Maggie MacKeever (24 page)

Other fish? To Madame, those words had an ominous ring. But she had neglected her customers too long. Pondering what larks her sly-boots niece might next get up to, a topic which filled her with the utmost apprehension, she shepherded the ladies into the atelier, there to view masterpieces in progress.

In her aunt’s absence, Miss Bagshot returned her attention to
La Belle Assemblée.
As she contemplated the latest fashions, her elfin face grew glum. Even a girl so sunny-natured as Melly could not help but be adversely affected by repeated exposure to an aunt who was forever kicking up a dust over trifles, and always cursedly provoked.

Having settled her customers in the atelier, there to exclaim rapturously over works in progress, Madame le Best returned to the attack. Hands on her hips, she towered over her niece. “What other fish?” she said. Miss Bagshot, who had progressed from advertisements for beauty aids to instructions on the proper care of the feet and bosom, looked blank. “You said you had other fish to fry,” Madame repeated. “I want to know what you meant.”

“Yes, so that you may throw a rub in my way,” sighed Melly. “What has come over you, Aunt Hel? You wasn’t used to cut up so stiff. The way you carry on, I might as well be bachelor’s fare!”

“Bachelor’s fare!” Madame le Best sank down onto one of her chairs. “Melly!”

Miss Bagshot giggled at her aunt’s horrified expression. “Don’t put yourself in a taking; I ain’t put my foot wrong yet. Though if that Croesus fellow was alive now, I might have. But that is fair and far off.”

Madame gazed upon her Oriental wallpaper and sought to compose herself. Perhaps her niece might be less prone to larks and frolics if she understood the danger in which they stood. “You will recall when that person from Bow Street came around asking questions,” she remarked.

“Samson!” Melly responded promptly, delighted
to
be presented a topic on which she need not equivocate. “Samson wishes to become a Bow Street Runner. But I will not help him bring Sir Malcolm to justice, no matter
how
large the reward.”

By this proof of Sir Malcolm’s charm, Madame’s apprehensions were not eased. “Bow Street is on the trail of a cracksman who left England in a great hurry several years ago.”

“A cracksman!” Melly was not disenchanted by this new light shed, as she thought, on Sir Malcolm’s character. “Fancy that!”

What Madame le Best fancied, however ignoble, was the casting of her niece out into the street. “A cracksman known to the authorities as Blood-and-Thunder,” she persevered. “Melly, you must realize what this means.”

Melly, alas, realized nothing of the sort. “Means?” she echoed, her big brown eyes opened wide.

As if by considered movement she might contain her frustration, Madame carefully folded her hands in her lap. “There is a rumor that this cracksman has returned to England after an absence of many years. Bow Street seeks to find him before he resumes a life of crime.”

“Yes, but he don’t need to resume it!” Melly pointed out. “He’s plump enough in the pocket to buy his cousin any number of new gowns, and at the same time he ain’t open-fisted, as I can vouch! Unless that’s how he comes by his blunt? Bless my soul!”

It was not blessings that Madame currently called down upon her niece. “I am not speaking of Calveley,” she said, with clenched jaw. “And no matter how distinguishing the attentions Calveley has paid you, Miss, you may not aim so high. The same is true of Lord Davenham. Both are a great deal above your touch.
Think,
Melly! What did your father do?”

What Miss Bagshot thought was that her aunt was a candidate for Bedlam, being victim of a demonstrable affliction of bats in the cock-loft. “What he did was break my mama’s heart!” she responded. “As you should know very well, Aunt Hel, since it was you as took care of us. Which is why I ain’t wishful of being leg-shackled. When they don’t have to be polite to one another, people
change!
Or so they must, because Mama surely wouldn’t have married a curst loose fish, like she was used to say Papa was.” Melly looked suspicious. “I thought you said his name wasn’t to be spoke under your roof.”

In a nostalgic manner, Madame le Best gazed about her elegantly appointed showroom, allowed her glance to linger upon each japanned chair, each example of imitation bamboo and Oriental lacquer-work. At the rate matters were deteriorating, she would not long enjoy these luxurious surroundings, would more likely be incarcerated with the remaining members of her family in Newgate. “I meant, what did he do for a living?”
she explained.

Melly wrinkled up her pretty little nose. “Dashed if I know! But I wasn’t more than a child when Papa sloped off. I ain’t wishful of getting into another brangle with you. Aunt Hel, but it seems to me
you
should know what your own brother was about.”

Madame was very much afraid that her niece’s opinion would be shared by Bow Street. She wondered if one could be clapped in jail for failing to air a suspicion that one’s brother had been up to no good. “What would you do, Melly, if your papa tried to get in touch with you?”

“Papa?” Definitely her aunt had fallen prey to bats, or such a nonsensical question would never have been posed. Kind-heartedly, Melly did not express this sentiment. “I’d give him a rare trimming for behaving so scaly to as! Why? It ain’t likely he’d try to see me after this many years.”

“It may not be as unlikely as you think—if he has been out of the country and only recently returned.” Guiding her niece toward comprehension, reflected Madame, was an exhausting business.

Though Melly was not prone to rumination, she occasionally achieved revelation in one incredible bound. “Zounds!” she cried, one of those moments being upon her. “It’s not Sir Malcolm, but
Papa,
who Samson is after!”

Nervously, Madame le Best glanced at her atelier. “Keep your voice down, Melly. We must be
very
discreet.”

Because her aunt was suffering from an overheated brain—for which she had sufficient reason; Melly was herself feeling a trifle flushed—Miss Bagshot did not point out that discretion was not compatible with wild blood. “Just think!” she murmured. “I almost saw Sir Malcolm put in prison for my own papa’s crimes.”

“We do not know that your papa committed any crimes,” Madame le Best responded severely, “or that Sir Malcolm has
not.
I only wished to put you on your guard in case William did approach you. You must speak of this to no one.”

Miss Bagshot looked astounded. “Not even Samson? But it ain’t right to let Sir Malcolm take the blame.”

Already Madame regretted the impulse that had led her to confide in her bird-witted niece—but what else could she have done? Melly could not be permitted to connive at placing one of Madame’s most generous patrons behind bars. “Calveley will be blamed for nothing,” she said firmly, hoping it was true. “Do you understand me, Melly? I must have your promise that you will not repeat what I have told you—no crossed fingers this time, my girl.”

“Must
I?” muttered Miss Bagshot. Her aunt nodded. “Oh, very well!”

That those grudging words were not precisely an oath of silence, Madame failed to realize. “One more lark, Melly,” she added for good measure, “and I
will
turn you out into the street.” With this dire pronouncement, she rose. As she did so, there came a commotion at the street door. Through that portal came a workman, carrying before him a young rhododendron plant in a terracotta tub. Madame stared open-mouthed.

“Oh!” Miss Bagshot flew to embrace the shrub. “Looked too far above myself, did I, Aunt Hel? That shows all
you
know! I wonder if it was Sir Malcolm who sent it, or Lord Davenham? Prodigious kind it was, whoever did it!” She looked sad. “Not that it will cause me to change my mind.”

“Change your mind about what?” inquired Madame, gazing without appreciation upon the rhododendron, which looked distinctly odd in that Oriental setting. “I have warned you about getting into further mischief.”

Melly did not doubt that her aunt would consider blackmail under the general heading of frolics, mischief, and larks; yet Melly was not prepared to abandon her visions of financial security. Clearly, Madame le Best and Miss Bagshot had reached a parting of the ways. “I know that you have warned me!” Melly responded. “Wasn’t I right here when you did it? There ain’t nothing wrong with my hearing, Aunt.” And then she reminded Madame of the customers abandoned in the atelier.

Madame had totally forgotten about the ladies; with a little shriek, she darted toward the atelier. In so doing she brushed very close to the rhododendron.
“That,”
she said severely, “will have to go!”

“Never mind!” murmured Miss Bagshot to the rhododendron; Miss Bagshot saw nothing untoward in talking to plants. “Aunt Hel don’t mean it personally, she is just cross as crabs. It’s my fault, I suppose, because I ain’t the sort of niece she would like to have—but she ain’t the sort of aunt I’d prefer, either, so it all evens out.” She paused to stroke the rhododendron leaves. To own the truth, Miss Bagshot was sick to death of the way her aunt sought to dictate to her, first decreeing that she must not attempt to haul Sir Malcolm’s coals out of the fire, and now announcing that Melly could not keep her rhododendron.

“And it is very bad of her,” said Melly, as she bent and took firm hold of the terracotta tub. “I have
always
wanted to grow a rhododendron! And now that I have been given one, she means to make me give it up. Well, I shan’t! And I shan’t get married, either!” As she spoke, she dragged the tub across the floor.

It was a very heavy tub, Melly quickly learned, a circumstance that caused her a temporary setback. She intended to depart the Oxford Street shop before her aunt literally locked her away; and she had no intention of leaving the precious rhododendron behind to receive the brunt of her aunt’s wrath. Yet she could not drag the plant through the streets. Melly stared out the door, beyond which lay freedom, almost in despair. And then her elfin face brightened, and her long lashes fluttered, and her dimples reappeared. Near the plate-glass window, trying to look casual, lurked Samson Puddiphat.

Chapter Twenty-two

“Pauline Bonaparte!” exclaimed Lady Bligh, who, having dealt most effectively with her milliner, had next sallied forth on behalf of Bow Street to Davenant House. “The Princess Borghese. She is the beauty of the family, of course, but mean. I believe she used to stick out her tongue behind Josephine’s back, poor soul.”

Whether the soul thus sympathetically referred to was in the possession of Napoleon’s first Empress or his amoral sister, none of the Baroness’s audience was prepared to guess. That audience consisted of Lord and Lady Davenham and Sir Malcolm Calveley. They were in the drawing room of Davenant House.

Nor was Lady Bligh in the habit of explaining her more cryptic remarks. As she adjusted the turban which sat atop her scarlet curls, the Baroness awarded Sir Malcolm a roguish glance. “Le Roué!” she murmured. In recognition of a kindred spirit, that gentleman grinned.

From her position on the straight-legged sofa, Lady Davenham witnessed this byplay. She supposed she should be glad that some members of this impromptu gathering were enjoying themselves. She wondered again at the purpose for Lady Bligh’s unprecedented visit. Surreptitiously, Thea studied the Baroness, who, in addition to her turban, wore a gown of cinnamon jaconet, its sleeves tightly buttoned at the wrist, its hem embellished with a broad embroidered flounce.

She found no answers there. Nor did explanations await Lady Davenham in the person of her husband, who stood in his habitual position at the window, looking down upon his garden. Before he could become aware of her attention, Thea looked away. What was their visitor saying? Something about people who emigrated and changed their names?

“But Malcolm has not changed his name,” Thea pointed out, since it was at her cousin that Lady Bligh’s remarks were directed. “And if he emigrated, it was only temporarily, because he has come home. I do not understand what all this is about.”

Neither did Sir Malcolm understand, but he was enjoying it very well. “I have returned home only temporarily, my Thea,” he confessed, as he concentrated on dazzling the Baroness with his smile. “It was never my intention to settle down.”

Lady Davenham was neither disarmed nor diverted by the spectacle of her adventurous cousin making sheep’s eyes at their flamboyant guest. “I could wish that you had told me sooner,” she said reproachfully. “I have gone to some effort on your behalf.”

“So you have, and I am grateful to you for it,” Malcolm responded cordially.
“Or I
would
be grateful, were I desirous of becoming leg-shackled, which I’m not.” Briefly, he glanced away from Lady Bligh, seated beside him on the carved gilt settee. First he contemplated Vivien, gazing somberly out the Window, then at Thea, seated despondently on the sofa. “I’ve done my best for you, and it hasn’t served—which is yet another reason to avoid parson’s mousetrap.”

Thea had grown very tired of hearing the male members of her family express adverse viewpoints of the venerable institution of matrimony, which she had once liked very well. Once more she glanced shyly at her spouse, with whom she had had no opportunity for private speech since she had brazenly lured him into her bed. As result of that episode, Thea had sworn off ratafia. Not that the interval had been unpleasant; quite the opposite, if memory served correctly—and one of the things it served her was a distinct impression of her own shocking abandonment. Had Vivien taken her in disgust for that display of unladylike enthusiasm, as she had been brought up to believe any gentleman must? He had said nothing to indicate the opposite, or to suggest any lessening of marital discontent.

“Air-dreaming, Cousin?” inquired Sir Malcolm. Suddenly made aware that she was the cynosure of all eyes, Lady Davenham bit her lip. “I do not think I care to hear marriage compared to a mousetrap,” she said ungraciously, wondering what the commotion in the hallway was about. As she spoke, the door was violently flung open. Miss Bagshot darted across the threshold, scant steps ahead of several servants.