Maggie MacKeever (5 page)

“Ah!” responded Jevon cordially. “Sister, you relieve me.”

“I thought I might.” Lady Easterling was as well acquainted with her brother’s foibles as he was with hers. “Lazy creature! Do try and be serious—because it ain’t at all like Georgiana to do the pretty, and the longer I think on it, the more it seems that her invite to me was devilish queer.”

Startled by this abrupt turn of conversation Jevon frowned, then prudently led his sister out into the hallway, where he politely requested that she enlighten him concerning the most recent maggot taken into her lovely and lamentably empty head. Georgiana might not be the most genial of relatives, he admitted, but she had a strong sense of family. Having outlived her own generation, it was not surprising the Dowager Duchess should turn her attention to the next.

“Jupiter!” Lady Easterling interrupted with unconcealed scorn. “I’d forgot your habit of refusing to recognize what’s right under your nose—and a very paltry habit it is, I can tell you, moreover! Have it your own way, then! Georgiana is a pattern-card of benevolence! She don’t rip up at Sara, or make her servants’ life a misery, or keep you dangling at her apron strings.”

With this assessment neither could Jevon argue, though he deplored his sister’s lack of tact. Utilizing his own personal brand of diplomacy, Jevon pinched her cheek. “Poor puss! Has it been as bad as all that?Shall I intervene with Georgiana on your behalf? Were you to tell me plainly what it
is
you wish me to do—and I am very well aware you wish something, my girl!—I
might
oblige. Providing it is nothing exceptionable!”

So lukewarm an offer of assistance did not disconcert her ladyship, who chose to interpret her brother’s words as a desire to make amends for his previous uncooperativeness. Her ladyship was too experienced a rider to cram her fences, nonetheless, and therefore led her thirsty horse to water via a circuitous route. She wished to make an eligible connection, she intimated to her brother; in point of fact, nothing less would do for her than a brilliant match. The gentleman must be quite top-of-the-trees as well as
trés sympathique;
he must adore her and be willing to expire at her feet; he must have everything prime about him, and be a bachelor of the first stare. Additionally, her ladyship’s prospective bridegroom must be rich as Croesus, and agree to the removal of Miss Valentine from the dowager’s household and her subsequent installation in much more congenial surroundings, where she might indulge in a veritable orgy of frivolity.

With this latter ambition Jevon was in complete harmony, it being the stuff of his own aspiration, although the frivolous orgy as envisioned by Jevon had nothing in it of bonnets. Far too sagacious to apprise his volatile sister of his intentions as regarded Miss Valentine, he inquired the identity of her prospective bridegroom.

“You are as bad as Sara!” protested Jaisy.
“She
actually dared intimate that I might not have anyone I pleased. I’ll tell you what it is, Jevon: Georgiana has so browbeaten my poor Sara that she’s become a peagoose! By the bye, where
is
Sara? I ain’t seen her this past hour. Georgiana will be in a taking because she insisted Sara attend her party, even though Sara wished to do no such thing. But talking won’t pay toll! Jevon, I have a very particular favor to ask of you.”

Jevon saw no reason why his lovely sister might not marry where she pleased; ladies as beautiful as Jaisy were easily forgiven their little vagaries. Too, so long as it did not cause him any great exertion, Jevon made it his habit to oblige. “Open your budget, then!”

This was the fateful moment. Jaisy clasped her brother’s sleeve all the tighter, widened her blue eyes, bestowed upon him her most beguiling look. “Jevon—dear,
dear
Jevon—I wish you perform an introduction.”

An introduction? Easy enough to arrange. Amused by the full battery of tricks with which his sister had accompanied her simple request, Jevon once more pinched her cheek. “I am at your service, brat; merely point the fellow out. It is a fellow? I thought so. Although it has me in a puzzle why you didn’t just ask Georgiana instead of playing off your wiles on me.”

“Oh, Jevon, it is not so simple!” Jaisy’s blue eyes filled with tears. “I
did
ask Georgiana, but she told me not to be a ninnyhammer—and anyway you can’t make me known to him just now because he ain’t here!”

“You wish me to make the presentation after having arranged a ‘chance’ meeting?” ventured Jevon, who was not without experience with the wiles employed by young ladies resolved on romance. “I have already told you, minx, that you may not involve me in any of your queer starts.”

The tears that filled the big blue eyes overflowed, trickled down Lady Easterling’s porcelain cheeks. “I did not think that
you
would be so cruel!” sobbed Jaisy. “Next you will say, like Georgiana did, that London’s most eligible bachelor is a great deal above my touch!”

Verging on boredom as a result of these all-too-familiar ploys—Jevon had during the course of his career endured many such scenes—his attention was suddenly caught. London’s most eligible bachelor? Could his hoyden of a sister mean to set her cap at the most starched-up of his many friends? “Not Carlin!” he protested.

“Yes, Carlin!” retorted Lady Easterling, with woeful stubbornness. “You promised! And I must tell you, Jevon, that if you refuse to oblige me, I may never speak to you again!”

Whether Jevon Rutherford had taken to heart his younger sister’s threat to nevermore speak to him if she was not allowed to have her way, or whether Jevon’s lively sense of the ridiculous would not permit him to forgo the spectacle of the starched-up Lord Carlin fending off the determined advances of the volatile Lady Easterling, Miss Valentine did not feel qualified to guess. Had she ventured to speculate, Sara would have wagered on the latter explanation for the presence of Jevon Rutherford and Lady Easterling in Hyde Park at this fashionable afternoon hour, with herself in reluctant attendance. Not Jaisy’s insistence had secured Sara’s compliance, nor even the dowager’s decrees; simply, Sara feared that the indolent Jevon would fail to keep his sister in line. Specters other than disgrace haunted Sara. Miss Valentine was aware, as Lady Easterling was apparently not, that wealthy young widows attracted unscrupulous gentlemen. Impossible to convince Jaisy that there existed scoundrels so lacking in aesthetic judgment as to covet her fortune more than her lovely self.

Impossible, too, to convince her volatile ladyship that the gentleman existed who could gaze upon her and still retain possession of his heart, or that it might avail her nothing to set her cap at one of the highest-bred men in England. Perhaps, thought Sara without much conviction, Jaisy might upon his presentation take the haughty Lord Carlin in dislike. Or perhaps his lordship would oblige by falling fathoms deep in love, as Jaisy so confidently anticipated. Certainly Jaisy was a bedazzling figure in her habit of sapphire blue, embroidered
à
la militaire,
and atop her shining curls, a modish riding hat trimmed with gold cordon and tassels. Yet, though Lady Easterling was, in her own phraseology, ‘quite top-of-the-trees,’ Sara suffered an unhappy conviction that her friend was beneath Lord Carlin’s notice.

Meantime, as Miss Valentine pondered in this manner, Jevon Rutherford attempted to engage her in conversation. Any number of topics did he put forth for the exercise of his companion’s excellent intellect: the repressive policy followed by the Liverpool ministry; the falling off of the annual revenue to a mere £58 million after the abolishment of the wartime income tax; the fluctuating value of paper bank notes. Embarrassed as she was to recall her seemingly brazen behavior on the eve of Lady Blackwood’s
soirée,
Sara could not fail to appreciate Jevon’s effort to put her at her ease. Miss Valentine was among the constituency who believed in Jevon’s good heart, and thought his current selfless conduct further proof of that quality.

Appreciate his efforts as she might, Sara’s embarrassment was not eased. The mere sight of her old friend—dressed in riding costume of plain blue coat and brass buttons, deep stiff cravat, leather breeches and top boots—inspired her with chagrin. She, a well-brought-up young woman, had as much as invited the most charming of philanderers to cast upon her a look of love. Fortunately, he had been too much the gentleman to take advantage. Or perhaps she was simply not in his style. If Sara’s features were reminiscent of certain Grecian ladies captured forevermore in stone, Jevon Rutherford’s preference had long been for females less cold.

This was arrant folly! Sara scolded herself. Doubtless, so many handkerchiefs had been dropped in Jevon’s pathway during the course of his career that he thought nothing of yet another conquest. Mayhap, like his sister, Jevon took for granted his effect upon the opposite sex. But it was unfair to thus malign him. As a result of her folly, Sara’s mind had grown overheated. Best to bring the matter out into the open.

“The other evening,” she said abruptly, “I trust I need not tell you that I spoke in jest.”

Jevon, who had been carrying on an amiable soliloquy about the fluctuating value of paper bank notes, looked briefly disconcerted, then quirked a golden brow. “You need not tell me anything, my precious, if that is not your wish! Am I to conclude that you have decided
not
to go upon the stage?”

“The stage?” It was Sara’s turn to look blank. “Oh! Gracious! You could not think me
serious!
I was merely feeling sorry for myself.”

“Not without cause, I’ll warrant,” Jevon retorted, in quiet tones that his sister could not overhear. “I hope you know I will render you any assistance in my power, my dear.”

“I meant,” she continued in a grim little voice, “that nonsense about a tryst.”

“Nonsense?” Now both golden brows were elevated. “What’s this? As I recall, you expressed a disinterest in such endeavors. Can it be you have changed your mind? Because if you have, and are in this roundabout manner seeking to intimate to me a desire for further moonlight encounters, I must admit to a very large degree of surprise.”

Obviously, thought Sara sadly, she had grown a dowd, else Jevon would not so doggedly hint her away from romance. “I did not mean to intimate any such thing. I do
not
yearn after moonlight encounters, thank you very much!”

“I rather thought you did not, my Sara.” Ruefully, Jevon smiled. “You are looking sadly worn down, and I hope this business may not be at the bottom of it. Take my advice and put it from your mind.”

If only she could have done so, Miss Valentine would have been happy to oblige. For several days she had sought to forget what must have seemed her shameless invitation to a tryst, with the natural result that trysting had quite taken possession of her thoughts. Patently the suggestion had found no favor with Jevon, who made so steadfast an effort to dissuade her from further such improprieties. All the same, he
had
embraced her. Apparently the act had been prompted by his innate kindness.

As Miss Valentine pursued these melancholy thoughts, and Jevon Rutherford sought to distract her with an account of the latest scandalous story fabricated in the bay window at White’s, and Lady Easterling gently upbraided the pair of them for failing to award her their combined attention, the small party passed through the park. All the rank and fashion of London displayed themselves within those leafy glades and promenaded upon those bridle paths, mounted on steeds that were designated by the knowledgeable Lady Easterling as “elegant bits of blood and bone,” “gingers,” “niceish hacks,” or borne along in smart carriages. Since the sight of elegant ladies driving out in superbly appointed equipages, attended by powdered footmen and bewigged coachmen, recalled to Lady Easterling her own desire to possess a spanking turnout, conversation lagged somewhat as Miss Valentine set herself to soothe her ladyship’s ruffled sensibilities. Upon receipt of a speaking gray-eyed look, Jevon Rutherford put forth his own effort to restore the peace. The park had once been part of the ancient manor of Hyde, after which it had belonged to the Abbey of Westminster, from which it had been stolen by Henry VIII, he explained. And if the history of their surroundings did not interest his sister, she might conceivably be more intrigued by the background of London’s most eligible bachelor, who was currently approaching them by way of Rotten Row—or, as it had once been called, when utilized by kings en route from Westminster to their hunting fields,
route de roi.
Her brother’s attempts to improve the tone of her mind, Lady Easterling very properly ignored. Her first glimpse of Lord Carlin merited a great deal more interest.

Christopher Carruthers, Viscount Carlin, was extremely prepossessing in figure and appearance, a very personable young man of thirty with brown hair and eyes, assets amounting to twelve million sterling, and a great deal of countenance. The perfect gentleman, Lord Carlin—or Kit, as he was known among his friends—could be faulted only on the grounds that he was a trifle high in the instep, a trait not surprising in one who from a very early age had been continually toad-eaten. Still, if he was proud, he was also courtly and cultured, and known for the kindness he exhibited toward those less fortunate.

On this particular afternoon Lord Carlin’s generous nature was not in evidence, due to a recent interview between his lordship and his papa, during which the main topic of conversation was the heir his lordship did not possess. Marriage was the ticket, decreed the elder Carruthers, and much as he disliked the notion, Kit had to agree. The Carruthers fortune, of which he at present commanded only a small portion, could not be allowed to pass to the cadet branch of the family. Leg-shackled Kit must be, doubtless to some silly chit who would bore him to distraction within a sennight; females always
did
bore him, perhaps because in their efforts to please him they invariably hung upon his lips, and agreed with his most inane utterances, until he wished to gnash his teeth.