Maggie MacKeever (31 page)

Sir Morgan knew it behooved him to speak carefully. “I had my reputation to consider!” he protested. “Had I been thought to dally with a servant, my countenance would have suffered grievously!”

“Ah yes! The diamonds, of course.” Lady Tess’s chagrin deepened. “What a ninny I have been! I fear I made a great deal of trouble for you.”

“You did,” agreed Sir Morgan. “I cannot bring myself to regret a moment of it. Where
are
the diamonds, incidentally? Still at Bellamy House?”

“No. I was bringing them to you.” Tess fumbled with her bodice. “Before that, they were hidden beneath a loose floorboard in my room.”

Sir Morgan stared at the gems that glittered in her hand. “Sweet Jesus!” said he. “You’ve had them with you all the time?”

“I have.” Tess grinned. “Wouldn’t the thieves be furious to know they actually had the diamonds within their grasp? Fortunately, they did not think to search me.” Sir Morgan swore. “Why did you suggest that expedition to Vauxhall?” she asked quickly. “Logic tells me you had an ulterior motive.”

“I did.” The Wicked Baronet looked as if he held no high opinion of the countess’s abilities in the art of reasoning. “Suffice it to say that I intended to flush our culprits into the open and be rid of them.”

“And they outwitted you. What a sobering reflection! Had you only told
me
of your plans, I would have been better equipped to deal with the situation. A pistol, I have learned, is an admirable instrument with which to even out unequal odds!” Sir Morgan made an explosive noise and Tess exhibited concern. “Don’t excite yourself, you are not well! I was in no danger, truly.” Her gaze returned to the necklace. “What are we to do with it now?”

Sir Morgan was growing rapidly bored with all concerning that item; he took it from her and tossed it carelessly onto a table. “Paste,” he explained kindly. “Bianca sold the original long ago. She did not want the truth known for obvious reasons, chief among them that her creditors would raise a fearful racket if they suspected her pockets were to let. Hence my involvement. I was to find the necklace and restore it to her before Bow Street could discover the truth.” The countess was speechless, her dark brows raised and her lips slightly parted, and he ruthlessly pressed his advantage. “I do not scruple to tell you, my love, that you have been an infernal nuisance, forever thinking I was after that accursed necklace when I was, in fact, in pursuit of something else.”

“Oh?” Tess looked bewildered. “I’m sorry for it! What did I misunderstand?”

“My intentions, fair fatality!” Sir Morgan tugged on her hand, deftly toppling her over sideways. “Never have I been treated in such a cavalier fashion! I swear it is a marvel I have not sunk into a decline, the way you have held me at arm’s length.”

“Poppycock!” retorted Tess, in a voice that was not precisely steady. She stared up at him. “I have done no such thing. But there is no longer any need for you to be talking such skimble-skamble stuff, or to pretend and make me the object of your
amours.”
She looked, he thought, rather wistful. “The world may never know the reason that you quit me, for you can hardly explain that you had no other view but that of retrieving the necklace; but no one will be the least surprised that you grew tired of such a dowdy female.”

“Tiresome creature!” whispered Sir Morgan, into her ear. “Consider what the world would say if they knew you had passed the night in my bedchamber, leaving me only to retire to your own country estates, never to be seen in Society again! I would be thought the greatest beast in nature. No, Tess, you could not be cruel to that degree.”

The countess took a firm grip on her traitorous emotions. “You must have a fever, sir: you are delirious! What on earth can it matter if I am compromised—and it is a farrago of nonsense, for none but ourselves know I’m here!”

“I would be a model of decorum,” offered Sir Morgan, burying his fingers in her hair. “I will forswear all others, even abandon my visits to the fleshpots!”

Lady Tess was not of a prudent turn of mind, and certainly not of sufficient strength of will to resist one last improper exchange with the Wicked Baronet. “You absurd man!” she said, and chuckled. “As if I would ask of you such a thing. You should be bored within a sennight without your, er, debaucheries.”

“That settles it!” exclaimed Sir Morgan, unmanned by so reasonable an attitude. “You
must
marry me! Never had I thought to find a female so understanding of my little foibles.” He gazed down on her perplexed face. “Don’t, I beg you, offer me further absurdities! I am making you an honorable proposal of marriage and if I am making a sad botch of it, it is because I have never before done so—or wished to do so!—in all of my life.”

“You,” retorted Tess, trying ineffectually to free herself, “are talking fustian! Pray do so no more! I know perfectly well that you do not wish to marry me.”

“But I do,” replied Sir Morgan, with a queer little frown. “If it is not repugnant to your feelings, little one.”

“Repugnant!” gasped Tess, on the verge of a temper tantrum. It was perfectly obvious that Sir Morgan was taking advantage of her natural concern for a wounded man to resume his flirtation. That she did not have the slightest concern for Ceddie, who was similarly wounded, did not occur to her. “I am,” Sir Morgan added callously, “offering you a love match.”

Tess could not believe that such good fortune could be hers, or that Sir Morgan was not merely suffering a brainstorm. She broke into incoherent speech, which was liberally spiced with such handsome phrases as “truly sensible of the honor” and “very much obliged,” but which to Sir Morgan’s acute disappointment did not include the words that he wanted to hear.

“I see I must coerce you,” he interrupted rudely, and kissed her with an enthusiasm that left her trembling and weak-kneed.

“Morgan!” gasped Tess. “You
do
mean it!” And then she returned the embrace with so much ardor that a less jaded gentleman would have been shocked by her lack of restraint.

Thus engaged, Sir Morgan and the countess were completely oblivious to the frantic barking of the mastiffs outside. Their preoccupation, however, did not survive the explosion of a pistol close at hand. Tess shrieked and later swore her blood turned to water; and Sir Morgan swore viciously.

“Sir Morgan!” cried Evelyn, bursting into the room and then stopping dead in his tracks. “What are you doing to Aunt Tess?”

“Reviving her,” replied Sir Morgan promptly, while the countess blushed bright red. “Only fancy, she fainted dead away!”

Evelyn knew a clanker when he heard one, and Tess was entirely too rosy-cheeked for a lady recovering from a swoon, but he had no time to puzzle over the crotchets of adults, being big with news. “Ceddie just shot a man! Isn’t it the most
famous
thing? And I thought him a shabby sort of fellow!” He frowned. “Though he did sort of spoil the whole thing by being sick in the drawing-room.”

“Do you think,” inquired Sir Morgan, casting a severe look at the countess, who had succumbed to a choking fit, “that we might be told the identity of his victim? I shouldn’t wish to lose one of my servants in such a way, though I do understand that it was a brilliant manner in which to enliven your tedium.”

Unabashed, Evelyn grinned. “As if I’d let Ceddie shoot one of your people! It was a fellow from the inn—he escaped the Bow Street men. Which reminds me, there’s a Runner downstairs.”

“There would be,” said Sir Morgan bitterly, leaning across Tess’s shaking body to grasp the necklace. “Here, give this to him, with my compliments.”

“But poor Bianca!” protested the countess, brushing her sleeve across her damp eyes. “And her creditors!”

“I have forsworn my other ladyloves, remember?” Sir Morgan tossed the necklace to Evelyn, who caught it neatly. “This is an admirable way to be rid of at least one of them: Bianca will certainly never speak to me again.” He scowled at Evelyn, who was staring at the necklace with eyes as big as saucers. “Begone, brat! And see to it that we’re not disturbed.”

“Sometime,” murmured the countess, sounding short of breath, “you must tell me about your vast number of conquests, and how it is you escaped so many snares.”

“Gladly,” replied Sir Morgan, with his crooked smile. “It will take a lifetime, my love! They were legion.”

“Ah, yes.” Tess basked in the warmth of his regard. “How sorry they would be to learn that you wish
me
to profit solely from your great experience!”

It was apparent to Evelyn that the scene about to be enacted would not be at all suitable to his young eyes. He cleared his throat, which availed nothing. “Sir Morgan!” he shouted. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. My father would listen to me, probably, but I don’t think I could persuade Aunt Drusilla, or
Grandmére,
to stay away.”

“What?”
demanded Sir Morgan. Evelyn prudently stepped backward.

“Clio, too,” he added apologetically, “but now I must call her ‘Mother,’ did you know? She and my father were married by special license this morning.” Sir Morgan looked thunderous and he gulped. “They’re here, didn’t I say? The coach just pulled up outside.
Grandmére
is mad as toads, and calling Aunt Tess all kinds of names.” On that ominous note, he scampered out the door.

Chapter 25

It was late afternoon when the Duke of Bellamy’s elegant carriage arrived at Sir Morgan’s country house. The journey had not been a particularly pleasant one, the travelers being thoroughly out of charity with one another, except the duke and his new duchess, so engrossed in each other that they were deaf to the vituperative comments that passed between Sapphira and Drusilla, unaware of the silent disapproval radiating from Delphine, and unmoved by the dowager duchess’s bitter diatribe on lovebirds who billed and cooed in the most revolting manner while Rome burned around them, and chicks who were so bird-witted as to shove their strongest well-wisher out of the nest.

Drusilla was first out of the carriage, racing in a most ungenteel manner to the front door, there to collide with the dapper little Runner who had a wounded ruffian in tow. This seedy individual was a trifle foxed, due to the brandy he’d consumed while a bullet was dug out of his thigh; and Drusilla bore a marked resemblance to the buxom country lass with whom he often shared such rustic trysting places as cow byres and haylofts. Consequently, he greeted her with tearful reproaches and maudlin profanity. The Runner was not one to neglect his duty; despite Drusilla’s indignant protests, he arrested her on the spot.

“My daughter?” repeated the dowager duchess, when applied to. “Never saw the hussy before!” She glowered at her speechless daughter. “How dare you claim a connection, girl? Take her away!”

The resultant altercation promised to be of no short duration. Clio slipped past the combatants and through the front door. “Clio!” cried Evelyn, running into the hallway and grabbing her hand. “You must come and congratulate Ceddie, for he is the hero of the day!”

There was nothing Clio wanted less than to lay eyes on Cedric, but Evelyn was pulling her down the hallway and into the drawing-room. The sight that greeted her there briefly drove all other considerations from her mind. “Heavens!” ejaculated the new duchess.

Signs of unmistakable conflict littered the lovely room. Furniture was overturned, fine porcelain figurines lay shattered on the floor. Clio looked hastily away from a pool of fresh blood. “Ceddie!” she gasped.

“He’ll be right as rain,” offered Evelyn cheerfully. The young viscount thrived on excitement. “Ceddie is very brave, for all that the sight of blood makes him cast up his accounts. Just think, Clio, he captured a dangerous criminal! One that escaped even Bow Street’s net!”

Clio could not imagine anyone less heroic-looking than Ceddie, sprawled upon the sofa, his immaculate raiment in a shocking condition, his face as white as once had been his rumpled cravat. She said so.

“If that ain’t the height of ingratitude!” Ceddie replied indignantly, removing his arm from his eyes. “You should thank me for rescuing your sister from a gang of bloodthirsty ruffians! It would have gone damned hard with Tess if I hadn’t shown up, and she will tell you so.”

“No, she won’t!” interrupted Evelyn. “She’ll tell you that Sir Morgan and I rescued the pair of you! Why you had to go and stab Sir Morgan is more than
I
can understand—though it’s perfectly clear why Aunt Tess skewered
you!”

“She didn’t!” moaned Clio.

“Oh, yes, she did!” Gingerly, Ceddie touched his ribs. He was feeling rather sulky, having been virtually ignored by all save Evelyn, who had an appalling tendency to dwell upon such queasy-making topics as tortures and hangings and gore. “Devilish thankless female! I should have let that scoundrel murder her.”

“Murder Tess?” Clio stared. “You’re all about in your head!”

“No, I ain’t!” Ceddie sat up carefully. “That Runner’s told us the queerest tale. Your sister’s been racketing about with a stolen diamond necklace, and if that ain’t the outside of enough, I don’t know what is!” His gaze fell upon the pool of blood and he sank back weakly, distracting his flip-flopping stomach with recollections of the Runner’s praise for his quick thinking, and the man’s delicate hints of shared rewards.

Clio digested this shocking information with no small dismay. “Where
is
Tess?” she asked.

Evelyn made a face. “Cuddling with Sir Morgan,” he replied with marked disapproval, “in his bedchamber. He doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”

“I’ll wager he doesn’t, the blackguard!” shrieked Clio. Convinced that the countess was indeed being ravished, she rushed into the hallway. Since the Duke of Bellamy awaited her there, and since Giles took that admirable opportunity to whisper a few fond words to his blushing bride, with the result that she so far forgot her mission of rescue that she replied in kind, it was some few moments before they ascended the stair.

All the duke’s assurances could not convince his duchess that their unwilling host was not a monster of depravity, and she was further overset by the scandalous sight that greeted her when she threw open the bedroom door.