Maggie MacKeever (29 page)

But where was Arthur? Making himself into as unobtrusive figure as possible, there by the fireplace—not that one would ever be especially unobtrusive when clad in bright yellow and lime green. Something would have to be devised for the jackanapes, now Jaisy had put herself out of reach. A pity, that; Jaisy’s fortune would have done the Kingscotes very nicely. Ah well, there were other fishes in the ocean, and heiresses in need of respectability. Georgiana did not expect Arthur would have any objection to a bride whose dowry smelled of the shop. After today’s disgraceful exhibition, he would dare not. Tomorrow she would make herself aware of all the spinster heiresses whose origins were tainted by trade.

How anxiously they all watched her, as if anticipating the dreadful trimming that they all deserved. Perhaps later she might oblige, but at this particular moment Georgiana was in charity with all the world. “I have always
liked
Sara,” she remarked to the room at large. “Arthur, ring the bell! It is time for tea.”

Lady Blackwood’s elegant berlin barreled at a spanking pacealong the turnpike road. Its exterior, on this journey, was not laden down with luggage, Miss Valentine having chosen to have her bandboxes stowed inside, along with her portmanteau. Though he did not think it seemly that the elegant berlin should be thus treated like a common stage, the coachman’s silent forbearance had been rewarded. Miss Valentine had discovered a cranky stowaway in her portmanteau. They were too far out of the city at that point to reasonably turn back, and so now Confucious bore Miss Valentine company. Nor did the coachman deem it seemly that the berlin’s white-and-blue-silk upholstered interior be violated by an ill-tempered canine, but better the berlin’s silk interior than his copper box. As it was he wondered how he was to remove the unmistakable aroma of dog from the white and sky-blue silk. But wait! Had his eyes played him false, or had he noticed movement in that distant copse? Could a horseman lay in wait?

Miss Valentine, meantime, was contemplating Confucious, and her own unhappy fate. Had Miss Valentine known that the Dowager Duchess of Blackwood held her in affection, it might have somewhat relieved her apprehension, but she had during the course of her association with Lady Blackwood been given no reason to conclude that Georgiana held anyone dear. Nor was Miss Valentine deluded into thinking Confucious regarded her fondly, despite his presence in her portmanteau. That he expected her to provide him sustenance had already been made clear. Unfortunately, the coachman’s instructions did not allow for leisurely halts at wayside inns. Sara thought she must be at least as hungry as Confucious, for she had been sent off without her tea. Her stomach rumbled unhappily; her congested head ached; her nose felt as if at any moment she would give vent to a powerful sneeze. Altogether, there were at that moment in all of England few creatures more miserable than she.

Of those creatures, however, Confucious was one. Sara suspected the dog regretted his inclusion in this expedition as much as she did herself. Confucious was not a good traveler, Sara had already discovered, to the great disadvantage of the contents of her portmanteau. What her distant relative would think upon her unannounced arrival, disheveled and unkempt and with a travel-sickened beast in tow, Sara dreaded to think. What his shrewish wife would say about this ignominious arrival was easily imagined. What she would say about Confucious boggled even an imagination inured to the worst by intimate acquaintance.

Sara steeled herself to endure taunts for as long as need be, which hopefully would not be long at all, because she was resolved to spend no unnecessary moment as an object of begrudging charity. But what was she to do to earn her independence? Georgiana had gone on at great and gruesome length about the trials and tribulations endured by females engaged in trade. Ever since, Sara had been haunted by a persistent vision of herself harnessed to a coal truck, doing the work of a pony in the pits. She would not sink to that, she hoped. Yet few less onerous occupations remained open to a female who had been turned off without a reference, as she had been. It was typical of the dowager duchess that, having refused her ex-companion the one boon that would have insured her future drudgery would be genteel, she had sent her packing in positive luxury. Gloomily, Sara surveyed the crystal chandelier that hung from the berlin’s ceiling, the table with drawers, the ormolu clock. For Georgiana’s quixotic generosity, Miss Valentine was not at all grateful. Truth be told, she would much rather have been turned out into the streets. Georgiana had wished to remove her as far as possible from the male members of the family, Sara supposed. Confucious snarled. Sara sank into a reverie.

It was as Sara contemplated the prospective alliance of a certain male member of Lady Blackwood’s family with a pretty little opera dancer from Drury Lane that the coachman thought he spied a waiting figure in a distant leafy copse. Sara was roused from her brown study—or more precisely, black—by a wild lurching of the berlin. With one hand she clutched the portmanteau, and the other her head, on which was perched the most frivolous of all her bonnets, a confection of ostrich plumes, ribbon and lace. Angry voices smote her ear. Highwaymen! she thought, recalling horrid tales of such legendary gentlemen of the road as Dirk Turpin and Jack Shepherd. The carriage had been waylaid. Her few remaining treasures would be wrested from her, her beloved bonnets, her mother’s pearls.

Even meek and self-effacing ladies have a sticking-point, and Miss Valentine perforce reached hers. She would defend her few remaining treasures to the death, if necessary—but by what means? She had no pistol with which to arm herself, no dagger, or sword
.
Even as the berlin lurched to a stop, her eye alit upon the portmanteau, from which issued snarls and growls and other sounds similarly indicative of profound hostility. Miss Valentine lifted Confucious out of the portmanteau and dropped him on the berlin floor with permission to bite anyone who appeared in the carriage doorway. Then she scrunched shut her eyes, and put her hands over her ears, and prayed.

Even as she did so, the carriage door swung open. Nearby, she heard the sounds of great strife. At length peace again descended. Sara removed her hands from her ears, and cautiously opened her eyes. Her prayers had been to good advantage, it appeared. Sprawled half in and half out of the carriage, arms clasped over the back of his head and face hidden against the carriage floor, was a man. That he was not dead was made evident by the curses he now voiced. Furthermore, though his coat sleeve was sadly shredded, she saw no trace of blood. “Oh, good dog!” said Sara to Confucious, who stood triumphantly astride his prey. And then she realized that the intruder’s curses were uttered in familiar tones.

Hastily she snatched Confucious away. The intruder rose and set his abused person as best he could to rights, without a single smidgeon less than his usual sang-froid. Not until he politely requested that Miss Valentine provide him with a strip of muslin torn from her petticoat did she recover herself.

“Oh, Jevon!” wailed Miss Valentine, as she hastened to comply, tucking the snarling Confucious for safekeeping under her arm. “You
are
hurt! I shall never forgive myself. I thought you were a highwayman!”

Gallantly, Mr. Rutherford directed his gaze elsewhere than upon the shapely ankle revealed by Miss Valentine’s assault upon her petticoats, an act motivated not in the least by disinterest, and accomplished not before he glimpsed an ankle worthy of contemplation by the most discerning connoisseur. Mr. Rutherford promised himself a leisurely and luxurious contemplation of both that ankle and its mate at a none-too-distant date. With that pleasant prospect in mind, he said: “You have fallen in the habit of leaping to conclusions, my precious. No thanks to that misbegotten cur, I am
not
hurt.”

“Oh.” Miss Valentine looked confused. “Then what do you want with my petticoat?” Mr. Rutherford smiled. She blushed. “This!” he said simply, and bound the strip of muslin around Confucious’s muzzle. Then he deposited the dog in the portmanteau, snapped it firmly closed and wedged it between the bandboxes on the opposite seat. Having thus disposed of Confucious and banished him additionally from the remainder of our tale—the concerned reader may be relieved to know Confucious took no harm from his incarceration, though his temper did suffer accordingly, as result of which he bit the shrewish wife of Miss Valentine’s distant relative at his journey’s end—Mr. Rutherford arranged himself very comfortably beside Miss Valentine, closed the carriage door and bade the coachman drive on.

Miss Valentine eyed him rather crossly, her initial astonishment being speedily replaced by annoyance over her dreadful fright. “You are the most impudent rascal who ever existed!” she announced. “How
dare
you waylay my carriage and frighten me into fainting fits? And where are you taking me, by the way?”

If Miss Valentine had hoped Mr. Rutherford brought reprieve, her hopes were cruelly dashed; he informed her that their destination was still Kent. “I wished to speak to you,” he added. “Since you have been determined to avoid me, this seemed the only way. No, do not interrupt! I understand perfectly why you have been so cool.”

Fervently, Miss Valentine hoped that her companion overestimated his powers of perception. Though that he should have guessed the extent of her obsession with him caused her cheeks to flame. “I doubt you do!” she replied icily.

Thoughtfully, Mr. Rutherford regarded her. “I do
not
goabout buying bonnets for all the ladybirds in London,” said he. “If you will like it, Sara, I would be happy to in the future buy bonnets for no one but you.”

He
had
meant to offer her a slip on the shoulder all along, Sara realized, and in the train of that realization came a dreadful rage. “How
dare
you ask me to play second fiddle to a—er—a female of low repute! No doubt I won’t be able to convince you that I don’t care a button for you, because you must know otherwise—but you may offer me all the bonnets in the world and I shan’t become your—er—”

“Ladybird,” supplied Jevon helpfully. “Bit o’ muslin, light o’ love!”

“All those!” To her horror, Sara felt her eyes fill with tears. “Even if I
have
been turned off without a reference! And it is very unkind of you to even suggest such a thing to me, or remind me how far I have come down in the world!” She sneezed.

Mr. Rutherford drew a handkerchief and applied it to Miss Valentine’s reddened nose. “But I
didn’t
suggest it! I suspect that piece of moonshine originated with my sister—who, I may remind you, is the pea-brained member of the family. As for the female for whom you saw me purchasing a bonnet in the Pantheon Bazaar, that was by way of giving her her
congée.”

Miss Valentine was determined that Mr. Rutherford should not realize his admission had rekindled hope in her foolish breast. “She seemed prodigious grateful to be given her ticket-of-leave!”

“Yes, well.” Jevon looked apologetic. He could hardly explain that females generally
were
grateful to him, whether he was embarking upon a flirtation, or winding up an association of a more particular sort; whether he was dispensing fashionable bonnets or merely disarming smiles. The latter, he now employed. “My darling Sara, you are mutilating your handkerchief.”

Her
handkerchief? But Jevon had placed it in her hand. Sara took a closer look. “It is mine. How came you by it? I remember now. You kept it all this time?”

“I not only kept it, I carried it next my heart.” Thus did Mr. Rutherford put forth a pretty premise, which had the additional virtue of being the truth.
“Now
will you let me try and explain how all these misunderstandings came about?”

To deny a man who had carried her handkerchief next to his heart permission to bare his soul would have been cruel in the extreme. Miss Valentine was not the least bit cruel. “Certainly!” she said gruffly. Mr. Rutherford took immediate advantage of her generosity to clasp her hands in one of his own and with the other to tilt up her chin so she must look into his face. By this latter indulgence of a wish to study her beloved features, Jevon almost defeated his own purpose. Few females could gaze upon his own bedazzling features and remain sufficiently clear-headed to heed anything so mundane as mere conversational gambits.

Miss Valentine was not among that scant number, and references to Lord Byron and Beau Brummell and painful tumbles from the heights passed her right by. Nor did she react to Mr. Rutherford’s admission of jealousy as regarded Mr. Kingscote, save to suggest that perhaps her old friend had taken leave of his senses. “I think I must have!” admitted Jevon, handsomely refraining from pointing out that Sara’s own conduct had scarcely been more rational. “But I was trying very hard to court you in the proper manner, and you remained so devilish
cool.”

“What a rogue you are!” marveled Miss Valentine, in a somewhat breathless tone of voice. “How could I be other than cool when all of London knew you were dangling after that, er—”

“Paphian girl!” interjected Mr. Rutherford. “Do go on, my love!”

“I shall!” She blushed, and tried to frown. “I thought you were being kind because I had practically invited you to tryst with me.”

“And an excellent notion it was!” said Mr. Rutherford promptly. “I mean to discuss it with you again in just a few moments. As for the other, I feared you would turn skittish if you realized how very desperate my case had grown, and so I sought to throw you off the scent, which I freely admit was very stupidly done of me. Now, if there are no other questions—”

But of course there were, and Sara meant to see this business settled. Resolutely she ignored the tingles running up and down her spine. “You have still not told me how you came to be
here.”

Though Mr. Rutherford grew a trifle weary of his darling Sara’s incessant questions, to deny her an explanation would be unkind. Too, a better understanding of the great inconveniences he had endured on her behalf might advance his suit. “Jaisy wrote me an addle-brained missive, threatening all manner of dire redress did I marry my opera dancer or alternately seduce you, which alerted me that you might harbor some doubt about the nature of
what
I wished to offer you; and then Sir Phineas confirmed the worst. And now, my pet—”