Maggie MacKeever (29 page)

Ruefully, Jynx reflected that her newfound freedom from worry had lasted one mere night. She wished that she might refuse Percy, and Sir Malcolm, and lock herself away with a nicely unexciting book. But she could not. Shannon was elsewhere, tracking down his archbishop, and the various predicaments of the Ashley clan had from all appearances taken on a grave immediacy. She could only hope that Shannon would forgive her for again defying him.

It was also apparent from Percy’s contorted features that he was perilously close to the Ashley habit of tears. “Do get up!” she said crossly. “I’ll come with you.” Percy rose, and grabbed her arm, and practically dragged her from the room.

“What on earth,” Eulalia inquired faintly, staring at the door, “was that about?”

“Astley’s,” said Sir Malcolm helpfully. He had a very good notion of what his daughter’s proposed destination actually was, and he was grateful to Lord Peverell for forcing her to cooperate. Sir Malcolm was not oblivious to the impropriety of the expedition, but Sir Malcolm was determined that Lady Bliss should be warned. It did not occur to him that, in saving his own honor and incidentally a great deal of effort for himself, his daughter might be further compromised. “You know, founded by ex-Sergeant Major Philip Astley as a riding school and the first Royal Circus in 1768. Equestrian displays!” He raised the
Times
in front of his face and withdrew.

What Eulalia knew was that she had despaired too soon. Jessamyn preferred Lord Peverell to Lord Roxbury? So, frankly, did she. Percy would be easily persuaded to take his wife’s doting aunt into his home, whereas Shannon would not have been. Indeed, Eulalia thought smugly, Percy could be easily persuaded to do anything. All that remained was to inform Lord Roxbury that his betrothal was at an end.

Chapter Twenty-three

Miss Lennox donned an elegant bonnet, and a muslin pelisse with long full sleeves, and set out in company with Lord Peverell. As Sir Malcolm had anticipated, their destination was not Astley’s pleasure dome in Lambeth, but a certain red brick house in Portland Place. Lord Peverell’s utterances, during this short journey, were both ominous and incoherent, and neither relieved nor enlightened his companion.

Nor did the scene that greeted her in Blissington House. Lady Bliss and her niece were in the drawing room, and both were weeping lustily. Even Tomkin, who was puttering quite unnecessarily about the room, possessed a suspicious dampness of eye. “Oh, miss!” he said, when that orb alit on Jynx. “I’m prodigious glad you’ve come.”

Thus made aware that callers had arrived. Lady Bliss emerged from behind her sodden handkerchief. “Miss Lennox! Has Percy brought you? Then he has caused you a fool’s errand, and you had better go away!”

Miss Lennox blinked. “I thought you wished my help, Adorée? I do not scruple to tell you that you look to be in sore need of
someone’s
assistance. What is going on here?”

“Oh, my dear! We are undone. You should not further involve yourself in our affairs.” Nonetheless, Lady Bliss grasped Jynx and pulled her down on the settee. “I do not wish it to be laid at
my
door if Shannon gets up on his high ropes again.”

“Pooh! Why should he, pray?” Rather helplessly, Miss Lennox patted her hostess’s hand, which clutched her wrist so tightly that the bones had begun to ache.

Briefly diverted, Adorée cast her a shrewd glance. “You can’t deny that Shannon wouldn’t like your being here. The future Lady Roxbury shouldn’t be lowering her character by such improprieties.”

“The future Lady Roxbury is a sad case, I fear,” retorted Jynx. “She doesn’t give a fig for propriety! And you may leave Shannon to me.”

“I shall!” Adorée looked dismayed. “A man with a young wife is hardly what I would—oh! Now I understand! Do you know, my dear Miss Lennox, I never suspected that you would prove to be so much of a little
minx?”
Sternly she gazed upon her guest, whose lips had begun to twitch. “And if you start to giggle again, I shall box your ears! There is absolutely nothing in this dreadful situation about which one may laugh.”

“I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing!” Jynx’s voice was strained. “Do you think you might explain the situation to me? You might as well, since I am already here.”

Cristin had become belatedly aware of that fact. She tore herself away from Percy, who had been murmuring vague but encouraging promises in her ear, and hurled herself at Miss Lennox. “Oh, Jynx, you
must
help me! I know I said I would go through with it for Percy’s sake, but now I have found that I cannot! It is
infamous!
What are we to do?”

Miss Lennox straightened her bonnet, which Cristin’s assault had knocked forward onto her nose, and voiced a faint request that Cristin would cease to manhandle her. Sniffling, Cristin removed her arms from around Jynx’s neck. “You refer to Eleazar Hyde?”

“Do not even speak his name!” Cristin looked distinctly nauseous, and Adorée moved hastily out of the way. Cristin immediately appropriated her aunt’s place on the settee. “He says he will no longer be put off by missishness, and I am to go away with him as soon as he returns to town.”

“Never!” ejaculated Percy, who’d come to perch on the arm of the settee, in which position he looked—and was—extremely uncomfortable.

“When is that to be?” inquired Jynx. “His return? And where does the man go on these jaunts? He seems to be very often out of town.”

“I’m sure I don’t know!” Cristin retorted pettishly. “I only wish he might stay there. And I don’t care
what
threats he may have made my uncle, I don’t wish to sacrifice myself for Innis! It is too much to ask entirely.”

With this sentiment, Lord Peverell energetically agreed. Lady Bliss remarked—from the writing desk where she sat shuffling in a despondent manner through a stack of bills— that she wished to hear no more against her brother. Even though Innis was the greatest scoundrel in nature, Adorée explained, he was still an Ashley. “And the Ashley blood is thicker than most,” she added solemnly. “Considering our lack of credit with the world, it has had to be! Anyway, Innis said he’d fix it up all right and tight, so I don’t know why Percy saw fit to drag you into this, Jynx! He knows we are in anxious expectation of more news.”

“Innis—” Jynx began, then stopped as she noted the intractable expression on Adorée’s lovely face. “No one has told me when Eleazar Hyde is to return.”

“In a couple of days,” offered Percy, since this question had reduced Cristin once more to tears. “We don’t know exactly. Don’t go saying Cristin should go off with him like—like a lamb to the slaughter!—because I won’t have it, Jynx!”

Miss Lennox, who had never suggested anything of the sort, bit back several sharp replies. “Percy, is your inheritance entailed?”

“Dash it, Jynx, what has my inheritance to do with anything?” On Percy’s handsome, and rather vacant, countenance sat an expression of extreme indignation. “Of course it’s entailed! Not that it matters! Now do try and concentrate on what’s to be done.”

Miss Lennox had an unprecedented impulse to tear at her hair. “I am!” she snapped. “Which is a great deal more than can be said for any of you! Don’t you see, Percy? Your family can’t do anything if you elope with Cristin!”

Lord Peverell’s indignation was replaced by a dazzling smile. “You
are
a good sort of girl, Jynx! I always said you was! Did you hear, Cristin? We can fly to Gretna Green!”

“Oh, I wish I could!” Cristin wrung her hands. “But if I did, think what would happen to my aunt! Eleazar would be very angry, and I do not think he would let us go unpunished. You owe a great deal of money to Innis, and there’s no telling what Eleazar would make him do.”

“You need not,” Adorée announced woefully, “concern yourself with me. I’m already in such deep water that a few more bucketfuls would merely ensure that I drowned, which is of all things what I would prefer. And Eleazar can do nothing to me that hasn’t already been done, so you might as well be on your way.”

Percy was, despite his lack of native wit, very much a gentleman; and so he demonstrated. “Can’t do that!” he protested, albeit unenthusiastically. “Cow-hearted! Tell you what, I’ll pay your debts.”

Miss Lennox regarded Lord Peverell’s triumphant expression, and Lady Bliss’s hopeful one, and reluctantly intervened. “Percy, you cannot even discharge your
own
debts! You couldn’t possibly raise a sum large enough to cover Adorée’s as well without approaching your trustees.” Three uniformly unappreciative faces turned to her. “Has anyone considered applying to Lord Erland?”

“It is Lord Erland,” Adorée responded dramatically, “who has brought us to a standstill! I should have believed Percy’s mama when she said I was at my last prayers—but no! I had to wear my heart upon my sleeve, even though I knew as soon as I clapped eyes on Nicky that he was a downy one, up to all the rigs! I have been sadly taken in, Miss Lennox—bamboozled! I can perfectly understand
why
he did it, of course, but it was cruel in the greatest degree that he should set all of us on our ear.” She frowned. “I do not think I shall even forgive him for it, not that I suppose he cares.”

Miss Lennox gazed with no little apprehension upon her hostess, who wore a dress made from an Indian shawl, its wide border forming the hem; and begged to be told the extent of Lord Erland’s perfidy. Lady Bliss clutched her bosom, swore she suffered palpitations, and announced faintly that her beloved Nicky was a stiff-necked whopstraw. Cristin being by Percy’s proximity rendered equally unintelligible, it was left to Lord Peverell to explain.

“Nicky has a winning gambler’s temperament,” he said, with a hint of admiration. “The coolest nerve I’ve ever seen. And his calculation of the odds is wonderful to see. I’ve watched him go down very heavily without even turning a hair.”

“But he didn’t go down last night!” Adorée, who still sat at her writing desk, was in a most nervous and prostrate state. “He won! And I’m sure he meant to
,
because all along he has been playing the concave suit.”

Miss Lennox reflected that few gentlemen sat down to gamble with the intention of taking a loss, but she did not confuse her hostess with this side issue. “Lord Erland came here last night,” she prompted. “Then what?”

“It was very late,” said Adorée, looking most forlorn, “and you had already gone. I refused to speak to him, remembering, my dear Jynx, what you had said about
motives.
Well! Nicky retired promptly to the faro table, and broke the bank for five thousand pounds.”

“Five thousand!” Jynx repeated, stunned.

“It has put me,” Adorée remarked with awesome understatement, “very much out of frame! You must not blame yourself, Jynx; I do not blame you. Even though if you hadn’t pointed out his duplicity, I would not have refused to speak to him; and if I hadn’t refused to speak to him, he wouldn’t have gone to the faro table, and I wouldn’t now be on the edge of
ruin!”

This example of Ashley logic caused Miss Lennox to suffer palpitations of her own. “Oh, Lord!” she said weakly.

“There! I knew you’d be upset, which is why I expressly told Percy not to inform you of it.” Lady Bliss studied that young man, who had assumed an extremely contorted position so that Cristin might rest her head against his shoulder. “I should have known he would immediately do the opposite. You meant it for the best, Jynx, and it was your concern for me that prompted you to speak; and even though I could wish you had been
less
concerned, I do not hold it against you!”

So overwhelmed was Miss Lennox by her suddenly assumed role as the harbinger of the Ashley doom that she rose abruptly to her feet. Lord Peverell immediately assumed her place on the settee. “You think Lord Erland
didn’t
deliberately set out to alienate you from Percy? But then——”

“Is it so wonderful,” Adorée asked awfully, “that a gentleman should be attracted to myself? I have thought a great deal about it, and though I may not be terribly intelligent, I have a certain instinct about such things!”

Briefly, Percy roused himself from his preoccupation with Cristin. “Can’t imagine why I asked you to help us, Jynx. Now that I consider it, you’ve made a sorry mess of things!”

“Nonsense!” Moved by Miss Lennox’s stricken expression, Lady Bliss took her hand. “I’m sure we are not entirely
without blame. Dear Jynx, do not distress yourself. Innis has promised to set all to rights.”

Miss Lennox doubted Innis Ashley’s ability to amend any situation, but she hesitated to say so. “How?”

“I didn’t ask.” Adorée frowned. “Should I have? It is so very hard to be logical when so many things are plaguesome! And I cannot but think you should leave, dear Jynx—though I am very happy to see you, in spite of all my little worries!—because I do not wish that you should fall from grace again! Your papa was very angry when I told him where you were; he made some very unpleasant comments about the path I tread and accused me of always
stumbling;
but fortunately I knew just how to handle him.” Doubtfully, she regarded Jynx. “Forgive me, my dear, but I don’t think you
do.”

Much as Jynx hated to add to Adorée’s budget of woes, the deed must be done, “You do not understand, Adorée; Sir Malcolm wished that I should come to you.”

“He did?” Lady Bliss’s eye brightened. “My plea in your behalf was more effective than I imagined, then!” But then remembering her difficult if not impossible position she was more disconsolate. “I wish,” she said unhappily, “that I might go into the country on a repairing lease. So I would, if one did not need a certain amount of money even for ruralizing!”

Jynx glanced cautiously at Cristin and Percy, who were so absorbed in one another that they would have been deaf to the trumpet of doom. All the same, she deemed it wise that they be removed from earshot. After several attempts, she gave them to understand that the garden offered both salubrious air and a great deal more privacy. They departed, arm in arm, in which posture they encountered a passing difficulty with the doorway.

Miss Lennox turned back to her hostess. “It is about Innis that Sir Malcolm wished me to speak to you.”