Maggie MacKeever (29 page)

At last they were all mounted, Ceddie alternately complaining that he felt feverish and chilled, and announcing that Sir Morgan may have diddled Lady Tess but
he
knew they were being led straight back into the dragon’s lair, there doubtless to be subjected to hideous tortures, if not worse; to which Evelyn, leading Cedric’s mare, replied that it wasn’t surprising Ceddie should nourish such crack-brained ideas, since from the smell he must’ve consumed enough brandy to float a battleship. Tess, mounted sideways on Sir Morgan’s horse and held in place by his sound arm, was silent, her gaze fixed on the Wicked Baronet’s dark face with an expression of acute anxiety.

Chapter 23

The dowager duchess sailed into her son’s study with all the majesty of a disabled battleship. In her wake trailed her daughters and her unhappy son-in-law. Constant was feeling decidedly bilious, a fact which he unhesitantly laid at Clio’s door. They had gone along smoothly enough before
she
arrived at Bellamy House to set them all at odds. He cast the girl a look of acute dislike and sank, panting, into a chair.

Clio did not see that venomous glance but the duke did, and his countenance grew even more stern. “Lucille,” he said, not unkindly, “you need not stay.”

Lucille looked at him, then at Clio, who was pale as a ghost with great dark shadows under her eyes, then at the two strangers who watched them with such ill-concealed curiosity. “I think I must,” she responded, dropping her gaze to her hands.

Sapphira snorted and sat down. “Well?” she demanded. “What’s so important that you must call us here?” Giles received a malevolent glare. “You’re getting mighty big for your breeches, boy!”

The duke ignored this unkind, and unjustified, slur and waited with grim patience for the various members of his family to settle themselves. Drusilla looked at the strangers, and he thought he saw her blanch. “First of all,” he announced, when they were all silent, “you will be pleased to learn that both Evelyn and Tess are safe.” His cool glance moved to Clio, whose exhausted face revealed mingled relief and apprehension. “I am in momentary expectation of more news. But we will discuss that later. It is for an entirely different reason that I have called you here.”

“What?” demanded Drusilla, inspired by the happy news to rather viciously crush the fabric of her skirt. “We are very busy with our packing, Giles—as you should know.”

“This will take but a few moments.” The duke had to admit that, whatever her imperfections, Drusilla wasn’t one to turn craven and flee. “You will recall that Clio’s mother had a very dear friend by the name of Celest Dubois.” A contemplative expression on his handsome face, the Duke of Bellamy moved to the fireplace. “I wonder why we did not think to apply to Celest when Mirian disappeared?”

Lucille’s composure had been restored by long immersions in a portable Turkish bath designed to steam impurities from the system.
“Maman
forbade it,” she offered. “She said Celest was a giddy gadabout and we weren’t to encourage her pretensions.”

The dowager duchess, who had belatedly recognized one of the silent strangers, a plump lady with a mischievous countenance and prematurely white hair, had the grace to look embarrassed. “Wet-goose!” she snapped at her elder daughter. “I’m sure I made no such remark.” Her irate gaze moved to Giles. “Devil take you, make an end! What is all this about?”

“I wonder,” mused the duke, with a plaintive air, “if I might be a changeling? I sincerely trust I haven’t the least resemblance to any of you. But we waste time! Doctor Martin, Celest, let me make you known to my family.”

Even Clio roused from her stupor to stare at her mother’s girlhood friend as, ignoring the others, Celest moved quickly to her side. What precisely the woman said, Clio could not later recall, but her kindness was so overwhelming that Clio was hard put not to weep again. Celest sat down beside her, gently patting her hand.

So moving a scene touched no other heartstrings. The dowager’s bosom swelled as she realized she dare not order the detested Celest—daughter of a wealthy merchant and consequently unfit to mingle with the blue-blooded Bellamys, a fact pointed out to the rebellious Mirian time and again—from the house. Drusilla’s reaction was no less perturbed, though she tried to hide behind a mask of perfect indifference.

“What do you hope to accomplish?” growled Sapphira, glaring at the doctor, who in turn regarded Clio thoughtfully. “Giles! Why have you brought these people here?”

“I grew curious,” explained the duke, “about Mirian’s reasons for leaving us.” Celest glanced briefly at him. “My failure to ask questions at the time was reprehensible, and so I confess. But Tess was mighty concerned with having the truth, and I began to wonder at it, particularly in view of the fact that Mirian had told her husband and her daughter nothing of us.”

“What a rowdy-do!” interrupted Drusilla, growing noticeably fidgety. “I’m sure it’s not to be wondered at, the way she crept out of here like a thief in the night!”

“Quiet!” roared the dowager, and Drusilla subsided. “Go on, Giles.”

“It seemed apparent,” continued the duke, “that Mirian’s silence was prompted by a wish to forget unhappy memories. Since her years with us were
not
unhappy as I recall, I was in a puzzle to account for her inexplicable behavior.” He looked at Clio, who was watching him wide-eyed. “Then Tess recalled Celest to me. I thought if anyone knew the truth, she would.” He flickered open his snuffbox. “I was proved correct.”

“Naturally!” snapped Sapphira, with well-concealed pride. She scowled at Celest, who still held Clio’s hand. “Let’s have it!” To the dowager’s annoyance, Celest looked inquiringly at Giles. He nodded.

“Mirian came to me,” the woman said, in tones as kindly as her appearance, “straight from this house. She was with me several days while we decided what she was to do. I was at first in favor of her returning here, but when no effort seemed to be made to find her, I began to believe that she would be much happier away from this family. And so she was.” Celest’s angry face softened as her eyes rested on Clio. “Your mother doted on you, child! Oh yes, we maintained a correspondence. I feel as though I already know both you and Tess.”

Mention of her sister caused Clio’s spirits to again sink; her fears had grown so wildly that they could not be set at rest by the simple statement that Tess was safe. Where was Tess? she wondered. And Sir Morgan? The countess would be safe nowhere in that wicked man’s vicinity.

“We did not meet,” Celest continued, rather sadly, “after Mirian wed Lord Lansbury. She wished no reminder of her old life, or so I now believe. It is perfectly understandable. Mirian was treated abominably.”

Sapphira could not let this slur pass unchallenged. “Poppycock!” she snorted. Both Drusilla and Lucille were silent. Giles watched his doting family as keenly as if they were criminals and he a peace officer determined to prevent their escape.

“Not at all,” Celest replied calmly. “I do you the honor of assuming you were unaware of the tales Mirian was told. It was very cleverly done! I believed it myself until the duke enlightened me.”

“What
tales?” demanded the dowager, her eyes moving without hesitation to her daughters, twin pictures of guilt.

“I didn’t know!” gasped Lucille, wringing her hands. “I vow I didn’t! I thought it was the truth.”

“You refine too much on it!” Drusilla shot her sister a vicious look and simultaneously attempted to achieve the air of one with a conscience unburdened by past duplicities. “It was all a jest—we did not mean that Mirian should take it seriously!” At the sound of that plural pronoun, Lucille moaned. Drusilla glared at her. “It was as much your idea as mine, sister!” she snapped. “Don’t think I’ll take the blame for you
this
time! You were jealous of Mirian’s standing with
Maman,
and all too eager to engage in a little trickery.”

“No!” wailed Lucille.

“Yes, I think,” interrupted Celest. “The both of you played equal parts in the tale Mirian told me.”

“Nothing,” roared Sapphira, hands clenched like claws on the arms of her chair, “could be more provoking than this missishness! Speak without roundaboutation, if you please!”

“I believe I had best explain,” offered Celest. Lucille looked frantically about the room, but Giles stood near the doorway, and Drusilla’s hand held her clamped in her seat. “Not this time!” Drusilla hissed. “You’re in this up to your neck, so don’t bother to pretend and faint, or offer us megrims!”

“If you will, Mrs. Martin,” interrupted Giles. “Tell it to them as you told it to me.”

“As you wish. To make a long story short, Mirian was told that she was the result of a liaison between her mother and the previous Duke of Bellamy, brought up in Bellamy House on sufferance after her mother’s death.” The dowager, stunned by the notion that her husband had played her false, gaped.
“That
was the part of the tale that I found hardest to believe,” Celest added. “It didn’t suit my notions of the duchess’s character that she should behave so handsomely to one of the old duke’s byblows—but Mirian did believe it, and I allowed her to convince me.”

“I don’t understand,” protested Clio, frowning as she tried to make sense of the tale. “Are you saying my mother was illegitimate?”

“Mirian’s birth was as impeccable as my own,” replied Giles, in tones so haughty that several of his auditors fervently wished themselves anywhere but in his presence. “The slight made on her parentage was merely my sisters’ invention.”

“But why?” Clio was greatly befuddled. “Surely she didn’t run away because of
that?”

“She did,” Celest admitted. “You have forgotten the most odious aspect of the tale, Clio. Had Mirian in truth been the old duke’s daughter—and she believed herself to be—she would have been the current duke’s half-sister, and she fancied herself in love with him.” Celest smiled. “She was not, of course, any more than he was with her, both being entirely too young for any form of permanent relationship—but with the very notion of incest, the damage was done.”

“Incest!” repeated Constant, for the first time taking an interest in the conversation. “What a shocking thing!”

“So it would have been,” agreed Celest, “had there been a word of truth in it, which there was not. May I say, Duchess, that I consider your daughters to have behaved with the greatest impropriety? They were responsible for Mirian’s flight, having between them cooked up that atrocious tale.”

Sapphira closed her mouth, which had fallen open. She said nothing, having not yet recovered the use of her tongue, but the glance she awarded her daughters left little doubt that an unpleasant interview awaited them. “I feel faint!” moaned Lucille. “I think I must go to my room.”

“You’ll go nowhere,” the duke asserted, “until we’ve reached the bottom of this thing.”

Clio was shocked by the tale she’d just heard and by the unpalatable reminder that Giles had thought himself in love with her mother, whom she so closely resembled. She scarcely realized when Celest’s husband seated himself on her other side. Clio answered his quiet questions without hesitation, so stunned that she did not question his curiosity about her frame of mind, or the precision with which he gauged her despondency and listlessness. Nor did the others pay particular attention to the inquisition save Celest, who was long-acquainted with her spouse’s brusque ways.

The doctor was an irascible individual, careless of manner and dress; he was also the best medical practitioner in all of London. Celest herself had a shrewd eye; she wasn’t the least surprised when he finished his interrogation and shot her a fulminating glance. “Complexion powders be damned!” he barked. “This girl is being drugged.”

This announcement brought Giles across the room with an oath that made even the dauntless Drusilla quail. “You won’t lay that at my door!” she said hastily. “Apply to Constant!”

That gentleman was roused from reverie by his brother-in-law’s ungentle hands, which grasped Constant’s lapels and half-lifted him from his chair, “What?” he gasped, terror-stricken by Giles’s obviously violent intent.

“Complexion powders,” Drusilla explained succinctly, roused to animation by the possibility of seeing mayhem enacted before her eyes.

Constant turned pale as death. “No harm done!” he stammered. “They were only to make the girl moody and vaporish. We couldn’t have Sapphira changing her will!”

“My will—” the dowager began ominously, but the doctor cut her short.

“No harm!” he repeated incredulously, then cast an exasperated look at Giles. “It’s fortunate the girl had the good sense not to take those powders regularly! From what I can determine they’re strong enough to put a horse to sleep permanently!” Constant made a choking noise, occasioned by the duke’s strangling grip on his neck. “No need to go throttling him, Your Grace!” added the doctor. “We can’t have
you
standing your trial!”

Abruptly released, Constant sank plump into his chair and applied a handkerchief to his pallid brow. “You ought to be grateful to me!” he protested. “Those powders were a great deal safer than what Drusilla wanted me to give the girl!”

“And what was that?” Giles turned his chilling glance on Drusilla. That lady promptly took a page from her sister’s book, and swooned.

Clio, understandably, couldn’t have cared less if the entire Bellamy clan—with one notable exception—expired on the spot. “Please tell me the truth,” she pleaded of Celest, during the ensuing
melée.
“Drusilla told me my mother was of unstable temperament—that there was lunacy in my family.”

“Poppycock!” bellowed Sapphira, who’d overheard the remark. “There’s no more truth in that than in any of Drusilla’s other tales. Your parents both came of noble lines, and neither had the slightest taint of lunacy. Mirian was as sane as I.”

This, since the dowager was looking both belligerent and wild-eyed, was not precisely reassuring.

“It’s true,” soothed Celest. “You would do well to forget everything Drusilla has told you. She is a very vicious woman, entirely accustomed to having her own way.” They glanced at the prone figure. Taking advantage of the momentary preoccupation, Constant slipped unnoticed from the room.