Maggie MacKeever (32 page)

“Oh?” said Jynx, unenthusiastically. Sir Malcolm, an imposing figure in magisterial robes and powdered wig, seated himself at the cluttered desk. “I must tell you, Papa, that I delivered your warning to Adorée—not that it did very much good.”

Sir Malcolm was indeed the most unnatural of parents, a fact upon which Lord Roxbury felt obliged to comment. “You sent your daughter to Blissington House, knowing not only that Adorée runs gambling rooms but that Innis is involved in theft? After the things you said to me about the Ashleys when you sent me to bring Jynx home? How could you, sir!”

Sir Malcolm had the grace to look flustered. “What else would you have me do?” he replied testily. “Go there myself? I couldn’t let Adorée be blindly arrested, not after—Hah! You of all people should understand that a man feels a certain responsibility!” Since Shannon had been apparently rendered mute by this frank explanation, he turned to his daughter, who was grinning. “Well, Jynx? What did Adorée say?”

Miss Lennox’s good humor deserted her. “She said that she thought it very clever of Innis to have contrived so well. Papa, what are we to do?”

“Not we,” responded Sir Malcolm,
“
you! Not only am I a magistrate, I am
the
magistrate who just issued a warrant for the apprehension of Innis Ashley on suspicion of involvement in theft and fraud. It was the best I could do, though I will admit to you that the evidence against him is staggering.”

“Poor Adorée!” said Jynx. “Must she be involved, Papa?”

 “Not if you get her out of town on the
qui-vive!”
Sir Malcolm was impressed by his daughter’s perspicacity. “Consciously or not, she is involved in the passing of stolen goods, because we have proof positive that Innis conducted his operations from Blissington House. Adorée’s credit with the world is not such that she can emerge unscathed. All three of us know that she has scruples, but it’s not a thing a jury would believe.”

This was certain; about those scruples even Lord Erland had been in doubt.
“Does
Lord Erland have a little place in the country?” Jynx inquired thoughtfully.

“Several of them, I should think!” Sir Malcolm looked confused. “What does he have to do with it? Which reminds me, your aunt has taken it into her head that you mean to elope with Peverell.”

“Jynx,” said Shannon sternly, “is going to elope with
me as
soon as this curst business is settled. With your permission, sir?”

“Given.” Sir Malcolm waved a paternal hand. “In fact, I was going to suggest that the two of you would be wise to be elsewhere when this scandal breaks.” He shot his daughter a keen glance. “Since neither of you are unacquainted with Blissington House and Innis Ashley.”

“I must,” Miss Lennox murmured serenely, “direct a note to Lord Erland.”

Sir Malcolm expressed a strong desire to know why his daughter, on the eve of contracting an alliance that from all appearances she had desired for years, should be writing letters to other men. He then expressed his opinion that if his daughter was not desirous of contracting said alliance, she should not be sitting on her prospective bridegroom’s lap. “Never mind, sir!” Lord Roxbury said hastily. “It would take too long to explain. A warrant has been issued for Innis Ashley’s arrest?”

Successfully distracted, Sir Malcolm frowned. “It has, and I expect at any moment to be informed that he’s been taken into custody. Damned if I can approve of this hole and corner affair. I don’t like it above half.”

Neither, suspected Jynx, would the Ashley clan. “Should Innis be arrested, then what. Papa?”

Never had a magistrate looked less happy at contemplating the apprehension of a desperate criminal. “He’ll be examined by the magistrates, on which day
I
will be mysteriously ill. Damned if I can stomach interrogating the brother of a woman who—” Sir Malcolm broke off to wonder briefly if his fellow men of law would feel similarly. He decided they would not. “If the victims of the thefts fail to identify him, he will be discharged and paid for his expenses and inconvenience. But I’ve little hope that he’ll not be identified.”

Jynx recalled the brazen manner in which Innis had appropriated her betrothal ring. If that was the style in which he customarily set about stealing things, she could not but agree. “Devil take it!” cried Sir Malcolm, so stridently that she jumped. “Innis hasn’t the wit to set up such an operation! I vow I’d let him go free if only I knew who set him up to this.”

“You would, Papa?” Miss Lennox inquired contemplatively.

“No!” uttered the viscount.

“I would.” Sir Malcolm’s brows beetled. “You understand that I can do nothing
after
he’s arrested, which is why you must go immediately to Adorée and discover where Innis is. Then you must find him, and learn from him the identity of the mastermind, and tell Innis to leave the country at once.”

“And Adorée?” inquired Jynx, as Lord Roxbury opened his mouth to voice even more strenuous protest.

Sir Malcolm drummed his fingers on his desk. “Get her out of Blissington House. Where you take her is your business, but for God’s sake don’t bring her
here.
Stealth and secrecy, that’s the ticket. None of you must be recognized.

“The deuce!” ejaculated Shannon. “I’m surprised you don’t tell us to bring in the mastermind!”

“That would be very nice,” Sir Malcolm replied thoughtfully, “but I do not expect miracles. And I would not want Jynx involved in something dangerous. Now stop dawdling, or the Runners will get to Blissington House before you do!”

Lord Roxbury could not find words sufficiently outraged to express his disapproval of this scheme. It was as he sought them that Miss Lennox suffered an enlightenment so staggering that she clutched at him. Roused from annoyance to ardor, the viscount clutched her in turn. “Shannon!” she cried, as Sir Malcolm stated his grave displeasure with this untimely amorous scene. “Blissington House! Adorée and Innis and Percy and
Cristin!”

Thusly prompted, Shannon achieved revelation of his own. “God in heaven!” he uttered, and released his fiancée so abruptly that she tumbled off his lap. “Eleazar Hyde.”

“Yes,” breathed Jynx, as she picked herself up off the floor. “Shannon,
please?”

Lord Roxbury gazed upon her pleading face, and could not find it in himself to refuse. “Oh, very well. But you must not get in the way!”

“Bravo!” Sir Malcolm did not explain whether this praise was for the viscount’s decision or for his daughter’s feminine guile. “Now we come to the matter of disguise.”

“Disguise?” the viscount echoed warily.

“What fun!” said Jynx.

Chapter Twenty-six

Their disguises complete, Lord Roxbury and Miss Lennox ventured through the servants’ entrance into the London streets. Jynx once more wore the black stuff gown that had been given her by Lady Bliss, and her hair was tucked under a concealing and most disreputable straw bonnet that, according to the viscount, was much better suited to adorn a tinker’s horse than his fiancée. Shannon was clad in tradesman’s garb, baggy breeches and a loose, coarse homespun smock. He also wore a false moustache and wig, the possession of which Sir Malcolm had not been inclined to explain, which led his daughter to suspect of him the worst.

Without arousing particular notice, the servile pair made their way to Portland Place. It was a trek enlivened by Lord Roxbury’s unappreciative remarks on the perfidious practices indulged in by magistrates in general, and Sir Malcolm in particular; and Miss Lennox’s comments to the effect that though her parent’s methods were a trifle unorthodox, his motives were pure; and Lord Roxbury’s rebuttal of this charitable point of view. They came at last to Blissington House, to find carts drawn up to the front door, and their owners divesting the house of its furnishings. An altercation was underway as to who was entitled to what, and why.

“Dear Lord!” breathed Jynx.

“An execution, I fancy,” said Shannon. “Come, poppet, around back!” Miss Lennox wisely refused to reflect upon Lord Roxbury’s familiarity with the various entrances to Blissington House. She followed him.

A burly individual was posted at the back entrance, but—aside from a few pungent remarks concerning employers who gave short shrift in lieu of wages, and ladies who were as lunatic as they were lovely—did not attempt to prevent their entrance. Tomkin, discovered in the kitchens, waving burnt feathers under the nose of the prostrate chef, was a great deal less accommodating.

“Cast your winkers over me, cull!” he said, among a great many other unrepeatable things, and assumed the posture of one prepared to engage in a round of fisticuffs. “If I get my dabbers onto you I’ll draw your cork! Unless you’re wishful of being planted a facer, you’ll leave this house! There’s no killing to be made
here,
what with my lady in a pelter and the curst Jews carrying off everything in the house—and if you’ve money owed you I’m sorry for it, but those are the breaks of the game!”

Miss Lennox dealt effectively with this slightly hysterical outburst. She drew off her ugly bonnet. Tomkin, having progressed to carrion crows that plucked the last shred of flesh off a corpse before it was dead, broke off in midspeech. “Miss!” he gasped. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“That much,” growled Lord Roxbury, “is apparent! Now, you long-winded mugwump, where is your mistress?”

Tomkin knew that voice, and he also knew that tone, though he would never have associated the immaculate Lord Roxbury with this none-too-cleanly-looking lout. Perhaps Lord Roxbury and Miss Lennox were en route to some masquerade? Or bent on cutting a lark? He let it be known that this was no time to be indulging in such frivolity. Lord Roxbury in turn let it be known that he was in a rare taking and was not at all averse to breaking a few butlerish bones. The chef, who had propped himself up on an elbow to observe these proceedings, moaned and suffered a relapse. A tradesman appeared in the doorway and demanded to know the whereabouts of the silver plate.

“Barricaded in the book room,” said Tomkin, with wildly rolling eye. “She’s in one of her takings; I doubt she’ll let you in.” Miss Lennox and Lord Roxbury quickly departed the kitchens, leaving a distraught Tomkin to try and explain that barricaded in the book room was not silver plate but Lady Bliss. The plate, swore Tomkin, had been popped many months past.

Shannon tapped on the book room door. “Go away!” Adorée’s voice came faintly from within. “There is nothing here for you, and I vow that if you do not cease to plague me I shall swallow this entire bottle of laudanum! And then you shall have not only stripped from me all that I own, but will have my death on your consciences, and I shouldn’t be at all surprised if you were haunted by my ghost. Which would serve you right, for you are all heartless grave robbers!”

“Adorée!” Lord Roxbury rattled the knob. “If you do not let us in, I will break this damned door down.”

“Who,” her voice came closer, “is
us?”

“Jynx and Shannon,” said Miss Lennox. “Do let us in!”

The door opened a crack to reveal one damp gray eye. “Jynx, certainly, but I know what Shannon looks like very well, and that is not him! It is very bad of you, my dear Miss Lennox, to try and cut a wheedle at a time like this! Because you must know what Shannon looks like almost as well as I, since you are going to marry him!”

“Adorée,” said the viscount, in very irate tones, “who else
would
I be?”

“Well,” Adorée replied doubtfully, “I don’t know, but Jynx is not without admirers among the gentlemen. Look at my brother! Or rather you
can’t
look at him since he isn’t here, and I’m sure I shan’t care a button if I never set eyes on him again.” Lord Roxbury swore and the gray eye blinked. “You do sound like Shannon, however, and I dare not leave this door unlocked unless those miserable tradesmen try and carry
me
off, so I suppose you had better come in.”

They did so, and Lady Bliss bolted and barricaded the door behind them. She then regarded Miss Lennox. “My dear, you are looking positively feverish! Are you unwell?” She lowered her voice. “I hope you will not take it amiss if I drop you some advice. If you wish to marry Shannon, you should not be wandering about with other men!” Unforgivably, Jynx giggled. “After all,” Adorée said huffily, “I must be admitted to know
something
about romance.”

Lord Roxbury was not as amused as his fiancée, owing to a niggling suspicion that the lot of them would be momentarily dragged off to Bow Street. “Dammit, Adorée!” He pulled off his wig.
“Will
you listen?”

Lady Bliss regarded him thoughtfully. “I rather,” she said at length, “like that moustache.”

Jynx forced herself to remain calm. She wrenched her gaze away from the couch, across which was tenderly draped an opera cloak. “Adorée, you must be prepared to hear very bad news. Unless we can find him first, Innis will at any moment be taken into custody for a number of crimes.”

To the surprise of her audience, Lady Bliss exhibited no dismay. “They say,” she uttered gloomily, “that debtors’ prisons are hotbeds of vice, run by gaolers who torture their victims at will. It had to come, I suppose! And I cannot even escape abroad.”

“Why not?” inquired Miss Lennox, sympathetically.

“Never mind that!” Lord Roxbury crammed his wig back onto his head. “You have to leave this house immediately, Adorée! Unless you wish to at the very least take your place in the witness box, and at the worst endure long meditation in a prison cell.” She was looking stubborn. “It would be a serious business if a lady in your position was to be placed in so degraded a situation.”

“What with bailiffs sleeping overnight in the house,” Adorée retorted indignantly, “and executions on the premises, things are
already
in a very bad way! All that remains to me is to join the ladies who ply a shameful trade by Covent Garden— or to end my own life!”

“Adorée!” Jynx was horrified.

“My dear, you must pay me no heed!” Lady Bliss hastened to offer reassurance. “I am merely in a fit of the blue devils. Since I am also sadly lacking in courage, I will not put an end to my existence—though I am sure it would be a very good thing if I did! It is all Innis’s fault, for he has not only sold all my jewels but run me deeper into debt—but when
he
is plump in the pocket and
I
must raise the wind, he says he has other fish to fry! And if it’s true that I must put in an appearance at the bar of the Old Bailey, I shall not say a word in his defense.” She regarded her callers, mistily. “My friends! I have not thanked you for coming to succor me in my hour of need.”