Maggie MacKeever (27 page)

Lord Sweetbriar looked astounded. “You are? I don’t know why!”

Lady Regina was little less surprised. “Nor do I, but there it is. Can you forgive me, Sweetbriar?”

Certainly his lordship could. After a further exchange of compliments, the effect of which was to put them both in great good humor, Lord Sweetbriar exited the Egyptian antiquity chamber. Beside him, still clutching Lady Sweetbriar’s jewel chest, was his newly acquired fiancée. Back through the various rooms of the Towneley gallery they slowly walked. Sir Avery and Miss Clough were as last glimpsed, one contemplating the Cottonian coins, the other deep in thought.

“I
like
Nikki!” explained Lord Sweetbriar to his beloved, as they entered the room. “Even if she did threaten to blow my brains out—not that you must take her seriously, you know. Dash it, I always
did
like Nikki! It was Papa who always complained about her tumbling into scrapes—and why I should agree with my papa on that head, when I never did on any other, I’m sure I don’t know.” Lady Regina did not look as if she especially cared for the topic of conversation, he thought. Generously, Rolf changed it. “You must not mind too much about Nikki’s baubles; I will buy you more! Dash it, if I’d known—I
did
know Papa had treated her shabbily, but I never thought she’d have to pop her—my!—jewels.” Lord Sweetbriar’s genial gaze alit upon his stepmama’s husband-to-be. What would Nikki’s husband be to him? Rolf mused. Step-papa? Steppapa-in-law? “We may trust Sir Avery to look after her better in the future. Not that I mean to imply that Nikki is marrying you for your money, sir!”

“I know precisely why Nikki is marrying me.” Sir Avery set aside the catalogue he had been compiling, it clearly being useless to attempt further work. As he did so, he caught Lady Regina’s guilty expression. During his acquaintance with Nikki, Sir Avery had learned to recognize the look of a lady who had meddled where she should not. Of where Regina had meddled, he had little doubt. With an impatient exclamation, Sir Avery strode toward the door.

“Papa!” By her parent’s odd behavior, Miss Clough was roused from trance. “Where are you going? Surely you aren’t angry at what Rolf said!”

“That Nikki is marrying me for my money? But she’s not.” Sir Avery paused on the threshold, at his most formidable. “And I am going to tell her so.”

Sir Avery having departed to inform his fiancée of the true state of her feelings, and Lord Sweetbriar having departed with his own fiancée in search of more secluded quarters in which to explore their newfound mutual inclination to cuddle, Miss Clough withdrew into the museum’s garden, where she strolled aimlessly along graveled paths which wound through a shady grove of trees and amid pretty flower beds. Thus far her peaceful surroundings had had as little effect on her spirits as the vinaigrette which she occasionally inhaled. Not that Clytie’s spirits were deflated. She had a curious sensation of awaiting some portentous event.

Miss Clough did not wait long. Toward her, down one of the graveled paths, strode Mr. Thorne. She paused, watched him approach. Was that a fur tippet that he trailed after him? Villain or no, adorned or not by a highly inappropriate fur piece, Marmaduke was a damnably handsome man. “Why are you in the dismals, my darling?” he inquired, as he flung the tippet over his shoulder, and boldly grasped Clytie’s hands.

Apparently he had not taken her in disgust, decided Clytie. A gentleman with a disgust of a lady would not gaze down upon her so warmly, she thought. “Alas!” she sighed. “I fear I have fallen in love with a rogue. I am in a very bad way, sir—as Rolf would have it, it is quite midsummer moon with me.”

“Rolf?” Thus reminded of the considerable time passed by Miss Clough in his nephew’s company, Mr. Thorne might have released her, had not she held him fast. “I wish you would make up your mind! Do you want my nephew or no?”

“You wish I would make up
my
mind?” Miss Clough arched her brows.
“
I am not the one who has been making sheep’s eyes at Lady Regina.”

Mr. Thorne grimaced. “Sheep’s eyes! That will put me in my place. Shame on you, my darling. You know that I only danced attendance on Lady Regina to persuade her to look more kindly upon Rolf’s suit. And had I anticipated how tedious it would be, I would not have.”

With that answer, Miss Clough was satisfied. “I do not think that is why you have been kissing Nikki,” she remarked.

Was this young lady who grasped his hands so firmly not only adorable but prescient to boot? It would be an uncomfortable talent to live with—not that Duke intended to allow any potential discomfort to sway him from his chosen course. “Kissing Nikki—how did you know?” And then he realized that Clytie must refer not to the salute which he had just bestowed upon Lady Sweetbriar, but the previous incident when he had kissed her nose. The ironic expression on Clytie’s face warned him that it would do no good to try and equivocate. At least she had not flung away from him in a temper. “It’s nothing but a habit,” he explained. “Do you but let me kiss you at whim and I’ll break it easily enough.”

Apparently he had not disliked kissing her all that much or he would not contemplate kissing her again. Clytie wished that Mr. Thorne would do more than just think about it. “If Papa doesn’t mind your habit of kissing Nikki,” she allowed, “I suppose I must not. You should have been here earlier; you missed the most diverting scene. Lady Regina discovered that Nikki had sold off the Sweetbriar jewels and substituted paste— and what a taking she was in! She thought it would be an excellent notion if Nikki was clapped in Newgate. Then Rolf took Lady Regina to task for her own behavior, and the upshot is that your nephew and Lady Regina
are
to tie the knot.” She smiled at Marmaduke’s disinterested expression. “I will spare you further details.”

“Thank you!” Belatedly aware that to stand so long clasping Miss Clough must rouse comment from the next visitor to venture down the graveled path, Mr. Thorne released one of her hands, and drew the other through his arm. In so doing he brushed his nose against the fur tippet, which remained draped across his shoulder, and consequently sneezed. What the deuce was he to do with the thing? Duke did not like to casually dispose of Nikki’s belongings, else he would have tossed the tippet aside. And what the deuce must Clytie think of him, thusly adorned?

Perhaps if he just ignored the accursed fur she would respond likewise. “Rolf and Lady Regina are a tedious pair. I’m sure I wish them joy of one another. Perhaps now that they are out of the way, we may concentrate on more personal matters.”

Although Miss Clough would have liked nothing better than to have all of Mr. Thorne’s concentration focused on herself, she had not forgotten her reservations concerning his character. Those reservations were not set at rest by the casual manner in which he wore a lady’s fur piece. Clytie stopped, making it necessary that her companion did also, and stared up into his swarthy face. Marmaduke’s blue eyes moved over her own features, almost hungrily.

Clytie felt faint. “Gracious!” she breathed. “Papa said if I liked kissing you, I must invite you to kiss me again, sir—” But he was already doing so. Clytie surrendered herself up to bliss.

Some moments later she was set back down on her feet, with her pulses deliciously racing and her bonnet askew. The latter abuse, Mr. Thorne remedied. About the former he could do little, his own pulses being in little better case. “Goodness!” sighed Clytie. “I thought I had done something wrong the last time. So quickly did you leave me that I thought you had taken me in disgust.”

“Disgust? My foolish darling. You did everything absolutely right.” Lest he impulsively take her into his arms for further demonstrations, Mr. Thorne retreated a pace. In so doing, he came perilously close to tripping on the trailing end of the fur piece. Irritably he snatched it off his shoulder. Further demonstrations of his approval of Miss Clough’s conduct were definitely in order, but not in the gardens of the British Museum. “Rolf had told me Nikki still had a fondness
,
and I felt responsible. Until I knew that she did not, I could not declare myself.” He frowned. “But have I mistaken you? Did you not tell me some moments past that you are in love with a rogue?”

If she was, she could not regret it. “Oh, yes.” Clytie satirically contemplated the fur piece. “A rogue, a scoundrel, a profligate—a veritable villain. I have Nikki’s word on it. I could not decide if she wanted you herself, or if she simply hoped to spare me a hopeless passion, but she was quite adamant on the point.”

“Spare you—” Mr. Thorne abandoned his intention to carve out the rogue’s heart. “Clytie, you minx.”

“I have not been able to make up my mind whether or not you are a villain,” Miss Clough generously allowed. “Sometimes I think you must be, so many ladies have you made the object of your gallantries—and other times I wonder if association with Nikki and Rolf has merely turned my brain. Not
everyone
is on the dangle for a fortune, surely? Oh, yes, you were also accused of being a gazetted fortune hunter. Between you and Nikki, at least, half of London was in peril. I think it was Rolf who hinted as much.”

Mr. Thorne drew Clytie into the shadows of the garden shed. “But I do not need a fortune,” he protested, as he settled her comfortably within the shelter of his arms. “We may not be quite so plump in the pocket as my nephew or your father, but we will command life’s elegancies. Set your fears at rest, my darling; I am not a villain. This is more of Nikki’s doing. I think 1 may wring her neck.”

Miss Clough was not especially concerned for Lady Sweetbriar’s safety; Marmaduke’s threat had been delivered in a very bemused tone. As result of Mr. Thorne’s boldness, Clytie was feeling somewhat bemused herself. The shed, and the shrubbery which pressed in all around them, rendered them virtually invisible to all but the most prying eyes.
“Not
a villain?” she echoed, with a disappointed expression. “I had just gotten used to the notion that you were! And I had just decided that I must be every bit as wicked as you are, because I simply didn’t care.”

Not surprisingly, as result of this pretty confusion, Mr. Thorne was inspired to enfold Miss Clough in another embrace. Several moments were passed in this delightful manner, moments during which Mr. Thorne kissed every available one of Miss Clough’s freckles, and Miss Clough felt abandoned indeed. At length, and reluctantly, he disentangled the three of them—himself, the fur piece, and Miss Clough. “I think that I had better speak with your papa straightaway,” he said ruefully. “Else Sir Avery will be threatening to carve
my
heart out. Clytie, you will marry me?”

“Is that what you consider an adequate proposal?” Miss Clough was feeling thoroughly giddy, Marmaduke’s intoxicating kisses having gone straight to her head. “From you, I would not have expected such paltry stuff! You have lived among the Russians, remember? Rolf compared my eyes to stars, and vowed he could not live without me, which was very entertaining, even if he was pretending I was Regina. Instead of kissing Nikki, you should have told her you wished to make a lady your declaration, and asked for her help.”

“But your eyes aren’t like stars!” protested Marmaduke, as with a tender finger he traced the outlines of Clytie’s face. “Stars aren’t brown. And I can live without you; I just don’t want to. However, if you wish to hear romantical high-flights—”

“I don’t, especially.” Clytie caught Marmaduke’s hand and stared very seriously up into his dark face. “My sensibilities are not the least bit delicate, I fear. I do not have an especially high sense of decorum, like Lady Regina—although you would not believe that she had either, had you been here earlier.”

Mr. Thorne was very grateful that he had not been. “I am growing very tired of Lady Regina,” he remarked.

“Nor are my habits especially elegant,” continued Miss Clough, determined to catalogue her failings lest Mr. Thorne discover that he had purchased a pig in a poke. “Or my principles upright. In truth, I am a very ordinary person, and I do not understand why you should want to—but you obviously
do
want to, so that’s all right.”

“Definitely I want to.” By the tacit compliment just paid him, Mr. Thorne was very moved. “I have wanted to ever since I first laid eyes on you. The only difference is that now I know I want to do so for the remainder of my lifetime. And if you keep looking at me in that manner, my darling, I will forget my good intentions to speak with your papa.” Suddenly he looked appalled. “Good God!”

Had Marmaduke come abruptly to his senses, realized he didn’t want to marry her after all? Warily, Clytie watched his swarthy face. Did he suffer last-minute doubts? If so, Duke was indeed a villain. No gentleman who was uncertain of his feelings for a lady should subject her to so very passionate an embrace. “I beg your pardon?” Miss Clough delicately inquired.

“My darling, you must not look so.” In the most reassuring of manners, Duke kissed the tip of Clytie’s nose. “You are utterly adorable, and I mean to devote a great deal of my life altering your undeservedly low opinion of yourself. We shall have a townhouse, don’t you think—as well as Thornewood, which is in Surrey—but I digress. The reason that I swore,
galoubchik,
was Nikki. Which reminds me that she charged to bring you this tippet, in case you grew cold.” Relieved to find an explanation for his encumbrance, he carefully draped it around Clytie’s shoulders.

That explanation, Clytie found highly suspect. How had Lady Sweetbriar known Mr. Thorne would find her in the museum garden? No matter; Clytie would learn the true story of the fur tippet someday.

So Nikki had driven Duke to curses? Miss Clough suspected that a great many people had been similarly inspired of late. Another subject was of far more immediate importance to Miss Clough than either of the preceding.
“Galoubchik?”
she inquired.

“My little pigeon.” Marmaduke’s smile, as once more he adjusted Clytie’s bonnet, was wry. “What a distraction you are. Would you like to travel, my darling? Perhaps, when Bonaparte is done terrorizing Russia—or vice versa—we may even return there. You would like to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg—the sledges decorated in bright colors with strange carved work and iron whirligigs; the Convent of the Virgins, which contains the tombs of the Russian dead; the trade fair where gather merchants from all over the world.” He stroked a finger down her cheek. “Then there is the hunting. The Russians are great hunters of the wolf as well as the bear. I have told you the legend of the fortieth bear.”