The Mischievous Miss Murphy (8 page)

Busily inspecting the neat fingernails of his left hand, Max replied calmly, “Edward Q. Davison is no hard taskmaster. Once the trench is completed, the workmen are free to return to their homes, of course.”

The Marquess tried hard not to laugh aloud, his quick mind already picturing the havoc Max had provoked in order to prove his point. “Max!” he exclaimed, taking a large gulp of air. “You wouldn’t?”

Looking every inch a mischievous leprechaun, Maximilien P. Murphy raised one bushy eyebrow and purred, “Would a duck swim?”

Tony could no longer restrain his mirth. His explosion of laughter, hardly heard above the sound of cursing coachmen and protesting peers, rang out gaily as he clutched at his companion in order to remain upright.

“Takes the cockles off your heart, don’t it, laddie?” Max said, clearly quite pleased with both himself and his bit of mischief. Slipping his hand around Tony’s elbow—for it was not a wise man who stayed to watch the blaze when it was he who lit the match—the pair pushed off toward St. James’s Street and the Cocoa Tree, Max saying something about mischief being thirsty work and being in need of some refreshing six and tips to wet down his dry throat.

The remainder of the afternoon passed so pleasantly, with Max regaling his young friend with ribald stories of his adventurous past, that it wasn’t until Tony was dressing for dinner that he realized that, not only was he out a goodly sum of money, he had committed himself to being a co-conspirator in Max’s matrimonial plans for Candie. And, he remembered, cursing violently as he ruined yet another neckcloth, he had at least temporarily scotched his own plans for making that same young lady his next mistress.

“Damned wily Bog Lander!” he swore, smiling a bit in spite of himself.

“My compliments, Tony,” Hugh imparted quietly, absently twirling his wineglass. “That girl is quite the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. And not only are you the one to discover the ever so ravishing Miss Murphy, but you do it while the town is all but shut up for the impending winter. Except for Will and a half dozen or so other bucks, it would seem you’re to have a clear shot at her hand. But then you always did have the Devil’s own luck, didn’t you?”

Tony smiled sardonically. “If Miss Murphy’s hand were the portion of her glorious anatomy I had in mind, dear friend, I might be liable to agree with you. As it is, her dainty little paw is hers to bestow when and where she wishes. I’ll make do with possessing the rest of her—for as long as it suits me, of course. But I notice you have not included yourself as one of Miss Murphy’s possible suitors. How long do you propose to wear the willow for my scatterbrained sister before you give it up?”

Hugh Kinsey peered across the Montague drawing room at the love of his life, at the moment being entertained by one of Max Murphy’s hilarious tall stories, and replied without rancor, “As long as it takes, old son, as long as it takes. I only wish you could be well and truly struck by cupid’s little arrows. Perhaps then you’d show some sympathy toward your fellow man rather than taking such obvious delight in our suffering. Oh,” he added, seemingly as an afterthought, “and you can leave off spouting rubbish like some rakehell libertine—seeing as how there’s none but me to hear you, and you’ll never get me to believe you’d ever despoil an innocent maid. It’s not your style, Tony, and we both know it. Can it be this Miss Murphy makes your to-date stone hard heart go pitter-pat so that you need boast about your prowess in some desperate attempt to protect yourself from your finer feelings?”

“Not content to suffer only the pangs of unrequited love, Hugh, you now seem intent on pinning your hopes on impossible dreams,” the Marquess responded repressively, fingering the quizzing glass that hung round his neck from a black riband. “Don’t look for this particular man to ever succumb to that debilitating disease you so rashly call love. I’d just as soon put my head in a noose. Besides, I’m having entirely too much fun bedding everyone else’s love. Lord, the wives in this town fairly line up for my favors. Hardly an endorsement of the institution, is it?”

“Ah, yes,” Mr. Kinsey returned placidly, “your reputation, Mister Overnite, is, I’m sure you believe, something to be envied. But, please, do not number me among your admirers. Your easy conquests of what amount to nothing more than titled jades has given you a jaundiced attitude I do not envy, although I’m glad you restrict your affairs to women of the world and leave the innocents to their virginal dreams.”

Looking once again at the beauteous Miss Murphy as she sat demurely listening to Lady Montague describing her latest purchase—a particularly outrageous red velvet-trimmed bonnet—Hugh ventured idly, “Miss Murphy is not your usual flirt, Tony, not by a long chalk, although I can easily see she is not the usual milk and water debutante either. If she’s a thief, she’s a chaste thief. She is clearly ineligible for seduction, no matter what the sins of her uncle. Strange. For if you are not bamming me, your pursuit of her does not stem from any thought of finally setting up your nursery, and I’m sure as I am of my love for your sister, you’re after the chit. This gets curiouser and curiouser, old man, as you can’t have it both ways. Perhaps you should dismiss the girl from your mind entirely and get back to the business of cuckolding every second husband in England.”

His dark eyes flashing with suppressed fury, Tony retorted in a fierce undertone, “Don’t push too hard, Hugh. Anyone would think you’ve set yourself up as Miss Murphy’s protector. Believe me, it’s not necessary. Her uncle is formidable enough to keep me from ravishing the chit here in m’sister’s house like some bloody rutting boar. Oh yes, I admit to lusting after the dear Miss Murphy—what man could overlook such a fetching piece of goods? But even I have more scruples than to ruin an innocent girl. The thing is, Hugh,” he began confidentially, “I’m positive Miss Murphy is no inno—”

Tony hadn’t seen the butler enter the room and nod to Lady Montague, who then hopped spritely to her feet and announced, “Dinner is served, my dears. Hurry do, as Louis so abominates it when his creations are left standing for so much as a moment.”

Patsy, taking Max as her partner, led the way to the dining room, commanding her brother to assist Miss Murphy while winking broadly at Hugh and Will and teasing them as to who should take whose arm as the two gentlemen brought up the rear.

It was an informal dinner, with Lady Montague at one end of the table and the Marquess at the other, the Murphys to Tony’s right, and the single gentlemen to his left as they sat around the table in the smaller, family dining room.

“I had Soames remove that great hulking silver centerpiece Lord Montague’s mother cursed us with so that we would be able to talk across the table without craning our necks like agitated storks. After all, how are people supposed to become acquainted if they are limited to speaking only with the persons to their immediate right or left? I cannot begin to tell you the number of crushing bores I’ve had to endure at formal dinner parties. This is cozier, don’t you think, Miss Murphy?”

Tony had been forestalled in his intention of warning Hugh yet again about the Murphys (and thereby justifying his seemingly indecent designs on Candie’s person), giving him a moment or two to rethink his motives for continuing to insist his new acquaintances were the basest of frauds. Instead, he had decided to leave their final judgment to Hugh and Will themselves, telling himself his was an academic exercise meant to discover both the extent of his friends’ gullibility and the magnitude of the Murphys’ talent to deceive.

His decision did not, however, extend to lending the Murphys a helping hand in their deception. To this end, he cleared his throat slightly and inclined his head in Candie’s direction. “Yes, Miss Murphy,” he prodded facetiously, “do let us hear your opinion on the subject. For one so well traveled, I’m sure you’ve had occasion to sit through many a formal dinner in any number of countries, dealing with all the customs peculiar to each nationality.”

Candice, her sherry eyes sparkling as she looked the Marquess square in his handsome, grinning face—telling him without words that she knew just what he was about —readily took up the challenge. “I have found formal dining to be much the same everywhere on the Continent, although I will say that I have never seen such a fuss as I did when we dined with her highness in Sweden. Of course, the Spanish and the Italians are no slouches when it comes to fanfare, with small armies of servants parading in the courses as if each silver platter bore its own holy grail. As to the customs in Africa, I’m afraid I must refer you to my uncle, as I dined in seclusion with the women while the Emir entertained Max with scantily clad dancing girls as they partook of nasty-looking stuffed grape leaves and honey cakes.”

Max took up where Candie left off—not requiring the none too gentle cue she sent him by way of a swift kick on the shin—and re-created the scene inside the unidentified Emir’s enormous red-and-white striped tent in his own inimitable style.

After describing some of the more bizarre foods that were served—causing Will Merritt to completely lose his appetite for the poached salmon on his plate—he went on to explain how honey cakes were made of endless paper-thin layers of pastry spread with finely chopped pistachio nuts and steeped in purest honey.

“Their resulting taste is so delightful, my friends, that if the Holy Father should ever bite into one he’d outlaw the cakes as an occasion of sin, and no mistake. If you wish, Lady Montague, I’ll write down the recipe for your chef. The Emir was kind enough to have his men impart it to me, seeing as how I’d done his highness a small service and he insisted on rewarding me. It was nip and tuck there for a while, making him see that I would find it difficult explaining away the three wives he wished to gift me with once I was back in England, but I finally convinced him the recipe was payment enough.”

“Max had a harder time talking the Emir into believing he was not insulting him by turning down the six camels, twelve goats, and small chest of jewels his son offered him in return for making me his number-one wife,” Candie interjected, laughing at the memory.

“And many’s the day I regret those pretty baubles slipping through my fingers,” Max said, shaking his head. “But for all she can be a sore trial to me at times—nagging at me worse than a wife, don’t you know—at least, as I pointed out to the Emir, I don’t have to constantly remember to keep myself upwind of her.”

“Oh, Mr. Murphy, surely you’re bamming us,” Patsy protested, lightly slapping his hand. “You’d never trade your niece for some smelly livestock and a few jewels.”

“I’d trade m’sister Barbara in a minute,” Will averred, reaching for his wineglass. “Wouldn’t have to be a big chest of baubles neither, and that’s a fact.”

His plan to discommode Candice having come to nothing, Tony withdrew from the lively conversation that followed, as Max and his niece dominated the scene, answering question after question put to them by Patsy, Hugh, and the noticeably impressed Will Merritt.

It wasn’t until the gentlemen had rejoined the ladies in the drawing room after port and cigars that the Marquess was able to maneuver Candice off into a corner for some private conversation.

He did not waste time complimenting her on her gown—a simply cut but stunningly attractive lime-green confection stamped with the unmistakable look of a superior Parisian modiste—but went straight to the heart of things, demanding to know what she and Max planned to do about extricating themselves from further meetings with his sister.

As Patsy had already invited the two of them to a card party she was holding the following Monday evening (while Tony had cringed inwardly at the thought of Max fuzzing the cards and dealing from the bottom of the deck), Tony could not pretend he was not upset by what was rapidly turning into a situation.

Candie looked her adversary up and down carefully, doing her best to pass over his obvious handsomeness and concentrating on his graceless lack of faith in her ability to mix with decent people without either filching the family silver or drinking from the fingerbowl, and said calmly, “Max is on vacation—a sabbatical of sorts—and not planning anything in the near future that could possibly give us away for the nasty felons that you think us to be. We’re merely tourists enjoying the city for a space, my lord. Your sister and your friends are congenial company. The only pitfall in sight is your own behavior. The way you watch our every move lest we make a misstep, while at the same time trying your best to trip us up yourself, will soon cause comment if you can’t bring yourself under some semblance of control.

“So I say to you, my lord,” she ended, her polite, social smile never fading by so much as a hair, “either fish or cut bait. In other words, either relax and enjoy our temporary friendship or take yourself off once and for all. After all, it wasn’t Max or me who came scratching at your door bearing gifts.”