Lady of Spirit, A (2 page)

The Fragonards, having realized that with only one daughter they would have only a single chance to pay off a decade of social debts, had laid on a spread of mammoth proportions.

“Ices,” said Maggie on a long sigh of satisfaction after demolishing a raspberry one and following it with lemon coconut. “I adore ices—particularly for breakfast.”

“That leaves all the profiteroles for me, then,” Lizzie told her, measuring the succulent pyramid in the middle of the dessert table with a calculating eye. “No wonder we get on so well.”

“Don’t even think of pulling one out of the bottom,” Maggie warned her. “I think they’re all stuck to one another. Imagine the mess.”

“Imagine the people who wouldn’t see me filling my pockets.”

“Your pretty suit has no pockets.”

“More’s the pity,” Lizzie said with regret. “You did remind Claude that he’s to be at Wilton Crescent tomorrow morning at eight, didn’t you?”

“I sent a note, and I’m sure you did, too. Don’t fret, Liz. He’ll come. He might forget his hat, his cane, and his own name, but if there is breakfast involved before a journey, he won’t miss it. Besides, Lewis is at the club tonight.”

Which settled it. Whilst he was in Town, Claude was staying at the Gaius Club, which unbeknownst to the raffish young Blood gentlemen who gambled there, was owned and operated by their fellow former alley mouse, Lewis Protheroe, who also acted as the Lady’s secretary. No one had told Claude that the unprepossessing young man who managed the Lady’s correspondence was the same person as the one who cleared away dishes at the club and served the gentlemen their Caledonian whiskey.

No one noticed Lewis. Hardly anyone spoke to him. Which was why he was quietly building an empire on the house winnings, to say nothing of the information flowing as freely as the liquor in its smoky rooms.

The bride and groom cut the cake, and plates were handed round to all the guests. Then Emilie retired with her bridesmaids to change into her traveling costume.

When she emerged in a practical brown suit with beautiful velvet and crocheted lace trim adorning the jacket, and a saucy hat of roses, tulle, and feathers that did not clash with her spectacles in the least, Claire joined the girls.

She opened her hand. “Look what was in my piece of the bride’s cake.”

It was a small tin ring.

“Lady,” Maggie breathed. “Do you think the rhyme will come true?”

The Lady laughed. “I hardly think so, darling. I am as yet unspoken for and one needs at least a year to plan what Alice calls a
shindig
like this.”

“If you’d stop refusing proposals, Lady, it might have a chance to come true,” Lizzie said rather peevishly. Maggie chalked it up to the profiteroles and a corset that was too snug as a consequence.

But the Lady only gazed at her, as if wondering where that had come from. “I do not refuse them willy-nilly, Lizzie. Would you have wanted me to be Princess Frog-Face?”

Even Maggie could not stifle a giggle at the thought of the Kaiser’s nephew, whose unfortunate looks and inability to believe himself refused had earned him Lizzie’s undying scorn.

“No,” Lizzie admitted. “But there would be nothing wrong with being Lady Hollys.”

But at this, Claire’s face paled and turned so bleak that Lizzie touched the hand that still held the little ring. “I’m sorry, Lady. I didn’t mean it. Or I did, but I shouldn’t have said so.”

“You know my feelings on that subject,” Claire whispered. “Ian is a good man and does not deserve to have his perfectly honorable name bandied about in this manner.”

Which did absolutely nothing to explain why she had declined the privilege of bearing it. Maggie had overheard his first proposal herself, and she still didn’t understand why the Lady had refused him.

But then, she didn’t understand why poor Mr. Malvern didn’t try again, either.

In fact, despite having reached the age of sixteen, there were simply too many things in this world that Maggie could not decipher. It was enough to make a girl want to go home to the back garden and find one of Rosie the chicken’s many progeny to cuddle.

*

“Claire, how perfectly lovely to see you.”

The Lady turned and Maggie was surprised to see her smile at the young woman dressed in the next best thing to a ballgown when it was barely one o’clock in the afternoon. The other woman laid a languid hand upon her lacy breast so that both of them could take in the splendor of the enormous diamond and thick gold wedding band upon it.

“Why, Catherine,” Claire said. “It has been an age. I see you are married—how wonderful. Belated felicitations. This is my ward, Margaret Seacombe. Maggie, this is an old schoolmate of mine. Lady Catherine Montrose, now …?”

“Mrs. David Haliburton.” The woman’s overbite gave her a lisp. “But Claire, I see no rings upon your hands save that peculiar metal one. Twenty-five is the first corner, you know. You’d better hurry up.”

Maggie resisted the urge to stamp on the nasty mort’s pink slipper, but the Lady appeared unperturbed. Instead, she examined the steel ring upon the smallest finger of her right hand with pride.

“This is an engineer’s ring. I received my degree from the University of Bavaria, you know, and will be joining the Zeppelin Airship Works next month as a developer of new airship technologies.”

Mrs. Haliburton’s rather bland features took on an expression of horror. “You will be working for your living?”

Maggie could keep silent no longer. “Lady Claire chooses to advance human knowledge in that field—as her close friend the Empress of Prussia can attest.”

“Really.”

“Maggie, darling, you mustn’t take the Empress’s name in vain. You know how she hates that.”

“Well, she would. And did, that day you sailed in the prototype together.”

“That is very true, but—”

“Come, Claire, engineer or not, we must have you introduced,” Mrs. Haliburton said impatiently, as if talk of the Empress made her wish to change the subject. “Mr. Haliburton has several friends here among the company who would be delighted to meet you, despite your, er, education.”

“How very kind of you. Do you see much of Julia Wellesley—I mean, Lady Mount-Batting?”

“Oh, yes. We are still very close, you know. There she is, over there.”

She waved a hand in the direction of another young woman, who was so fashionably dressed and corseted it was a wonder she could breathe. Her brown curls were piled upon her head under an afterthought of a hat, and the ruffled train of her skirt seemed to engulf the feet of the young man with whom she was conversing.

Conversing in a rather more intimate manner than one typically did with a man who was not one’s husband.

“Is that her brother?” Lady Claire inquired.

“Oh, no, that’s Justin Knight, one of her intimate circle. The Duke of Warrington’s heir, you know. Julia has many admirers. It’s the fashion these days to have beaux. It makes parties such fun.”

“But she’s married,” Maggie blurted.

Catherine gave her the kind of look that said
children should be seen and not heard
. “You cannot be expected to understand, dear. You are very young, and have been traveling in foreign parts.”

The Lady laid a cool hand upon Maggie’s sleeve. “It was lovely to see you, Catherine. Do give my greetings to Mr. Haliburton.”

And they strolled away before Maggie could do something that would put a proper bend in the woman’s snooty snout. Oh, she would not actually have done anything to embarrass her guardian, but my goodness, surely some small gesture—a tiny accident with a glass of punch, say—would be appropriate under the circumstances?

She and Lizzie had not had much practice in being condescended to. How did the Lady bear being spoken to in that way? Did she simply not care? Was she above such things, or did she feel them as keenly as Maggie did and was simply better at hiding it?

When she found Lizzie several minutes later and got these questions off her chest, Lizzie gazed thoughtfully into the distance, where Mr. Malvern was doing his best to converse with a young lady. He had rather an air of
once more into the breach
about him, as though he had assigned himself a task and was going to perform it though it killed him.

“We must get them alone in a room, Mags,” Lizzie finally said. “It’s a wedding, innit, and Mr. Malvern already has courtship on his mind. We must simply give him an opportunity to court the Lady instead of whoever that is.”

“How are we going to do that? We can’t just collar them and push them into a closet. And most of these rooms have people in them.”

“You’re going to find an empty room and keep people out of it until I can get both Mr. Malvern and the Lady in. I was just in the powder room, and there is no one in Mr. Fragonard’s study next door. You go hold the fort, and I’ll tell Mr. Malvern the Lady wants to speak with him privately. We’ll have no trouble with him—and I’ll think of something to tell her.”

It was a pretty straightforward plan despite having been concocted in two seconds. “Right. And while you fetch the Lady, I’ll keep him occupied.”

“Done.”

Maggie found the study with no trouble. It was at the back of the house and smelled of wax and paper and leather furniture. She closed the door, then arranged herself upon the leather sofa with a wrist over her eyes, in case anyone should look in.

When the door opened and closed a moment later and she heard the lock turn, she lowered her arm. “Mr. Malvern, I’m afraid I—” She stopped. “I beg your pardon, I was expecting someone else.”

“Clearly,” said the dashing young man who was the son of the Duke of Something-or-other. “And I was expecting Julia. What an interesting situation.”

“I’m sorry, but my guardian will be here at any moment, and I do not feel well,” Maggie said in her best plaintive tones. “Perhaps you might fetch me a glass of water?”

“In a moment. You don’t look ill to me. Sure you weren’t waiting for someone?”

“My guardian.”

“No, you weren’t. Come on, you can tell me. A pretty little thing like you? Well, whoever he is, he’ll have to get past me first.” He advanced upon the sofa, and Maggie sat up, the first stirrings of alarm fluttering in her breast.

“I’m Justin. What’s your name?”

“Margaret.”

“Who’s your guardian?”

“Lady Claire Trevelyan.”

But instead of backing off like any sensible cove at the Lady’s name, he laughed. “Oh, I’ve heard of you lot. Julia’s told me. Terribly entertaining, dashing about the world with the Dunsmuirs and getting up a
fascinating
reputation. I daresay once you’ve kissed an Injun or two you’d be glad to have a kiss from a gentleman, wouldn’t you?”

Maggie hardly knew which outrageous statement to take on first. Or maybe it didn’t matter. The most urgent concern was getting up off this sofa before he trapped her on it.

She slid under his arm and made sure her shoulder caught him right in the solar plexus as she pushed to her feet. He sat down upon the sofa with a suddenness that would have caused any other man to think more carefully about his next actions.

But apparently careful thought was not Justin Knight’s forte.

He rose, straightening his wine-colored brocade waistcoat. “A young lady of spirit, are you? Providential, what? I like ’em with a bit of spunk. Come here, darling. Just one kiss, that’s all I want. When was the last time you were kissed by the son of a duke?”

“Tuesday,” Maggie lied breathlessly. She’d never been kissed, and there was no way on God’s green that this idiot was going to be her first.

“At Lady Weatherley’s ball, hmm? So you’ve got some experience, then. All right, I’ll play the game—you be the mouse, and I’ll be the cat.”

He advanced once more, and Maggie spread her feet slightly, her weight evenly balanced and slightly forward. With both hands, she gathered her skirts as though preparing to run again, and feinted with a glance to the right.

He lunged to intercept her, and when his weight was all on one leg, she kicked the load-bearing knee as hard as she could.

With an incoherent howl, he fell to the other knee. She brought one elbow down on the back of his neck with all the force she had, and he sprawled on the Turkish carpet, his chin bouncing off it hard enough to make his teeth clack.

A knock sounded on the door. “Maggie?” Mr. Malvern said. “It’s Andrew Malvern. Lizzie says you’re not feeling well.”

Justin Knight groaned and attempted to get up. Maggie stepped on his back and flattened him once more as all the breath was pushed out of his lungs. She dropped her skirts decorously, crossed the room, and unlocked the door to let Mr. Malvern in.

He took in the scene in an instant. “Good heavens. What happened here?”

“Tripped on the bloody rug,” the gentleman mumbled, attempting to rise. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Ah. Apparently he had bitten his tongue.

What a pity he hadn’t done so in a metaphorical sense before he told such a bold-faced lie. He obviously expected her to go along with it to save them both face, but she had no interest in allowing him to get away with such behavior for the sake of … what? His standing in society? Hers?

“He attempted to assault me,” Maggie said. “I dissuaded him as Mr. Yau taught us on
Lady Lucy
.”

“I see that you have. Well done, Maggie. And now I shall do my part to clear away this situation by taking out the rubbish.”

He opened the French doors and stalked back to Justin Knight, who had managed to stand. “If I catch you laying a finger on a young lady—
any
young lady—again, this is the least you can expect, you ruffian.”

He grasped the back of the young man’s coat and the waistband of his trousers, and tossed him bodily through the window. The heir of the Duke of Whatsis landed flat on his face in the flowerbed, mowing down a bank of phlox and frightening two doves up into the trees.

The gardeners had just watered the gardens so that the flowers would be at their freshest for the wedding reception. When Justin Knight rose, his face, hands, chest, and trousers were covered in sticky wet soil.