Maggie MacKeever (16 page)

She had not hastened home from a shopping expedition, decided Lord Carlin, studying her with a censorious eye; Lady Easterling was neither breathless nor dressed for the out-of-doors. Indeed, as opposed to being rosy-cheeked from exertion, she looked unusually pale. “How kind of you to call on us!” said Lady Easterling, very politely indicating that he should be seated. “Georgiana will be sorry that she has missed you; she has gone on some errand or another; I am not precisely sure what. Pray, do sit down, Lord Carlin. And may I offer you some refreshment?”

Kit was not to be deluded by any tardy display of unexceptionable manners into thinking his hostess anything but a rag-mannered minx. “Thank you, no! I can stay but a moment. A prior engagement, you understand. Perhaps, since Lady Blackwood is not in, I should return some other time.”

“No!” Before Lord Carlin realized what she was about, Lady Easterling had grasped his sleeve. “I daresay it is improper in me to ask, but I wish to know if you meant what you said the other day.”

Improper in her? Never before had Lord Carlin known a female so shockingly forward as to lay hands upon his person without first being given leave. So stunned was he by this presumption that he failed to grant proper attention to her query. “I am not in the habit of saying things I do
not
mean,” he responded stiffly. “Perhaps if you were to explain to me more precisely just what you are referring to?” He broke off in consternation. Her huge blue eyes had filled with tears.

“As if you didn’t know!” cried Lady Easterling, stamping her dainty little foot, unfortunately in painful proximity with Lord Carlin’s shin. “Oh, the devil! Now you will say that I make it my habit to kick people, in addition to all those other dreadful things!”

“What
other dreadful things?” inquired Lord Carlin, with a sinking sensation.

“Do not play the innocent!” Lady Easterling’s delicate fingers clenched, to the eternal detriment of his lordship’s sleeve. “I am capricious and eccentric. Vulgar and pretentious! I exhibit the most boundless effrontery.”

With great and praiseworthy effort, Kit refrained from pointing out that young ladies free of those failings did not kick gentlemen in the shins or put ruinous creases in their sleeves. His own conduct, as regarded Lady Easterling, was not above reproach. The fact that her outrageous behavior had given rise to his remarks did not excuse him for voicing ungentlemanly comments. True, he had not meant her to overhear those comments, and was utterly appalled to learn that she had been witness to his lapse from mannerliness— and wasn’t it just like the baggage to have done so? She obviously could be trusted to do nothing that might reasonably be expected of her, and to do everything she should not! And how dared she gaze upon him with that stricken expression? Next Kit supposed she would try and hang round his neck in tears.

Once more Lady Easterling demonstrated to his lordship her unpredictability. “Jupiter! You
did
mean it!” said she. “Well, sir, I’m not one to kick up a dust over trifles, but I am very much surprised that
you
would lower your character with such improprieties. It’s well enough for
me
to do so;
I
ain’t so odiously starched-up!”

“Lady Easterling!” Lord Carlin interrupted, rather desperately. He foresaw that within a trice he would be smack in the midst of a scene such as he most abhorred. “I most earnestly urge you to cease doing violence to your feelings. I spoke in the heat of the moment, and not for your ear. Pray do not regard it!”

“Oh?” Lady Easterling’s intuition once more reared its head. “And can you tell me that you did not mean what you said? I thought not. It is a very lowering reflection, because though I may have in my time taken a rattling toss or two, I never expected that I should be run aground. It just goes to show what I have said before: Fate has a devilish handy bunch of fives!”

These confidences led Lord Carlin to question whether Jevon Rutherford was the sole member of that family prone to fevers of the brain. “You refine too much upon it,” he protested.

“Hah!” retorted Lady Easterling. “Refine too much upon it, do I? You would not say so were you in my shoes, and had been informed not only that you are vulgar and pushing, but also that you are pigheaded and queer in the attic to boot. And that being nibbled to death by ducks was a fate preferable to marriage with you!”

“You are mistaken. Lady Easterling!” Wearying of these histrionics, his lordship tried to extricate his sleeve from Jaisy’s grasp. “I never said those things!”

“No, but you
would
have if you’d thought of them!” snapped Lady Easterling, clutching him all the tighter. “It is no wonder I am in a perfectly morbid state. I do not scruple to tell you, sir, that I am very
tired
of being scolded and rebuked and gifted with unflattering opinions of myself—to say nothing of being sermonized and catechized for hours on your behalf.”

“On
my
behalf?” echoed Lord Carlin, in whose entire history there was nothing that qualified him to be the subject of sermons so obviously adverse. “What
are
you talking about?”

“Boring on about, you mean!” Lady Easterling responded bitterly. “Let us have the word with no bark upon it, pray! You think my conduct is shockingly irregular. No doubt you also think I am not fit for association with respectable people, like Georgiana said. Because she warned me that you were deuced high in the instep and above my touch. But I didn’t believe her. I thought we should deal delightfully. And Georgiana is such an old gorgon that she will never let me hear the end of it, because she as
right!
”

What had given Lady Easterling the notion that she was in his style, Lord Carlin had not the most distant guess. He opened his mouth to voice that query, rather more tactfully phrased. Lady Easterling forestalled him by stamping her dainty foot once more.

“Don’t interrupt!” she cried. “Everyone has been ripping up at me in the most monstrous way, and this time I mean to have
my
say. To own the truth, I suppose I have behaved a little badly—but I am what I am, and I don’t want to be anything else, though were someone to ask me nicely, I might make a push. However, no one
has
asked me nicely, excepting Sara, and she can’t care a button for my behavior when she’s on the downward path to perdition herself, poor thing! Not that you are interested in my poor Sara, because you will think her also beneath your regard. I am very disappointed to discover that one of the highest-bred men in England is at heart nothing but a coxcomb!”

A coxcomb? So stunned was Lord Carlin by this accusation that he offered no defense.

“And I had thought you at home to a peg!” Lady Easterling continued morosely. “Which only proves one cannot trust impressions founded on mere appearance! Because you ain’t the least bit
trés sympathique,
and you are much too starched-up to do anything
à la folie!
Only the most biddable of females will do for you, one who walks in too much awe of you ever to offer an opposing viewpoint, and one who is too prim and proper ever to cause you a moment’s disquiet. Well, I hope you may discover the most reserved, demure, decorous creature in existence, because nothing less will do for you—and I’ll lay a monkey she’ll bore you to death within a week!”

Nor had this far-from-peaceful interlude banished Lord Carlin’s impulse to wreak physical mayhem upon the fair person of his personal albatross. “Depend upon it, I shall be forced to marry Arthur!” that damsel mourned, raising the hand that did not clutch Kit languidly to her brow. “He can’t marry poor Sara any more than Jevon could, because she don’t have a dowry. Oh, was there ever such a horrid coil?”

Lord Carlin thought there must not have been. He had no knowledge of the mysterious Arthur, but concluded this unknown gentleman was also smitten with Jevon’s opera dancer, Sara by name. That Lady Easterling spoke of so common a female with such familiarity, that she could even for an instant condone an alliance between her brother and a woman who trod the boards, confirmed his opinion of her essential bird-wittedness. Happily, this bothersome chit was not his responsibility. Frantically, he cast about in his mind for means by which he might remove himself posthaste from her presence. As if she had access to his very thoughts, Lady Easterling cast herself weeping upon his chest.

Lord Carlin was no pigeon for any lady’s plucking, and had no intention of being surprised in a compromising position, and therefore grasped Lady Easterling by her shoulders and did in fact shake her until the teeth rattled in her head. Jaisy gasped.

“Oh, the deuce!” Lord Carlin released his victim with the alacrity more usually accorded to hot bricks. “I beg your pardon, Lady Easterling.”

“To blazes with my pardon!” responded her ladyship furiously. “Yes, and with
you!
I hope I may never again set eyes on you, because to do so must remind me that he who I thought a regular out-and-outer is in truth a curst loose-screw!”

Once more Lord Carlin offered no defense; he dared not, lest further exposure to her ladyship drive him to additional assault. Without another word, he turned and stalked toward the door. Halfway across the room, a noise caught his attention. Had Lady Easterling caught up some sharp item, did she prepare even then to hurl some lethal missile at his unprotected back?

Cautiously, he peered over his shoulder. Lady Easterling had flung herself face down on the crocodile-shaped couch, head buried in her arms, with every appearance of a damsel prepared to sob out her heart.

Only the most callous of gentlemen could have departed at that point, cruelly abandoning a lady on the verge of expiring of love on his account. Lord Carlin retraced his steps, dropped down on one knee by the couch, touched Jaisy’s shoulder. “I beg you, do not take on in this manner!” he soothed. “It is not the end of the world, you know, just because I have intimated that we should not suit. You are a well-enough young woman. Doubtless there will be other gentlemen who like you very well.”

In defense of what Lady Easterling did next, it must be pointed out that she was a damsel very much accustomed to being admired, and one who had recently suffered a very great disillusionment, and had but recently encountered not one but two gentlemen who had been sent into the doldrums by the notion of marriage with herself. As Lord Carlin spoke, she raised herself up on an elbow, then into a sitting position, meanwhile staring into his face.

“Upon my word as a gentleman!” Lord Carlin added kindly.

“The devil fly away with you!” responded Lady Easterling, and promptly boxed his ears.

Mr. Rutherford, soon thereafter, embarked upon a shoppingexpedition of his own, and ventured forth to the shop of the most famous of all the London bootmakers, Hoby, located on the corner of Piccadilly and St. James’s. Hoby himself greeted Mr. Rutherford, and very amiably, which was not the case with every customer who entered the shop. Several of Jevon’s contemporaries had been given cause to complain about Hoby’s high opinion of himself. He was affable enough this morning, and asked Mr. Rutherford’s opinion of the smart black tilbury and frisky black horse which customarily conveyed him about the metropolis, and confided that he intended to employ his leisure time preaching in a Methodist church in Islington. These amenities concluded, Hoby himself assisted Mr. Rutherford in selecting a pair of boots to replace those ravaged by his aunt’s ill-tempered Pekinese.

This errand completed, Mr. Rutherford next repaired to Lock the hatter’s at No. 6 St. James’s, on a similar mission. All hats were made to measure at Lock’s, and of the finest materials, from curly-brimmed beavers to glossy black top hats to the
chapeau bras
worn by gentlemen in the evening or, alternately, carried folded up under their arms. Lord Nelson’s last cocked hat, complete with a green shade to cover his blind eye, had come from Lock’s, as did the plumed gold-laced shakos worn by officers of the Hussars and Dragoons. Having arranged to replace the item of headware to which Confucious had taken exception, Mr. Rutherford then stepped once more out into the street and paused, undecided as to what next he should do with his day. Normally, he would have remedied this unusual indecision with a visit to his clubs, there to watch contemporaries going down heavily at hazard, or exchange new gossip, or inspect the latest calling cards left by dashers of the
pavé
on the board in the lobby. But this was no normal day, and Mr. Rutherford had no desire whatsoever to while away the time in company with a particular contemporary who doubtless even then lay in wait for him at White’s.

All was fair in love and war, Mr. Rutherford consoled himself, tucking his handsome chin into his impeccable cravat in reaction to the cold outside air. Sacrifices must be made in either endeavor. To ease his Sara’s stony pathway, Jevon was prepared to offer up—nay,
had
offered up—Lord Carlin like a sacrificial lamb. The result of that endeavor, Jevon did not yet know, but he imagined Jaisy must be in alt, imagining that Lord Carlin’s visit indicated a distinguishing preference. And why should Jaisy not have Carlin? The notion, at first startling, had grown on Jevon. Lord Carlin kept prosing on about how he must take a wife, did he not? Then let him take Jaisy! Immensely pleased with this resolution, and not at all disturbed by the minor problem that the two parties most concerned were, on the face of things, highly incompatible, Mr. Rutherford began to whistle a naughty little tune that had been taught him by a pretty little opera dancer employed at Drury Lane.

Here, perhaps, a few words concerning opera dancers might be timely, lest the reader nourish an undeservedly— at least in this instance—unseemly opinion of Mr. Rutherford’s character. Jevon understood the workings of the female mind excellently well, as has elsewhere been stated. Among the minds best understood by him were those of Lady Blackwood and Miss Valentine. With quite diabolical cunning he had introduced the opera dancer into the situation to throw them both off the scent. Georgiana would be deluded by this shapely red herring into concluding that his sentiments regarding Miss Valentine were no warmer than casual friendship. As for Miss Valentine herself, for whom Jevon’s sentiments were positively torrid—well, why Jevon should wish his beloved to think he hankered after someone else is a piece of typically masculine wrong-headedness, which it must be left to Jevon to explain, because the author cannot.