Maggie MacKeever (7 page)

At all events, Jaisy was willing to concede that Lord Carlin might be shy. Perhaps he considered her above his touch, in which case she might find opportunity to intimate to him the opposite. Frowning, Lady Easterling entered her bedchamber, flopped down on the carved four-poster bedstead— an elegant piece of furniture swathed in silk and damask and lavishly embellished with carved Roman urns—and pondered alternate means by which to grant Cupid further occasion to loose his fatal dart.

At that same moment, in Lady Blackwood’s morning room, Sir Phineas Fairfax experienced a sinking sensation in his midriff. No dart from an invisible arrow inspired this malaise, but the brooding attitude of the dowager duchess. Lady Easterling was not alone in noting Georgiana’s resemblance to the savage eagles carved on her chair. Sir Phineas, Georgiana’s man of business, knew that contemplative expression, which indicated that he would soon be called upon to make certain efforts in Lady Blackwood’s behalf. As always, anticipation of those efforts turned him liverish. With regret for its loss, Sir Phineas recalled his ebullient mood of a scant few hours past, when he had intended perambulating from his lodgings to his club, there to play a rubber or two of piquet, after which he might indulge in a light repast of pickled salmon and iced champagne. Then fate, in the guise of a summons from the dowager duchess, had intervened. How Georgiana invariably knew his whereabouts, Sir Phineas no longer wondered. The devious Lady Blackwood always knew those things which one would have preferred she did not.

What task would she assign him? Did she mean to once more threaten to disinherit the charmingly scapegrace Jevon Rutherford, currently rumored to be dangling after a pretty little opera dancer? Or, as seemed more likely, would Sir Phineas be obliged to exert himself in regard to Jevon’s sister, who from all appearances was equally a rogue? He had no enthusiasm for either prospect.

Perhaps the dowager might be distracted from whatever nasty schemes she hatched. Sir Phineas held out bait, in the form of the most recent
on-dits
concerning the Prince Regent, whom Georgiana professed to detest. There was talk that the Prince would engage upon his most extravagant architectural project to date, restructuring the west end of his capital to include a fashionable new park and a sweeping avenue designed by Nash—this even though remodeling of the Marine Pavilion at Brighton had not yet progressed beyond the enlargement of the Chinese corridor. In addition, rumor claimed the Regent had been advised by his doctors, as a result of his recent illness, that he should leave off his stays and let his massive belly drop.

Looking increasingly rancorous, the dowager heard out this account, all the while drumming her fingers on her knee. “Oh, do cease nattering, Phineas!” she snapped, when he paused to draw breath. “Now that you have met my niece, what do you think?”

“Lady Easterling is a very lovely young woman. A trifle high-spirited, perhaps.” Sir Phineas strove for tact.

“High-spirited?” Lady Blackwood grimaced. “You mean that she’s as bold as a brass-faced monkey. Pushing! Impertinent! A thorough rag-mannered chit.”

The dowager’s patent disapproval of a niece in residence beneath her roof did not startle Sir Phineas. It was his opinion that the dowager approved of no one, save possibly himself, and that because he made it his policy never to cross her will. Reminded by this reflection of the lady upon whose slender person Georgiana’s will was most often wreaked, he ventured a polite inquiry regarding Miss Valentine’s well-being and current whereabouts.

Though mention of the Prince Regent had failed to divert the dowager duchess from her baleful thoughts, the introduction of Miss Valentine into the discussion earned Sir Phineas a sharp glance. “You are mighty interested in my companion,” she uttered spitefully. “Who, not that it’s any of your business, is at the moment engaged with Confucious! I am not at all pleased with Sara. She is not exercising the control over my niece that I should like. Moreover, the silly twit’s taken it into her head that she deserves a holiday!”

In Sir Phineas’s opinion anyone who passed an hour in company with Lady Blackwood was deserving of a rest, but he was not sufficiently imprudent as to so remark. He had a great deal of fellow-feeling for the plight of Miss Valentine, and also a degree of guilt: Sir Phineas had been the instrument by which the orphaned Sara had been brought into Georgiana’s employ. Her existence in Blackwood House was not happy, he knew, and wished there was some manner in which he might make redress.

“Oho!” The dowager’s keen eyes missed little. “Sits the wind in that quarter? There’s no fool like an old one! I will tell you what I told my niece: put those air-dreams out of your mind.”

Georgiana thought he nourished warm sentiments toward Miss Valentine? Sir Phineas flushed. Certainly he was fond of Sara, appreciated her quiet and ladylike manner as well as the excellent tone of her mind; but the dowager maligned him by viewing his liking for Miss Valentine in so mundane a light. “Fustian!” Sir Phineas retorted gruffly.

“Is it?” As always when she’d caused discomfort, the dowager was in good cheer. “Do not despair, Phineas! Do but execute my commission and I might be so grateful that I change my mind.”

This ray of hope Sir Phineas very wisely ignored. Lady Blackwood was of far too selfish a disposition to so easily give up the meek and self-effacing companion who never uttered a rebellious word. “Twenty-seven makes a poor match for sixty,” he pointed out, hoping to close the subject.

“Balderdash!” retorted the dowager. At rather more than sixty, she did not care for intimations of advanced age. “A chit as unfortunately situated as Sara should be grateful for any offer she receives.”

Unfortunate indeed was Miss Valentine’s situation, as Sir Phineas refrained from pointing out.
He
need only endure Georgiana’s unpleasantness at occasional short intervals, after which he could repair to his club and regain his composure over a bottle of claret; but Sara must tolerate her employer’s beastliness twenty-four hours a day. Again Sir Phineas wished he might do something to better Sara’s lot.

At least he might temporarily temper the dowager’s spitefulness, and at the same time glean some inkling of what distasteful chore she meant to assign. “Apropos of preferences, mention was made of Carlin?” he prodded gently.

“So it was!” In a very chilling manner, Lady Blackwood smiled. “You may have gathered that my bird-witted niece thinks she’s made a conquest.”

“Yes.” Resigning himself to his fate, Sir Phineas laced his fingers together across his plump little belly. “I take it that you do not agree.”

“No, nor would anyone who was not positively paper-skulled. No matter!” Again, that chilling grin. “Let the chit try and attach Carlin; it will only give him a disgust. Once Mistress Fair Fatality comes to realize she’s frittered away her chances and become a laughingstock, she will be more amenable, and making a cake of herself over Carlin will keep her out of more serious mischief.”

Many years’ service as Lady Blackwood’s man of business had enabled Sir Phineas to cut straight to the heart of her malice. “Amenable to
what?”
he inquired cautiously.

The dowager elevated her gaze to the ox-skull frieze. “Amenable to the plans I formulated before ever the baggage came to town! Which brings me to that little errand which I mentioned to you previously.”

With his clasped fingers, Sir Phineas rubbed his belly, which again had begun to ache. “And that plan is what?” said he.

Lady Blackwood continued to contemplate the ox-skull frieze, as if from that macabre source she derived inspiration. “The chit is highly capricious,” she mused aloud. “Rag-mannered, outspoken to a fault—and very wealthy, Phineas.
Very
wealthy, indeed! The money was left so that she cannot dip into her capital, and must live off the proceeds; but when she remarries, which of course she must, her husband will be under no such obligation. In short, my niece is possessed of a dowry so handsome as to induce her bridegroom to overlook any minor character defects.”

From what Sir Phineas had observed of the young lady, her defects of character were neither minor nor easily overlooked. All the same, he found it within himself to briefly pity the girl. “Am I to conclude that you have already selected this bridegroom? My errand will concern him? Have you considered that your niece may not approve your choice, Georgiana?”

“Lud! What difference does that make?” Lady Blackwood lowered her gaze from the ox-skull frieze and glowered upon Sir Phineas. “I flatter myself that I am more than a match for any green girl, even one as mule-headed as my niece. In short, Phineas, I have no intention of allowing Jaisy’s fortune to pass out of the family.”

Miss Valentine also wished that her pathway might be eased, though not in the manner suggested to Sir Phineas by Lady Blackwood. Miss Valentine’s aspirations were much more vague, consisting primarily of a nebulous hankering after some manner of heavenly intervention, perhaps a divine lightning bolt of sufficient potency to strike the volatile Lady Easterling suddenly submissive, and render Georgiana either speechless or benign. To her list of longed-for miracles, Sara then added Confucious, and a most unkindly longing for his abrupt demise.

For this unseemly reflection, Miss Valentine must not be held wholly at fault; many were the responsibilities that pressed upon poor Sara, and Confucious was at present the most troublesome of the lot. In fine fettle this day, the Pekinese had thus far upon their expedition made attempts to savage a watercress-seller and a cat’s-meat man, had interfered disastrously with a potman carrying beer from a nearby public house, and put an abrupt end to a Punch-and-Judy performance. Scarlet with embarrassment, Sara made to these poor unfortunates financial redress—past encounters of a like nature had taught her never to depart Blackwood House unprepared—and hastily quit the scene.

Sara tucked the snarling dog under one arm and set off down the cobbled street. Confucious snapped and snarled. Irritably, Miss Valentine warned him that she was within aim’s-ace of following the recommendations so recently given her, and drowning him in the Thames. Having delivered herself of this announcement she paused to take stock of her surroundings.

They were near Hyde Park Corner, on the south side of the road, practically in the shadow of St. George’s Hospital, where the western entrance to the metropolis was marked by an ascent from Knightsbridge to the turnpike. Wistfully, Sara gazed into the distance. It would be very nice to proceed along that thoroughfare, she thought—in an opposite direction. To dream of escape from her servitude, alas, was to bay at the moon.

Miss Valentine, mooning at the distant prospect, failed to note that her arrival at Hyde Park Corner had coincided with that of a circus menagerie. Venerable as Confucious was, his senses remained acute. He squirmed out of Sara’s grasp, tumbled to the cobblestones, set off in pursuit of the lumbering wagons, while the startled Sara wondered if he’d broken his wretched little neck, or some less important bones. Events soon proved the futility of this hope.

To here describe Confucious’s encounter with the circus menagerie and the havoc he wrought, especially in reference to the dancing bear, would in no way advance this tale. Suffice it to say that great confusion reigned, and considerable ill-feeling ensued. Indeed, Miss Valentine was in the novel position of having a violin brandished beneath her nose by the bear’s irate owner when she spotted a familiar vehicle barreling along the roadway. Abandoning all dignity, Sara jerked away from the bear’s angry owner and ran out into the street, waving her arms. “Jevon!” she wailed.

Though Mr. Rutherford was long accustomed to being accosted by females, this particular episode caused his brows to climb. Nonetheless, he dealt with the situation admirably. In less time than it would take to properly relate, he had installed Miss Valentine and a resentful Confucious in his eye-catching sprung whiskey, which had a vermilion chassis, blue ironwork and violet base.

“Thank God for your arrival!” Miss Valentine sighed, and tried to set her disheveled self to rights. “I do not hesitate to confess that I had no notion what I should do next. I am very grateful to you for providing rescue.”

“Then you may repay me by keeping that misbegotten cur at a distance!” responded Mr. Rutherford, with an unfriendly glance at Confucious. “What the deuce does Georgiana mean, sending you out without an escort?”

“An escort?” Sara wrinkled her nose. “You forget that I am a mere servant. Beside, Confucious would not permit anyone to bother me.”

With that assertion, there was no quarreling; a steady growling from the Pekinese provided a background to their conversation. “No,” Jevon replied ironically. “He will merely make you pay the price of his vindictiveness. My poor Sara! Shall we manage to lose the beast?”

Tempting as was this notion, Miss Valentine, after the briefest struggle, nobly set it aside. “I wish you would be more serious!” she scolded. “A few days past you said that you would do anything within your power to assist Jaisy. Did you
mean
it, Jevon? Because if you did I wish that you might tell me what to do!”

Jevon recalled saying nothing of the sort, at least not in regard to his brattish sister; and he did recall his determination to avoid becoming entangled in that damsel’s kick-ups. “What’s this?” he equivocated.
“You
at point nonplus, my Sara? I cannot credit it.”

“You
could,
had you not been taken up wholly with your own pursuits!” snapped Sara, and then flushed as she recalled the rumor that her companion’s pursuits currently centered around a pretty opera dancer. “Forgive me; I should not have said that.”

Jevon, guessing the cause of Miss Valentine’s reddened cheeks, grinned. “No, you should not! First of all, you should not listen to vulgar gossip; secondly, that I am the subject of gossip is altogether your fault.” Even in her present disheveled and bewildered condition, his Sara was a deuced pretty female, he observed. “I would not be making other females the object of gallantry, had
you
not sent me off with a flea in my ear!”