At the beginning of the season he dutifully conducted her to routs and bals masqués, but soon she began to go always with either Andrew or Robert, both of whom were in town, and whose casual chaperonage she much preferred to Richard's solicitous care. Tracy was rarely in London for more than a few days at a time, and the Carstares, greatly to Richard's relief, saw but little of him. Carstares disliked Colonel Lord Robert Belmanoir, but the Duke he detested, not only for his habitual sneer towards him, but for the influence that he undoubtedly held over Lavinia. Richard was intensely jealous of this, and could sometimes hardly bring himself to be civil when his Grace visited my lady. Whether justly or not, he inwardly blamed Tracy for all Lavinia's crazy whims and periodical fits of ill-temper.
It did not take his astute Grace long to discover this, and with amused devilry he played upon it, encouraging Lavinia in her extravagance, and making a point of calling on her whenever he was in town.
Carstares never knew when not to expect to find him there; he came and went to and from London with no warning whatsoever. No one ever knew where he was for more than a day at a time, and no one was in the least surprised if he happened to be seen in London when he should, according to all accounts, have been in Paris. They merely shrugged their shoulders, and exchanged glances, murmuring: "Devil Belmanoir!" and wondering what fresh intrigue he was in.
So altogether Richard was not sorry when my lady grew suddenly sick of town and was seized with a longing for Bath. He had secretly hoped that she might return to Wyncham, but when she expressed no such wish, he stifled his own longing for home, shut up the London house, and took her and all her baggage to Bath, installing her in Queen Square in one of the most elegantly furnished houses in the place.
Lady Lavinia was at first charmed to be there again; delighted with the house, and transported over the excellencies of the new French milliner she had discovered.
But the milliner's bills proved monstrous, and the drawing-room of her house not large enough for the routs she contemplated giving. The air was too relaxing for her, and she was subject to constant attacks of the vapours that were as distressing to her household as they were to herself. The late hours made her head ache as it never ached in London, and the damp gave her a cold. Furthermore, the advent of an attractive and exceedingly wealthy little widow caused her many a bitter hour, to the considerable detriment of her good-temper.