Maggie MacKeever (4 page)

“More fool you,” retorted the unappreciative gentleman. “Had you heeded my advice, you wouldn’t be in this fix. The next thing you know we’ll have an execution in the house, and Jews at the door filling up their carts, and the place overrun with bailiffs.”

“Oh, don’t say so!” wailed Lady Bliss, regarding her brother with dismay. “You know very well that my creditors have begun to hound me in earnest—and I’m sure I’m not entirely to blame, even if I
am
a trifle careless about paying my bills. Nor should you scold me for it, Innis! You are very expensive, and I haven’t noticed that
you’ve
made the least attempt to economize!”

Innis Ashley put forth no argument; in justice, he could not. Innis was, according to his detractors, the numbers of whom were considerable, a gentleman totally devoid of sentiment or shame, a gentleman who was committed to a continued routine of dissipation, and who possessed not one estimable or redeemable quality. He had, at thirty-two, earned no little notoriety as a philanderer; he had, it was said, already possessed one-third of the female population of the town. This may have been slight exaggeration—and again, it may not—but those who knew Innis accorded him the epithet of
très amoureux
but
très inconstant.

Lady Bliss continued to bemoan her perennial financial crises, waving her handkerchief for emphasis. “And to run a polite gaming house was
your
idea, Innis! You said that if we issued discreet cards of invitation, and set out faro tables and handsome suppers and good wine, and let it be known that the play was fair, we would speedily become rich. But we haven’t! And I’m sure I don’t wonder at it, since champagne costs seventy shillings the dozen, to say nothing of spring chickens and salmon and green peas. I shall end up in debtors’ prison, I know it, and
then
you’ll regret your treatment of me.”

“Pax!” Innis interrupted, and crossed his legs at the knee. “Considering that you have enslaved half the government, I doubt not that you’d be rescued from Newgate gaol by some admirer who wouldn’t wish to suffer the embarrassment attendant upon your presence there. But you worry needlessly, Adorée. It won’t come to that. I fancy I’ve found the perfect way out of our difficulties.”

Lady Bliss did not respond enthusiastically to the ray of hope thus proffered; Lady Bliss had what might be charitably called a one-track mind. “I will admit,” she said stiffly, “that I have had my share—perhaps even
more
than my share—of amorous intrigues.”

“What you’ve had,” remarked Innis, who wasn’t one to coddle any lady, “is a series of highly publicized and scandalous flirtations. And not one of them did you turn to advantage! Never did I think to see an Ashley whistle a fortune down the wind! Yet here we are, suffering from a run of the most damnably persistent ill luck, with one disastrous occurrence following hard on another, and you allow one of the richest men in England to escape your net.”

Lady Bliss surveyed her brother, whose blue coat and fawn pantaloons and Hessian boots displayed his magnificent figure to a nicety. His countenance was honest and open and cheerful, his manner disarming, and his dark locks tumbled in an engaging and careless manner over his noble brow. Lady Bliss evinced little appreciation at the handsome picture he made. “You would have me act the tart,” she pronounced awfully. “I have told you before, Innis, that I refuse to capitalize on my, er,
affaires de coeur.”

So
she had, and Innis considered it further proof—not that further proof was needed—that his sister was a skitterwitted slow-top. She was his meal-ticket, however, and he did not wish to argue with her. “So you have,” Innis replied cheerfully. “So be it! I shan’t say another word about Roxbury.”

“Oh, Innis!” Lady Bliss was immediately distracted, as her brother had intended she should be. “He has behaved
so
handsomely!”

“He has?” Accustomed as he was to his sister’s limited powers of intellect, her utterances sometimes caused Innis a certain confusion. “Dash it, Adorée, the man gave you your ticket-of-leave!”

“Yes, he did.” Lady Bliss again had recourse to her handkerchief. “And the sapphire set he gave me as a parting gift was
very
handsome! And he has a sincere regard for the girl, which is
so
affecting, and I think it’s all marvelous!”

“It’d be a great deal
more
marvelous,” retorted Innis, “if Roxbury had a sincere regard for
you!
Will you wear the willow for him, then? I thought you didn’t care for the man.”

“Wretch!” Had not Lady Bliss so adored her younger brother, she would have been all out of charity with him. It was only fair that a female who had just received a terrible blow—albeit for the hundredth time—should be permitted to indulge in a slight display of wounded sensibility. “I have cared for
all
of them!” She sniffled. “Of course, no one can ever compare with my dear——”

“Courtney! I know, I know!” Innis was in no mood to hear again a catalogue of his happily deceased brother-in-law’s nonexistent virtues. Sir Courtney Blissington had been of a disposition and character that made the feckless Ashleys appear models of virtue in comparison. “Sometimes, Adorée, I think you have windmills in your head. Roxbury was the plumpest pigeon that’s ever come our way, but you had to turn squeamish and refuse to feather your nest! Ah well, what’s done is done, and can be undone, I always say! Where
is
this fine sapphire set?”

“Innis!” Lady Bliss quite forgot the loss of her latest swain in the face of this new threat. “You don’t mean to take them from me?”

“May I recall to you the bailiffs and the moneylenders, the champagne and spring chickens and green peas?” Innis held out his hand. Adorée sighed and reluctantly placed in it a jeweler’s box. “That’s my girl!” applauded Innis, and inspected the gems. “Very fine, in truth! Never mind, sister, you’ll have even finer, and before long.”

Nor did Lady Bliss respond to this tantalizing promise; Lady Bliss was contemplating the patent absence of her guardian angel on this miserable day. Not only had she lost Lord Roxbury, who had been generous if a trifle dilatory in his attentions; but even worse, she had been deprived of the splendid jewels with which she might have consoled herself. Life, decided Adorée, was most extraordinarily unfair.

Innis had a fair comprehension of the reflections that passed through his sister’s lovely, if empty, head: Innis was the only Ashley to have ever possessed any degree of native wit. He was shrewd, and canny, and had a remarkable flair for recognizing and using to his own good advantage the foibles of his fellow men. “Young Cristin,” he remarked, seemingly at random, “has gone with Eleazar to Gunther’s. It is an excellent time, Adorée, to discuss the future of our niece.”

“Eleazar! With Eleazar at Gunther’s!” echoed Lady Bliss, then giggled most delightfully as she envisioned that aged
roué
in a confectioner’s store. Her merriment was replaced by a sudden suspicion.
“What
plans?”

“Don’t you trust me, sister?” Innis prudently allowed her no opportunity to reply. “Believe me, I have everything very well in hand.”

“Poor little Cristin!” Lady Bliss looked woebegone. “She should be able to enjoy her stay in London, instead of hiding herself of an evening in the upper story of the house. And no, Innis!” she added, for he had moved as if to speak. “I have told you before that I will not have Cristin in the gaming rooms.”

So she had, to Innis’s grave disappointment, and it was furthermore a point on which she had proven unusually adamant. “I don’t see,” Adorée continued, “why you had to bring her
here.
Surely Niall’s affairs weren’t in such bad train that she couldn’t have been placed elsewhere?” Innis’s crude rejoinder recalled to her the ne’er-do-well nature of their elder brother. “Oh, curses! The thing’s done, but understand this, Innis: I will not have Cristin bothered with our little problems.”

Innis stretched out his long legs before him and contemplated his sister’s reasoning, or lack thereof. If being harried half to death by creditors was a small problem, he hated to think what Adorée would consider extreme. “You have not grasped the situation,” he remarked. “It was the greatest stroke of good fortune that brought Cristin to us. And I think I may safely wager that our niece’s London sojourn will not be without, ah, happy consequence.”

Adorée Blissington may not have been the most nimble-witted of ladies, but this observation caused even Adorée to stare. She sincerely doubted that Cristin would consider joining her aunt in debtors’ prison a happy consequence; and she hardly thought that Niall’s death, by his own hand, after amassing a staggering amount of gambling debts, could be considered fortunate. “Innis,” she said sternly, “something must be done!”

“And so it shall be.” Innis had been trying to explain that very thing for the past half-hour. “Think, sister—if you can! Our beloved niece became acquainted with a number of well-heeled young ladies while at that select academy. How Niall would swear if he knew
I
was to reap the advantages.” Lady Bliss looked confused by her brother’s enthusiasm. “This is a perfect moment, Adorée, for our niece to renew those friendships.”

Niall would indeed have sworn, had he been aware that he was to be posthumously bested by his younger brother in their eternal game of one-upmanship, but Lady Bliss didn’t understand precisely how Innis meant to see the thing done. “But, Innis!” she protested. “No young lady of good family will be permitted to associate with Cristin, because of Cristin’s relationship to
us.
Oh, what a dreadful state of affairs!”

“Don’t fly into the boughs!” Innis said hastily, before his sister could again succumb to hysterics, an act that she indulged in frequently, if with considerable grace. “There is one young lady, at least, who will be happy to renew her friendship with our niece. Or have you already forgotten the episode in Hyde Park?” It was clear from Lady Bliss’s blank expression that she had, and Innis stifled irritation. His sister was easily led, once she comprehended a situation. Unfortunately, the dawning of that comprehension was all too often depressingly difficult to bring about. “Roxbury,” he prompted, “and his lovely companion. You were cut to the quick by his cruelty to yourself.”

“I was?” echoed Lady Bliss.

“You were,” Innis explained firmly. “You must have been, haven’t you, if I say so?”

There seemed to Adorée to be some flaw in this logic, but she failed to pick it out. “I suppose. But did you think her lovely? Miss Lennox? She is not generally held to be so.”

“Miss Lennox,” retorted Innis, with the utmost sincerity, “is the most beatific vision I have laid eyes upon in many a long day. Could I but gain an introduction to her, Adorée, I would die a happy man. And I believe I may trust young Cristin to bring about that highly desirable state of affairs!”

Lady Bliss did not ponder the various inconsistencies inherent in her brother’s speech, nor did she consider it odd that a hardened rake like Innis should wax so enthusiastic about a young woman who was generally considered thoroughly superior, amazingly indifferent to the gentlemen, and overly encumbered with virtue. “Innis!” she cried, with the utmost delight. “I do believe you have been smitten at last.”

Innis did not quibble with this unflattering assessment of his condition; it was precisely what he wished his sister to believe. There was even a degree of truth in her assumption, though it was not Miss Lennox herself who had aroused his ardor, but Miss Lennox’s overflowing pocketbook. “I have,” he admitted modestly.

“Oh, dear!” Adorée had fallen from the heights of excitement to the depths of despair. “Innis, I do not mean to make you unhappy, but do you think Sir Malcolm would
approve?”

Innis knew beyond the least shadow of a doubt that Sir Malcolm would suffer an apoplexy at the mere thought of his beloved Jessamyn in connection—especially in the manner of connection Innis envisioned—with an Ashley. Innis’s private opinion, however, was not to be aired to his sister, who retained a sickening and most inconvenient fondness for all her past beaux. “What care I for that?” inquired Innis, with a beautifully eloquent gesture of nonchalance. “Sir Malcolm may cast her out without a farthing, and still I would adore the girl! Ah, sister! Love has come to me late, but doubly potent for its tardiness! Only you can help me to achieve the object of my dreams.”

Lady Bliss eyed her brother with astonishment. Never had she heard him speak in such a manner of any damsel; perhaps this time he
was
sincere. “If Sir Malcolm were to cast her out, how would you live?”

“It matters not.” Innis had thrown himself with abandon into his role. “In a little cottage in the country—if need be, I would even hire myself out as a laborer! Do you know, Adorée, I think Miss Lennox might even make an honest man of me?” His sister goggled at this unheard-of notion, and he feared he’d gone too far. “Or maybe not! But I dote to distraction on the chit, all the same.”

Lady Bliss could well understand such emotion; Lady Bliss had doted to distraction on a great many gentlemen during the course of her reckless career. “Oh, Innis!” she breathed. “How very moving! And how sad that your great love should be doomed to unfulfillment! For you know as well as I that Miss Lennox is betrothed to Roxbury.”

Innis refrained from reminding his sister of his heady successes with the opposite sex, and from expressing his conviction that the superior Viscount Roxbury hadn’t a chance of winning any competition with himself. These opinions weren’t inspired wholly by vanity, though of that vice—indeed of all vices—Innis certainly had his share: Innis Ashley had for years set feminine hearts fluttering with his dark and dashing handsomeness. “Betrothals,” he said abruptly, “can be broken. You may trust me for
that,
Adorée. All I require is to make the acquaintance of Miss Lennox, and there our silly widgeon of a niece has given me the
entrée.”

It occurred to Lady Bliss, who had been wallowing in an excess of emotion, inspired by contemplation of her brother’s hopeless passion for a lady quite beyond his reach, that Innis was speaking of his heart’s desire in a singularly cold-blooded manner. “Which,” he continued, “will leave Roxbury free to pick up where he left off with you. And don’t tell me you don’t want a reconciliation, Adorée! Miss Lennox don’t need a fortune, having one of her own, but
we
do.”