James was no great sportsman, but he had a keen appreciation for his figure, and in his pursuit of maintaining it was in the habit of riding through the park every afternoon. The next afternoon, he heard a rider draw up beside him on the bridle path and, on turning, was surprised to discover it was Mr Follet, sitting very correctly but stiffly in the saddle.

"Good day," Mr Follet called above the canter of the horses' hooves.

"Good day," James said, expecting Mr Follet to pass him.

"You are," Mr Follet called, "a decent young man."

James's gelding shied away from Mr Follet's horse, and James was prevented replying.

"I know you are," Mr Follet shouted, "for your father has often spoken of your better qualities."

James could see that Mr Follet had accosted him not merely for a greeting but to have a conversation. He debated galloping away before deciding it would be futile and slowed his horse to a walk. Mr Follet kept pace beside him.

"Do keep away," James said irritably. "Your mare has a nippy look in her eye, and my gelding is shy."

Mr Follet obligingly drew his horse a little further away but did not fall back. "When your father first came to me about you marrying Grace," he said, "he was keen to stress your better qualities. You've an amiable temper. You are loyal to your friends. Loyal to your family too. He knows how your mother gets on your nerves, yet you've never raised your voice against her. And he told me how, when he was very sick when you were eight years old, you spent days by his bedside keeping him company even though he was senseless most of the time."

"There is a formidable but coming, isn't there?" James said, made uncomfortable by the sudden recollection of distant and unhappy memories.

"I am not happy with the way you are treating Grace."

"It is possible that my father does not know me as well as he believes," James said. "I'm not convinced I do have an amiable temper. As for what I did when I was eight — well that was twenty years ago."

"Men don't change," Mr Follet said. "What one is as a child, one will be as a man. Besides, your father did not hesitate to mention that you are also childish, possessed of fits of destructive energy, a hedonist, and — worst of all — mistakenly believe yourself to be in possession of what you call wit and wiser men call impertinence."

That was a much more comfortable accusation. James could quite well imagine his father saying that.

"I do not expect you to give Grace a false idol to worship," Mr Follet said. "I should not like for her to worship a false idol to begin with — she has done so before. She has a certain romantic twist to her nature that makes her susceptible to it. But she is an innocent young woman, Redwood, quite ignorant of the reality of a man's world. She is to be protected from it." His voice became chilly. "Not to be dashed up against it in one of your fits of destruction or impertinence."

Then Grace had told her father about what he had said yesterday. Perhaps James shouldn't be surprised. But if Mr Follet talked to his father about it, James's plan would be ruined. Mr Redwood would never return James's allowance if he suspected that James was trying to use Grace to weasel out of the arrangement.

"I didn't mean to hurt her feelings," James said. "I thought she ought to understand the kind of man I am. Better for her to find out before we marry than after."

"Whatever she does find out, let her find out gently," Mr Follet said. "She has delicate sensibilities, Redwood, and I will not see them violated."

James bowed his head in acknowledgement. "I will be more careful, Sir."

They rode a little way in silence, coming out of the wooded bridle path into an open field. The day was chill but sunny, and James would have found it very pleasant were it not for his companion, who seemed to have no intention of leaving him.

"Until now," Mr Follet said after a while, "I have been thinking my wife's concerns about the match to be baseless. She speaks of your ill manners, of a certain uncouthness. I have taken it that there is a certain reluctance on your part to be bridled."

It had not occurred to James that Mrs Follet might be reporting back to Mr Follet about their courtship. Not that she had ever abandoned her duties, or left James and Grace unchaperoned as his mother had. She had merely sat some distance away from them, working on useless bits of embroidery or carpet work and occasionally interposing fluttery, uncertain suggestions for tea or observations on the weather, chiefly in regard to whether Grace might want a shawl fetched or whether James might need a screen adjusted against a draught. From the quickness of Grace's replies to those inquiries, James had gathered that Grace was irritated, perhaps even embarrassed, by her mother's solicitude. It was another mark against Grace, for James found Mrs Follet's shy, earnest consideration for others' comfort endearing. But it should have warned him that Mrs Follet would not stand idly by while he teased Grace out of the engagement. He should have guessed Mrs Follet would apply to her husband. And if Mr Follet spoke to his father about it, all would be lost.

"It was my choice to put on the bridle," said James.

"But I know the terms your father set you. It could have been no easy choice, not for a young man about town accustomed to his independence."

That sounded dangerously like sympathy. James cast Mr Follet a suspicious glance, but there was no hint of sarcasm in his expression or his tone.

"It wasn't easy," James agreed gruffly. "To be frank, I did not like it!"

"Then the incivility, the discourtesy that my wife describes arises, I think, not from any personal defect in your character, but from a certain, prolonged, shall we say... bad mood?"

It was as good an excuse as anything else. James nodded. To his surprise, Mr Follet laughed — a low, coarse chuckle in the back of the throat.

"Your father did say that you were childish," he explained. "That is very like a child."

James shifted uneasily in his saddle and his horse took the opportunity to snatch at a wisp of grass from the verge of the path. "I'll try to do better," he said.

"I know you will." The laughter disappeared from Mr Follet's voice. "You will contain your bad mood to yourself in future. And certainly, young Mr Redwood, you will not speak to Grace of matters you must know will disturb her. When it comes to women, they are best left in happy ignorance."

James stared at the back of his horse's neck.

"Mr Redwood?"

"Yes, Sir. I will, Sir."

"Good."

James thought the conversation was over, but Mr Follet kept pace with him in silence until they came to the end of the meadow and entered once more into a wooded path. It was cool, almost cold, in the shade, and James shivered and wished he could canter his horse.

"You should come to dinner this evening," Mr Follet said. "My brother and his family are visiting, so we shall be quite a party. I am sure Grace's cousins would like to meet her betrothed."

It did not sound like an enlivening evening, but at least with such a crowd, James need not be thrown together much with Grace. "Alright then. I will."

"Good day then."

"Good day."

Mr Follet spurred his horse into a trot and moved away. James waited until he was out of sight then turned his horse around and urged it into a gallop, back over the field they had come through.

James discovered that night that the party was not as large as he had expected. Mrs Follet had taken Emma and Alice to a card party, leaving Grace at home to play host to her uncle and two male cousins. The dinner was a dull one: Bernard Follet, a solicitor, dominated the conversation with jocular tales of the miseries of his clients. His two sons, both younger than James, were weedy and soft-voiced, and kept interrupting their father to argue over the legal details of the stories he told. Mr Follet seemed able to keep up with the tales, but James found most of it went over his head, even though he had read law at Cambridge. Grace, he thought, would be able to understand none of it. Indeed, she sat mute throughout the dinner, excepting to occasionally offer the men try one of the various dishes.

After the meal, Grace left the room and Mr Follet poured the port. While the glasses were being passed around, Uncle Bernard paused in his tales and looked at James.

"So," he barked, "you're the boy little Gracie's going to marry."

"I'm the man she is betrothed to," James corrected.

Uncle Bernard laughed. "I don't mean to condescend. You can't be more than thirty." A speculative look entered his eye. "Archie tells me it's a good match for Grace."

"I'm glad to know Mr Follet appreciates my virtues," James said.

"Ah, what he means is that it's good money. It's very hard when you've got five daughters and no sons to get them all married off well, but Archie always did have a canny mind." Uncle Bernard jogged his eldest son with his elbow. "I thought Harry would be a good match for one of them, but Archie doesn't believe in cousin marriages."

James looked politely at Bernard's chinless, fustian sons. It was difficult to want to inflict them even upon Grace, and Emma certainly did not deserve them, but he thought it would be rather fun to let Alice loose upon them in the name of courtship. "What a shame."

"The legality of cousin marriages may one day be called into question," the elder son said. "It would be prudent—"

"Pish!" Uncle Bernard said. "Now, young James, where will you live after your marriage?"

"In London."

"No, under your wife's thumb!" Uncle Bernard laughed at his own joke. His sons joined in. James took a deep draught of his port. Down the other end of the table, Mr Follet sipped his own with a smile.

Uncle Bernard wheezed into sobriety. "No, no, it'll be alright. Gracie's a good girl. Quiet. Does what she's told. Not like my wife." He winked at James. "I tell you, boy, never marry a Welsh. Stubborn as donkeys, the lot of 'em."

"Grace isn't Welsh," said the younger son.

Uncle Bernard ignored him. "And I hope you'll be good to Grace, boy."

"I certainly hope so too."

"After all, what's the penalty for bigamy?"

"I believe it's imprisonment."

"No, two wives! Hah!"

James eyed the bottle of port in front of Mr Follet as Bernard's sons broke out in laughter again. He did not know how Mr Follet could bear the jokes, but Mr Follet was even smiling.

Uncle Bernard wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. "And why does a woman take her husband's name?"

"I dread to imagine."

"Because everything that was his is now hers!"

James sank the rest of his port while Uncle Bernard and his sons were still cackling. When their laughter quietened, James stood.

"If you'll excuse me, I'll beg leave," he said. "I've got a bit of a headache tonight."

"A headache — now that's a wife's malady if ever there was one," said Uncle Bernard.

"You may go, James," Mr Follet said. "Grace will be in the drawing room."

The two young cousins stood to follow, but Mr Follet waved them back down. "No, no. James can be trusted to behave himself with Grace." He shot James a meaningful look. "And I'd love to hear your opinion on the St John legacy, Harry — a very interesting will indeed."

In the drawing room, James found Grace sitting at the piano playing out a one-handed dirge. She looked up when he entered, her brow creasing in worry.

"Does my father need me?"

"No. I come seeking refuge."

"Oh." She looked relieved. "Yes, Uncle Bernard can be... dominating."

"As can your father."

She shrugged and resumed her tune. It was the same set of a dozen or so notes played over and over, little more than a scale. For a while, James all but ignored her, kicking his heels on the fire-grate and mulling sulkily on Uncle Bernard's jokes. Then the tune began to get to him. He moved closer to the piano.

"You don't play?"

"A little. Not well."

"Nor I." He leaned on the piano, watching her fingers move delicately across the keys. "Play a song."

"I am."

"With two hands."

"I cannot."

"You can't?"

"Not at all. I can play the left, or I can play the right, but if I try to play them together I end up muddled. I've tried to fix it. Sometimes I can keep my left going where it should for a bar or two, but eventually..." She shrugged. "I'm not musically gifted. Emma got all the talent in the family, I'm afraid."

"And I never suspected her of any talent at all."

Grace smiled doubtfully. "Don't be cruel. She is my sister."

There was something in that doubt that gave James a sudden flash of hope. Grace had never seemed wary of him before. What he had said yesterday had affected her. It was not impossible to dissuade Grace from marrying him. He could not repeat yesterday's taunting, not after Mr Follet's warning, nor could he escalate his rudeness under Mrs Follet's watchful eye, but at least he had an edge on Grace now, leverage. His libertine side had shocked her. Very well, he would show her more of it. Not today, not with her father downstairs, but at the first opportunity. She knew already about his womanizing, so he would show her other rakish sins next — drinking and gambling, to begin with.

For now though, a little music would be an excellent diversion to an otherwise painful evening. He rather enjoyed making noise at the piano, but there was none at his parents' house for Mrs Redwood had no ability.

He sat down on the piano seat next to her. "I'll play the left-hand part. You do the right. We might be able to muddle it out together."

__

A/N 2021-06-06: I think everyone has an uncle like Uncle Bernard.