Maggie MacKeever (2 page)

“As if we cared a fig for that,” retorted Lady Emmeline. “
Think
, Dimmy! Our favorite nephew is on the brink of contracting an alliance with an unexceptionable young female to whom we have taken immediate exception, if only on hearsay. We are afraid that Vidal has chosen his second countess for no better reason than her lack of resemblance to the first, and that as a result he will be made unhappy. We hope that closer acquaintance with the child will convince us of a compatibility that rumor has not revealed—not that I can think Vidal will be contented with any young lady so vulgar as to announce that marriage to him would suit her to a pig’s whisker! And if not...”

There was no need to complete the sentence. Despite their differences in character, the Ladies Dimity and Emmeline were twins, and thought with two halves of the same mind—a process that frequently had disconcerting results. Said Lady Dimity: “I marvel at you, Em. Vidal is a grown man. You must perceive that he would be careful to choose as his second countess a young lady who
won’t
plunge him into the scandal-broth. Poor Vidal, to find himself food for scandal. And poor Jess, who still
is
!”

“That,” Lady Emmeline replied, “is entirely Jess’s own fault. It is true that as a divorced woman she must endure a certain notoriety, and cannot hope to respectably wed again—but no matter how cow-handed Vidal was in his dealings with her, and no matter how shabbily he has behaved, it was ultimately Jessabelle who sunk herself beyond reproach.”

“I have never understood it.” Lady Dimity had to raise her voice to be heard above the purring of the four felines draped about her. “Even if Vidal
was
a thought high-handed—no matter how bad the terms on which they stood—I mean, I had always thought Jess was fond of Vidal, despite his crotchets! But then to elope with someone else! Even Papa admitted it was not the thing, and he approved of Jess.”

That the eccentric Reverend Vickers’s approval was indicative of no especial merits of character, but rather the ability to amuse, no dutiful daughter would point out. “I have never been convinced that Jessabelle
was
eloping,” Lady Emmeline replied. “Rather, I suspect she was running away from Vidal when that highwayman waylaid her carriage and carried her away. It makes no difference. By the time Vidal paid her ransom, the damage had been done. Naturally people assumed the worst, including Vidal. He’s never forgiven Jessabelle for making a cake of him. Although in my opinion it’s Vidal that’s made a Jack-pudding of himself! But all this is fair and far off. We have known for many years that Vidal and Jessabelle stood on bad terms.”

“She even took back her own name. Which I have always thought was very sad, even though I do understand that if she
hadn’t
it could have been very embarrassing for Vidal—especially once he has rewed. Which now that I think of it is very odd in her because it seems to have become Jess’s sole purpose in life to put Vidal to the blush!”

Lady Emmeline turned Grimalkin over on his back, the better to rub his furry belly, which she had long ago discovered to be a sovereign remedy for all manner of malaise. “It is a wretched situation,” she allowed. “I have not decided yet whether I approve this match of Vidal’s—certainly I do not approve that he has refused to explain his first countess to the young lady who is to become his second! Of course she must be curious. And being curious, she must eventually learn who Vidal’s first countess
was.
Indeed I was surprised to hear of her ignorance on that head—although Jessabelle cannot be said to move in the first circles these days.”

“Poor Jess!” Lady Dimity consoled herself by scooping up the remaining cats. “To own the truth, I have always wished that we might do something for her. Vidal makes her an allowance, I know—but an allowance cannot compensate for the loss of a good name.”

Looking very contemplative, Lady Emmeline tickled Grimalkin’s chin. “It would be very callous of us,” she admitted, “not to inform Jessabelle that we have come to town.”

“Then you must be callous, aunts!” came a harsh voice from the doorway, so abruptly that both ladies shrieked, and all five cats leapt straight into the air, and chaos briefly reigned. Pandemonium enacted in his Long Gallery caused no change of expression to cross the dark and saturnine features of the Earl of Pennymount, who had in this especial moment—indeed in almost
all
his moments—very much the aspect of a thundercloud. “Not only will you not notify That Woman of your presence in London; so long as you remain under my roof you will not even mention her name.”

Chapter Two

Several hours later, the woman whose name Lord Pennymount forbade spoken beneath his roof—that same woman who had washed the dirty Pennymount linen in public—stepped through the front door of a house in King Street, the goings-on in which were almost equal in popularity among the gossipmongers to her own. Jessabelle cared not what was whispered, what explanation was put forward for her frequent presence in this exclusive gaming-hell, with its distinguished entrance front and casing of white brick, located so conveniently near the barracks of the dashing Second Life Guards. Ladies who dwelt under clouds had this consolation: they no longer need concern themselves with the preservation of good names.

“Good day to ye, Mistress Jessabelle!” said the burly, villainous-looking individual who had opened the front door and who had much more the appearance of a pugilist than any self-respecting servant should. For his appearance there was good reason, as well as his highly unique manner of speech. This burly individual had indeed once been a professional bruiser, the terror of the prize ring, in which he had spilled several pints of blood, and had his ugly features several times rearranged. “The master has been askin’ after ye.”

“And a good day to you, Pegs,” Jessabelle replied kindly; this burly ex-fighter was in the way of being a favorite. He had not been named “Pegs” by his doting parents, of course; it was the vulgate term for teeth, most of which he had left in the prize ring. “I collect Michon is in the saloon.”

“Aye.” Pegs looked rather wistful. He too was fond of the occasional game of whist or hazard, piquet and macao. But entrance to this select gaming-hell was by invitation only, and it was Pegs’s duty to remain on watch in the reception room. Ex-prize fighters, no matter how successful, did not sit down to a rubber of whist with Michon,
né
Michel Scarron, also known due to his phenomenal good luck as Capitaine Chançard. “But it’s forgetting that I am! This note was brought round a short time past by a carrier’s lad.”

Curious, Jessabelle stretched out her hand. Her correspondence these days was not great. Then she recognized the wafer, and the Pennymount crest. Without another word to Pegs, she stepped through the honeysuckle-entwined doorway and into the hall. There she paused, confronted by her reflection in a gilt-framed mirror. Jess was a tall and slender female with short-cropped auburn curls, clad in a long-sleeved square-necked evening dress of black velvet trimmed with gold cord. With the gown, currently in its third incarnation, she wore no jewelry, less because she knew herself suited by the resultant dramatic effect than because she had long since sold off what jewels she possessed. Her patrician features were lightly freckled, her dark-lashed eyes the deepest blue. Currently in those eyes was a distinctly feral gleam.

“Gaby!” said Jess aloud, and leaned her forehead against the cool looking-glass. No matter how resigned she thought herself, how rational and self-possessed, it needed only the mention of Lord Pennymount’s name, the memory of his dark and harsh-tempered visage, to tempt her to violence. Grimly she broke the seal and unfolded the close-written page, resolutely brought it up before her face. In the experience of Jessabelle, no good tidings were ever brought her from Pennymount Place.

But this was not Vidal’s handwriting. Perhaps she was grown so far beneath his notice that he would not even lift quill in hand on her behalf. With relish, Jessabelle envisioned her ex-husband stretched out upon the rack. Then she abandoned such futile—if remarkably gratifying—air-dreams and began to read. As she read, her expression changed. No longer did she look wary, guarded, but distinctly amused. The further she read, the greater grew that amusement. Jessabelle was smiling as she entered the saloon, a tall and lofty green-papered chamber with elaborate ceiling tracery and pendant drops extending like petrified lace into the bow window, furnished with a suite of chairs and sofas upholstered in green satin and white, and decorated with swags of husks. Not only dashing Life Guards from their nearby barracks graced the room, but fashionable gentlemen of leisure, and several somewhat less-than-fashionable females.

Few remarked Jessabelle’s entrance; she was as familiar to the habitués of Capitaine Chançard’s select gaming-hell as were his green-satin-and-white upholstered chairs. Rumor claimed Capitaine Chançard as the inamorato of Lord Pennymount’s first countess.

Only one person noticed Jessabelle’s amusement, and questioned its cause. Michon detached himself from a querulous officer of horse marines who was complaining that the wine was corked, and followed her to the fireplace. “I can think of only one thing that would render you in such good spirits,
ma ch
è
re,”
he murmured, and with a careless finger flicked the missive she still held. “Pennymount must have met with a fatality. Did you have him perhaps broken on the rack, or scalded with burning oil? I must point out,
hélas
, that the ramifications may be a great deal less amusing. With Pennymount’s death your allowance from him must end.”

Recollection of that allowance caused Jessabelle’s smile to fade, and visions of mayhem enacted on her ex-husband to once more take possession of her mind. As she sought to control this unbecoming bloodthirst, she glanced once more around the saloon. Not for Jessabelle were games of hazard and piquet, macao and whist; not the roulette table nor the E.O. stand. Even had she had a taste for gaming—she did not; Jessabelle’s primary motivation for acting as Michon’s hostess was the knowledge that her notoriety set the starched-up Lord Pennymount’s teeth on edge—the meager allowance made her by her ex-husband allowed for no such extravagance.

Vidal was not required to make her any provision at all, of course. Having succumbed to an unusually generous impulse, or perhaps to the promptings of a conscience not wholly at peace with itself, it was like him to simultaneously insure she was kept on a tight rein. Said Jess, aloud: “Oh, curse the man!”

Before she could do so, Michon tweaked the letter out of her hand.
“Doucement, ma chère,”
he murmured, scanning the close-written sheet. “I thought you had resolved to put Pennymount out of your mind.”

Jessabelle did not immediately answer, but with a brooding expression watched him read. Capitaine Chançard, as he was known to the greater part of London, especially those who had gone down heavily at his gaming tables, was a man of two-and-thirty whose brown hair was prematurely streaked with gray. His figure was athletic, his features sensual, his charm as legendary as his serene nonchalance. Michon expected nothing of no one, including Lady Luck, and accepted with unimpaired
sang-froid
whatever exotic dish that goddess chose to heap upon his plate.

Devoted as she was to Michon—who if not her inamorato was the dearest of her friends—Jessabelle sometimes found his nonchalance a source of extreme annoyance. She snatched back her letter. “Resolving to do something is a great deal easier than carrying it out! As you would know if you had ever tried. I’d like nothing better than to never think of Pennymount again, and so I might be able to do if only I might accomplish something constructive—like throttling him!” She looked rueful. “I am being very tedious, I know. You will tell me I must not dwell in the past, that I must forget how abominably I have been treated.”

“Mais non,”
interrupted her companion. “I will tell you nothing of the sort. Rather I think we should put our heads together and think how best you may be revenged. To simply annoy Pennymount is clearly insufficient. It is not retribution dire enough that he must wish the pair of us to perdition at least once each day.”

“You are teasing me, and I wish you would not.” Jess’s blue eyes were fixed not on her dearest friend, but on the tomb-inspired fireplace. “You may be unscrupulous enough to lend yourself to plans of vengeance; fortunately, I am not unscrupulous enough to make them! Vidal does not deserve such concentrated malice, even though the mere mention of him makes me want to trim his ears. I cannot blame him for his actions; I neither brood upon the great injustice he did me, nor cherish a grudge.” She paused, then fairly admitted, “At least
most
of the time I do not. And it is not because he divorced me that I detest the brute.”

To this excellent exhibition of female logic, Michon responded with a smile. It was an act that the gentleman, by whatever name one called him, performed exceedingly well. “What has the
canaille
done to annoy you now?”

 “Merely informed two very dear old tabbies that they are not to speak my name.” Jessabelle crumpled up the close-written sheet of foolscap. “My name! It seems I am come so far down in the world that anyone who recognizes me is similarly sunk. But it is no more than I should have expected from Pennymount, who in addition to being a pattern-card of respectability is also the most ill-tempered wretch in existence—as none know better than I.”

“And I,” murmured Michon. As a topic of conversation, the fractious Earl of Pennymount quickly palled. “But surely this is much ado about nothing. Since when do you wish to hobnob with tabbies,
chèrie?”

Jessabelle shrugged. “Since Vidal has said I may not, you think. It’s not that way, Michon. The Ladies Emmeline and Dimity are darlings, the only of Pennymount’s relatives who haven’t cut me dead since the divorce. I know I cannot see them, much as I would like—as Vidal might have guessed I would not, were he not so determined to think the worst of me! I swear I am fit to murder the wretch!”