Maggie MacKeever (25 page)

The only lures that Arthur Kingscote was qualified to recognize were those dangled at the end of fishing lines, but he would have served as fish-bait himself before admitting to such abysmal ignorance. “Oho!” said he.

“Cawker!” responded Lady Easterling. “Well, Arthur, what do you mean to do about it? Only the greatest beast in nature would leave poor Sara to wear the willow, as you have done.”

“No, no!” Arthur protested, horrified. “I assure you, nothing of the sort! Tell you what, I’ll go talk to Miss Valentine. Set the record straight, you know!”

“Capital!” All was up to Sara now; Jaisy had done her reluctant best to promote this singularly inappropriate romance. “I knew you would not hold it against Sara that she has been a trifle, er, indiscreet; she will cut all the others now that her affections have become settled on
you.
Don’t dawdle, Arthur! She is waiting in the morning room.”

During her ladyship’s revelations, Mr. Kingscote’s self-esteem had grown by leaps and bounds. He had hitherto underestimated himself, he now understood. No simple country bumpkin could have won the heart of a woman of the world, an adventuress living on her wits, a scheming temptress like Sara Valentine. Clearly she had misinterpreted his attempts to persuade her to help him avoid marriage with a female whom he feared would regularly assault his person; perhaps she thought his request for assistance in duping the dowager duchess a very clever ploy. And so it
would
have been clever, had it been a ruse, realized Arthur, as with a firm and masterful stride he approached the morning-room door. Behind him, Lady Easterling rolled her eyes heavenward, and then proceeded down the hallway.

Briskly, Arthur applied himself to the doorknob, stepped into the room. What a dashing young blood was he, he decided, as he permitted himself a peek into a Venetian mirror. Complete to a shade, and up to all the rigs, as Lady Easterling might have put it. Scant wonder that, without even trying, he had attracted the interest of a woman of the world. This was only the first of many splendid adventures, he fancied, among the frail and the fair. Then he realized that he was being studied quizzically by the frail one herself. “Good day, Arthur!” she said cordially. “You are looking positively top-of-the-trees!”

Ah, she sought to cloak her tender sensibilities behind a mantle of bright banter. Arthur must show her that there was no need for masquerade. There was but one reasonable course of action now. Adventuress though she might be, Miss Valentine was also very ladylike. Or perhaps she was too modest to make him overtures. As a gentleman, his duty was clear. He must sweep her off her feet. With that admirable resolve, Arthur strode boldly across the room, plucked Confucious from the sofa, carried the snarling dog at arm’s length to the doorway, deposited him in the hallway and quickly shut the door. Then, once more, he strode boldly to the sofa and sat down beside Miss Valentine. “Arthur,” she said, bewildered. “What are you about?”

“You
know!” responded Arthur, with what he intended as a kindling glance. “And I’ll wager you will like it excessively! But enough of talk!” Upon which observation he clamped one arm around Sara’s shoulders and pulled her inexorably toward him.

This was not the first time a young man had tried such tactics; Sara placed her hands on Arthur’s chest, her arms held rigid, and glared. “Release me this instant, you fool! You go beyond the line of being pleasing. Release me and we shall both forget that you have made an exhibition of yourself.”

Naturally she would put up some pretense of coyness, Arthur decided; and she would never forgive him if he failed to persevere. Therefore, with his other hand he pushed aside her outstretched arms and, before she could protest further, crushed her against his chest. Hanged if he’d realized this pursuit of dissipation would be such curst uphill work, he thought, as, rather grimly, he set about kissing Miss Valentine.

Since there was little she could do about it, her arms pinned at her sides, Sara endured that embrace. In all honesty, she admitted that she had not struggled against it as energetically as she might. Despite the unflattering opinion held of her by Lady Easterling, Miss Valentine had in all her life been kissed by but one gentleman, and the revelation that he had intended to offer her a slip on the shoulder had affected Sara like a slap in the face. Therefore, she allowed Arthur Kingscote to embrace her, due to no perverse notion of thus taking her revenge, but because she wished to learn if anyone else could kiss so well.

Alas, if Arthur Kingscote was a fair example, no one could. At last he released her, and Sara drew back. Belatedly she realized that Confucious, exiled in the hallway, had set up a frenzied barking that must have drawn the attention of every member of the household to the morning room. That barking now had stopped.

“I say, Sara!” said Mr. Kingscote, who was much less acute. “That was jolly good fun, was it not?” Miss Valentine did not reply. Slowly, she turned toward the doorway.

Arthur, too, became aware of the ominous quality of the silence then. Even Confucious had ceased to snarl and howl. He, too, looked at the doorway. Lady Blackwood stood there, like an avenging angel, bearing aloft not a flaming sword but a very triumphant-looking Pekinese.

Abruptly, Mr. Kingscote’s delusions of grandeur vanished like a puff of smoke. The dowager’s malevolent expression left no doubt she was thoroughly incensed. He would be cast off without a farthing, and his impecunious family likewise.

“Hang it!” ejaculated Arthur, and glared at the ashen Sara. “Now see what you’ve done!”

“What
I
have done?” echoed Miss Valentine, and sneezed. What had she
ever
done but what was expected or demanded of her, by Georgiana and Jaisy, Jevon and now Arthur himself? She had tried her very best to please all concerned, and to what end? The dowager duchess’s venomous demeanor indicated that Sara would be turned out into the streets to starve, as all along she had known would come to pass. Her rainy day had burst upon her and she had not a shilling saved with which to purchase an umbrella. Miss Valentine reacted as must any meek and self-effacing a female in so untenable a position, served up such unpalatable fare. She burst into tears.

When the summons came, Sir Phineas was at Tattersall’s, grand mart of everything concerned with equestrian recreations, the sports of the field and the business of the Turf.

How the dowager duchess had known where to find him, Sir Phineas had left off wondering many years past. He supposed she had agents watching him, even as she had instructed him to watch Miss Valentine. Reluctantly, he moved away from the circular counter where he had lounged, forgetting for several moments at a time that he was not and never would be sufficiently plump in the pocket to pay one hundred guineas for a thoroughbred. Casting a last wistful glance at the fireplace, over which hung a painting of the great racehorse Eclipse, Sir Phineas followed the footman out into the street. Tattersall’s stood at Hyde Park Corner, no great distance from Queen Anne Street. The hour was still early; the noon bells had not yet rung. Sir Phineas wondered what had prompted Georgiana’s terse and peremptory summons.

Tension hung over Blackwood House like fog over the city of London, and within the morning room sat its source. But to tarry longer would only bring down the dowager’s wrath upon
his
head. Sir Phineas pressed his knuckles to his belly, which had begun to flutter alarmingly.

Within the morning room, all at first appeared relatively serene. Lady Blackwood was enthroned in her carved headed chair, Confucious seated in her lap. Both gazed in a pettish manner upon the dowager’s butler, who stood before them, looking as if he were willing his knees to cease to shake. Sir Phineas’s stomach quivered all the more violently, in sympathy.

“I am quite out of charity with you, Phineas.” The dowager’s gaze was dagger-sharp. “I did not instruct you to
enjoy
yourself with my companion—or perhaps she cozened you also with her artful ways!”

“Artful? Miss Valentine?” Much as Sir Phineas dreaded to bring down Georgiana’s wrath, there were limits to what flesh and blood could endure. “Poppycock!”

“Poppycock to
you,
Phineas!” Lady Blackwood’s smile was grim. “We have all been quite properly taken in. Not that I would have been, had people been as frank with me as they are instructed to be, you among them.”

“I?” In response to a gesture from the dowager, Sir Phineas collapsed upon the tapestried confidante. “Forgive me, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Forgive you, Phineas? Not likely! At the cost of being redundant, I must state once again that I am
prodigious
displeased about this cursed business.” The dowager tapped her fingers irritably upon the chair arm.

“What business is that, Georgiana?” Sir Phineas inquired cautiously.

“Don’t try and hoodwink
me,
Phineas!” Lady Blackwood replied sharply. “My silly twit of a companion has done an excellent job of blotting her copybook. It exceeds belief that I should have so misjudged the creature—just fancy, I thought her a well-brought-up young female.”

“You are speaking of Miss Valentine?” Recalling certain accusations made by Lady Easterling in the presence of both the butler and himself, Sir Phineas glanced at Thomas. The butler looked as if he wished the floor to open up and swallow him. Sir Phineas experienced a familiar sinking sensation in his own midriff. “Surely you are too severe.”

“Am I?” Georgiana shifted in her chair. “No sooner was my back turned than the twit put her foot wrong. Sullied her reputation, in short! You look skeptical, Phineas. I had thought you a person of sound judgment.”

“It is not
my
judgment,” responded Sir Phineas unwisely, “that is in question here. I wish you would explain to me why you think Miss Valentine has, er, fallen into licentious ways.”

This not-unreasonable request brought a flush to the dowager’s cheek and a gleam to her spiteful eye. “Aha!” she crowed. “
I
said no such thing, not being such a pea-goose as to think Miss Sara no better than one of the wicked, even if I’d discover her in any number of squalid intrigues with vain silly court-cards! I’m not the member of this household who is preoccupied with sin.” She shot an unfriendly glance at Thomas. “Mayhap I am the only member of the household who is
not!
Never have I heard such fustian! Well you may look embarrassed, Phineas. You should know by now that eventually I learn of every word spoken in my household. Your failure to inform me of my companion’s outrageous conduct is not something I shall soon forgive.”

Not only Sara Valentine was in the basket; Sir Phineas foresaw that he would soon share her uncomfortable perch. He could not regret his fall from grace, even if with the loss of Lady Blackwood’s good will he lost also his largest source of income. After a lifetime of obeying Georgiana’s strident requests, there was allure in solitude. “I am not aware that Miss Valentine engaged in havey-cavey conduct,” he responded, with more boldness than was his wont. “Perhaps if you would begin at the beginning, I might make some sense of this.”

“Or devise some explanation of your own disloyal conduct!” The dowager’s smile was not kind. “As you will. You are aware that I took Sara in after her father’s death, when it evolved that her father had been singularly unprepared for his departure from this life—a lack of foresight that Sara shares! I am not unaware that she squanders the extremely generous wage I pay her on bonnets. As I am not unaware that Thomas here caught her kissing my nephew in the garden and said not a word of it to anyone but Jaisy.”

“‘Twas Master Jason, my lady!” protested Thomas, his plump features corpse-white. “He said if I told he’d flay me within an inch of my life!”

“You should have heeded Jevon’s words!” she snapped. “Or if you had to break your promise, you should have told anyone but my prattle-box of a niece. Now the entire household knows of the business, and I am very tempted to flay you
beyond
that fatal inch!”

Poor Thomas looked so terrified that Sir Phineas thought it his Christian duty to intervene. Too, he was curious. “You don’t
mind
that Miss Valentine—and your nephew—er?” said he.

“Er?” mocked Lady Blackwood. “Phineas, you are a milksop! I am only surprised that Jevon didn’t kiss the silly twit sooner, because he is a tremendous flirt and something of a rogue. Lud, Phineas, you look so shocked! Had Jaisy not learned of it—and through Jaisy, the whole staff—I would have been tempted to overlook the incident.”

Here—as Sir Phineas digested the dowager’s novel viewpoint, to wit that the only true indiscretion was to make one’s indiscretions public—Thomas felt compelled to comment. “It wasn’t just Master Jevon, my lady—as Sir Phineas can confirm. Today wasn’t the first time Miss Valentine was caught out with Master Arthur. I’m sure that no one of us is wishful of condemning her unfairly, my lady, but there’s no ignoring the evidence.”

“No, there is not,” Georgiana repeated, and gestured irritably. “Do go away. And have Miss Silly Twit brought to me.” With more haste than was seemly, Thomas quit the room, tottered past the zealous maidservants and down the stairway, to take refuge at last in his pantry, where amid the plate and china which would be used at this day’s supper he soothed his shattered nerves with an entire bottle of her ladyship’s excellent claret. Doubtless the old harridan would eventually discover his transgression, and take appropriate redress; but Thomas was in immediate need of revival, and would not be deterred by thought of future travail. Setting aside the empty bottle, he brushed the back of his hand across his mouth, then leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the table, and promptly fell asleep.

Meanwhile, due to Miss Silly Twit’s failure to comply with her imperious summons, the dowager duchess fumed. In the course of her bad temper, Sir Phineas was treated to a great many comments about vipers nourished in one’s bosom, and the sharpness of serpents’ teeth. After surprising Arthur Kingscote embracing Sara, Lady Blackwood had banished both miscreants to their respective chambers. Sir Phineas learned, and had then held a number of enlightening interviews with various members of her domestic staff, roundly denouncing each one of them in turn. “Everyone knew about this imbroglio but me!” she raged, and abruptly rose, inadvertently dumping Confucious onto the floor. The dog yelped. “Oh, do hush, you wretched beast!” she snapped, and crossed the room to tug savagely on the bell pull that hung by the fireplace. A terrified maidservant immediately appeared in the doorway. “Where is Thomas?” inquired the dowager. “Never mind! Bring Sara to me, immediately!”