Maggie MacKeever (3 page)

“Jessamyn!” Eulalia was patently scandalized. “This conversation is not at all the thing! How can you speak so to your father, you unnatural girl? You should not even admit the existence of such creatures as Adorée Blissington. I am thoroughly shocked that Lord Roxbury pointed her out to you—for so he must have done, since you were with him in the park, and if he had
not
pointed her out, you wouldn’t have known who she was! I shall have several words to say to him on this matter, you may be sure!”

“Poor Shannon,” remarked Jynx, rather ambiguously. “He told me she was not at all the thing.” She turned once more to her father. “Shannon has engaged himself to speak to you this morning, Papa.”

“Very proper.” Sir Malcolm cast a keen glance at his lethargic offspring.

“Yes, isn’t it? I told him it wasn’t necessary, but Shannon is a great one for the
form
of things.” Replete, Jynx dropped her fork and leaned back in her chair. “He said that since I’ve persuaded him to take the fateful step, he means to see that it’s executed properly. Which I will admit is generous of him.”

Eulalia was not attending wholeheartedly to these remarks, but pondering the uncooperative attitude of her deceased sister’s family. Eulalia had done the best she could for the Lennoxes, had attempted to divert Sir Malcolm from his pursuit of matters legal to an appreciation of his social position, had tried to instill in the unenthusiastic Jessamyn an allegiance to ladylike behavior. Her efforts, unfortunately, had been only partially successful. Though Sir Malcolm refused to neglect his magisterial duties, he had taken time to ensure that his daughter stood in highest favor with the
ton;
and though Jynx was in all appearances—save for her most regrettable figure—ladylike, and behaved always—or almost always—with decorous affability, she was utterly and unalterably unfashionable.

Eulalia stared at that young lady, who was dressed in a morning dress of white French lawn. The gown itself was unexceptionable, as Eulalia well knew, having herself selected it. However, Jynx’s indecent proportions transformed even the primmest gown into something suitable only for a demirep. Furthermore, the girl hadn’t bothered to do anything at all with her hair, so it was tumbling down her back in a most hoydenish way. Clearly, Eulalia’s efforts had been futile, and unappreciated beside. It was scant wonder that she could think of nothing but the wrongs done her by the insouciant Lennoxes.

Sir Malcolm and his daughter had taken advantage of Eulalia’s abstraction to pursue their conversation. “Good girl!” Sir Malcolm uttered then. “I knew you’d take the field.”

“Did you, Papa?” Miss Lennox looked wry. “I confess I haven’t your faith in my persuasive abilities.”

“What’s this?” inquired Eulalia, brought back to the present by a conviction that if Sir Malcolm approved of his daughter’s conduct in some instance, Eulalia herself was certain to disagree. “Just who have you persuaded to do what?”

“Shannon.” Jynx was of too kindly a nature to allow anyone to suffer needless confusion. “I made him an offer, and he accepted me.”

“You did
what?”
shrieked Eulalia, so shrilly that the chocolate cups rattled in their saucers. “I cannot credit it! How could you behave so brazenly? But I see, this is merely another of your tasteless jests. At least, Jessamyn, you might be serious on the subject of your marriage!”

Jessamyn squelched an ignoble impulse to remark that, on the subject of marriage, her aunt possessed sufficient seriousness for ten. Eulalia was forever pointing out dire examples of young ladies who had succumbed to the blandishments of polished gentlemen, only to discover too late that their adoring bridegrooms were the greatest beasts in nature—if not worse. “You misunderstand,” Jynx said calmly. “I am perfectly serious about marrying Shannon. We shall suit each other very well.”

Eulalia was stricken dumb with horror. She might not understand her niece’s popularity with the gentlemen—as evidenced by two baronets, three earls, a royal duke and an unhappy marquess—but she had taken steps to counter it. Eulalia had warned her niece at great length against fortune hunters, had stressed that it was not Jynx herself but the Lennox wealth which held great allure, and for good measure had waxed graphic about the horrors of the marriage bed. It had been with great satisfaction that she’d seen Jynx treat her suitors in a most cavalier manner, had heard Jynx express herself fatigued by persistent avowals of devotion. “Gracious!” Eulalia ejaculated, recovering her powers of speech. “I hope you may not have to repent of your choice, my girl! Lord Roxbury will make you toe the line;
he
ain’t one to put up with your odd humors and your air-dreaming and your megrims!”

“I don’t see why not,” replied Miss Lennox. “He’s been putting up with them for years.”

Sir Malcolm, upon this renewal of strife, exchanged the
Times
for the
Morning Post,
and withdrew once more. Sir Malcolm was very fond of his daughter, who had never in her entire life caused him a moment’s unease. Furthermore, he understood her, as Eulalia did not. Jynx disliked fuss and bother; she refused to have demands made of her; she was expert at removing herself from unpleasantness.

The current unpleasantness from which Jynx sought to divorce herself appeared, to Sir Malcolm’s shrewd eye, to be Eulalia. It was as good a reason as any to marry, and so he did not interfere. Left to herself, Jynx would doubtless have drifted into a dilatory spinsterhood, and Sir Malcolm had a strong wish to view at least one grandchild before he expired of old age. He listened with irritation to his sister-in-law’s unlovely voice. Sir Malcolm had an even stronger wish to rid himself of Eulalia and he would do so promptly, once Jynx was safely wed.

This Eulalia did understand. Since she had no intention of departing the comfortable opulence of Sir Malcolm’s residence in Lennox Square, it was clearly incumbent upon her to see that Jessamyn did
not
wed. Thus she proceeded to paint a harrowing picture of married life, during which Jessamyn slumped even more dreadfully in her chair. How in the world,
wondered Eulalia, who had not been made privy to Jynx’s own opinion that the viscount had agreed to marry her out of sheer self-defense, had her niece managed to lure London’s most sought-after and elusive bachelor to the altar? Doubtless by the practice of wicked art and depraved contrivances! It passed human bearing. The girl should have been at her last prayers, safely considered on the shelf.

“You’ll have to change your ways,” Eulalia continued craftily. “Believe me, Jessamyn, what a gentleman accepts casually in a friend, he will not tolerate in a wife. There’ll be no more ill-considered behavior, and the viscount will not permit his wife to shirk her responsibilities.
He’ll
see that you take your rightful place in society.”

Jynx, to her aunt’s disappointment, took these dire predictions in good part. “I do not enjoy frivolity,” she replied equably. “Nor do I care to be racketing myself to pieces or exhausting myself with the trivialities of life. Shannon understands perfectly.”

“Almacks!” cried Eulalia, horrified. “The opera!”

“Tedious,” retorted Jynx. “Unutterably and intolerably insipid.”

Aghast as she may have been at these blasphemous announcements, they suited Eulalia very well. “You will be well-served,” she remarked slyly, “when your indifference drives your husband to seek consolation from Paphian girls, and takes all sorts of vulgar mistresses. It ain’t like you’re making a love match! He may even form a connection of a more particular nature, and then where will you be, miss?”

“Why, then,” remarked Miss Lennox, with every evidence of unabated good humor, “I shall be smack in the midst of a
ménage à trois.
I confess to a certain curiosity as to how that particular relationship is accomplished.”

“Serves you right, Eulalia!” The unpaternal Sir Malcolm roared with laughter as his sister-in-law spluttered indignantly. Jynx, meanwhile, had glanced at the doorway.

“Good morning, Shannon!” said she. “You will have heard me telling Aunt Eulalia that I’ve no objection should you become enamored of a
fille de joie.”

Lord Roxbury, who had spent an informative few moments in the Lennox hallway, had heard a great deal more than that, as a result of which he was possessed of a fervent desire to wring Eulalia’s scrawny neck. “You’ve no objection to anything, my poppet,” he responded, and ruffled his fiancée’s hair. “It is no small part of your charm. Good day, Eulalia. Sir Malcolm, how goes the war?”

This matter of her niece’s betrothal, decided Eulalia, would require considerable thought. She did not like Lord Roxbury, who had all the instinctive aloofness of one born to wealth the most enormous; but even Eulalia had to concede that he was sardonically elegant, if a trifle cold in his manner; and that he was undeniably handsome and a fine catch for any girl. Sir Malcolm approved the match, as was obvious from the enthusiastic manner in which he addressed his prospective son-in-law. Having been acquainted with the viscount for so many years, neither Sir Malcolm nor Jynx were likely to credit any attempts to blacken his character. Eulalia sank into a rather sullen meditation.

“I almost forgot.” Lord Roxbury handed Jynx a note. “It was delivered by a grubby urchin while I was still at the front door.” With exquisite tact he turned back to Sir Malcolm, and thus did not see Jynx glance at the missive, then tuck it hastily into her sleeve. “What think you of Napoleon’s chances of success now, sir? His
Grande Armée
is in inglorious retreat, forced out of Moscow, and harried incessantly by Wellington in Spain.”

“Napoleon has made two fatal errors,” offered Jynx, propping an elbow on the table, and resting her chin in her hand. “He attempted to annex Spain against the wish of the Spanish people, and he tried to invade Russia. Now his defeats in Russia and Germany constantly reduce the number of French troops in Spain. The Corsican has spread himself a great deal too thin, I think.”

Young ladies should not, of course, have dared to thusly ruminate, and Eulalia said so. “If you don’t like the conversation, Eulalia,” retorted Sir Malcolm, “you may leave!” Lord Roxbury, thereby relieved of the necessity of defending his fiancée’s right to think anything she wished, smiled upon Jynx and removed a dangling chestnut curl from the marmalade.

“I have it on good information,” continued Sir Malcolm, pleased to have silenced—if only temporarily—the annoying Eulalia, “that what we hope will be Wellington’s final advance through Spain has begun.”

“And the Russians, assisted by the Hohenzollers, are sweeping the French from Northern Germany,” offered Jynx, as she licked the marmalade from her hair. “Napoleon’s star is on the wane, poor little man. But Shannon will have other appointments today. Papa, as you do yourself! Perhaps you might wish to speak privately.”

Sir Malcolm, unaware of the import of the note his daughter had received, considered this unusual impatience on her part an indication of prospective marital felicity. Lord Roxbury, who did not similarly flatter himself, regarded her rather warily. Jynx raised limpid eyes to his face.

“Come, Jessamyn!” Eulalia saw an opportunity in which to further spread her poison. “The gentlemen will not require your presence.”

“Ah!” said the viscount, who made a formidable opponent. “But the gentlemen do.” Jynx regarded rather wistfully the tanned fingers that clasped her wrist. This rare melancholy was not prompted by such physical intimacy—Lord Roxbury had, during the years of their association, clasped this and various other portions of Miss Lennox with fair regularity— but by a regret that she had ever received the wearisome note that rested with all the potential threat of explosive gunpowder in her sleeve.

Eulalia goggled. The viscount, she decided, was a very great bit of an oddity. “But marriage portions!” she protested. “And settlements! You don’t want Jessamyn to hear about such things.”

“Why not?” Lord Roxbury raised the gold-handled quizzing glass that hung on a black ribbon around his handsome neck, and utilized it to good effect. “Since it is Jessamyn who is being thusly disposed of, I think she might find the proceeding of interest.” He dropped the glass—having reduced Eulalia to glaring speechlessness—and studied his fiancée. “Would you, poppet?”

“Rather!” Jynx would have welcomed any opportunity to delay a perusal of her letter. That illegible handwriting could have been scrawled only by one pen; and involvement with Cristin Ashley, in Jynx’s experience, invariably led her to strenuous exertions indeed.

In high dudgeon, Eulalia swept from the room. Wonderfully strange, the affectionate manner in which the high-and-mighty Lord Roxbury regarded a mere dab of a girl. Strange, but to Eulalia’s advantage. Unaware that her phlegmatic niece was by her own, albeit unwilling, efforts about to land herself in a peck of trouble, Eulalia had conceived of a brilliant scheme.

Chapter Three

Eulalia Wimple was not the only person to bewail the betrothal of Lord Roxbury to Miss Lennox; a positive dirge was underway within the walls of a certain red brick house in Portland Place.

Adorée Blissington was in her drawing room, a rectangular chamber with an elegant coved ceiling, doorways of Italian Renaissance design, and walls hung with rich damask. The furnishings were of cane, boasted clever latticework, and were painted with classical subjects and floral designs.

Lady Bliss lounged upon a two-back settee, with medallions painted in the Kauffman style. She was
en déshabillé
in a froth of ruffles and lace. Her hair was in artful disarray; her gray eyes were red-rimmed; and her elegant nose was buried in a lace-edged handkerchief.

“Come, do not take on so!” said her gentleman companion, who was sprawled in a decidedly uncomfortable chair. “It’s not as if you didn’t expect to be given your
congé.”

“But one
should
weep on such occasions!” Lady Bliss briskly blew her nose. “One should love with utter abandon, and utter indifference to what people think and say. And it is very lowering to be cast aside like—like an old shoe!”