Maggie MacKeever (11 page)

Whereas Tess would have been startled half out of her wits by this paean, Giles only smiled. “She is also,” he added, “an extremely beautiful woman.”

“I suppose she is,” agreed Clio doubtfully. It was decidedly promising that the duke should think so, but she could hardly be expected to view her sister in that light, being accustomed from her childhood to thinking herself the Beauty of the family. “She’s not in the common way, at any rate.”

“She’s so far from it,” Giles said wryly, “that she has caught my friend Morgan’s eye, and that is no small accomplishment, cousin—as could be attested by any number of women who have been trying unsuccessfully to do so for years.”

Clio regarded him with dismay. “What of Drusilla? I thought she and Sir Morgan were as good as betrothed.”

“Drusilla would like to think so.” Those of his cronies who would have been startled to see the Duke of Bellamy in such surroundings would have been further stunned by the knowledge that he was thoroughly enjoying himself. “They are already long married off by rumor, but the truth is that Morgan is highly unlikely to marry anyone. He is entirely too set in bachelor ways.”

Clio refrained from informing the duke that Sir Morgan’s habits were allegedly more those of the most depraved libertine than of a harmless bachelor, and strove valiantly to disguise the fact that his offhand statement had made the blood run cold in her veins. “Morgan,” continued the duke, setting the seal on her distress, “professes that it is not in his nature to think of the future, which he leaves to take care of itself. He worries as little about his responsibilities as he counts his possessions and his wealth.”

“Wealth,” repeated Clio, seizing upon the opportunity to learn more of the man. “I suppose Sir Morgan must be plump in the pocket or he would not gamble to such an extent.” Giles looked inquiring. “Your mother has said that he is a fearless plunger, willing to gamble on anything from the turn of a card to a race between flies crawling up a wall.”

“My dear cousin,” retorted Giles dryly, “rid yourself of the notion that those who play at the board of green cloth are invariably well-heeled! More often they are not. If a man’s ambition is to break the bank it is a great advantage to him if he’s richer than the bank, for no one dares play double or quits with a gamester who can afford to go on losing till he wins; but it is not invariably the case.”

“Morgan,” offered Evelyn, rapt upon the sawdust ring, where a clever monkey performed on horseback, “is a regular Trojan!”

“So he is, you impertinent puppy!” agreed Giles, and turned his attention to the performance. It was not the monkey who caught his lordship’s errant eye, but a lovely bespangled lady who accomplished stunning feats with a broadsword.

“Sir Morgan?” Clio prompted subtly. “So his pockets are to let?”

“I did not say that.” The Duke of Bellamy’s gaze returned to her with some reluctance. “Morgan plays hard and plunges deep, but he contrives to be beforehand with the world. For all he wastes the ready, I doubt he is in difficulties. I cannot say if his estates are encumbered, but he’s certainly not at
point non plus.”
Giles looked stern. “Are you developing a
tendre
for Morgan, cousin? It is a piece of impudence on my part, but I should advise you to hold my friend at arm’s length.”

“You misunderstand!” Clio blushed, quite mortified at this assumption that she held warm feelings for a man who she thought never ought to have been allowed to glimpse the light of day. “The first occasion when I met him at the inn was a very curious one, but I was not at all taken with his manner then!”

“I see,” murmured Giles, somewhat skeptically. Clio reminded herself sternly that it was his opinion of Tess that signified, not of herself. “Tell me, cousin, are you also a gamester, like your friend?”

“I?” The duke smiled, a charming exercise. “I am hardly a gamester, as you call it, although I belong to several clubs where gambling is the members’ main occupation. It is an amusing pastime.”

“It seems very odd to me,” ventured Clio.

“My dear,” replied the duke, at his most aloof, “it is a man’s world.”

Yes, thought Clio, and the Duke of Bellamy was so proud as to despise the opinion of that world altogether as regarded himself. Yet he was also the highest of sticklers, and would tolerate no unconventional behavior in anyone else. Clio thought of her sister and experienced a severe qualm as to the wisdom of the course she had embarked upon, for even Tess’s most devoted friends could not deny that the countess was prone to eccentricities. Clio truly believed she had so far played her cards excellently with her handsome cousin. If only Tess could be trusted not to completely bungle the thing!

It was true that Clio had caught the duke’s interest with her Canterbury tales, but Giles was not one to long dwell upon patent taradiddles. No sooner had Clio ceased speaking than his thoughts flew immediately to the problems that plagued England, the countless unemployed, the starvation level of wages and soaring rates of taxation, the riots and machine-smashings that had broken out in industrial regions. Since Evelyn was equally preoccupied, rapt upon a stunning display of equestrian showmanship, it was not surprising that Nidget should have found it easy to slip away.

His absence did not go long unnoted, being as he made his way straight for the sawdust ring, there to wreak happy havoc among the performers, barking ferociously at the monkeys, snapping enthusiastically at the horses’ heels, causing the bespangled lady to narrowly miss a grievous mishap with her broadsword. “Nidget!” cried Evelyn. His voice was lost in the pandemonium. “The deuce!” uttered the duke, gloomily.

It was some time before peace could be restored, Nidget so greatly enjoying this new pastime that he was only with great difficulty restrained; and an even longer time before the duke, via the distribution of great largesse, had soothed the ruffled tempers of those disparate individuals who clamored for the mongrel’s blood. “Nidget only meant to be helpful!” explained Evelyn as the small party was somewhat ungraciously escorted outside. “He thought the horses were running loose and he was herding them!”

“Ah!” retorted the duke, with unruffled
sang-froid.
“Why didn’t I think of that? It explains all! Next you will tell me that the beast should be praised instead of condemned!” Hopefully, Nidget groveled at his feet.

“Well, he should!” In crowing spirits, Evelyn grinned. “It was very brave of him.”

“Young cawker!” Giles bestowed upon the dog a severe look. “All the same, you and that abominable cur will go home in a hired hack, Evelyn! And it will go the worse for you if I so much as set eyes on that mongrel again today.”

Evelyn accepted this sign of severe disfavor with no lessening of spirit; to ride alone in a job-carriage was no small treat. “Yes, sir!” said he.

Having satisfactorily procured a hack, and having instructed the driver to take Evelyn, no matter what that young man might request, straight to Berkeley Square, the duke assisted Clio into his phaeton. “My son,” he apologized, “is something of an imp, and that dog is a curst nuisance. I trust you will forgive them for the unpleasant interruption of our outing.”

Clio might have informed her cousin that Tess had a great fondness for rag-mannered mongrels and mischievous boys; she might have told him that she herself had no great appreciation of equestrian displays; but she did neither of these things. Mistress Clio was an ardent admirer of the opposite sex, and flirting was as natural to her as breathing. “I would not have you distress yourself, your grace!” she replied, with a coquettish glance that was as effective as it was absent-minded. “I have enjoyed myself vastly. As for Evelyn and his dog, they are high-spirited perhaps, but delightful all the same.”

“It is you who are delightful.” Giles cast Clio a look that sent her senses pleasantly reeling. “It was a happy day when you appeared at Bellamy House. I had not known that I was bored,” he explained kindly, “until my tedium was enlivened by a dazzling young woman who is as enchanting as she is incorrigible.”

“You refer to Tess, of course,” said Clio cautiously.

“No, cousin!” retorted the duke, a distinct warmth in his eye. “I refer to you.”

“Palaverer!” Clio’s merry laughter did not quite disguise a certain violence of feeling. “I don’t know why you should think you must flatter me.”

“I
don’t
think it,” the duke replied cordially. Clio saw instantly, blindingly, how it would be: she was the most unfortunate of beings, destined to perish in her own intrigues.

Chapter 9

Lady Tess could not have said why she continued with her masquerade, now that Clio promised to catapult her into the social whirl that she had wished to avoid. It was not because she feared to be courted for her wealth; Tess had no expectation of being courted at all. Nor was it because the polite world, which might heap upon a limping serving-wench ridicule and scorn, would observe a countess thus afflicted with pity, a thing above all others that Tess abhorred. The most likely explanation, as Tess’s own mother would have immediately observed, had she not been twenty years dead and consequently incapable of communicating her wisdom, was that the Countess of Lansbury had taken the bit between her teeth and was bent on kicking up a lark for no more worthy motive than sheer perversity.

Tess’s inquisitiveness had led her to tour Bellamy House, a structure which she immediately condemned as the worst of its kind, with painted paneling and gilded fireplaces and countless stairways which, since the kitchens were in the basement and the house contained additional stories for eating, sleeping, and entertaining, the servants continually and laboriously climbed. Nonetheless, despite all the damnable steps, Tess had found her way into the kitchens and was now enthroned in a huge armchair that was reserved for the rare leisure moments of the staff.

The expedition had not been without its burlesque incidents, including a confrontation with Sapphira, who had expounded at some length upon her son’s passion for quality in everything and then, lest her meaning be mistaken, had added that the duke’s kindness was not to be misconstrued as anything warmer than sympathy for a female who limped, a warning that Tess had accepted so cheerfully that the dowager duchess recognized her instantly as a Paphian girl set on ensnaring Giles and had erupted into terrible rage, wishing Tess to the devil and ordering her to her room. As if that were not sufficiently bizarre, Tess next encountered Constant, who quickly made it clear that he would enjoy a rather heavy-handed flirtation with her behind his wife’s back. It was with great relief that Tess escaped to the nether regions where, if she was not precisely greeted with open arms, the household servants being too well accustomed to the dowager’s vicious temper to welcome any interruption of their established routine, she at least felt at home.

“So you can tell me no more about Mirian,” mused Tess. “It seems odd that she should never have mentioned Sapphira—or, indeed, any member of the household!”

“By the Holy I cannot.” Mrs. Bibby, a plump and comfortable matron with brown eyes and gray hair, sank into the armchair on the other side of the fireplace, from which vantage point she could keep a wary eye on the cook who was engaged in the creation of a blancmange. “She had a restlessness upon her, did Miss Mirian, from the time she was a slip of a colleen, but arragh! ‘Twas not I who’d be thinkin’ she’d steal off into the gloamin’ in such a hugger-mugger style, never to be seen or heard of again. Turned us topsy-turvy, she did and all. But I never believed for a minute she’d eloped with a gentleman.”

“Was there one?” asked Tess, intrigued. “A particular gentleman?”

“Ach!” clucked Mrs. Bibby, “Of course there was. Like bees to a honey pot they flocked, from the day she left the nursery. Ye’d not be knowin’, but Lady Clio has a great look of our Miss Mirian at that age.”

Tess gazed unseeing about the kitchen, a dark and cheerless place containing deal tables and a dresser, chairs on which the servants took their meals, a huge range filled with ovens and broilers which must, she thought, consume enormous quantities of coal. In the big wooden sink were batteries of iron and copper saucepans, frying pans, skillets, skimmers, and sieves of varied fineness; arranged on the counter were fancy molds for puddings, jellies, and aspic dishes, preserving pans, bread tins, and milk bowls.

Almost as numerous as these utensils—which, alas, did not guarantee the quality of the meals served at Bellamy House, the cook being both nervous and inexperienced— was the kitchen staff. All of them, from the maid who was baiting odd-looking curved-sided tins with brown sugar to, she hoped, entrap the huge black beetles she’d found thick around the fireplace that morning, to the housemaid who was rubbing the stove with scouring paper, to the cook herself, were blatantly listening. “You forgot the ground almonds,” Tess commented idly, and the cook started, then stared at her blancmange. Cream, lemon peel and cinnamon, sugar and isinglass—she flushed. The intruder was right. “What do you garnish it with?”

At this unheard-of interference, the cook flushed beet-red. “Stewed pears or quinces, m’lady.”

“Excellent,” Tess approved. “Currant jelly, jam or marmalade are also very good.” Unaware that she had demonstrated a rare ability to deal with servants, the countess returned her attention to the housekeeper. “Mrs. Bibby, I’ve thought of something odd. Someone
must
have known of Mirian’s whereabouts; certainly her man of business did. Mirian had her own funds, and there had to be some correspondence when they were initially transferred. Would he have kept it from the family?”

Mrs. Bibby knew nothing of such matters, holding that mysterious institution known as “the Exchange” in a deep reverence shared only with the Almighty; but she did know human nature. If this inquisitive woman was a penniless dependent Mrs. Bibby was prepared to eat her favorite hat, a lavish concoction consisting of a great deal of purple satin, frilled and ruched, topped by ostrich feathers of a virulent pink. “Sure and my mind’s away entirely!” she exclaimed. “The old duke—his lordship’s father, that is—was alive then, miss! He’d have known, if anyone; he’d a great liking for the colleen.” She sighed reminiscently. “A great man, a dear man he was.”