Maggie MacKeever (12 page)

It did not occur to Angelica that she might render up the truth. Following her sister Lily’s example of indulging in air-dreams, she spun a fine tale of squandered family fortunes and starving siblings, with herself the sole means of keeping the wolf from the door. Simon made no comment. Impressed with her own inventiveness, Angelica added a consumptive parent sewing seams by candlelight so that her ragged youngsters might have bread on the table at least once a week.

Angelica may have been impressed with her powers of invention, but her audience was not. “Doing it rather too brown!” he observed, when she fell silent. “Do you think me want-witted? I cannot lay claim to many virtues, but a flat I am not!”

Mention of virtue caused Angelica to contemplate vice, and Simon Brisbane’s acquaintance therewith, which she concluded, and rightly so, was vast. If only she were a swan— Appalled, Angelica banished the thought. “Cat got your tongue, Miss Smith?” inquired Simon. “I give you leave to speak.”

Visited by a strong suspicion that the gentleman was aware of, and amused by, the shocking tenor of her thoughts, Angelica did precisely that. “This is a serious business!” she said sternly. “It is not kind of you to try and distract me. Oh, I know you do not mean it; it must be habit with you to try and beguile every lady who crosses your path—but it is your father you should be concerned with, your father and that odious little Durward! It is not my place to say so, but I expect you mean to dismiss me anyway and so I
will
say it: it is no wonder, the way Sir Randall is treated, that he should try and slip the leash!” Simon regarded the decanter that he still held and then picked up a glass. “You will be astonished at my temerity in daring to address you so,” added Angelica. “I am myself! But I cannot bear that anyone should disturb your father’s peace of mind, because I am very fond of Sir Randall.”

“Yes, I see you are.” Simon thrust the brandy snifter beneath Angelica’s nose. “Don’t fly into alt, my silly girl; I’m not accusing you of making a dead-set at my father.”

Unaccustomed to being addressed as a silly girl, and certainly unaccustomed to being treated by a rake to the possessive pronoun, Angelica blinked and stared. “I don’t take spirits, sir.”

“Simon,” he repeated, retreating not one inch. “You will in this instance make an exception—to oblige me, Miss Smith.”

Prey to a suspicion that ladies generally did oblige Simon Brisbane, and a further suspicion that if she did not oblige him he would force the brandy down her throat, Angelica drank. She choked and coughed, wiped the moisture from her cheeks, then stared up at him. He returned her regard. Angelica dared another sip from the snifter she now held. On second tasting, the liquor wasn’t half-bad. “Nor,” said Simon, “do I intend to dismiss you. My father has taken a rare liking to you. I am not a cruel man, Miss Smith.”

“No. I do understand,” Angelica said somberly, “why you are under the necessity of having Sir Randall, er, chaperoned. He is a little imprudent, but surely his little eccentricities—”

“My father is damned imprudent, Miss Smith!” interrupted Simon. “And you are little better, my girl! I am willing to concede that Durward erred in claiming you are the slyest thing in nature—but an assignation in a
cemetery
— Don’t poker up! I know my father inveigled you into accompanying him there. Perhaps I should explain his fascination with the place. Old habits die hard, and that cemetery is the site of—”

“I beg you will say no more!” Angelica recalled Mallet and Bimble, and her conviction that Sir Randall was prone to undertake his own resurrection work. “Who would have thought—I still find it hard to credit—but you must not fear that I will plunge you into scandal! I assure you my lips are silent as the—er. The secret is safe with me.”

What secret was this? wondered Simon. Had his enterprising parent gotten into some mischief of which even Durward was unaware? Clearly Miss Smith would bear cultivating.

No one knew better how to coax a reluctant bloom to blossom than Simon Brisbane. He flicked Miss Smith’s cheek with a careless finger. “Tell me, shall I apologize to you?”

Startled, Angelica touched her cheek. “For what?”

“That will teach me to overrate myself,” Simon murmured. Still she looked uncomprehending. “For kissing you, little hornet!”

“Oh,
that!”
Angelica laughed and rose. “I don’t regard it, I assure you!”

So much for pursuits floricultural, Simon thought ruefully. There was no doubt that Miss Smith had meant exactly what she’d said.

Chapter Ten

Even as these various dramatic events took place, April yielded the stage to May. The weather improved, if only marginally: the perpetual snow and fogs that had led Lord Byron to complain that Lord Castlereagh had taken over the foreign affairs of the Kingdom of Heaven gave way to rain. A week after the poet’s hasty departure from England, where he was never to return, Princess Charlotte, in a shimmering silver wedding dress and a wreath of diamond roses selected from the stock of Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, married her obscure German prince. This grand occasion took place at Carlton House, and a mob of hundreds clapped and cheered in the streets outside while the bride and groom knelt on crimson velvet cushions beneath candlesticks six feet tall.

For many inhabitants of London, even a royal wedding was not sufficient cause to disrupt their daily routine. One such individual was Valerian Millikin, whose daily routine was a great deal more sacred to him than any religious ceremony, even a ceremony complete with six-foot high candlesticks. In point of fact, so absorbed was Valerian in his various endeavors that he had never heard of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.

Even so, Valerian’s routine had already been mightily disarranged on this particular day. His duties as a member of the honorary medical staff of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital— founded in 1123 by a Roman monk, Rahere—were not arduous, and required his attention only twice a week. On one day he went his complete round of the hospital; on the other, which this day was, he saw out-patients and dealt with emergencies. Few emergencies had awaited him, and Valerian had returned to his lodgings in a cheerful frame of mind, only to find disheveled and gasping on his doorstep a grave emergency indeed.

If illness had prompted this startling degeneration of the only sister whom Valerian held in affection, it was no physically debilitating malady: the first words to pass Angelica’s lips expressed a very poor view of Valerian’s dislike of bestirring himself. Though a less devious individual might have been rendered indignant by so censorious a judgment, Valerian’s curiosity was pricked. Lest bystanders interpret this windblown harridan as indicative of the quality of his healing gifts, or of his personal preferences, Valerian ushered her into a grisly chamber of horrors known as his specimen room.

During that brief journey, Angelica’s exhortations did not cease. Rosemary’s problems grew daily more complex, she confided. Now it appeared very much as if Chalmers had begun to scent a rat, and even more like Rosemary would at any moment succumb to a fever of the brain. Meanwhile the others—

Here Valerian interrupted with a blunt inquiry as to why Angelica should think he wished to be regaled with the latest fits and starts enacted by what’s-her-name. Surely Angelica must know him better than that? At the notion she might not, Angelica laughed outright. Valerian frowned and sniffed and demanded to be told why his eldest sister had brandy on her breath.

Angelica explained. She was not in her altitudes, she quickly pointed out, nor even a trifle foxed; her excessive good spirits were the result of laughing rather a lot. Angelica had not found much to laugh about of late—a gentle hint that was an exercise in futility. Ah, well, Marigold’s offspring were not Valerian’s concern. Thought of offspring recalled to Angelica the source of her recent amusement, and she recounted her meeting with Simon Brisbane.

As has already been established, Valerian was an unnatural sort of brother, and thus evinced no dismay that Angelica had made the acquaintance of a hardened rakeshame. On the intelligence that the rakeshame had ardently embraced her, he raised a brow; on the further intelligence that Angelica had refused an apology for that grave misconduct, which she appeared to view as an excellent good joke, he lowered it again. Obviously Angelica was immune to the blandishments of Simon Brisbane.

That point settled to his satisfaction—Valerian was fond of Angelica and would not have happily watched her led astray— he set himself to ease her worries. Some solution to the problems of what’s-her-name would present itself, he promised; meantime she could but patiently persevere. But he was not unsympathetic, and it was unfair of Angelica to accuse him of being a lazy fribble who’d left her in the lurch. In proof of his good heart, Valerian prescribed for his long-suffering sister syrup of poppies and a hot brick.

After Angelica’s departure, accomplished in what is best described as a huff. Valerian was not left long to enjoy his solitude. Angelica was not the sole member of the family to recall the existence of her elder sibling; Valerian was privileged to receive in his specimen room no less distinguished a visitor than his aristocratic brother-in-law.

Lord Chalmers did not immediately announce the purpose of this unprecedented call, but politely introduced himself and embarked upon a conversation that might have been expressly meant to set Valerian at ease. That there was no need for such effort, Valerian did not explain; nor did he reveal the amusement that Lord Chalmers’s petty condescension aroused in him. Valerian Millikin awarded awed deference to no man—or, for that matter, deity.

Be that as it may, and was, the gentlemen conversed. They discussed the Foundling Hospital, the conditions in which had so greatly improved since the institution’s inception in 1739 that now only one in six children died; the difficulties faced by young apprentices, such as being forced into crime or being framed by thief-takers for crimes of which they were innocent; the unhappy fact that many of London’s prostitutes were girls even younger than the age of consent, which was twelve, and the difficulty of securing a conviction for rape. At this point, Valerian grew weary of the exchange. “You have not sought me out to talk of this! Just why
did
you come?”

Lord Chalmers, who had expected to find Valerian as mutton-headed as all the Millikins except Angelica, and who was not yet wholly convinced that Valerian was not similarly want-witted, made a slight gesture of concession. “It is a slightly difficult situation—but you
are
the head of the family.”

Devoutly, Valerian hoped he wasn’t to be subjected to yet another tedious account of what’s-her-name and the Chalmers sapphires. “Head of the family?” he echoed, with a crack of laughter. “Don’t let my stepmother hear you say that or there’ll be the devil to pay! Moreover,
I
don’t want the tending of a pack of silly widgeons—no offense, you understand, to what’s-her-name!”

To say that Lord Chalmers was visibly taken aback by this blunt rejoinder would be to understate the baron’s sangfroid; but he definitely exhibited a slight degree of stupefaction. “What’s-her-name?”

“Your wife.” Valerian was not impressed with his brother-in-law’s powers of intellect. “She’s your problem, not mine. It’s been years since I laid eyes on the chit, and don’t think I regret the fact! I’m a busy man, and I’ve no time for paper-skulled females, excepting Angelica, and she’s not generally wanting for wit. Although I suspect if she spends much time with Marigold’s gooseish brats, she soon enough will be!”

The entire Millikin family, present company included, was very much of an oddity. “You misunderstand,” said Lord Chalmers, with admirable composure. “Naturally I would not apply to you concerning my wife. Nor do I seek to involve you in the, er, problems of the family.”

“Excellent!” responded Valerian. “Because I don’t mind admitting that I’d as lief not be!”

“One of the matters I wished to discuss with you,” Lord Chalmers persevered, “concerns Angelica. It has been brought to my attention that she has been absenting herself from my house, without escort or explanation, almost every afternoon.”

Definitely stiff-rumped! decided Valerian. He couldn’t blame what’s-her-name for not wanting to confide her financial difficulties to this cold fish. But that was what’s-her-name’s affair, and none of his. Thought of affairs recalled to Valerian that Angelica had made mention of a lady-bird. Chalmers didn’t
look
the sort of man to have a high-flyer tucked away, Valerian mused, peering intently at him.

“You are shocked.” Lord Chalmers misinterpreted that basilisk stare. “Believe me, I intend no slur on Angelica’s character! I am convinced that there must be some innocent explanation of these disappearances.”

Obviously Lord Chalmers was determined to discover what that explanation might be; very well, Valerian would provide him one. “Oh, yes! Just moments past, Angelica left me.”

Lord Chalmers struggled toward comprehension, a progress that had suddenly grown prodigiously laborious. “Angelica comes
here?”

“Didn’t I just say so?” inquired Valerian.

Lord Chalmers thought he had, but could not be sure. “Why the need for secrecy? You are Angelica’s brother, surely she may visit you openly?” Valerian’s derisive expression caused him to reconsider. “You mean—your stepmother?”

“The incomparable Marigold!” Valerian supplied helpfully.

Though Lord Chalmers suspected there was a great deal about this matter that he had failed to grasp—why should Angelica and Valerian conspire to keep their stepmother ignorant of their association? Was the bird-witted Marigold prone to vengeful wrath? And why should Marigold care whether they associated or not?—he let the subject drop. Angelica was a creature of great good sense, and could be trusted to conduct herself in accordance with the dictates of propriety. “There is another matter on which I wish your viewpoint.”

“If it’s only my viewpoint you want, you’re welcome to it.” Vastly relieved that no more strenuous effort would be required of him, Valerian flung himself carelessly into a chair. “Pray unburden yourself!”