to, but she is thoughtless, vain, and selfish, having from her earliest years been permitted to do as she wished. When I took over her management two years since, she was almost past redemption.”
    “Maybe a husband who loves her would have more success!”
    “Agreed, but not if he were himself dazzled by her, and unwilling to bear with her tantrums. Besides, an elopement and the hasty marriage they planned would not look well. I propose sending both Teresa and her mother, who is equally bird witted and lacking in sense, to my father’s Aunt Hermione who lives in Cheltenham. Removed from the temptations of London and guarded by our aunt she may come to thank me in the end.”
    “I doubt it. I admit the elopement was not well done, but they were desperate and very much in love. What do you expect them to do?”
    “Love is not the only consideration. And as Teresa has declared her undying love for at least a dozen men, you will see why I do not regard that particularly. Fortunately her father knew of this tendency, young as she was, and his will gives me the power to cut off her allowance until she is five and twenty if she marries against my will. I do not intend to allow her to marry a man who cannot support her, and thinks to sponge on her fortune.”
    “You must have had undue influence over your uncle! It’s a monstrous provision that makes it almost impossible for the girl to make her own choice, for it is clear you would not approve of anyone other than yourself!”
    “So that part of her imagination is working again, is it?” was all he commented. “Teresa first imagined herself in love with one of my footmen, and then it was the painting master at her school. At least while she has been in society the social standing