Samuel Taylor Coleridge Lord Peter Havard dispatched his servant with his card the following day. He had no intention of ever speaking to Fiona again. Hadn’t he told her so when she had been so insolent to him in the Park? He should have cut her dead in Aubrey’s hall. That physical excitement he had felt at her slightest touch was simply caused by anger and dislike. He was sure Aubrey would call in person. He walked to his club to banish that picture of Lord Aubrey being entertained by Fiona. The picture would not go away and was so annoying that it was with relief he saw his old friend, the Honourable Geoffrey Coudrey, known to one and all as Cully. ‘I thought you were rusticating in the country,’ said Lord Peter, looking at his large, bearlike friend with affection. Cully was very hairy. He was the despair of his valet, who barbered him as often as his master would let him. Cully’s thick thatch of nut-brown hair grew low on his forehead, and his chin always seemed to be dark blue.
