Maggie MacKeever (22 page)

Mr. Dennison saw nothing untoward in these comments, which is an excellent indication of the opprobrium with which Mr. Dennison regarded Delilah: Miss Choice-Pickerell had with her outspoken spitefulness gravely overstepped the bounds of propriety. However, she had gauged her audience to a nicety. With Cressida’s sentiments, Mark agreed.

So he informed her. Miss Choice-Pickerell, thought Mr. Dennison, was an unexceptionable young woman with a great deal of countenance and a very proper delicacy of feeling; and on the subject of Miss Mannering—indeed, on every subject that he had been privileged to discuss with her—felt exactly as she should. He intimated—presumptuous as it might be on the short basis of their acquaintance—that he held her in the highest esteem. Cressida thought it only fitting that she should look gratified, and therefore she did.

“A tinkers’ camp!” uttered Mark, still staring in a pained manner upon Miss Mannering. “I have always deprecated Sandor’s decision to bring the girl to Brighton. You see the result! The whole family has been sadly taken in.”

A tinkers’ camp? What was this? Cressida was too clever to betray her ignorance. Soberly she agreed with Mr. Dennison. The introduction of such a girl into a fashionable household, she remarked, could not fail to result in domestic difficulties.

“Very true!” Mark was struck by Miss Choice-Pickerell’s sound good sense. Also, he was delighted to have found someone whose dislike of the heiress matched his own. “Sandor might have expected he would leave himself open to blackmail.”

Blackmail! Cressida almost gasped. By mention of tinkers her curiosity had been pricked; now she positively itched for knowledge. Deftly, she set herself to draw Mark out. In mere moments, she had learned all he knew of Delilah’s history. Pondering what use to make of this newfound knowledge, she fanned herself vigorously.

“There is Lieutenant Baskerville!” remarked Mr. Dennison as Neal, looking somewhat flushed, strolled into the room. Before Cressida’s astonished gaze, the lieutenant made his way not to her side but to Miss Mannering, then bent to whisper a few words. Delilah nodded, murmured, then gestured unmistakably toward Miss Choice-Pickerell. Neal looked up, caught his fiancée’s fulminating gaze, and walked toward her. He could only be said to have done so halfheartedly.

Mr. Dennison had missed none of this byplay, and he thought Neal’s behavior very cavalier. Binnie’s was no better, he decided; she had not accompanied her brother back into the drawing room. If Binnie had treated the object of her long-ago infatuation in the same distinctly offhand manner as she was currently treating Mark, he could see perfectly why her infatuation had come to naught. Politely, he relinquished Miss Choice-Pickerell into the keeping of her fiancé. Smarting under a sense of ill-usage, he strode into the supper room. Rapidly devouring several cups of excellent punch, he wondered what had ever led him to think he wished to marry a lady so unappreciative of himself as Miss Baskerville.

Cressida regarded her husband-to-be with little more favor. Neal looked like the cat that had swallowed the canary. Little did he realize that he was about to choke on that forbidden fruit! With this fact, Cressida speedily made him acquainted. “Mr. Dennison and I have just had a
very
interesting conversation,” said she.

“Did you?” Neal responded with some dubiety, wondering what Mr. Dennison could have found of interest in Cressida’s infernal prose. “What about?”

“Well you may inquire!” Cressida snapped shut her fan. “I fear, Neal, that you are impractical and impetuous, much too concerned with the trivialities of life.”

Was he again to be scolded for frivolity? Suppressing a rude response, Neal cast a glance of abject longing at Miss Mannering. Delilah would not rake a fellow over the coals for having a little harmless fun. But Neal had not had much time for frivolity of late, what with his upcoming nuptials, and the rigors of keeping Toby’s presence secret, and his newly acquired habit of drinking himself under the table at every opportunity. He made bold to inquire what the devil Cressida was prosing on about.

Cressida may have been a high-minded young lady, but she was not above such very human emotions as jealousy. She had seen the look bestowed on Delilah by Neal, had understood it, and consequently was enraged. “I am quite out of charity with you, Neal! Your behavior is unspeakably odious. It gives me a thorough disgust!”

That Miss Choice-Pickerell should hold him in disgust was the most encouraging news Neal had learned in many days. He eyed her. “You’ve decided we wont suit!” he suggested helpfully. “You leave me nothing to say. I’m sorry for it— brokenhearted!—but I must agree. We wouldn’t!”

Miss Choice-Pickerell, who had intended to threaten to break off her betrothal as a harsh lesson to her fiancé, realized that the lieutenant wished her to do precisely that, and immediately changed her mind. “Oh, not” she said irately. “You shall not so easily throw
me
over, and for the sake of a creature who is no better than she should be.” The lieutenant stared at her blankly, and inquired if she had perhaps had too much punch. “Not at all!” snapped Cressida. “Don’t attempt to further deceive me. Already I am distressed beyond measure that you have kept me in perfect ignorance as to what is going on!”

The ominous nature of that latter remark did not immediately strike Neal; he was pondering Cressida’s prior intimations. A creature no better than she should be? Delilah was the sole candidate for that description. But Delilah was an arrant adventuress. Surely Cressida did not think he nourished a tendresse for that thorough minx? Startled, he studied Miss Mannering.

She was a hoyden, a baggage, an abominably rag-mannered brat; she would never bore a man, or moralize over him, or seek to reform his frippery ways. In fact, realized Neal, Delilah would enter with enthusiasm into one’s wildest larks, would preside over one’s household in a delightfully ramshackle manner. Good God, he
was
in love with her! Much good the revelation did him. Neal was only too aware of the net Delilah had set for Sandor.

He additionally became aware that Cressida was observing him balefully. “Eh? I’m sorry, Cressida, but if you don’t cry off, I must myself. Shabby as it may look! Surely you see that we wouldn’t rub on together at all well. Too bad, but there it is! Much better to find out now than later, don’t you agree?” There was the possibility, remote but ever-present, that he might divert Delilah’s attention from Sandor to himself. Perhaps she was unaware that upon his marriage he would come into an inheritance that, while not so large as Sandor’s fortune, was not inconsiderable. Why Miss Mannering should want another fortune, Neal could not imagine, unless she was extremely mercenary. And so what if she was? Delilah might possess all the known vices, and Neal would want her all the same.

But it was not to be so easy. Miss Choice-Pickerell had no intention of allowing herself to be tossed aside like a worn-out shoe. Clearly the lieutenant was in one of his hey-go-mad humors. She would tolerate his fits and starts no longer. So she intimated subtly. “I have told you that Mr. Dennison and I passed some little time in conversation, and very agreeable it was. To speak without roundaboutation, Neal, I Know All.”

This remark, which suggested to Neal that Cressida was aware of Toby’s presence in the house—perhaps Binnie had told Mark? She’d been acting very featherbrained of late— affected him most extremely. He gaped.

Cressida was pleased that her fiancé had proven so quick on the uptake. In case he harbored an erroneous notion that she would hesitate to use the information so luckily come by, she added, delicately: “The poor girl’s reputation would be sullied beyond all belief were that to be blazoned about. Goodness, a tinkers’ camp! You would not wish that to happen, I think, Neal? No? I confess it pleases me immensely that we begin to understand one another so well!”

Neal understood. Dared he try and thwart Cressida, she would see Delilah ruined. That the newly discovered object of his adoration should become the subject of censure, scandal, gossip, and moreover through an act of his, was unthinkable.

Frantically, the lieutenant sought a means out of this dilemma, and found none. He knew of no one with sufficient influence to stay Cressida’s hand, save Sandor, and after years spent perpetually vowing vengeance against the duke for meddling in his life, Neal would liefer have applied to Lucifer himself for assistance. Betrothed to Miss Choice-Pickerell Neal was, and so he was destined to remain, and Delilah would never know the great sacrifice made on her behalf.

Cressida rapped his arm, sharply, with her fan. “I’m waiting,” she said sternly. “Give me your word on this.”

Ah, the folly of indulging, even briefly, romantically roseate air-dreams! Neal had been much less unhappy before realizing the object of his adoration, and realizing also that he was doomed to worship from afar. As if from an immense distance— and very much in the manner of the hound Caliban contemplating an especially juicy bone—he gazed upon Miss Mannering. She glanced up, espied his expression, strongly reminiscent of a man but newly sentenced to hang, and looked puzzled.

Cause tears to spring into those innocent eyes, those freckled cheeks to blush scarlet with shame? Never! “It will be as you wish, Cressida,” Neal said, miserably.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Sandor was not unaware that various of his dependents were exhibiting behavior that was beyond bizarre. Miss Mannering had been mysteriously absent from the reception held in her honor for a noticeable period of time, and upon her reappearance the youngest of the duke’s footmen was nowhere to be found. Then Neal had vanished. He reappeared at length, but now Sibyl was gone. Something, Sandor decided, was afoot. Sandor did not relish the idea that subterfuge was underway in his house—subterfuge, that is, in which he had no part. He decided to get to the bottom of it. To this end, he collared the one member of the seeming conspiracy who would not dare refuse him an answer.

“ ‘Tis the hound, my lord!” gasped poor Jem, pale as candle wax. “He gets lonesome locked away. Nothing to signify, I assure Your Grace!”

The duke stood in no need whatsoever of assurances from his youngest footman, who looked to be on the verge of a convulsion fit. He did, however, require verification of Jem’s statements, the veracity of which he was very strongly inclined to doubt. Accordingly, he suggested that Jem lead the way to the nursery. Lord Knowles had an urge to witness for himself the lonesome hound. Wishing that some cataclysm of nature might intervene—to be swallowed whole by the earth would be infinitely preferable to the undoubted reaction of the duke to the discovery of a babe in his nursery, a reaction that in its mildest form might well require that the duke’s youngest footman was skinned alive—Jem obeyed.

They arrived at the nursery door. The duke reached out an elegant hand to the knob, and discovered that the door was locked. He then extended that hand toward Jem. Lest those fingers move next to Jem’s defenseless neck—which, judging from the duke’s expression, was a definite possibility—Jem tapped on the door. A feminine voice inquired who wished admittance. Jem cast an anguished glance at his employer. The duke looked both impatient and annoyed. “Miss Sibyl,” said Jem, feeling as though he was introducing the wolf into the sheep pen, “it’s me. Jem.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then the sound of footsteps on the other side of the door, and a key turning in the lock. The door opened slightly and Binnie peered out. Her astonished gaze fell on her cousin. She tried to push the door shut.

“I couldn’t help it, Miss Sibyl!” cried Jem. “He made me bring him!”

“Don’t tease yourself!” came Binnie’s voice, through the door. “I realize you had no choice. Sandor, go away!”

Naturally, Sandor had no intention of obliging Miss Baskerville. Obliging other people, especially such aggravating people as Miss Prunes and Prisms, had no place in Sandor’s scheme of things. Too, he was on the trail of a mystery, and was very curious as to what was hidden behind this particular closed door. He dismissed Jem. Then he informed Miss Prunes and Prisms that if she did not immediately grant him entrance, he would break the door down.

Binnie—none better!—knew the duke’s temper, and that he wouldn’t hesitate to carry out his threat. She picked up the sleeping Toby and clasped him against her breast. The poor little fellow was exhausted after a day spent getting into every variety of mischief available to him, in the process demonstrating an amazing tenacity; and chewing on any number of diverse things, most notable among which had been Caliban’s tail, an activity that the knowledgeable Jem had explained as attendant upon the acquirement of additional teeth. “Very well, if you must, come in!”

Undeterred by the gracelessness of this invitation, Sandor pushed upon the door. The first sight to greet him was Sibyl, who clutched what appeared to be a large bundle of linen to her breast. The second was Caliban, who roused from slumber to spring with great enthusiasm upon the latest intruder into his domain. Some several moments—during which Binnie prayed in a very unchristian manner that the hound might savage the duke—passed in a very frantic fashion. As matters evolved, and they evolved to Binnie’s disappointment, Caliban’s intention was not to roust an enemy, but to welcome a friend.

“Yes, yes, but that will do!” the duke said irritably, holding Caliban at a distance with one hand, and with the other attempting to remove from his dark double-breasted dress coat and his Florentine silk breeches a large quantity of dog hair. “Binnie, as you love me, call off this beast!”

Of course Binnie did not love her cousin, but she called Caliban to order all the same. The fat was already in the fire, and there was little point in seeking to delay the dreaded moment of confrontation with the duke. She had hoped Sandor would not become aware of Toby’s presence until after some definite plan for Toby’s future had been made, a matter that remained very much up in the air. Delilah, to whom the resolution of that question should have been of paramount importance, seemed to have more immediate concerns than Toby’s upkeep. Remembering Delilah’s violently vulgar reaction to the schemes put forth, which Binnie attributed to the natural reluctance of a mother whose child was soon to be wrested from her arms, Binnie glared at her cousin the duke. “You will not,” she said indignantly, “toss poor Toby out into the streets!”