The Magnificent Masquerade (26 page)

"Her migraine put him in a temper?"
Emily asked, confused.

"Because of you, you see. He feels that if
you, who are suffering real pain, could get out of bed and dress yourself, then
she, who he claims has only imaginary pain, should have the character to do the
same."

"But doesn't he realize that imaginary
pain can be just as real to the sufferer as physical pain?"

Lady Edith blinked at her blankly for a moment,
and then a beaming smile dawned on her face. "Oh, my dear," she
exclaimed, clapping her hands together, "that's so true! How well you've
hit on the nub of it! I knew you were a treasure the moment I laid eyes on you.
You're just the one to help us. Can you come down and tell that to Hugh?
Perhaps you can convince him not to cry off."

Emily gasped. "Cry off? Does that mean ...
are you saying that Alicia and Dr. Randolph are actually betrothed?"

"Well, not actually. But haven't you
noticed that the two of them have been smelling of April and May of late? We,
Alicia and I, have not wished to announce anything yet, but Alicia believed
that Hugh was on the verge of speaking to Greg. To ask permission to court
her." She dabbed at her cheeks in a futile attempt to staunch the flow of
tears. "We were so bliss ful, Alicia and I. To speak frankly, my love,
we'd given up hope of Alicia's every marrying. Hugh may not be a magnificent
catch, as these things are measured, not having a title or even great wealth,
but she does love him so." She sniffed into the handkerchief once more and
gave her shawl another hitch. "So will you come, my love, and see if you
can set things straight?"

Emily hesitated. She didn't see what she could do
to help poor Alicia, but it seemed heartless not to try. On the other hand, she
was determined to execute her plan for escape. However, she supposed that a
brief delay wouldn't make a significant difference. "Very well, my
lady," she said, pressing the anxious mother's hand, "if you think I
can be of use..."

Lady Alicia threw her arms about Emily in an
emotional embrace, causing so great a shock of pain in the girl's shoulder that
she almost cried out. "Oh, my love, it's just as

I've always said. You are a treasure!"

Chapter
Twenty-Four

Lady Edith had managed to keep the perturbed
Dr. Randolph from storming off the premises by prevailing on him to drink some
hot tea before venturing out into the snow. He had just finished when Lady
Edith led Emily into the breakfast room. "There, now, tell him how wrong
he is," she said with her customary tactlessness.

"I say, ma'am," the doctor objected,
"ye didn't drag this poor, bruised creature all the way down the stairs
just to involve her in this matter! Have ye no conscience? No pity?"

"That's all right, doctor," Emily
said soothingly. "I'm-"

"It's you who have no conscience and no
pity, Hugh Randolph," Lady Edith declared, her neck reddening in
resentment, "or you wouldn't have left my daughter lying on her sickbed so
distraught!"

"I only came down to-" Emily began.

"Distraught? I left her distraught?"
the doctor snapped. "She made herself distraught."

"I only came down to-" Emily began
again. "I suppose you had nothing to do with it, is that what you're
saying?" Lady Edith demanded.

"-to ask you to reconsider," Emily
continued, attempting to instill an air of calm into the discussion.
"After all, Alicia is-"

"Yes, that's what I'm saying! She had the
migraine before I arrived."

"But only a mild one. It's entirely your
fault that it's now so much worse," Lady Edith whined, sinking into a
chair.

"Alicia is a bit delicate, you know,"
Emily put in. "She needs-"

"I fail to see how I can be blamed. If
I've told her once I've told her a thousand times that if she had enough mettle
not to surrender to them, the migraines would disappear by themselves."

"You've no sympathy, that's what's wrong
with you," Lady Edith declared. "The child feels pain, even if you
believe it to be imaginary. Tell him, Miss Jessup. Tell him what you told
me."

"What I said, Dr. Randolph, is that-"

"The child?" Dr. Randolph shouted,
shaking a finger in her ladyship's face. "Your daughter is almost thirty!
How can you call her a child?"

`-is that imaginary pain-"

"She's my child, and I can call her what I
like!" Emily sighed. "Imaginary pain-"

"That's just the trouble. You treat her
like a child. How can she be expected to grow up-"

"Stop it!" came a voice from the
doorway. They all looked round to find Alicia standing there, white-faced and
furious.

Despite her obvious distress, she'd taken the
trouble to don Kitty's becoming robe and to dress her hair. "How dare you
all discuss me in this vulgar way?"

"I'm sorry, my love," Lady Edith said
contritely. "I was only trying to help."

"Help?" the doctor said with heavy
sarcasm. "That sort of help is like a crutch for a leg in which the break
has already healed."

"And what, pray," demanded Alicia,
"do you mean by that?"

"I mean, miss, that you should be helping
yourself, not leaning on your mother."

"I do not lean on my mother!" Alicia
said.

"There's nothing wrong with a young,
unmarried woman seeking the support of her mother," Lady Edith pronounced
at the same time.

"What's all the shouting about?" said
a new voice from the doorway. This time it was Toby. He strolled into the room
and made for the buffet. "Have you all lost your wits?" he asked
without real concern. But at that moment he noticed Emily. "Kitty! What on
earth-? What are you doing out of bed?"

Three voices answered at once. "Your
mother dragged her down," the doctor muttered.

"I needed her assistance," Lady Edith
said.

"I came to help Alicia," Emily said
quietly.

"You all have lost your wits!" Toby
snarled furiously. "Have you forgotten that this poor girl was tossed from
her horse only yesterday?" He strode across the room and lifted

Emily up in his arms. "You, my love, are
going back to bed right now!"

"Toby!" Emily gasped. "Put me
down!"

"You needn't baby the girl, Wishart,"
the doctor said. "She's not made of glass."

"Did he call her his love?" Alicia
asked her mother, momentarily distracted from her own cares by her delight at
Toby's words.

"How can you worry about that now?"
her ladyship asked querulously. "You have other things to think
about."

"There! You see?" Dr. Randolph,
turning to Alicia, pointed an accusing finger at her mother. "The moment
you have a thought for someone else, she brings your attention back to your own
selfish concerns."

"My daughter doesn't have a selfish bone
in her body!" Lady Edith cried.

"I know she doesn't. It's you who are
making her so absorbed in herself," the doctor accused.

"Hugh Randolph!" Alicia cried.
"How can you speak in that horrid way to my mother?"

Lady Alicia drew forth her handkerchief.
"He calls me selfish, when it is he who hasn't an iota of sympathy for
you, Alicia."

"I don't need sympathy for her," Dr.
Randolph shouted, quite at the end of his patience. "I love her."

"Do you indeed?" came a new voice.
This time it was Lord Edgerton in the doorway. Having spent a sleepless night
tossing in hopeless longing for a little minx he had no right to love, he'd
gone out to clear his head by riding his horse through the soft, new-fallen
snow. Now, feeling a great deal refreshed by the ride, he stamped the snow from
his boots as he surveyed the noisy assemblage in the breakfast room with a
great deal more amusement than he could have summoned an hour ago. His eyes
flitted from Toby (standing at his right with the false Miss Jessup in his
arms), to his mother (who was trying with her usual lack of success to wrap her
shawl about her shoulders, while Dr. Randolph and his sister gaped at each
other over her head). "This is the first I've heard of any love
matters," he remarked calmly. "As head of the house, shouldn't I have
been the first to know?"

"I was going to tell you, Edgerton,"
the doctor said uncomfortably, "but your sister and I have reached a bit
of an impasse here."

"More than a bit, I should say,"
Alicia muttered tearfully. "He believes me to be too delicate to be a
doctor's wife."

"Perhaps she is too delicate," Lady
Edith said sullenly. She was beginning to wish that Dr. Randolph would cry off.
It had occurred to her only a moment ago that she might not enjoy having a
son-in-law who disliked her.

"Do you think you're too delicate,
Alicia?" Edgerton inquired interestedly.

"I don't know. I suppose it's up to Hugh
to decide that. He is my doctor, after all."

"Well, Randolph? What is your medical
opinion?" Edgerton asked.

"You know my medical opinion. Your sister
is perfectly healthy. But she must be made to believe that herself. She's had
too many years listening to her ladyship tell her how delicate she-"

"Ahem!" This latest interruption was
made by Naismith, who had been standing in the doorway for the past few seconds
trying to get his lordship's attention.

"Not now Naismith," his lordship
said, much too fascinated with the goings-on in front of him to brook any
distraction. "Are you suggesting, Randolph, that if she were married and
living under less indulgent influences, she might more easily blossom into
robust health?"

"It is certainly a possibility," Dr.
Randolph said, eyeing Alicia with hopeful speculation.

"That's a manly, decisive response for
you," Toby remarked disdainfully.

Lord Edgerton turned his attention to his
brother. "I suppose you have a manly, decisive response to the question of
why I find you standing in the center of your mother's breakfast room with an
innocent young lady in your arms."

 "As a matter of fact, I do,"
Toby retorted promptly. "I-"

"Put me down, Toby, please!" Emily
begged in embarrassment.

"Ahem!" Naismith was even louder this
time. "I told you not now," his lordship said, waving him off.

"Well, Toby, I'm waiting."

"I'm about to convey this innocent young
lady to her bed, where she should have been kept in the first place," he
said cheerfully.

"There's no need to carry me, you
clunch," Emily whispered. "I can walk. Put me down!"

"Hush," he whispered back. "I'll
put you down on your bed and nowhere else."

"But my lord," Naismith said
valiantly, "there are-" But his lordship wasn't listening. He was
staring at his brother under knit brows.

"What right have you to carry her about
without her leave?" he asked his brother.

"I have every right. Since I intend to
marry Miss Jessup, I intend to take proper care of her."

Edgerton, taken aback, frowned. "You
intend to marry that Miss Jessup?"

"What other Miss Jessup is there?"
Toby riposted with a grin.

"Oh, Toby; I told you it isn't
possible," Emily said in consternation.

"Speaking of Miss Jessup," Naismith
said firmly, "her parents are here."

"What?" said Edgerton, wheeling
about.

"What?" Emily squealed.

"What?" Toby chortled loudly.

"Did you say that Miss Jessup's parents
are here now?" Lord Edgerton asked.

Naismith nodded, unable to hide a slight air of
smug satisfaction at the sensation he'd caused. "Yes, my lord. That's what
I've been trying to tell you. Lord and Lady Birkinshaw have arrived and are
asking to see their daughter. They are waiting in the rotunda."

"Well, my gracious, what's all the fuss
about, Naismith?" Lady Edith asked irritably.

"Tell them to come in."

"Oh, no!" Emily moaned as Naismith
bowed himself out.

"Frightened, are you?" Toby teased.
"I know. Your father is a miser and your mother is a dwarf, so you think
I'll cry off."

"Dash it all, Toby," Emily hissed
urgently, "stop clowning and let me down!"

"Really, Toby, you are being odious,"
his sister remarked. "Why don't you do as the girl wishes and set her
down?" "Not on your life," Toby grinned, lifting Emily higher on
his chest. "I want her parents to see how delightfully we are getting
on."

Edgerton knew he should intervene. Matters were
coming to a pretty pass, and he was the only one who could sort them out. But
something held him back. He wanted the fun of seeing the whole charade played
out. Confound you, Greg Wishart, he scolded himself, you're as bad as your
brother. But while he struggled with his conscience, Lady Birkinshaw bustled
in, with the red-faced, weary Lord Birkinshaw right behind. It was too late
now. With his eyes alight with amusement, Lord Edgerton stepped back behind the
others to observe the unfolding of Kitty Jessup's little plot. It was his
mother who did the honors. "Ah, Lady Birkinshaw, how do you do?" she
said with forced cheer, rising in queenly majesty from her chair and putting
out her hand. "What a lovely surprise! We weren't expecting you for
several days."

"How do you do, ma'am?" Lady
Birkinshaw responded coolly. "We are sorry to break into what is obviously
an intimate little revel, but I assure you we do not intend to stay.

We've only come to pack up our little girl and
convey her home."

"Convey her home?" Toby echoed in
chagrin. "But ... why?"

Lady Birkinshaw turned and looked him over
icily. "And what business is it of yours, pray?" she asked. Toby glanced
down at the girl in his arms for a puzzled instant and then back at Lady
Birkinshaw. "I should think you'd have guessed, ma'am. I'm Toby."

Lady Birkinshaw stiffened. "Toby? Toby
Wishart?"

 "At your service, ma'am."

She stared at him a moment in disbelief and
then shuddered in abhorence. "I should have known!" she exclaimed in
tones of revulsion. "Who else would greet his guests while brazenly
carrying his ... his dozy in his arms?"