Maggie MacKeever (21 page)

No longer under the necessity of having to restrain their amusement, Mr. Thorne and Miss Clough succumbed simultaneously to whoops. For some moments the morning room resounded with giggles and guffaws. Then the merrymakers regained sufficient control of themselves to glance at one another without renewed outbreaks of mirth. Their glances caught, and held. On her part, Miss Clough saw a swarthy gentleman clad in a chocolate-brown cloth frockcoat and beige breeches, whose sun-streaked brown hair was in disarray from hilarity. Marmaduke made a lady feel most deliciously abandoned, she mused, basking in the warmth of his pale blue eyes.

For his part, Mr. Thorne observed a young lady clad in a morning gown of clear lawn trimmed with embroidered frills, seated demurely on the edge of her chair, her hands folded quietly in her lap. Her expression, as she looked at him, was both curious and shy. Lord, but he longed to take her in his arms, kiss every one of her adorable freckles, remove that endearingly absurd cornette of smuggled Parisian lace from atop her curls and tangle his fingers in her brown hair. Yes, and if only he could be certain that his nephew had lied to him about Nikki’s affections, he would do exactly that.

But he could
not
be sure that Rolf had told him whiskers, and until Marmaduke could determine that no impediment existed, he could not declare himself.

Declare himself? Impediment? Ruefully, Mr. Thorne smiled. He was indeed in a bad way.

That smile, because she could not understand it, recalled to Clytie her own doubts. How
could
she have passed several moments speculating upon the pleasures of abandonment with a gentleman whose every action proclaimed he was wicked indeed? Had he not been flirting outrageously with Lady Regina? Had he not kissed Nikki on the nose? Even if he did not conspire with Lady Sweetbriar to bilk the Upper Ten Thousand of its accumulated wealth—not to mention her own papa!—she had more than ample evidence of his villainy. Why, then, this tingling of the senses when he took her hands and drew her erect? There was only one explanation. She was as depraved as he.

Firmly, if reluctantly, Clytie disengaged herself. “I suppose Nikki bribed the servants beforehand to admit you and Lady Regina unannounced.”

“I suppose.” Mr. Thorne was a great deal less interested in the behavior of the servants than in what had caused the shuttered expression on Miss Clough’s pretty face. That she was not indifferent to him, the vastly experienced Marmaduke could hardly fail to realize. But circumstances forbade he try and ascertain the precise nature of her sentiments.
“Do
you want to marry my nephew?” he asked.

“I wish to marry Rolf about as much as you wish to give Lady Regina a slip on the shoulder, I suspect.” Clytie forgot her reservations long enough to grin. “You have been gaining an astonishing reputation, sir. I know, it is all the fault of the Russians. You lived so long among them that you picked up their little ways.”

Strongly against the dictates of his better nature, Mr. Thorne grasped Miss Clough’s shoulders and gave her a little shake. Her brown eyes opened wide. He longed to kiss her. “You never answered my questions about windmills,” said Marmaduke, in tones that were distinctly strained.

Miss Clough’s vocal cords were no less taut. “Umf!” she said. Then she recalled her resolution to save her papa from heartache via embarking herself upon a flirtation with Mr. Thorne. The logistics of that solution, she did not pause to ponder, nor her subsequent realization that she could not act a part so false. Indeed, Clytie paused to ponder very little, except her overwhelming desire to be clasped tight in Duke’s arms.

How
did
one go about communicating such a wish? Miss Clough fluttered her eyelashes, placed her palms against Mr. Thorne’s chest. “La, sir!” she said, and giggled, and then sighed. “Oh, this is absurd.”

Mr. Thorne had not the least notion what Miss Clough was talking about, or of precious little else but the pretty little hands which felt as though they burned holes through his brown cloth frockcoat, and his waistcoat, and his shirt. He moved his own hand to her waist, and with the other cradled her face.

What
was
the man doing? Had she not made herself clear? “I cannot go through with this!” whispered Clytie. Whatever Mr. Thorne was doing, she decided she liked it very well. Definitely, they were a depraved pair. “No matter what’s at stake.”

Marmaduke cared little in that moment for stakes or scruples, or any other such paltry considerations, including the affections of one-time ladyloves. Nor was he especially interested in this mysterious other matter which Miss Clough felt unable to execute. Whatever it was, he would deal with it for her.

“Never mind,” Duke said kindly, prior to sweeping her into a passionate embrace.
“I
can.” And so in fact he did, so excellently that Miss Clough was left stunned. No wonder Nikki liked kissing, she thought dazedly, when some moments later she was released. With Marmaduke’s cooperation, any woman must.

Had Mr. Thorne been in better control of the situation, he might have chosen that moment for an explanation that not all who engaged in the gentle art of kissing reaped such illuminating benefits. However, so very enlightening had been that embrace—and Miss Clough’s reaction thereto—that Marmaduke’s thoughts were little better ordered. No longer could he doubt the nature of Clytie’s feelings, or his own. Regretfully, he gazed upon the damsel who stared so solemnly at him, pink-cheeked, fingertips pressed to her bruised lips. And then he left her, with no explanation other than a groan.

Whilst Mr. Thorne repaired once more to drink himself under the table at White’s, and Miss Clough once more retired abovestairs to ponder what she might have done wrong, Lady Regina Foliot experienced another meaningful encounter, this time with Lady Sweetbriar.

Regina found that lady in the drawing room of her hired house in Fitzroy Square, gazing in a ruminative manner upon a vase and cover with large shaped panels, painted with exotic birds among trees and bushes on a scale-blue ground. Nikki herself was no less worthy of contemplation, in a simple gown of India muslin dressed up by an eighteenth-century necklet of Italian workmanship, which was comprised of twelve links of scroll openwork in tinted gold, with birds and flowers in colored enamels, and earrings to match. On her right hand she additionally wore a marquise ring with clusters of diamonds arranged in an oval form.

The effect of this splendor upon a damsel who had just bid her wealthiest suitor hie to the nether regions in a handcart can easily be imagined. “Lady Sweetbriar!” ejaculated Regina. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

As result of this stern pronouncement—Lady Regina had far outdistanced the servant who had intended to announce her—Lady Sweetbriar jerked violently. For one startled moment, she thought her visitor’s intimations of culpability applied to the vase which in her surprise she had almost dropped. Then she realized that Lady Regina had doubtless just witnessed the compromising situation so painstakingly arranged. Narrowly Nikki surveyed her rival for the Sweetbriar fortune. “I don’t know,” she said bluntly, “why I should be any more ashamed than you. At least I admit I need a fortune. And I
don’t
go about trying to cheat other ladies out of what is rightfully theirs!”

“Oh, no?” Lady Regina dragged her eyes away from Nikki’s necklet, at which she had been staring enviously. “You tried to marry Rolf off to a chit he doesn’t want, which in my opinion is worse.”

Carefully, Lady Sweetbriar set down her vase, lest in her disappointment she utilize it in the commission of some ill-considered act. This haughty miss might well become her stepdaughter-in-law, perish the thought.

But perhaps all was not lost. “What,” Nikki inquired cautiously, “are you talking about?”

“As if you didn’t know! It will serve you nothing to play the innocent with me, Lady Sweetbriar. I know you for what you are.” Overcome by outrage, Regina committed the day’s third rude act and deposited herself without invitation upon one of the satin-upholstered chairs. “Fine feathers make fine birds.”

Lady Sweetbriar wrinkled her nose at her uninvited guest. “I suppose you are hinting that I am feathering my nest,” Nikki said. “I wish I knew how I might! That is all the thanks I get for trying to make things come out right. It has not been an easy task to keep Rolf’s fortune safe from both you and Duke.”

“Fudge!” Lady Regina might have sickened for a fever, so hectic was the color in her cheeks. “You wanted it for yourself!”

Upon receipt of this sharp accusation, Lady Sweetbriar looked pained. “Why should I not have an interest in Rolf’s money? It was almost mine. Or part of it was, anyway! Imagine yourself in my position. Imagine you had married a man for his money only to discover upon his death that you had been left the merest pittance. I’ll lay a monkey that, in such a case, you’d act no differently than I.”

“You would lose your wager, Lady Sweetbriar.” Self-awareness was not one of the emotions Regina had communicated with her looking glass. “Moreover, that has little to do with the fact that you arranged for Mr. Thorne and I to interrupt Rolf and Miss Clough in very compromising circumstances. How could you do such a thing?”

Not without difficulty, reflected Nikki, on a sigh. It seemed her efforts had been in vain. “I take it you were not misled?”

Lady Regina was not tempted to admit that she had been horror-stricken to discover her favored suitor seemingly paying another young lady court. “Of course I was not. Rolf had already told me you had taken the foolish notion that he should make a match of it with Miss Clough—and that in spite of his preference for me. When we walked into the morning room and found Rolf on his knees, vowing he would never again be parted from Miss Clough—” She shuddered with barely suppressed horror. “Of course we knew it was all a hum!”

“He went down on his knees? I thought he would stick at that.” At the vision thus conjured of Lord Sweetbriar playing the gallant courtier, a role for which he was suited neither by temperament or physique, Nikki smiled. “And then what happened?”

Lady Regina did not approve her hostess’s sense of humor, which would doubtless derive considerable diversion from the confused scene enacted in the Clough morning room as result of her meddling. “We all agreed that you had grown extraordinarily highhanded,” Regina retorted crushingly. “And I decided that it was time someone pointed out to you that you are going on in a very bad way.”

“Of course,” Lady Sweetbriar responded drily, “there is none better suited for the task than yourself.”

Had she just been insulted? Regina could not be sure. Just in case she had been, she would return tit for tat. “No one with a proper way of thinking would do what you have done—not that you can be blamed for that!Your upbringing did not acquaint you with the ways of the polite world. You cannot be expected to have the nicety of judgment that is part of the upbringing of a
respectable
female.”

Looking pensive, Lady Sweetbriar arranged herself in a distant chair. Her visitor’s comments confirmed what Nikki had long suspected: respectable females with nicety of judgment weren’t necessarily also pretty behaved. Rolf wished to marry this viper-tongued miss? He was sunk deeper in infatuation than Nikki had supposed. “Oh, yes!” she said, amiably. “My behavior has always merited the severest reproof. But you did not come here to merely tell me that, I think.”

“No.” Lady Regina knew she was behaving very badly, a circumstance which she unhesitatingly laid at Nikki’s door. “I will not stand on ceremony with you, Lady Sweetbriar.”

“I am glad to hear it!” interrupted Nikki, whose good temper was growing strained. “Allow me to return the compliment. If you continue to grimace in that extraordinary manner, you will soon grow platter-faced. I would not wish Rolf to waken some morning to find himself leg-shackled to a female who is platter-faced. Odd as it may seem in me, I am fond of my stepson.”

Lady Regina bridled: “And you think I am not?” She paused, somewhat startled to discover that in fact she was. “More to the point, he is fond of me.”

“So you have said.” Wondering how she might bring this unpleasant interview to a speedy termination, Lady Sweetbriar toyed with her diamond ring. “But if you truly care for Rolf, you shouldn’t flirt with Duke. Yes, I know it is difficult
not
to flirt with Duke, does he will it—but casting out lures to one gentleman will not bring another up to snuff, no matter what tales you may hear to the contrary.”

The only tales Lady Regina had heard recently, she reflected, concerned her hostess’s predilection for kissing gentlemen in gaming hells and on the staircase of the British Museum. Upon further reflection, Lady Regina realized that during their pseudo-flirtation, Mr. Thorne had not offered her a single occasion for insult.

Doubtless the story that Rolf had told Regina of his uncle’s intentions was so much poppycock. Surely this wasn’t disappointment that she felt? “Your Mr. Thorne told Rolf he wished to set me up as his fancy-piece,” she confessed.

“Not
my
Mr. Thorne!” reproved Lady Sweetbriar, as she raked her guest with a knowledgeable eye. One could only conclude Duke’s tastes had radically changed. Then she recalled Duke’s claim to have plans for Miss Clough. Of what might those plans consist? Duke’s dastardly intentions must be thwarted, naturally; but one could not fail to appreciate the ambition of the rogue. “I’d have Rolf, if I were you, Lady Regina—rather, I wouldn’t, but you should! A wife must always take precedence over a light o’ love.”

Only with superhuman effort did Lady Regina prevent herself from committing another rude act and commenting that Lady Sweetbriar was admirably well qualified to explain the differences between wife and ladylove. Since to accomplish this miracle of self-restraint she had to bite her tongue, her next words were somewhat indistinct. “I intend to have Rolf!” Regina said grimly. “No matter what you may do to prevent it. I came here today to tell you that your attempts to estrange us have induced me to look more kindly upon his suit.”