The Luck of the Devil (8 page)

T
he letter read: Your Grace, we have a small matter to discuss. I was sorry to have missed you in Dorset, and must have misunderstood your message. Surely you wish to continue your cousin's line of generosity? I am certain you will be in London shortly. Shall I call on your sister and stepaunt there?

Carey swore. The letter was masterful, insinuating much, saying little that could be held against the author. There was no outright extortion demand, simply hints about a small child, the succession, and embarrassing his womenfolk. But many families had conspicuous dirty linen without being bled dry. Hell, the St. Dillons already had Lawrence Fieldstone. And Emonda had already been mortified; she and Suzannah could not be shamed further, safe in Dorset.

Carey felt a shiver down his spine like the night before a battle. They were in Dorset, weren't they? By Jupiter, if those two innocents were capering about Town without a proper doyenne and the Reardon woman and infant started rumor mills grinding, Suzannah's prospects would be nil. She'd be lucky if that puppy Jeffers offered for her. His eyes narrowed. Now wouldn't that be just like his sad romp of a sister, to force his hand with a scandal? "Damn!" he said aloud. The dog looked up and padded over to his chair. "Damn all women, Scratch, they're nothing but a misery."

Now he was going to have to go haring off to London where his every limping move would be as public as an exhibit at the Royal Academy, and every conniving mama would have her gimlet eye fixed on his bankbook and her heart set on his title. That was assuming any gently bred female could stomach both his lameness and his besmirched name, after Mrs. Reardon left her little calling card at his door. Profligacy was one thing to the ton; discretion was all. Carey refused to consider the type of woman who could overlook a man's flaws and foibles in favor of his purse—he wasn't desperate enough yet to let one get her claws into him—so he was going to have to deal with the lightskirt and her brat instead of throwing the letter in the fire. He would have to come to terms with the shrew, and do it all in London at the height of the Season. "Blast!"

For a moment he was tempted to accept the boy as Harry's get and end this misbegotten need to look further for a cursed bride he didn't want, but there was no proof. He had too much honor, furthermore, to pay blood money, and too much dignity to let a by-blow, someone else's by-blow at that, wear the St. Dillon signet ring after him. Most of all he had too much pride to dance to any woman's tune.

"A pox on all of them!"

The dog wagged his tail.

Emonda settled in nicely in Grosvenor Square. Due to her mourning, she excused herself from balls and fetes, the crushes that would have overwhelmed her. She enjoyed sightseeing and shopping and unexceptionable dinner parties and small musicales and visits to the opera. She liked walking Toodles! She was just as pleased to sit home reading to Aunt Cora or practicing the pianoforte or playing a surprisingly astute hand of cards. Piquet was Lord Clyme's favorite pastime, she blushingly admitted, and he had spent hours teaching her.

Aunt Cora adored the girl, who was always eager to sympathize with her complaints and who could be cajoled or browbeaten into pouring the old lady a glass of sherry when Rowanne's back was turned.

As for the young widow's relationship with Gabriel, Rowanne decided that even prickly hedgehogs must go about the thing with less roundaboutation. Anyone but the veriest looby could see the two were well suited, and they had not even progressed to a first-names basis.

Emonda was fascinated by Gabe's latest theories and did not seem to find his political friends' conversations tedious. She smiled and nodded and impressed all the old men, and one shy young one. Gabriel took time off from his new duties to show her Westminster and the Tower, with all its history.

"And he didn't have to refer to the guidebooks once," Emonda proclaimed with awe.

Rowanne wanted to shake the both of them. Otherwise Emonda was the perfect guest, except for her maid.

At first the girl Suky was declared too ill to wait on her mistress, so another abigail was assigned, to Emonda's almost stuttered appreciation. But no, Suky did not need a doctor; hers was a chronic condition. When a few days had passed and Mrs. Ligett reported that the girl never left her rooms and the other maids were grumbling about having to fetch Suky's meals up the stairs and wait on her, Rowanne decided she had better look into the matter, in case her sweet little peagoose of an aunt was being flummoxed.

She knocked on Emonda's door one evening after a family dinner and waited, impatiently tapping her fingers on the book she had brought along as an excuse. Not that she needed an excuse, she told herself, it was her house, and if anything untoward was going on she should know about it. She tapped again, and the door finally opened. Emonda was sitting by the chaise where the maid lay sprawled in her enveloping outfit, a damp towel over most of her face.

"I thought you might like this new book by Miss Austen, Emonda, but now that am I here, is there anything I can do to help?" She indicated the recumbent maid.

Emonda was scarlet-faced to the roots of her pale-blond hair, but she quickly denied any need for assistance.

"I really think we must have the doctor in, Emonda, just to relieve Mrs. Ligett. The other maids are wondering if there is some plague in the house."

"Oh no, you mustn't. That is, you mustn't go to so much bother. You have been too kind and Suky is… is just unhappy. That's it, she is not sick at all."

"Oh, the poor girl must be homesick. Don't you think we should send her back to Dorset?"

The maid groaned and Emonda hurried on: "But I need her company."

"But my dear, you have all of us now, and if the girl is so unhappy…"

"No, she cannot go back. If St. Dillon finds her—"

"He broke my heart" came a moan from under the towel.

"Yes, that's it, she is disappointed in love."

Good grief, Rowanne thought, was there no end to that man's villainy? Emonda had mentioned another love-child in her litany of St. Dillon's sins, and now he was seducing housemaids! Mrs. Ligett would have kittenfits if the girl was increasing, but Rowanne could not send her back to that libertine. "Don't worry, Emonda," she told her aunt, "I'll make sure that dreadful duke never has his way with her again."

"The duke? Have his way?" Emonda was sputtering, but the maid had fallen over in an hysterical weeping seizure that lasted until Emonda pinched the girl's arm.

"She'll be fine now," Emonda stated, "and this… indisposition should not last much longer."

Rowanne had her doubts, about nine months of them, but she left to have a few words with the housekeeper anyway.

A few days later Mrs. Ligett came into the sitting room where Rowanne was cutting up an old pair of thin kid gloves to cover tiny books. She had just begun to have more time for her own interests, now that Emonda was confident enough to go shopping with a maid or pay visits with Aunt Cora. This afternoon Rowanne had refused Gabriel's invitation to the ladies for a ride in his carriage, rare as such invitations were, so she might have this time to herself.

"It's that sorry I am to disturb you, Miss Wimberly, but you said to keep my eyes peeled, and that I have. It's the maid, miss. Our Jem caught her sneakm' down the back stairs, in her mistress's clothes no less, and carryin' a bandbox. If she's not up to something havey-cavey, I'll eat my best bonnet. Jem's got her in the kitchen. What should we do?"

When Rowanne got to the kitchen the maid was taking tea like a princess, the veil of Emonda's black hat pulled back just enough for her to wade through a plate of Cook's raspberry tarts set aside for tea. Rowanne dismissed Jem and the pot boy and the scullery maid and all the other servants gathered in expectation of a little excitement.

Taking a seat opposite the maid, Rowanne told her, "Your mistress isn't going to like this one bit, you know."

"And I am bloody well sick of it too," the girl said, removing the ugly bonnet to reveal shiny black curls and distinctively dark-rimmed blue eyes—and dimples.

For a moment Rowanne just stared, the tart in her hands falling back to the plate. The niece at school, of course. "Don't any of you Delversons have an ounce of decorum?" she finally managed to ask, which earned her a wide grin that was all too familiar, even after all those months.

"I told Emmy you were a great gun. And you must have met the Devils." A shadow crossed the lovely face, but she went on. "At any rate, my papa said we all grow into proper ladies and gentlemen in our dotage. My own brother is growing patriarchal at an early age."

"Then he does not seduce housemaids?"

The grin came back. "No, but he is a perfect beast."

"Don't tell me, he is trying to force you into marriage with a vile old man too, or else he's stealing your dowry. I wouldn't put anything past that scoundrel."

"Emmy is a trifle… highstrung," Suzannah said, as if that explained St. Dillon's baseness. "But it's nothing like that." Then she treated Rowanne to a highly entertaining tale of True Love being positively fraught with impediments and heartless guardians who refused to recognize years of devotion and the absolute agony of parting from her dearest Heywood. The farce at Drury Lane couldn't have done it better. Rowanne almost choked on her tart, trying not to laugh.

"But if your brother refuses to give you permission to marry until next year when you will be an old maid at eighteen, what do you hope to accomplish by coming to London?"

"I thought I could convince Woody to fly to Gretna Green with me." She took another bite as casually as if she'd just mentioned buying a new pair of gloves.

"Horrors, you really must be Carey Delverson's sister. Don't you know that would ruin you forever? The ton would never forgive such an escapade, and local society is even more straight-laced."

"That's what Woody says. His mother would be upset and she's ever so nice, but I didn't know what else to do." Tears started to fill those remarkable eyes.

Rowanne poured tea and offered a handkerchief. "Couldn't you wait? I am sure your brother only wants you to see more of life."

"But I want to see it with Woody," the girl wailed. "He says we can come back to London any time and do all the sights together and be ever so much gayer as a married couple. He's having a wonderful time now, while I sit upstairs reading."

"I have no answer to that, but you really cannot go abroad in London by yourself, even disguised as a maid. Your young man should not encourage you."

"Oh, he doesn't. Woody's petrified of my brother, you see. But I threatened to come to his rooms if he didn't meet me in the park, so he had no choice."

Rowanne almost began to feel sorry for the girl's guardian. She took a deep breath, wondering if she was doing the right thing. No, the right thing would be to tie the forward chit in the cellar and hire Bow Street Runners to guard her till either her brother came or she turned eighteen. But she liked the girl and saw no reason to worry over St. Dillon's approval, not since he had mismanaged the whole affair—and many others too numerous to bear.

"Very well, miss," she directed, "here is what we shall do. In one hour, your gentleman shall escort you, in a hackney, to the front door of Wimberly House. You have just returned from school and have come to visit your aunt, at my invitation. Your maid fell ill at the last posting house, but since you are nearly betrothed to Mr. Jeffers, no lasting harm was done. He shall call on you here and may escort you around, with a proper chaperone of course. If I hear one whisper, one inkling of indiscretion, however, I myself shall write to your brother. I am not the least petrified of him."

"You're not? I mean, you are a Trojan, Miss Wimberly!" She threw her arms around her hostess, laughing. "I shall never forget you! I'll be a regular pattern card, you'll see."

Rowanne had her doubts but she said, "My servants will forget Suky ever existed, but I'll have to tell my brother about you. He's the one St. Dillon will blame at any rate."

Suzannah put another spoonful of sugar in her cup. "Oh, no, Carey always knows it's my fault."

"Yes, dear, but this is London, and gentlemen here have odd notions. I am afraid Gabriel might think the honor of his house is at stake if your brother should, ah, cut up stiff."

"From Emmy's descriptions, Miss Wimberly, I know your brother to be a fine gentleman, but surely he's not one who… who…"

"Who seems ready for pistols for two and breakfast for one? You must have been peeping over the banisters, minx, but you are quite right, and that is why you must be on perfect behavior so we can squeak through. I am very fond of my brother, even if he is a mild-mannered scholar, while your brother, from what I am confusedly gathering, is a warrior-hero, a rake, a scoundrel, or a fool, possibly all of them at once."

It was on the tip of Suzannah's tongue to fly to her brother's defense. Carey was the most honorable man she knew, after her father of course, and Uncle Donald. He was the downiest, even General Wellesley said so, and the bravest. Suzannah's brother was perfection itself, a real out-and-outer according to Woody. He was just overprotective, stubborn, and blind to True Love's urgency. She could not say that to Miss
Wimberly, naturally, not after she and Emmy had painted him the villain of the piece. Instead the girl reassured her rescuer that no one would be able to fault her behavior, not even Suzannah's black-hearted brother.

"By George, he is so mean he has clobbered dear Woody twice already, and Woody is ten years younger and half his size!"

Suzannah neglected to mention why, leading Miss Wimberly to worry if any of them would be safe when Carey Delverson came to Town, as come he must. Rowanne supposed she would be as safe as she'd ever been with him, which was to say not at all.