Cupid's Dart (9 page)

Again she was doing something that was not entirely proper, but nothing Marigold did turned out to be proper, even when her intentions were of the noblest, so it seemed pointless even to try. She would only remain in the Grove for a few moments, and return home with no one the wiser, and no harm done. As her protector, foolish creature, she had brought along the dog.

This outing was not proving as interesting as Lump had first anticipated. The strange lady was keeping him on an exceedingly short leash. Clearly she did not understand that a hound needed a certain freedom to explore, especially in new surroundings such as these. There was a ditch in particular that had caught Lump's attention. He inched closer to the flowering bush behind which they stood.

What was the wretched dog doing? Marigold tugged on his leash. If only the Italian soprano wouldn't dwell so much upon such melancholy topics as unrequited love and faithless lovers and broken hearts. Already, at six-and-twenty, Marigold had been thrice a bride. Sometimes she despaired of ever getting it right. Not that many opportunities for contracting another marriage were like to be offered her in Newgate, or wherever it was that people were sent who lost articles of jewelry that belonged to someone else. What a muddle Marigold had made of everything. Perhaps she should simply put an end to her existence and be done with all the fuss. But Marigold was at heart an optimist. Surely there must be some way out of her dilemma. If only she might meet some generous and wealthy gentleman.

Two things happened then, at once. Lump lifted his leg and watered the flowering shrub, and a gentleman appeared so abruptly in front of her that Marigold wondered briefly if she'd conjured him up out of her need.

The gentleman was not pleased to have been dribbled on. He cursed. Lump may not have had much in the way of manners, but he was aware that it was not
comme il fait
to go about indiscriminately dribbling. In an effort to make himself invisible, he dropped to the ground.

The gentleman appeared to be wealthy, decided Marigold, judging from the quality of his clothes. Wealthy or not, he looked very cross. Which was not surprising, considering that Lump's dribble was all over his boot. Despite the scowl, his swarthy features were handsome in a certain style—certainly more handsome than Sir Hubert or Mr. Frobisher. No one could ever be more handsome than poor Leo had been.

Marigold was melancholy for want of society. And it was in her nature to play the coquette. Prettily, she smiled and asked the stranger, "Do I know you, sir?"

Carlisle had the advantage over his uncle's widow, whom he had immediately recognized from her miniature, although the painting had not done justice to the wench's magnificent décolletage
.
Perhaps his uncle had not been so deeply in his dotage as Carlisle had thought. With some reluctance, he raised his gaze from her plump bosom. "I'll wager you would rather not know me, you little jade."

Here was no gentleman with designs upon her virtue. Marigold felt sad. It seemed a very long time since anyone had cherished designs upon her virtue, save Sir Hubert, and Marigold had contrived so mightily to plant the notion in his brain that it almost didn't count. "Oh!" she said plaintively. "How dare you speak to me
so?
Are you in your cups, perhaps? Because I have not the most distant notion why you should offer a perfect stranger such grievous insult."

Carlisle did not consider that he had insulted the lady, but merely made a statement of fact. "You might as well give it up," he advised. "You shan't have
me
dancing on the end of your string."

Clearly Marigold would not. The man was a curst cold fish. Furthermore, he stood so firmly in her path that she could not duck around him and escape. "I wish you would tell me why you have taken me in such dislike," she said. "Because I was already feeling out of sorts, and I must tell you that you are making my mood very much worse."

So much for his tiger hunt. Instead Carlisle had cornered a peahen. Lovely, granted, and amazingly voluptuous, but a peahen all the same. "I will give you a hint. The Norwood Emerald. You little fool, did you think your victim had no kin?"

Her
victim?
Marigold disliked the suggestion that she had entrapped her late spouse. Even more did she dislike to meet a member of her late spouse's family. "Damn and blast!" she muttered.

Carlisle grasped her arm. "Just so. I was fond of my uncle. I won't allow you to have made a fool of him. Give me back the emerald, if you please."

Marigold would have very much liked to give back the emerald, which had brought her so much bad luck that she thought it must be cursed. Unfortunately, she could not. She did not think this angry stranger would take kindly to that disclosure. "Emerald? What emerald? I do not know what you are talking about!"

Perhaps Carlisle had underestimated Miss Macclesfield, just a little bit. Not that he was to be deceived by the brilliant blue eyes peering cautiously up at him. "Cut the cackle and come to the horses
,
" he advised, and gave her a shake. "You are rapidly becoming a dead bore."

First she was a prime article of virtue, and now she was dull as ditchwater. Marigold stamped her foot. "I think that you must be the rudest man I have ever met."

"While you are wasting your time and mine," retorted Carlisle, with brutal candor. 'The emerald, Miss Macclesfield."

Marigold wished he would not call her by that wretched name, which had been Mr. Frobisher's invention, and which she had never liked. Nor did she like that this stranger knew so much about her. "My name
is
Lady Osgood. Who are you?"
she
asked. "If you do not tell me, I vow I shall not say another word."

Unlikely that she could remain silent for upward of a moment. Still, it was mildly intriguing to see what the peahen would try next. Carlisle introduced himself.

Damnation! Now the fat was truly in the fire. "Oh!" Marigold murmured. "The Indian. You should have said so sooner. Not that
you
are an Indian, but you choose to live there, which is very strange, but you must know what you like best. I did not realize that I still had the emerald. It must be packed away. You will understand that I didn't have the heart..." She sniffled and touched a handkerchief to her dainty nose.

Like a certain critic before him, Carlisle found that Miss Macclesfield's performance lacked a certain believability. "Ah, yes. You were so distrait with grief that there was no remedy save to go jauntering about. Unusual as it may be to find a grieving widow among the revelers in the Grove."

The widow gave him a withering look. "I am merely observing,
as you can very well see. My state of mind has been so very melancholy. I wished to distract myself." She raised a graceful hand to her brow. "But now your dreadful accusations—I believe—no, I know!—that my nerves are overset. Delightful as this conversation has been, I must leave now, because I am quite unwell." She tried to pull away.

Carlisle held her arm fast. "Cut line, my girl. You aren't going to convince me that you're a respectable female." His eyes moved over her body, lingered appreciatively upon her dramatically heaving breast. "It would be a pity if you were."

Marigold wished she might give this rude man a knock on the head. She put down her handkerchief, and glared. "I
was
a respectable female! And if I'm not one now, it's not my fault."

Carlisle was briefly distracted by speculation upon how Miss Macclesfield had been first led astray. And upon how many times she had tripped along the pathway to perdition since. "And," she added, "you will be very sorry when I cast up my accounts."

Was she a sufficient actress to shoot the cat on cue? Carlisle trusted not. "Not so sorry as you," he replied sternly. "My person has already suffered sufficient injury this evening. No, and you needn't think to faint, either, because I will let you fall on the ground. Let us have the word with no bark on it! You thought to lie in clover, but you cobbled it, my girl. Oh, I don't doubt you made my uncle happy enough for a time, even though it was cream-pot love on your part. But you didn't make him happy enough that you deserve to keep the Norwood Emerald. I
will
have it back."

Marigold wished the man would stop harping on the Norwood Emerald. "I'm sure I don't wish to keep the wretched thing," she said, and again employed the handkerchief. "But you will have to wait until I can bring myself to go through Sir Hubert's effects."

Carlisle's fingers dug more deeply into her arm. "Have you heard of the Hindu custom of
seti,
Miss Macclesfield? A widow is expected to hurl herself upon her husband's burning funeral pyre. It is not necessarily a voluntary act."

All things considered, Marigold thought she would prefer to go to gaol. She stared up into Mr. Sutton's dark face. To think she had deemed him handsome. Did he not regain his damned emerald, this unpleasant man would see her behind bars.

But Marigold did not have his emerald. Somehow she must escape. Covertly she looked around, thereby reclaiming Lump's wandering attention, and causing him to stir.

It was a long shot, perhaps, but better than none. Marigold gave Lump's leash a sharp tug, then dropped it on the ground.

Freedom! He was set free! Ecstatic, Lump jumped up. Having anticipated this reaction, Marigold ducked, thus exposing Mr. Sutton to the brunt of the dog's gratitude. Distracted, he loosened his grip on her arm. As Carlisle struggled in the great beast's slobbering embrace, Marigold escaped.

Chapter Eleven

With very little pleasure, Lord Warwick gazed upon the crowd that thronged the Steine. No dislike of its varied society—sportsmen in their many-pocketed jackets and officers of the Prince's regiment wearing yellow and blue; ladies of pleasure and city beaux; merchants and émigrés;
people on their way to and from the baths, or to drink tea at the Public Rooms; the ubiquitous fishermen—prompted his expression. Simply, Garth disliked to be one of the sights himself.

Across from Mr. Donaldson's library, where the
ton
gathered to read newspapers and gossip, the enterprising Mr. Raggett had established a subscription house where thousands of pounds were daily won and lost. Lord Warwick stepped into the street. No stranger to gentlemen's clubs, he was a member of both White's, with its famous bow window; and Brook's, where a single black ball was sufficient to exclude a candidate, and the name of anyone who joined another club—White's excepted—was instantly removed from the membership list. Garth wondered how the accusation of murder had affected the presence of his own name on that list. There was but one way to find out. He stepped through the door.

A hush fell over the room. Garth was not surprised. Sometimes he felt like a perpetual-motion machine, stirring up all the salons. He looked around. Many of the gentlemen there were known to him. Mildmay and Pierrepoint. Alvanley. Brummell. Magnus Eliot, an unscrupulous rogue who lived entirely off his wits, and was said by some to embody a great many of the less admirable qualities of the age.

The silence stretched out unbearably. Then Brummell arched a brow. "Warwick," he drawled languidly, "I do like that cravat."

So simply was Garth's fate decided. He was not to be outcast. Normal conversation resumed, and jocularity, to the great annoyance of several gentlemen who were attempting to play a serious game of whist, and the disappointment of several others who had hoped to see Lord Warwick given the cut direct. Even while he was aware of the absurdity of a society in which the approval of a Brummell outweighed that of a Prince, Garth was grateful to the Beau. Although Brummell's influence was not what it had once been, due to his championship of Maria Fitzherbert in her altercations with Prinny, he was still a force to be reckoned with.

Lord Warwick joined his friends, and was introduced to the other member of their party, an old acquaintance of Lord Alvanley's family who had recently returned home from India. Garth confided to Brummell that the Beau had been fortunate
not
to listen to Prinny's German musicians perform selections from the latest Italian opera on the Pavilion lawn; and that the Regent had been dissuaded from his most recent brilliant notion to have a palace built on the same plan as his magnificent stable. The Beau recalled that Prinny had once lost several thousand pounds betting on twenty turkeys racing against twenty geese on the Steine. Mr. Sutton—for of course Carlisle was the gentleman from India—remarked that if the Regent's stables resembled an Indian mausoleum, as they were said to do, it was like no mausoleum he had ever seen.

The gentlemen then engaged in discussion of Wellington's progress in the Peninsula, and Mr. Percival's demise on the floor of the House of Commons at the hands of a merchant named Bellingham. Mr. Sutton aired several vituperative remarks about the conduct of the Marquess Wellesley in India, which had culminated in his impeachment on the grounds of, among other things, breaking treaties, squandering his employer's wealth, exercising power despotically, and setting up his own statue in Calcutta after consigning that of Lord Cornwallis to a cellar. In response to a question from Lord Alvanley, Mr. Sutton went on to enlighten his audience about certain Indian sculptures which stood comparison with Greek and Roman statuary in the eyes of connoisseurs of pornography, and to explain the connection between religious practice and sexual enjoyment which so fascinated and repelled visitors to India. Mr. Sutton himself had seen a Hindu holy man, a giant of a figure with a massive appendage to which was attached a golden ring, who was so revered by young married women that they knelt before him and took him in their hands while he stroked their hair and murmured purification prayers. "If that don't beat everything!" marveled Lord Alvanley. The ice among them broken, the gentlemen settled into a not-very-serious game of hazard.

Mr. Sutton studied his companions, most especially Lord Warwick, who had declined to join the play. Carlisle had a fair notion of Lady Georgiana's feelings for that gentleman, and a much less clear sense of his toward her. He supposed it would be unsporting not to give the man the benefit of the doubt. "You do not like Italian opera?" he inquired. "It seems to be all the crack. I myself heard an Italian soprano at the Promenade Grove last eve."