Maggie MacKeever (35 page)

Into that deathly lull came the sounds of a man’s footsteps on the stair. Adorée cast an anxious glance at her looking glass, then trod slowly to the door. The doorsteps halted; she flung it open. “Oh, Nicky!” she breathed. “What must you think of me!”

There was no censure on Lord Erland’s swarthy and ill-tempered face, even though he was fully alert to the significance of the carts drawn up at the front door and the startling absence of furniture in the house. He regarded Lady Bliss who, wishful of being abducted, had clad herself as she deemed most appropriate—to wit, in precious little, and that a clinging violet silk. There was a distinct gleam of appreciation in the earl’s wintry eye. “I’ve already told you what I think. Do stand aside, Adorée, and let me come in!”

She did so feebly, for his tone had been anything but that of a man prepared to venture all for romance. “It is very quiet. I suppose the sordid bloodsuckers are even now discussing how they may further humiliate me. The situation is insufferable! Never did I think to be brought to a standstill.”

“You haven’t been.” Lord Erland seated himself on the settee, beside his opera cloak. “I paid them off and sent them away. If you wish to keep this house, however, I fear you’ll need new furnishings.”

“Keep this house?” echoed Adorée. Her eye fell on the decanter, and she brought her guest a glass. “I have never wished to keep this house, but Innis insisted—it occurs to me that all my life Innis has been insisting on things, with the result that
I
am always miserable! Courtenay’s family is welcome to the place; they’ve been trying to force me to move out for years. And I wish them joy of it, because I have been very wretched here!”

Lord Erland regarded his brandy glass. “What are your plans, Adorée?”

Lady Bliss considered her own glass, then drank it dry. “God knows,” she said hollowly. “I must do something, I suppose, but I cannot think what! This horrid business has left my spirits entirely crushed. At least I will no longer be encumbered with Innis, the wretch. But you will not wish to hear of that!” She blinked in a charming manner that was reminiscent of a gently inebriated owl. “Tell me, Nicky, why have you come here?”

Dominic did not scold Lady Bliss for this belaborment of the obvious, owing to the fact that he was deriving considerable entertainment from the scene. Nor did this fact surprise him, though it was much more common for Lord Erland to be bored than entertained; he had already discovered that it was impossible to pass more than a moment in the company of Adorée Blissington without becoming both enchanted and amused. “Miss Lennox,” he replied. “That singular young lady informed me very frankly that I have misused you. Why didn’t you tell me that she was the object of Percy’s rather sottish adoration? I’ve no objection to that, Adorée.”

“Percy!” Lady Bliss stared. “And
Jynx?
Oh, no! I was so sure she’d have Shannon, and it would have been a perfect match. But Jynx and Percy—no and no and no!”

Dominic’s dark brows had drawn into his familiar scowl. “Roxbury? He arrived at the house as I was leaving, but I didn’t think—” He recalled the viscount’s expression on that meeting, when Miss Lennox had been gifted with his salute on her brow. He also recalled Miss Lennox’s singular lack of enthusiasm upon being welcomed into the family. His lips twitched. “Apparently I have erred. But if not Miss Lennox, who?”

“I do wish you would try and not confuse me so!” complained Adorée. “I have gone to a great deal of trouble to reunite Shannon and Jynx, and it would be very sad if it was for nothing—Innis pawned her betrothal ring, you see, and Shannon thought she had lost it gambling, and she thought that he meant to keep on with me even after they were married, so she threw the ring at him, and made a dreadful scene, and ran away to me.” It occurred to Lady Bliss that she had said more than she should. “And he came after her and they made it up, but you must promise me to tell no one of this, because for Jynx to have stayed here with me would be considered very shocking.”

“I see,” said Lord Erland blandly, and with superhuman self-control, “that Miss Lennox and Lord Roxbury were meant for one another. But if not Miss Lennox and not yourself—and do not try and convince me again that it is yourself! —then who in the name of heaven does Percy nourish this absurd passion for?”

“Passion,” reproved Lady Bliss, as she refilled her glass, “may be ill-founded, and it may have very unfortunate circumstances, but it is
never
absurd! I should certainly know, for I have very strong passions and I have indulged them with great latitude.” She sighed heavily. “Or I did once, but of course I am no longer in my first youth, so I suppose I should no longer think of such things.”

“You will be thinking of such things,” Dominic replied bluntly, “until you are in the grave, Adorée. But we will not speak of
that
until you have explained Percy’s passion to me.”

It occurred to Lady Bliss that Lord Erland’s last remark might be considered a promising omen. This thought did not cheer her; Lord Erland would doubtless wash his hands of her once he learned the extent of her deceit. “Oh, very well! Percy is in love with my niece Cristin. Innis brought her here when our brother died—against my wishes, but what was I to do? At least I managed to keep Cristin out of the gaming rooms and to keep the world from knowing her presence in my house. She is a very good girl, but I will not expect you to believe that.”

“Why not?” The earl quirked a brow. “You might very reasonably expect me to withhold judgment until I’ve seen the chit. How did Percy meet your niece, if she was kept so closely under wraps?”

“That was entirely Jynx’s fault—oh, not
fault,
because Percy and Cristin are sincerely devoted to one another, but if they had never met I would have been spared a great deal of fuss, and would not have been reduced to a state of constant alarm and occasional fainting fits!” Lady Bliss remembered, then, precisely who and what she was.
“Not,
of course, that I am one to stand in the way of true love! Cristin and Miss Lennox were at school together, you see.”

“Ah!” Lord Erland was gratified. “I begin to, at any rate.”

“I guess you should know the rest of it.” What mattered it now, since he must already consider her the most feckless female to ever embark upon a disorderly life. Adorée explained to Dominic the entire unhappy saga of Cristin and Percy—save for the latest development, their involvement in Innis’s misdeeds. “There it is! I fling myself upon your mercy, I am prostrate at your feet!”

“I’m gratified.” replied the earl, who had listened to her moving tale with an expression of unholy glee, “but I don’t see why you should be. You’ve done nothing for which you may be either censured or condemned.”

“I haven’t?” Adorée looked very confused. “Your cousin’s all to pieces, and I’m in the basket myself, and you think I have behaved
properly?”

“I didn’t say that.” Dominic treated her to his rare smile. “It is a great deal of your charm that you’ve no idea of
how
to behave properly! But in this instance, you’ve no reason to blame yourself. It’s not like you set out to lure my nodcock cousin into some sort of trap.”

“No,” Lady Bliss replied gloomily, “but Innis did. I will not trust myself to express my opinion of that! Nicky, you do not mind about Cristin and Percy?”

Lord Erland shrugged. “He could have looked higher, but who Percy marries is Percy’s affair. If anything, the durability of this affection of his makes me think the more of him.”

“But,” wailed Lady Bliss, aghast that the earl should not realize the enormity of her sins, “an
Ashley!”

“If
I
don’t regard it, why should you?” Lord Erland set aside his glass. “It sounds very much to me like Percy will marry her one way or another, even if he must wait until he comes of age, which is now only a matter of weeks. So the logical thing is to give in with good grace. His mother will have a spasm, I expect. Better yet, she’ll probably never again speak to me.”

Lady Bliss grew increasingly befuddled, both by the brandy and by Dominic’s attitude. It seemed very much as if he was happy at the notion that Lady Peverell would never forgive his part in this affair. Plaintively, Adorée said that she did not understand.

“Simple!” Lord Erland rose. “She wishes to marry me.”

“Oh!” Lady Bliss said faintly. “Well, that is not remarkable, you know. Indeed, a great many females probably wish to marry you, which seems to me very foolish—not because you are not an attractive gentleman; you must know that you
are;
but because it’s as plain as the nose on your face that you don’t
wish to
marry. Not that I blame you for it! Some people seem to like it very well, but matrimony, in my experience at least, has a very definite tendency to take the
spice
out of things.”

“I thought,” remarked the earl with a perfectly straight face, “that you were devoted to Courtenay.”

“I can hardly inform the world otherwise, can I?” Adorée inquired irritably. “My reputation is already in tatters, without adding a positive detestation of my husband to my sins! And it is my practice to put a good face on things.” She reached once more for the brandy decanter, but Lord Erland deftly whisked it beyond her reach. She looked reproachfully at him. “I talk a great deal of nonsense, and you will not want to listen to me. Furthermore, I am expensive and extravagant, and careless about paying my bills; I exist in a perennial financial crisis, and it accomplishes me absolutely nothing to try and be good!”

“Why try?” Dominic grasped her hands and pulled her to her feet. “I would much rather have you wicked. Since I am without doubt one of the warmest men in England, I think I can bear the expense.”

“But, Nicky!” Lady Bliss’s scruples once more reared their ugly heads. “You cannot wish to be bothered with my various little indiscretions! Think of your position in the world.”

Lord Erland expressed his opinion of the world in a few vulgar words. He then explained that since the government was openly and admittedly corrupt—the House of Commons, for example, was effectively controlled by lottery tickets, bonds, contracts and jobs—his position was very likely to be strengthened by a scatter-brained, expensive and charming
petite amie.
And moreover, he concluded, he didn’t mind in the least if she was indiscreet from Italy to the Holy Land and back, so long as her indiscretions were limited to himself.

“Naturally they would be!” Adorée grimaced with offense. “I may be imprudent but no one can call me
loose!
And if you don’t mind the scandal-broth, I’m sure
I
shouldn’t mind a temporary reprieve from these continual expedients and shifts! But why, if you are desirous of—of
that,
did you break my faro bank?”

“That was very badly done of me.” Lord Erland’s hands moved to her shoulders, and his voice was bemused. “I thought if I forced you to close Blissington House, you would have no choice but to put yourself in my keeping. I wanted to broach the matter earlier, but you had so many things on your mind that you could not properly listen to me.” His eyes moved slowly over her face. “My poor little jade, you have had a very bad time of it, have you not? Never mind! I will see to it that you need trouble yourself about nothing, ever again.”

Adorée could not tear her eyes away from his, not that she tried to do so. She had the strangest sensation of waking from a horrid dream. “Never?”

“Never. You shall have your place in the country, and one in town as well, and I will see to it that you are always provided for.”

Now it seemed not wakening from a dream, but plunging into nightmare. “You are very generous,” murmured Adorée, close to tears. “And it sounds very pleasant, but it also sounds very much like a business arrangement, and I do not think I wish to be a kept woman, not even yours! So you had better go before I exhibit a most unbecoming violence of feeling and really
do
try to strangle you.”

Lord Erland looked very much surprised, as well he might; Lady Bliss, despite her selfless renunciation, clung to him as tightly as if she would never let him go. “You don’t want those things?”

Adorée tried without success—and, to tell truth, without much conviction—to free herself from his grasp. “How can you talk such arrant fustian?” she cried. “Of course I do! But I want even more that you should love me, for without that anything else would be meaningless.” She sniffled. “Oh! I must be positively detested by the gods, else I would not have formed a decided partiality for a man who holds me in such low esteem!”

“Why on earth,” inquired the earl, who looked more amused than chagrined by this outburst, “do you think I hold you in low esteem?”

“How can you not?” stormed Adorée. “And what else am I to think when you keep calling me a
jade?”

“Ah!” A decisive gentleman, Dominic swept her up into his arms and carried her to the settee. “Such words as ‘darling’ and ‘sweetheart’ are so grossly abused, and I would not insult you with such lukewarm and unoriginal mawkishness. I suppose, however, that since you do not like to be called a jade, I could call you my little love. It would have the advantage of being the truth.”

He was, by this time, seated on the settee, and Lady Bliss was clasped firmly in his arms. She craned her neck to look at his swarthy face. “It would?” she inquired doubtfully.

“It would,” said he. “I have indeed spouted nonsense—oh, not in what I offered you, but when I spoke of favorites of the moment only. You see, my—er, my love, I have at the ridiculously advanced age of five-and-forty, and in spite of my resolutions to never do such a foolish thing, formed what very much appears to be a lasting passion for you. No,” he added, as her lips parted, “let me finish! I expect that I shall be senile and gout-ridden—if not in the tomb!—before your moment ends. And I have begun to doubt that it will even end then.”

“Nicky!” Adorée simply could not remain silent. “I have always wanted to grow old with someone!”

Lord Erland’s smile was crooked. “And I hadn’t meant to keep you tucked away out of the sight of the world, though that’s how it must have sounded. I meant only that I should not, if you did not wish it, inflict my presence on you, or disturb your privacy.”