Maggie MacKeever (13 page)

“I thought of that already, brat. My man of business assures me I’m nowhere near the River Tick.”

“No? Well then, can you still remember
nothing,
Marriot? All we know is that you came back to us smelling-of the stable—which is not of the slightest help in determining where you’ve been! If not for those wretched jewels we might be more open in our inquiries.” Mab shook her head. “If I am in the briars, Marriot,
you
are in a cleft stick!”

Expertly, Lord March handled the lute, which was large and pear shaped with a long neck. “Much as Nell may dislike it, I think our inquiries—or mine, at least—must take a different direction. Someone must be looking for me. I must become more accessible.”

“Oh, certainly! So that you may be hit over the head once more.” Mab was scornful. “You can hardly expect someone to walk boldly up and ask what’s become of the jewels!”

“I suppose not.” In point of fact, Lord March had anticipated a development of precisely that sort. He had thought, upon his reappearance, that some noteworthy event would transpire—and so it had, but he could hardly take credit for the disruption of Mab’s romance. “Come out of the mops, puss! It is not so bad as all that.”

Lady Amabel’s pained expression had been prompted not by her own thoughts, but by the extremely inharmonious sounds issuing from his lordship’s lute, which, she suspected, had not been tuned since Elizabethan days. “Matters are bad enough!” she said severely. “Don’t forget that you share your residence with a prattle-bag. You must be constantly on your guard against your cousin. Look what her tale-pitching has cost me! She has cut up all my hopes. In your case, much more than your hopes may be cut up—or stretched!”

Lord March’s expression was also pained, result not of the discordant notes plucked by his fingers from the lute strings. “Point taken, brat! Perhaps now you will tell me how I may see to it that Henrietta does not inadvertently arrange to have my neck stretched.”

“I wish I might!” Mab wrinkled her brow in thought, thus disarranging her conical hat, which she subsequently pulled off. “Perhaps we should ask Nell to arrange a
soirée
. Then we may watch the people who come into the house, and discover if any of them try to nose out the jewels. If anyone knows you have the things, they will doubtless try to get them back.” She glanced suspiciously around her. “You may not have to make an effort to discover those who know what you have been up to—they may come to
you!
Have you thought of that, Marriot?”

“I have.” It had also occurred to Lord March that no sweet and intimate tones issued from his lute. “You need not fear unwelcome guests, Mab. Marcham Towers is a veritable fortress. Are you thinking of the hidden tunnel which runs beneath the gardens? Only I know the entrance.”

“I hope you are correct.” Lady Amabel did not look entirely convinced.

Marriot set aside his lute, leaned forward, pinched her cheek. “Trust me, brat!” he said.

“Trust you? Oh, I do!” Mab caught and nuzzled his hand. “My thoughts are not worth the purchase of a guinea, but you are not to blame! I cannot help but remember how cool Fergus was to me on our last meeting, and how attentive he was to Nell.”

“To Nell?” Lord March looked astonished at this intimation that his wife had caught another gentleman’s eye. “That coxcomb is on the dangle for
Nell
?” he snapped.

“Fergus is not a coxcomb!” Lady Amabel indignantly retorted, and thrust away Lord March’s hand. “He is a—a diamond of the first water, and it is not his fault if he is also a teeny bit craven. Anyone would be who was under his mama’s thumb.” Her blue eyes narrowed. “If Lady Katherine did not approve of me, she will be thrown into the devil of a pucker by the discovery that Fergus has a
tendresse
for Nell, and it will serve her right! Lady Katherine, that is, not Nell! I’m sure Nell did not
mean
to steal a march on me. Oh, if I had only known how dreadfully this would all turn out, I would never have invited Fergus to kiss me. It isn’t wonderful that he should think me shockingly forward.”

Lest Amabel fire up at him again, Marriot refrained from expressing his conviction that Lord Parrington was a coxcomb. “Don’t go into high fidgets! Just because your beau is on terms of amity with Nell is no cause for despair.”

Terms of amity? Marriot was not familiar with the very formal manner in which Fergus paid a lady court. Eleanor would not understand the baron’s cool manner either, Mab thought. Not that hope might exist for Fergus even
did
Nell realize that he held her in admiration. Mab could not decide if she felt more chagrined by Fergus’s defection, or sorry that he was fated to be rejected in turn. No one who knew Lord and Lady March could doubt that each held the other’s heart.

Marriot was looking at her oddly, as if he expected some comment. Since naught would come of Fergus’s sudden infatuation, there was no reason to prose on about it. Marriot already had unpleasantness enough on his platter without adding to it. “I am being very foolish! I cannot help but remember that I meant to persuade you to put in a good word with my papa about Fergus—and now you needn’t bother, because Fergus doesn’t
want
me, and even if he did his mama wouldn’t let him
have
me, and I can’t think of
how
I might detach him from her apron strings!” Upon this admission, she dissolved into tears.

With a resigned expression, Lord March rose from his chair, drew Lady Amabel up from her stool, and allowed her to sob with abandon all over his olive-green coat. It was not the first such garment that Mab had abused during their lifelong acquaintance.

“What a ninnyhammer I am!” Mab raised her head, the force of her unhappiness temporarily spent. “Raising such a dust about my little difficulties when you have far greater difficulties to face. And we have done nothing to solve either of our problems, and soon Henrietta will be home, and we must all practice dissimulation once again. It never ceases to amaze me, Marriot, that you can be connected with so
unobliging
a female!”

In his turn, Lord March never ceased to be amazed by Lady Amabel’s ability to cry without leaving a trace. If anything, a fit of sobbing left Mab even prettier than before its inception, with bright eyes and delicately flushed cheeks. With a careless finger, he brushed the tears from her cheeks. “Don’t despair; we’ll think of something yet. If nothing else, I can insist that you’ve been compromised. You will recall that I offered to come the heavy with Parrington. Even with your invitation, he should not have kissed you, Mab.”

This, from a gentleman positively addicted to kissing his own wife, was a very selfish attitude, Mab thought. “Ah! You never kissed Nell before you were married? Who’d have thought it?” She grinned.

Marriot smiled also. “Perhaps a time or two—
touché
, brat! However, Nell didn’t have to ask me, and we were officially betrothed, and consequently there was little harm in it. This business is different. You, too, must look sharp about you, Mab. I have warned Henrietta that the direst consequences will descend upon her does she spread
this
tale about, but you must be aware that she holds you in dislike. If your papa hears Parrington has been embracing you beneath my roof, I doubt I can reconcile him with any number of good words.”

This aspect of the situation had not previously struck Lady Amabel. Looking very guilty, she caught her lower lip between her teeth. Only the butler’s appearance in the doorway prevented her from bursting into dramatic speech.

Inured as he was to Mab’s histrionics, Marriot did not feel up to another display just then. “In a moment, Benson!” he said to the butler. “Don’t go into high fidgets, Mab. We’ll feel our way out of this coil. Whatever may develop, I won’t permit you to be compromised.”

This bracing reassurance had not the precise effect his Lordship had anticipated. “Oh, Marriot!” wailed Lady Amabel, and collapsed upon his chest. Wearing a rueful face, Lord March drew her closer and in an avuncular manner stroked her dark curls.

“Come, come, Mab!” he murmured. “What’s all this? Did you expect me to leave you to work out your own problems? You
are
under my protection, my dear!” Alas for Lord March’s good intentions. In light of his own difficulties, Marriot would have been wise to pay closer heed not only to his audience, but also his words.

That audience consisted not only of the superior wooden-faced butler, but the callers who had believed it beneath their dignity to cool their heels in the great hall while their advent was announced. “Aha!” uttered the eldest of these callers in highly vindictive tones. “Under the rogue’s protection, is she? Faith, it is a slyboots!”

“What the
devil?”
inquired Lord March in almost the same breath.

He did not receive enlightenment just then. Amabel recognized Lady Katherine’s undulcet voice. Peering around Marriot’s shoulder, she saw Lord Parrington’s ashen, horrified face.

Clearly the newcomers had gravely misconstrued the scene. One could hardly blame them. Here was a pickle as pretty as any damsel had ever landed in, thought Mab, as she gracefully swooned.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Returning home from her expedition to Oxford Street, Lady March was met by her butler in the great hall. “Oh, milady!” groaned that haughty individual, in a more emotional state than his mistress had ever witnessed him. “It is the most dreadful thing!”

“What is
dreadful, Benson?” Eleanor was visited by an appalling conviction that during her absence Marriot had been dragged off to gaol. “Answer me, pray!”

In response, the butler shuddered. “In the solar, milady—” In a disapproving, distinctly ghoulish manner, he explained what had so recently transpired. “Oh, perdition!” muttered Nell.

“I knew it!” crowed Henrietta, plump face alight with triumph. “I knew that chit was no better than she should be! Yes, and I warned you not to leave her alone with Marriot, if you will recall. Poor Lady Katherine will be in a taking! I must go to her immediately!”

“You must
not!”
retorted Lady March in such grim tones that Henrietta paused mid-stride. “This business is largely of your making, and I do not intend that you should meddle more.”

The butler, who was no fonder of Henrietta than any other member of the household, cleared his throat. “If I may say so as shouldn’t, milady, it wasn’t my impression that the master and Lady Amabel were—er.”

Henrietta roused sufficiently from her mistreatment, the shock of which had caused her to lean against a suit of armor for support, to award the butler a look of keen dislike. “Impertinent! Of course they were.”

Wistfully, Lady March eyed the rack of spears set upon the ancient walls. Resolutely she turned and mounted the great staircase with its carved balustrades and newel posts. She did not trust herself to speak to Henrietta.

Meantime, in the solar, Lord March was the target of a great many words, most noteworthy among which to date had been “hussy,” “baggage” and “jade.” Marriot could not fail to admire Lady Katherine’s invective, even while regretting the situation in which he had been placed. In the delivery of verbal levelers, Lady Katherine would have few equals. She was fast on her feet and quick to pop one in over an opponent’s guard. Marriot—who in his salad days had been a great deal addicted to sport—thought he would have liked to have the handling of her in the ring.

Currently, Lady Katherine was standing up for a round or two with her own son, with whom it had been bellows to mend after the first onslaught. “I do not think you should call Lady Amabel a trollop, Mama,” he persisted, battered but still game. “Nor do I think you should call
me
a loose-screw. In fact, Mama, I wish you would cut line!”

“You wish I would—” Lady Katherine’s raddled features turned an ugly mottled shade. “Shall I tell you what
I
wish, you young jackanapes? I wish you had never met this scheming little minx! You were a dutiful and obedient boy until the chit turned your head with her caressing ways. I do not blame you, son! The hussy set her cap at you. See how she appreciates the distinguishing attentions you paid her—by coquetting with March the instant your back is turned! The girl is a complete flirt. But I will not say I told you so!”

Great as was the entertainment he was deriving from Lady Katherine’s performance, which was accompanied by alternate waving of walking stick and vinaigrette, Lord March felt compelled to offer a word in his own and Lady Amabel’s behalf. “Mab was not coquetting with me,” he explained.

Lady Katherine was very displeased by this interruption. “Don’t try and spin
me
a Banbury tale!” she snapped. “We saw you embracing the chit.”

“I was not embracing her.” Lord March’s attention was directed not at Lady Katherine, enthroned on the day bed, nor Lord Parrington, who stood by the fireplace. Instead he spoke to the doorway. “Mab was in a fit of the blue devils, and I was attempting to persuade her to come out of the mops. Although I am devoted to Mab, I would as soon have a bit of frolic with Cousin Henrietta. You will forgive me, I am certain, for being frank!”

Lady Katherine was not of a forgiving nature. “Zounds!” she uttered, and well might have expounded on that statement had not Eleanor intervened.

“What a contretemps!” said Nell, as she walked into the room. Ironically, she surveyed Marriot, who still clutched the swooning Amabel. For a moment, as Nell paused in the doorway, she had wondered if Henrietta’s dire prophecy had indeed come true. But if Nell couldn’t trust Marriot and Mab— It didn’t bear thinking about.

“Lady March!” Lord Parrington stepped forward. “I am very sorry that you should have to discover this.”

“Discover what?” Having reached her husband’s side, Eleanor gazed up into his face. “Do you still insist that Marriot was embracing Mab? Benson told me all about it, when I encountered him belowstairs. This is a great piece of work about nothing. If I don’t mind whether Marriot embraces Mab—and I don’t!—why should anybody else?”

“Darling! “Had his arms been free, Lord March would have embraced his wife.