Maggie MacKeever (9 page)

“You may oblige me even further, in time.” Careless of convention, he reached out and gently tugged an errant curl. “I make you fair warning that I intend to pursue our acquaintance, little one.”

Lady Tess, with her vast inexperience, had no way of interpreting the look that he bestowed upon her, and returned it with her frank gaze. “Why should you warn me? I should like very well to pursue our friendship, and you have promised that you mean me no harm.”

Sir Morgan’s harsh features were more than a little rueful. “So I have,” he replied, and released her. “What a talent you have for delivering me set-downs!” The countess, as was her habit, looked surprised.

Though Tess might not understand the quality of Sir Morgan’s regard, others were less naive. Drusilla, for one, knew that the gentleman for whom she cherished a decided partiality was gazing upon another woman with the expression of a hunter who has sighted fresh prey. “I make you my compliments!” she snarled at her brother, who was watching the encounter with a deceptive air of boredom. “It is just like you, Giles, to try and throw a spanner in the works.”

“I?” The duke was all offended innocence. “Dear Drusilla, I haven’t the slightest notion of what you mean.” He glanced again at Sir Morgan. “Wonderful, isn’t it, how he speaks to her with all the familiarity of an old acquaintance? The Wicked Baronet certainly has a way with the ladies! You had best look to your interests, sister, or you will find yourself out-jockeyed.”

Though Drusilla was hard pressed to preserve her composure, she knew better than to rip up at Giles, who was known within the bosom of his loving family as a “damned knowing one” and, alternately, a “cursed cold fish.” She fixed Tess, whom she would hardly have recognized in such fashionable attire, with a fulminating eye. So Giles thought his sister would be out-jockeyed? The duke would for once be proven wrong. Drusilla contemplated various means by which her unexpected rival might be disqualified from the race.

Chapter 7

“I tell you, it doesn’t signify!” Irately, Tess regarded her companions. “If you persist in this idiocy, I shall be quite out of patience with the pair of you.” Clio and Delphine exchanged a glance, for once in perfect accord.

The bedchamber allotted to Lady Tess by the Most Noble the Duke of Bellamy was exceptionally grand, containing not only a great double bed with a very high, straight back decorated in a somewhat sinister manner with rows of spindles, Gothic finials, vertical channeling, and carvings of birds, vines, flowers, and cornucopias; but also a commodious bureau, a tall marble-topped chiffonier, and a lofty double-door wardrobe with a cornice that nearly reached the ceiling, all carved to match. The room was far grander than Clio’s own quarters; but Clio, due to the distressing tenor of the conversation, neither noticed nor cared.

“I wish you would consider!” she insisted plaintively. “If you persist in this association with Sir Morgan, you will find your name being bandied about in the most odious way.”

“You have no need to trouble yourself.” The countess was sprawled inelegantly on the bed, her lame ankle propped on a mountain of pillows. Sir Morgan’s liniment having been but recently applied, the room stank like a horse barn. “Since no one here
knows
my name, ‘twould be no great catastrophe.”

This unreasonable and extremely bird-witted attitude brought down further censure. “Oh,
la vache!”
swore Delphine, who was busy at an armoire constructed of walnut, with carved panels outlined in gold leaf. “Are you dedicated to being your own executioner,
ma cocotte?
Think of Clio, if you cannot think of yourself! You are thought to be a distant relative. Any scandal that touches you will also involve her, and there is an end to a grand marriage.”

Tess propped herself up on an elbow and studied her sister who, seated on a lovely little chair on which were painted flowers in oil, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and upholstered in white satin, was unusually glum. “Have you been fretting yourself to flinders because you fear Sir Morgan will lead me into a scrape, Clio? He will not, I promise you.”

If that rogue were to lead Tess anywhere, thought Clio unhappily, it would be up the garden path, and that possibility did not seem at all unlikely in view of the way he was reputedly throwing the hatchet at her. “He is a rough diamond,” she said carefully. “A man with little regard for anything, and certainly not for propriety.”

Tess’s look of perpetual surprise grew into sheer astonishment. “Propriety?” she repeated, in tones of shock. “You astonish me, Clio!”

There was admittedly some cause for the countess’s amazement. Mistress Clio’s past career had been so far uncharacterized by any notable regard for the conventions that she had barely been prevented on any number of occasions, most notable among them an episode concerning a handsome young under-gardener, from dragging the honorable Mildmay name straight through the mud. Clio did not consider this; her purpose, which did not promise to be easily achieved, was to prevent her sister from fixing her affections on a noted profligate. Clio was no stranger to the ways of gentlemen. Sir Morgan obviously meant, for some incomprehensible reason, to make Tess the object of a flirtation; he had already, though Tess might not realize it, taken her fancy to an alarming degree. “I could never look at him without a shudder,” Clio added, somewhat untruthfully. “You know that this acquaintance is not at all the thing, else you would have told me of the meeting, and not have left me to hear of it third-hand.”

“Ah, that rankles, does it? I did not know you wished to be my confidante.” Idly, Tess ran her fingers through her masses of fair hair. “You are making mountains out of molehills, the pair of you! I assure you Sir Morgan nurtures for me no evil design.” She glanced at Clio, who looked thoroughly unconvinced. “Think, child! If Sir Morgan cherishes romantic notions, it is doubtless for demure immorality in silk and fine linen, and
not
for a fubsy-faced old maid who is not at all in his style, being plain, highbrow, and awkward! I would not have you set your face so strongly against the man when he has been nothing but kind.”

This fine logic did not achieve its desired effect but, if anything, the opposite. Clio looked at the countess and truly noticed her for the first time, not as Tess saw herself, a born spinster further condemned to that unenviable state by an insuperable handicap, but as Sir Morgan must see her, an exceptionally ethereal young woman with an unusual and appealing unworldliness.

“He is not the paragon you seem to think him!” Clio muttered. “Not only is the man known for his eternal wenching, he is drawn to gaming and low life, and is no stranger to the night houses of Leicester Square and Charing Cross, the slums of the East End, the opium dens of the docks!”

“Gambling,” Tess replied patiently, “is the national vice. “How is it
you
are familiar with such wretched places?”

“I’m not!” Clio glowered. “But I do have ears, and I heard Sapphira complain that Sir Morgan has taken Drusilla to such places. Tess, can’t you see that he is not a gentleman?”

“Have I claimed he is?” Tess looked quizzical. “You have no need to trouble yourself, Clio. I suppose it was from Drusilla that you learned I had encountered him again?’

Seeing no need to enlighten her sister as to the precise nature of that overheard conversation, during which Drusilla confided venomously to Constant that she wished nothing more than to be presented with Tess’s head on a platter, Clio nodded gloomily. Little had she thought her sister’s happiness would prove so difficult to arrange, or that Tess would prove so hot-at-hand. Clio had nurtured high hopes of the outcome of her sister’s outing with the Duke of Bellamy--it was obvious to her knowledgeable eye that Giles was already half-smitten with Tess--and then what must occur but that during it Tess should encounter Sir Morgan again! The Fates were against her, Clio thought. She had come to London to live a life of fashion and leisure, and to be entertained by the highest in the land; and it was imperative that she get Tess settled speedily so that she might get on with it.

“All men,” announced Delphine abruptly, turning away from the armoire, “are constantly in search of prey. You must take a footman with you in the future,
ma cocotte!
It is imperative that you protect your reputation.”

“My
reputation?” Tess dissolved into helpless laughter, and Delphine scowled. “Never have I been so diverted! But this is all fustian, and I wish to hear no more. Let us speak of other things.”

Fustian? thought Clio, but did not quibble lest Tess take one of her rare, but nonetheless alarming, distempered freaks. She wondered if Sir Morgan, among his other sins, might be a fortune hunter, seeing in Tess a rare opportunity to feather his nest. If so, he was hardly likely to listen to reason—Clio had already considered, as a last-ditch attempt to remove Tess from his clutches, appealing to Sir Morgan’s better nature, providing he had one—and even less likely, thus petitioned, to whistle a fortune down the wind. The alternative, were Sir Morgan
not
on the lookout for a rich heiress, was even worse: he would play fast and loose with Tess, shattering her hopes in a diabolical manner that would leave her both brokenhearted and disgraced. Or, thought Clio, perhaps it was true that Sir Morgan believed Tess a mere adventuress, in which case he need not concern himself at all with her good name. She nibbled on the inside of her cheek. If only there were some way out of this coil!

Tess had grown weary with these various unflattering estimations of Sir Morgan’s character.  If truth be known, Tess was not only unmoved by his attentions but eminently heart-whole.  She deftly changed the subject with an inquiry about Clio’s shopping expedition, undertaken the day before in Lucille’s company. It was not to be expected that Clio, who after all was long accustomed to be more than a little self-centered, should forgo this opportunity to wax enthusiastic about the new items of attire that she had bought, and the dizzying wonders that she’d seen. “It was beyond anything!” she concluded, clapping her hands. “Just think, Tess, everything is to be delivered in only a few days, for Sapphira has arranged that the ball will be this Friday. She sent out the invitations ages ago. It will be the first rout of the season, and the grandest, if Lucille is to be believed.” She glanced at Delphine, who nodded. “You are also to attend,” Clio added cautiously.

“I?”
Tess, who had paid this enthusiastic diatribe little attention, looked horrified. “Nonsense, child.”

“No, it’s not!” Clio was mutinous. “Sapphira has agreed.” That this concession had been made under great duress, and achieved only with Giles’s support, she did not explain. “Do not argue, Tess! If you do not make an appearance, neither shall I, and no one shall make me for I will lock myself in my room!”

Tess, who had no notion of Clio’s plans on her behalf, and who furthermore had never known that damsel to forgo any pleasure, was clearly bewildered. “Clio!” she protested weakly.

Clio had no intention of failing to appear at her own ball, which would not only bring her to the attention of polite society but which she intended to utilize to such good effect that she would become instantly the rage of the park, the ballroom, and the opera; but she knew the usefulness of her threat. She stuck out her lower lip and glowered terribly.

“But, Clio!” repeated Tess, no stranger to that mulish expression, which usually betokened a tantrum of awesome degree. “I have nothing to wear. And I would be extremely uncomfortable.”

Mistress Clio had no interest whatsoever in her sister’s comfort or the lack thereof. “Yes, you do!” she cried triumphantly, grinning at Delphine. “You have any number of new things, including a ball dress! I ordered them yesterday.”

“How could you?” Tess was visited by an unpleasant conviction that the reins of her life had been taken out of her hands.

“Easily!” crowed Clio. “Delphine gave me the measurements, and she will make whatever alterations are necessary. Nor need you worry that I will make you look a quiz, for even you have had to admit that I have excellent taste.” No more drab grays and browns, she thought complacently. Clio was finding in herself a remarkable talent for management, and her thoughtfulness was in no way canceled out by the fact that she embarked upon the task of clothing her sister in the same frame of mind as she might the dressing of a favorite doll. “There! I have removed your last objection. You have no choice but to attend.”

“I see.” Tess was regarding her abigail with a look of one betrayed. “Very well, I will make you a bargain: I will attend this wretched ball, but on one condition. In the matter of Sir Morgan, you will say no more to me.”

Clio considered this, and agreed. It was no great price to pay, since her words had thus far had little appreciable effect. She hoped Giles would be so overwhelmed by Tess’s appearance in formal dress that he would be swept right off his feet, and that would be an end to the matter. The duke would be more than adequate competition for a rakish baronet. If not—and Clio frowned—there was but one other course left open, and that was the fixing of Sir Morgan’s interest on herself. It was not at all what she wanted, but Clio supposed she might derive some little satisfaction from playing so deep a game.

“I’ve looked for you everywhere!” Evelyn  burst without ceremony into the room. He looked unusually neat in a frilled shirt and nankeens, and even Nidget, at his heels, had been haphazardly groomed. “The horses have been waiting this age and if we do not hurry, Papa will be cross.” He saw Tess, lying on the bed, enduring Nidget’s volatile greeting. “Don’t you mean to come along, Aunt Tess? I promise you Astley’s is more fun than anything!”

“Aunt Tess,” interrupted Clio, delighted that at least Evelyn had already succumbed to Tess’s charm, “is not feeling particularly well. You shall come and tell her all about it when we return.”

With this Evelyn had to be content. Clio smoothed her cottage vest of green sarsenet laced across the bosom and worn over a promenade dress of cambric muslin with wagoner’s sleeves, made a final adjustment to her green velvet bonnet trimmed with white satin and coq feathers, and with her improbable escort sailed from the room.