Amanda Scott (20 page)

“I would not go far to plead his innocence, however, and you must know the girl’s very presence in this household could prove dangerous to you.”

“She will not be here long enough to constitute a danger,” Rothwell said, seeing daylight at last. “She came only to beg me to do something to ease the lot—a strained one, she insists—of my tenants in Scotland. She had the curst nerve to accuse me of taking no interest in their welfare. I daresay they do not like paying rents to an outsider, but as I told her, they have no one other than themselves to blame for their predicament. I am sending her home tomorrow, and my stepmother and Lydia will accompany her as far as Derbyshire. I think,” he added with an oblique glance at Ryder, “that it is an excellent time for Lydia to renew her acquaintance with Rothwell Park.”

“That may be true,” Ryder agreed, but he was observing Rothwell with an expression that made him feel unnaturally wary. “Do you know, Ned,” he said mildly, “I believe I agree with Miss MacDrumin. It is more than time that you visited that new estate of yours. In light of recent occurrences, I need information, specific and detailed information, from someone I can trust—pray note my extreme generosity in including you in that category, old friend—regarding the exact state of the current personalities and politics of that barbaric region. I can think of no one more worthy of the charge, or presently more vulnerable to a little very polite blackmail.”

“Damn you,” Rothwell said, but he was already resigned to his fate, and not dreading it nearly so much as he might have expected. “Get out now, Ryder. I still have to break the news of her impending exile to Lydia.”

“It is no less than you deserve,” Ryder murmured as he got to his feet. “Can I take this to mean you will go?”

“Yes, I’ll go.” He sighed. “Send Lydia in, will you?”

Maggie had finished what little packing there was for her to do by the time the door to her bedchamber was flung back on its hinges and Lydia stormed in. Dashing tears from her eyes, she grabbed the swinging door, slammed it shut behind her, and shrieked, “I
hate
him!” Striding across the room, she flung herself into a chair near the window embrasure and added fiercely, “He is a devil. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!”

“You must be angry with me as well,” Maggie said. “You have every reason. Don’t spare me, Lydia.”

“Lud, it was not your fault. I daresay Ned scolded you as dreadfully as he did me, and no doubt blamed you for taking me along, on account of your being a few years older than I am, though how he thinks you could have stopped me, or have kept me from writing to Thomas—Oh, yes, he knows about that now, too, for it slipped out when I was shouting at him about something else altogether. In any event, you could not have stopped me, so it is most unfair if he did blame you.”

“I am not so certain of that,” Maggie said dryly.

“If only he had not found us there,” Lydia said with a sigh. “I’d give a quarter’s allowance to know how he manages to know just what one is doing when one least wants him to, but so it is more often than not. Lud, but it was a shock to see him loom up before us like some avenging god.” Her lips twisted. “Not that one would ever mistake Ned for a god. I daresay gods are never put out of temper by a bit of lint on a sleeve or a cuff turned improperly, but Ned flies into the boughs over such things until one quite pities poor Fletcher—his man, you know—and really—”

“Lydia,” Maggie interjected, “Rothwell is not merely being devilish. If he is more angry with me than with you, it is because you would never have gone there had I not taken you.”

“But he was mostly angry on account of my arranging to meet Thomas,” Lydia said, adding thoughtfully, “Of course, Thomas was also vexed, but at the time I thought it was because I had not been invited, and later, of course, I realized it was because he had gone to such trouble to arrange his little surprise for me.”

“Lydia, did you tell Lord Thomas that the prince was there?”

“’Pon rep, no! Goodness, Maggie, how could you think I would betray him, even to dearest Thomas? And in case you were wondering,” she added stiffly, “I did not confide a word about last night to Sir Dudley either.”

“I never thought you would do that,” Maggie said. “I only asked about Lord Thomas because you are especially fond of him.”

“Well, I never came near telling Thomas, but in fact, I very nearly did slip with Sir Dudley,” Lydia confessed. “It was only a tiny slip and, and I covered it so quickly that I am certain he did not suspect a thing. Well, it stands to reason, because he would have pelted me with questions, and he did nothing of the sort. Really, I ought to be put out with you. I know it is a great secret and Prince Charles visits London only at his extreme peril. I did not even tell Ned. Lud, to think he was actually in the same room with Charles and does not even know!”

Knowing that if Rothwell had not mentioned Charles to Lydia he must assume she did not know the prince had been present, Maggie remembered that he had not seen the glaring display the prince had made of himself and realized now that he had not learned of it from Ryder either. The thought flew through her head in a twinkling, but even so, she could see that her slight hesitation had stirred Lydia’s curiosity, and said quickly, “The prince is not the only one imperiled, my dear. You do understand that most people there last night were Jacobites, do you not?”

“Well, of course, I do. I am one myself. Ned says that is absurd, but then he is a Whig. I don’t know what James is, but I daresay he is also a Whig, for I have never heard him utter so much as a word in favor of the Stewart claim, and most Tories are thought to be sympathetic to Jacobites, you know.”

“Oh, my dear,” Maggie said, shaking her head, “being a Jacobite is not at all the same thing as being a Whig or a Tory.”

“Lud, I know that. People get very upset if one so much as mentions James Stewart. They call him the Old Pretender, which is dreadfully disrespectful, I think, but even though Ned says that being a Jacobite is just like committing treason, that must be nonsense, because I know lots of perfectly respectable people who toast the king over the water, and none of them gets arrested, but now nothing will do but that Ned must pack me off to Derbyshire and you off to Scotland, and I daresay we shall not stop him, for he means to escort us both himself.”

“Only to Derbyshire,” Maggie told her. “Though he has promised to provide an escort for me, he won’t go to Scotland.”

Lydia shook her head. “That cannot be right, Maggie, because I distinctly heard him tell Mama that it would be a pity, since he had to go so far just to take us home, not to go. And when she said he would be crazy to go at this time of year, he said he had heard the shooting and hunting were excellent now.”

Hardly daring to believe her, and wondering what on earth could have changed his mind, Maggie said faintly, “Did he tell your mother the whole tale then?”

“Not the whole, just enough so that she flew into the boughs and raked me down just as if Ned had not already done so and as if it were all my fault, which it is not! She is prodigiously shocked, as I suppose I need not tell you; nevertheless, she agreed with me that it was not necessary to drag me out of town. Of course that was only because she still harbors hopes of making a match for me with Evan Cavendish, who even Ned said is not a good match for me. It is Evan’s money, of course, that entices Mama. It is always the money. She thinks that since James was so unfortunate as to have been born after Ned, and since I am but a mere female, we can make our marks only by marrying wealthy and titled persons. I do not care a fig about such stuff, of course, nor does James, but that is precisely what has put Mama into such a passion now. I cannot bear to think how uncomfortable she will make us, all the way to Derbyshire.”

Privately Maggie thought the dowager very vain and rather stupid. The only person she seemed to care a whit for, other than herself and her legion of splendid ancestors, was James, whom she doted on. When he was at hand, that did not keep her from condemning his artistic endeavors and what she called his medical dabbling, but Maggie had noticed that she took every opportunity to praise him to others, declaring him to be a fine artist—much better than Canaletto or that dreadful Hogarth—and commending his potions and remedies to all her friends. Now, in an attempt to stir Lydia to a better humor, Maggie said lightly, “We shall have to cheer your mama by suggesting to her that since James will remain in London, he might well succeed in bringing Lady Portland’s niece round his thumb whilst you are gone.”

That drew a laugh, but Lydia shook her head. “You may suggest that if you like, but I promise it will not improve her humor, for she will know as well as I do that without her here to harass him, James will not make the least push to engage that girl’s interest. In point of fact,” she added with a musing look, “I mean to entreat him to accompany us. Mama is never as unpleasant when he is around as she can be when he is not, for he is quite her favorite, despite the fact that he rarely exerts himself to please her except by bringing her an occasional lotion or potion. It is the oddest thing, for I tried and tried when I was younger to be the sort of daughter I thought she wanted me to be, and she never paid the least heed. It was always James. But one cannot dislike him, you know. It is not his fault that she dotes on him. I don’t think he even cares about such things.”

“Nor will he care to journey into Derbyshire,” Maggie said dryly. “Your brother loves the city too much to leave it.”

“Oh, you do not know James,” Lydia said. “He has any number of odd tastes and is forever finding new ways to amuse himself. It is not all painting and such. Why, he spent months following Dr. Brockelby about, not because he ever thought he might wish to become a doctor, of course—persons of our station never do—but merely because he likes to know things. And he knows lots of other things, too. Even Ned says James spent his time at Eton and Oxford more wisely than he did, and Ned is not stupid by any means. He does become irritated with James, however, because he says he never applies himself to anything of importance, which is why they disagree so frequently. James does not think much of the things Ned thinks are terribly important, either.”

“But none of that,” Maggie pointed out with a sigh, “is any reason for your brother to leave town now to go to Derbyshire,”

Lydia smiled mischievously. “Nonetheless, I shall persuade him to go. Indeed,” she added with an arch look, “I daresay it will not be nearly so difficult as you think it will, for unless I miss my guess, dearest James has developed a fondness for you.”

“Nonsense.” Maggie was astonished by the suggestion.

“No such thing. Why else would he have come for us with Thomas last night? Moreover, he has always had a preference for fair women—which is why I think he will never look twice at Lady Portland’s niece, who is quite dark—and he has said more than once that he admires your spirit and thinks you are different from any female he has met. If that is not what a gentleman says when he is intrigued by a lady, I do not know the signs.”

Maggie knew better than to suggest that Lydia’s limited experience hardly made her an expert in such matters, and she was glad later that she had held her tongue, for to her great surprise, the imperious letter Lydia sent off by footman to her brother resulted in his appearing at Rothwell House early the following morning, prepared to set off at once for Derbyshire.

If Maggie was surprised, she saw that Rothwell was amazed. He had been attempting to explain his decision to visit Scotland after all, an attempt both hampered and punctuated by Lady Rothwell’s continued complaints. When James entered the breakfast parlor, both fell silent, but Rothwell recovered first, demanding, “Good God, James, what brings you out so early?”

James grinned at Lydia, bent and kissed his mother’s cheek, and said, “Good morning, Mama. Are you still vexed about all this? Lydia sent to tell me that Ned had come over the tyrant again, so you behold in me your personal and most sympathetic courier. Good morning, Miss MacDrumin. I trust that my family has not dismayed you with all their distempered freaks.”

Maggie could not resist his cheerful smile, but she saw the moment she returned it that his surprising behavior might well cause more problems than his presence would alleviate, for the dowager, having responded with delight to his unexpected entrance, was now regarding Maggie with profound disapproval.

“James,” Lady Rothwell said sharply, “perhaps you will be better able than I was to convince your brother that it is quite impossible for us to leave town on such short notice.”

James put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze, saying, “Come now, Mama, surely you know it is beyond my poor powers of persuasion to influence Ned in any way whatsoever. Indeed, I shall feel that I have exerted myself a good deal merely to convince him to let me accompany you.”

“But do you
wish
to go to Rothwell Park?” Lady Rothwell demanded, clearly thinking the notion a ludicrous one.

James shrugged. “As to that, I daresay it will be nearly as dismal there as Lydia says it will, but that is precisely why I cannot refuse to lend my cheerful countenance to your expedition. Someone must do something to protect you all from falling into flat despair along the way. Besides,” he added, grinning, “if I practice a few small economies now, I shall not find myself short of funds again before January, and will be spared the indignity of a lecture on my personal finances from my unfeeling brother.”

Rothwell had been watching him narrowly, but at this sally he smiled, saying, “I take it then that your notion of economy is to hang on my sleeve for the duration of the journey.”

“Certainly. You will scarcely believe that I truly mean to act as your courier. I know perfectly well that your excellent Fletcher sees to all arrangements when you travel. I could never do so well. Indeed, I know you could not get on without him.”

“So little do I enjoy this sort of expedition, however, that had I known you’d agree to visit the country at this time of year, I’d have willingly entrusted the whole business to you.”