Maggie MacKeever (3 page)

“Insufferable!” exploded Drusilla, angrily pacing the floor. “Constant, do shut the door!”

This was, in line with his thoughts, a most promising omen. Constant sped to do her bidding, then regarded Drusilla hopefully. Gad, but she was a handsome figure of a woman in that fetching gown of white muslin with its crimson tunic trimmed with pearl beads on golden disks; and none too selfish with her favors, if rumor was correct. He eyed her splendid bosom, heaving with agitation, and sat down rather abruptly on a rickety little chair, its back all spindles and balls, its seat fashioned of gilded cane. It was not the first time that Constant had been made aware that he had married the wrong sister. Drusilla’s vivacious manner and rather amoral outlook were far better suited to a man of his tastes than Lucille’s vague indecisions and conciliating ways.

“
I fear,” said Drusilla, who was well aware of her brother-in-law’s sentiments regarding herself and viewed them with little surprise and even less gratification, “that Sapphira is displaying symptoms of eccentricity verging on madness! To bring that chit
here!
My mother is a positive bedlamite.”

So much for romance, reflected Constant sourly. “Think you to put her in an asylum?”

“If only I could!” Drusilla wore so evil an expression that Constant decided himself fortunate that she was uninterested in dalliance. “Giles would never stand for it, damn him. We may only circumvent her as best we may.”

At these grim words, Constant felt an onset of one of his liverish depressions. His corsets creaked as he squirmed on the hard chair.

Perhaps a logical attitude might spare him the worst of Drusilla’s rage. A pity that this lush creature could conduct herself with all the vulgar ill-temper of a common fishwife. “What can the chit signify? I’m sure you will find some way to avoid playing chaperone.”

Drusilla turned on him, lip curled in disdain. “As if that were all! What a ninnyhammer you are, Constant. Must I remind you of my mother’s habit of forever changing her will? If we don’t look to our interests, we will find ourselves in the basket and that chit named as Sapphira’s heir!”

Constant goggled. This was a contingency he had not previously appreciated. “Surely not!” The protest lacked conviction. “Giles would not tolerate such a thing.”

“Why should Giles care?” sneered Drusilla, hands on her ample hips. “He already has his many titles and his wealth. No, Constant, it is up to
us
to circumvent the danger. Lucille will be of no help; Sapphira has only to glance in my sister’s direction to frighten her into submission. We may rely only on ourselves.”

Constant was stricken dumb by this intelligence. So spendthrift that he had quickly wasted his wife’s portion as well as his own, Constant lived in perpetual terror that Sapphira might do as she had so often threatened and turn him off without even a farthing. It was much too dreadful to contemplate. “She means the chit for Giles, of course,” continued Drusilla. “That, too, will not serve! Should matters arrange themselves as she wishes, Sapphira will be so pleased that she is likely to leave her fortune to them, and Giles certainly has no need of it.”

“But Giles doesn’t wish to marry again!” protested Constant, all at sea. “I’ve heard him say so. Why should he? He already has an heir.”

“Pah!” exclaimed Drusilla scornfully. “Think you Giles can hold out against my mother? He is far too concerned with his own comfort to long withstand her will.”

“Perhaps,” offered Constant, “he might wish to share Sapphira’s fortune with us?”

This suggestion did not appreciably increase Drusilla’s estimation of her brother-in-law’s intelligence. “Would you, sapskull, were the situation reversed? If only I had been granted a conspirator with some claim to wit! I, at least, wasn’t born yesterday.”

Unabashed by this ridicule, Constant waggled a wise finger. “I see what it is! You’re afraid the chit will cut you out! But Sapphira will not let the girl near your ‘Wicked Baronet’, for all she thinks him a charming rogue. He is listed by many matrons as dangerous; young girls are warned against him.”

“I’m not worried about
that,”
snapped Drusilla, with something less than truth. The gentleman thus named was incorrigibly fond of the ladies and nurtured an apparent belief that none would naysay him for long. It was a conclusion not without basis in fact: any number of frail creatures had accompanied that charming rake on the downward path to perdition without so much as a backward glance.

“Maybe you
should
be,” snickered Constant, rubbing damp palms on his plump thighs. “You’ve been dangling after him for years, and with very little effect.” It occurred to him that, if this Miss Clio proved handsome, he might embark upon his own game. What bliss, to see Drusilla receive a set-down! Perhaps Sapphira’s
protégée
even possessed a fortune of her own. Constant’s small eyes gleamed.

Drusilla contemplated an ugly porcelain vase and thought wistfully of the satisfaction she would derive from breaking it over her brother-in-law’s cobwebby head. But aggravating as he was, she needed Constant’s assistance. “This accomplishes nothing,” she grumbled, “We must make our plans before the girl arrives. Pay attention! I think I’ve hit upon a scheme.”

Chapter 3

“A well-brought-up young lady,” decreed Delphine, taking advantage of the captive audience fettered within the confines of Lady Tess’s elegant traveling coach, “is never allowed to be alone with a man, even for a half-hour in the drawing-room. No young girl goes anywhere unattended. At balls, she sits beside her chaperone until asked to dance; after each dance she is returned to her chaperone’s care. To dance more than three times with one man is considered forward.” She paused to regard Clio, who was looking sulky as a bear. “Attend me,
poupée!
Innocence is highly valued by the
ton.
No man wishes to marry a girl with a bold eye. And don’t sit with your ankles crossed!”

Clio pulled a rebellious face, but obeyed. She looked lovely in a carriage dress of white poplin with a deep blond flounce and a blue levantine pelisse edged with floss silk; and that she chafed already at the restrictions that were being placed on her, her sister knew all too well. But if Lady Tess was having second thoughts about this London venture, which promised to be at the least exhausting and at the worst—if Clio took it in her head to fly in the face of convention, which was not at all unlikely—disastrous, she kept those misgivings to herself.

“It sounds so very
dull!”
pouted Clio, and Tess concentrated mightily on her book—
Itineraire de Paris à Jerusalem
by Chateaubriand—lest she become embroiled in the fray. In a world where a squint was damning, a limp could only be considered fatal; Tess had turned to books in compensation for what in reality she would be denied, and her reading had been both panoramic and unorthodox. The countess had thus gleaned a worldliness that was somewhat startling in conjunction with her circumscribed existence, but she knew better than to offer to share that knowledge with her sister. Mistress Clio was hardly likely to take advice from a confirmed, if well-meaning, spinster.

Delphine labored under no such handicap. “Imbecile!” said she, but kindly. “However, girls aren’t expected to know much, merely to amuse. You will do well enough.” She frowned severely as Clio threatened to give vent to rage. “No, no,
poupée!
You must cultivate a low silvery tone and never, even in stress or anger, allow that tone to rise. Else you will be thought ill-bred.”

Clio was not so easily cowed. She fussed needlessly with her exquisitely frivolous bonnet. “I should have married Ceddie!”

Tess closed her book—it was growing dark and she had not seen to read for some time—and barely repressed a sigh. “Enough for now, I think, Daffy.” The countess appreciated her abigail’s motives, which were equal parts concern for Clio’s future and long-deserved revenge, but this constant bickering was wearing on her nerves. “It’s growing dark; I fear we must seek shelter for the night.”

Delphine noted with alarm that her lady’s piquant face was looking rather drawn. Cursing herself for an unthinking fool, the abigail quickly made Tess’s wishes known to the coachman. The Lansbury berlin might be the most modern of carriages, a well-sprung vehicle which was also nicely fitted out, its pale blue interior boasting beading along the roof as well as braid and silk fringe, its doors fitted with hanging pockets and trimmed on either side with a padding covered in taffeta and morocco leather, and emblazoned on its exterior the Lansbury coat of arms; but due to her crippled leg, the countess was not a good traveler, and such a protracted journey could only bring her discomfort.

“Poor Tess!” said Clio, and patted her had. She might resent her sister’s wealth and title, she might nourish a slight contempt for one whom fate had decreed would never have a beau, but she also loved Tess dearly, when she thought about it, which was seldom. “Has all this bouncing around caused you discomfort? I knew how it would be! Daffy should have let you accompany us on horseback.”

Delphine, at a wry glance from her mistress, withheld comment. Pleased by her small triumph, and totally unaware of the scandalized consternation that would have ensued had the Countess of Lansbury arrived at Bellamy House with as little pomp as the rawest underbred countrywoman, Clio sank back on the lushly upholstered seat, her spirits so miraculously revived that she did not even protest again that this journey to London was proceeding at a snail’s pace.

It was not so much Tess’s leg that troubled her as her aching head, and that was due not so much to the jolting of the carriage as to confined quarters and enforced inactivity. Lady Tess refused to be restricted by her handicap, and enjoyed a life of no little physical activity. It scarcely mattered on her own estates if she was noted to walk with less than grace; the servants were long used to their lady’s ungainly gait. It would be far different in London. There a limp would make her the cynosure of all eyes. Oh, if Clio had not made it necessary that she go!

Clio’s thoughts also centered on the metropolis, as did Delphine’s. It seemed to Mistress Clio that the reality of a London season was going to fall far short of the anticipation thereof, due entirely to Daffy’s eagle eye. Perhaps she truly should have married Ceddie, even though she didn’t like him very well—but the die was cast, and she must make the best of it. Nibbling on her lower lip, Clio mulled over the various ways in which she might lull her watchdogs into a false sense of security. The thing would be difficult but not, for a young lady of Clio’s vast resourcefulness, impossible.

Delphine was not thinking of Clio at all, but of her mistress. The countess’s pale complexion was not due to Daffy’s Roman Balsam, or even to her infallible Cosmetic Lotion, which consisted of horseradish and cold soured milk; but to nervous strain. Delphine had a fair notion of how Lady Tess would hate to be gawked at and whispered about, and her heart, which was extremely tender beneath that rather prickly exterior, fair bled for her young mistress.

The travelers breathed a collective sigh of relief when the carriage drew at last into the courtyard of a coaching-inn. No sooner had it rolled to a stop than Daffy, scorning aid from coachman or steps, was out the carriage door and yanking energetically at the bell-pull that would summon the innkeeper to them. Clio, without a thought for her sister, was hard on the abigail’s heels.

Lady Tess moved in a more leisurely manner, waiting for her coachman to assist her to alight, looking around with frank interest at her surroundings. The great cobbled courtyard was scored deep by coaches’ iron-shod wheels; the gabled inn itself, which was sadly derelict, was built in an Elizabethan manner, its weatherboarding interspersed with square-cut bay windows. An overhanging upper floor of half-timbering was inset with plaster panels and lit by a variety of diamond-paned windows. A pity, Tess thought, as the coachman guided her over the rough stones, that the structure had been allowed to fall into such disrepair. In its heyday, the inn must have been charming. Now it bordered on the macabre.

“Thank you, John!” she said, and awarded her coachman the sweet smile that caused her servants to unanimously believe her the kindest of mistresses. “You may take the horses around to the stables, and then have yourself a nice mug of ale.” The coachman bowed respectfully and took himself away.

The interior of the old inn, with its heroic-sized oak beams, might have interested Tess as greatly as the exterior, had she not been so fatigued. Odd that there was no one to greet her, she mused, as she proceeded with some difficulty over the ancient, uneven flagstones. Tess had only a hazy notion of how business was conducted in such places, but it didn’t seem exactly efficient for guests to be left to find their own way about.

But the countess was not long alone, for the narrow hallway led her into the taproom. Tess strongly suspected that she had no business there, but her thoughts were quickly distracted by the scene therein. The room was filled with rough-looking men—local visitors, Tess supposed, come in for a tankard of ale and a chat over the taproom fire, which was blazing merrily in a huge granite fireplace at least eight feet long and two feet deep, supported on two shorter columns of similar girth. None of these worthies appeared particularly pleased by the intrusion of females into their domain, though any number eyed Clio with appreciative interest. That graceless damsel, Tess noted wryly, was looking exceedingly demure and hovering uncommonly close to Delphine’s voluminous skirts. Daffy herself, undaunted by such overpowering odds, was engaged in loud altercation with the ungenial landlord.

“Ain’t nothing I can do about it,” stated that hirsute individual, then spat with remarkable accuracy into an empty can halfway across the room. “We’re full up. You’ll have to go elsewhere.”

“Vraiment?”
Delphine drew herself up in a manner that caused several of the men to shift their attention from Clio. Delphine was a fine figure of a woman, particularly when in a temper, as she was now.
“Tout même,
you will provide for us three bedchambers, one for my mistress, the Countess of Lansbury, one for her young sister, and one for myself. Bestir yourself, my man! My lady is wearied of traveling and would rest.”