Maggie MacKeever (28 page)

“Angels defend us!” uttered Edwina, thus interrupted in mid-speech.
“Murder?”

By this further evidence of the Baskerville lack of stability, Miss Choice-Pickerell was depressed. She inquired whom it was that Neal would murder. More to the point, she inquired her fiancé’s whereabouts.

“It was only a matter of speaking,” said Binnie, in a desperate attempt to extract her foot from her mouth. “I did not mean that Neal would actually commit murder, merely that he is incensed. Oh, it would take too long to explain! As to where he is, I’m not sure exactly—with Delilah somewhere.”

“I see!” said Miss Choice-Pickerell, rather awfully.

Hastily, before Miss Choice-Pickerell could make public the precise nature of what she saw, which clearly was sufficiently annoying to provoke a saint, Edwina put forth a conversational gambit. Since this concerned the notorious Harriette Wilson—whose partiality to the military, especially the Tenth, took such diverse forms as riding habits daringly modeled on the Hussar uniform, and riding lessons provided by the officers; and who was frequently invited to dine in the mess rooms, and had been recently ordered off the parade grounds for flirting so indelicately that she’d occupied the attention of the entire regiment—by it Cressida’s agitation was not soothed.

Relieved to escape further explanations, Binnie paid scant heed to Miss Choice-Pickerell. Her thoughts were frantic. Should she send Jem after Neal, to prevent him doing Sandor bodily injury? But in that case, what was to be done with Toby? She could not leave the child alone in the nursery, and she was too overwrought to attend to him herself. And
whom
did Toby resemble? On that very perplexing question, she could not concentrate. Sandor wholly occupied her thoughts.

“You cannot have meant that,” said Mark, not for the first time. “Your brother surely doesn’t mean Sandor harm. I fear, Binnie, that you tend to exaggerate.”

Miss Baskerville was in no frame of mind to tolerate a discussion of her less admirable traits. “So I do not!” she snapped. “As I recall, Neal expressed a wish to carve out Sandor’s gizzard. Nor do I blame him; I wished to see Sandor boiled in oil myself! And you needn’t give me a rake-down, Mark. Am I privileged to see Sandor again alive, I intend to atone most handsomely.”

Mark was so little enjoying converse with the lady to whom he was betrothed that he searched even more frantically for some reason why the betrothal should be broken off. “I don’t know where you learned your fantastic notions. Sandor dead—inconceivable!”

“To you, perhaps, but you do not know the whole.” Nor did Binnie intend to acquaint him with it. She studied him. A man of dignified appearance, reserved in his deportment— knowledge of her difficulties would deprive him of speech. It would also inspire him, once recovered from his consternation, to moralize over her. Mortifying to realize she’d agreed to marry Mark only to resolve her problems— problems, she now suspected, against which he wouldn’t have raised a hand. And then she realized that those previous problems had been no more than the result of a fevered imagination. In attempting to deal with chimeras, she had pledged herself to a man she didn’t love in order to escape a man she thought she loathed—only she did not loathe Sandor and now, engaged in conversation with Mark, could think of nothing than that the duke might be at death’s door.

In the doorway of the morning room appeared a footman, bearing before him a missive on a silver tray. In anxious expectation of more news, Binnie leapt to her feet. She perused the note, which was both filthy and nigh unintelligible. Delilah was exonerated of falsehood; this was a ransom demand. Binnie blanched.

“Merciful powers!” cried Edwina, fluttering her hands. “What’s amiss? Surely Delilah can’t be in trouble again!”

Of this opening, Cressida made good use. “You have my deepest sympathy, Miss Childe! I am not one to put myself forward, but I do not scruple to say that the girl’s conduct has been abominable. I never can look at her without shuddering to think that she may at any moment make a byword of herself.”

This observation may not have been without foundation, but Binnie could not let it pass unchallenged. Cressida grated like chalk against slate on her shattered nerves. “I would not like to accuse you of impertinence, Miss Choice-Pickerell, but I shall have to do so if you continue in this vein. As I have said before, Miss Mannering’s conduct is none of your concern.”

Cressida also labored under strain, and she deemed it time that her future sister-in-law be put firmly in her place. “And I would not wish to accuse
you
of highty-tighty behavior, Miss Baskerville! I hope that I am not priggish, but anyone with a grain of proper feeling must deplore Miss Mannering’s fits and starts.”

Clutching her dirty
billet-doux,
Binnie paced the carpet. Somehow she must lend her assistance to securing Sandor’s release. At least, if held to ransom, the duke must be alive. She could only hope he didn’t goad Johann to murder him before help arrived.

Mark decided that Miss Baskerville was acting very strangely. Perhaps she was unaware that her own conduct must appear graceless. Since he was betrothed, albeit reluctantly, to the lady who was cutting so ill-behaved a figure, he might as well make use of his authority.

Miss Baskerville, informed that by subjecting so high-minded a lady as Miss Choice-Pickerell to a scolding she had performed a disservice that was iniquitous, paused in her pacing to stare. “Miss Choice-Pickerell’s comments are not without foundation,” Mark added. “She is acquainted with the whole.”

Since Binnie had been thinking of Sandor stretched out stiff as a corpse, a description presented her verbatim by Jem, a contingency once ardently desired and now ardently abhorred; and alternately of Toby’s puzzling parentage, she was briefly at a loss. “The whole of what?” said she.

“The whole history of Miss Mannering,” Cressida responded, triumphantly. “I know that the duke brought her here from a tinkers’ camp. Outrageous! Abominable!”

Amazing, how this new disaster concentrated Binnie’s mind. She looked first at Edwina, whose extreme pallor and frantic recourse to her vinaigrette made it obvious that Cressida’s knowledge had come as a grave blow. Then she looked at Mark.

He did not care for the expression on Binnie’s face, which suggested he was a viper that she wished to crush underfoot. “Miss Choice-Pickerell had every right to know,” he said sternly. “I beg that you will not make a scene.”

Beg, would he? Well he might! “Is Neal aware of your enlightenment?” Binnie inquired of Miss Choice-Pickerell.

Rather relieved by this reasonable query, which she interpreted as an indication that Miss Baskerville would as requested refrain from flying into a pelter, Cressida saw no reason to withhold response. “Naturally I acquainted him with my knowledge,” she said primly. “There should be no secrets between husband and wife.”

Came a brief silence, during which Binnie’s expression grew even more murderous, and her golden eyes flashed. Edwina knew that expression, which on its rare appearances was usually directed at the duke. She knew, too, the futility of interference. Therefore, she closed her eyes and prayed.

But Mark was not similarly well acquainted with the moods of his future wife, and consequently made a grave misstep: he read her a gentle scold. For the disservice done Miss Choice-Pickerell, who had as always acted with a fine regard for propriety, he required that Binnie render apology.

Binnie turned her amber eyes on him. Sternly, Mark met her gaze. Her lips parted. He continued to frown, thusly indicating that he would not relent until gifted with the requisite apology.

“Propriety,” uttered Miss Baskerville wrathfully, “be damned! Likewise, apologies! It is you who should apologize to Delilah, for being a prattle-box! As well as to myself, for telling me to mend my tongue regarding a scheming, heartless wench! Oh, certainly Miss Choice-Pickerell is a pattern card of respectability! She is insipid, humdrum, prosy, and mealy-mouthed. Her conversation is flat as a street pavement. She possesses all the virtues, in fact!” Here Cressida gasped, Edwina groaned, and Mark uttered angry protest.

But Binnie was not to be denied having her say. She glared at Miss Choice-Pickerell so fearsomely that the lady quailed. “She is also common to the core, of which you would be aware, were you not such a slow-top. Mark. Shall I toll you what use she has made of your confidences concerning Delilah? It’s plain as the nose on your face! Your so-proper Cressida was afraid that Delilah would steal a march on her—which in point of fact Delilah has!—and used your confidence to throw a rub in Delilah’s way. In short, I’ll wager anything you wish that Cressida has threatened Neal with Delilah’s exposure. Which is utter nonsense because Delilah has done nothing wrong—but Neal, being head over heels in love with her, would have no choice but to knuckle down.”

Mark, engaged in comforting Miss Choice-Pickerell, who had with these vile accusations turned chalk-white, had been for some time trying to get a word in edgewise. At this point he did so, several of them, and all uniformly unappreciative.

Binnie was beyond remorse. In fact, Binnie was feeling rather pleased with herself for having finally taken a step that, however rag-mannered, was constructive. “Inexcusable, am I?” she interrupted. “That settles it: I am quite decided not
to marry you. I beg you will release me from a betrothal that was patent folly on both our parts.”

“So it was!” snapped Mark, so seriously angry with Binnie for abusing Cressida that he failed to feel relief. “I release you with the greatest pleasure on earth, ma’am!”

Binnie cast a contemplative glance at Cressida, but could not determine if Miss Choice-Pickerell had understood the point of this object lesson—to wit, the ease with which betrothals could be brought to an end. In case Cressida had not, Binnie determined to underscore the moral of the thing. She stalked across the room, paused dramatically at the door. “I will leave you to console Miss Choice-Pickerell, since your thoughts accord so well. Time will prove which of us is correct, will it not? If Miss Choice-Pickerell is the proper-thinking lady that you believe her, she cannot but declare off from a marriage to a man who loves someone else.” On that killing sally, she sped through the door.

She sped also up the stairs, pausing only to enter the duke’s bedchamber and rifle through his dresser drawers before she entered the nursery. Having taken one positive action, with what she fancied would be very happy results, she was eager to accomplish more. To that end, she demanded to know of Jem the exact whereabouts of Johann’s caravan.

Jem could not but tell her, though he wondered if he should: Binnie was looking very wild-eyed. Also, she was clutching a pistol. As he was winding up his explanation, Edwina burst into the room. She stared blankly at Binnie, who held a pistol in one hand and with the other had scooped up Toby, who contentedly straddled her hip. A
baby?
Surely Binnie could not have— Did she mean to— So
this
was why Binnie detested Sandor, and Neal meant to murder him! Edwina swooned.

Binnie had no time to waste on hysterical females; and it was certain that Edwina would indulge in awesome hysterics as soon as she revived. Callously, Binnie instructed Jem to deal with the unconscious woman. And then, with the pistol in her hand and Toby on her hip and Caliban panting at her heels, Binnie set out to accomplish a rescue.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

That Miss Baskerville had indeed been prompted to desperate action, though not the action he had anticipated and not for the reasons he foresaw, might have relieved Sandor, had he known, which alas he did not. The duke was in the foulest temper possible for him which, in light of the fact that His Grace’s usual temper was far from sanguine, was nothing short of demoniac. He was uncomfortable and hungry, infuriated by his captivity, and thoroughly inimicable toward the instigator of these misfortunes.

“The Nubbing Cheat!” he said, with relish. “It’s all you can hope for if you persist in this insanity. Perhaps you don’t realize how long it takes a man to die by hanging. Sometimes the body jerks and twitches for as much as an hour.”

As becomes evident, the duke was not conducting himself like a model prisoner. Johann’s direst threats aroused only his scorn; Johann’s graphic descriptions of what fate awaited were the ransom to be unpaid gained only a caustic rejoinder concerning Johann’s mental faculties, which the duke apparently held in very low esteem. “Give it up, man!” he said now. “You have bungled the thing completely. Release me and I’ll see you come to no harm.”

But Johann was possessed of an admirable tenacity. He did not intend to let so plump a pigeon out of his snare. “I knew you was a knaggy gager as soon as I laid eyes on you!” he continued. “A right peevy cove! But it’s no use trying to hoodwink
me,
guv’nor. If I let you go you’d see me in Rumbo quick as a greased pig.”

The duke attempted to shift positions, and failed. Johann had removed the filthy gag from his mouth, but the duke’s extremities remained tightly bound. Sandor wondered if he would ever regain feeling in his limbs. Too, he wondered if it mattered, since the tinker obviously planned some unpleasant fate for him.

“Have it your way, then!” he responded, with fine indifference. “I needn’t tell you about the horrors of prison life. Perhaps you won’t mind jail fever or starvation rations or being nibbled by rats. Assaulting a peer, holding him for ransom—you cannot hope to escape being taken for a capital offense.”

Johann’s patience, with this nasty suggestion that he might straightaway be nicked, wore thin. He was at a loss as to how to deal with a prisoner so uncooperative. Lest the duke realize his uncertainty and use it to advantage, Johann brandished his knife. He put forth the suggestion that the duke should close his trap lest his throat be slit open without further ado.

“Very well!” responded Sandor. “You can’t say you weren’t warned.”

The tinker may not have possessed any marked degree of native wit, but he had come to realize, somewhat tardily, that he was in a bit of a tight spot. He should never have allowed the duke to learn the identity of his captor. Johann did not wish to commit murder, but now he saw no other means by which to avoid the duke’s vengeance. Perhaps Athalia might put forth some solution to this problem. In line with that, where
was
Athalia? She should have returned to the wagon some time ago. Had she been taken up by constables? Run rusty, hopped the twig? Johann suffered a distinct twinge of alarm.