Maggie MacKeever (24 page)

Not a moment too soon did he arrive back at the harpsichord, not because Lady Camilla required his assistance, but because he would have regretted missing so delicious a scene. “Oh, Papa!” Lady Camilla was disclaiming. “He
does
dote on me!
À
la folie!
Imagine! I thought he was blowing first hot then cold, when all the time he’d decided
not
to ruin me! Though if he
had,
we would have spared a great deal of bother, because I daresay I would have
enjoyed
being ravished, providing it was done by him—but I do not mean to scold!” She frowned. “How very red your cheeks have grown. Did you wish to say something, Papa?”

Sir Edward wished to make a great number of comments, the majority of which were not suitable to be overheard. That any comments made in these surroundings were bound to be overheard, he had already become aware. “I’ll say I do!” he retorted. “Once I get you home, my girl! I suppose you think I may sweep this evening’s wretched business under the rug.”

Lady Camilla looked confused, and then delighted. “Do you mean to say I’ve
ruined
myself? It is the perfect thing!”

“Ninnyhammer!” uttered Sir Edward scathingly. “It’s nothing of the sort!”

“On the contrary, Sir Edward, I’m very much afraid that is the case.” Lady Emmeline deserted the piquet table, to the vast relief of the players, whose game had not been improved by her questions and comments. “Lady Camilla must come under the gravest censure for her actions this night.”

Sir Edward gazed upon the Ladies Emmeline and Dimity as if they were adders he’d clasped to his breast. “I’ll be hanged if I know what’s made the lot of you talk such skimble-skamble stuff. Milly is a good biddable girl, and—”

“Oh!” interrupted Lady Camilla, incensed. “If only you knew how
tired
I am of that word! Which is an odious reason for marrying someone, if you must know. But do go on, Lady Em! It is a matter of some importance to me to know if I am ruined. Papa, do not interrupt!”

“The melancholy truth, my dear, is that a well-brought-up young woman would do none of the things you have,” said Lady Emmeline, while Lady Dimity looked very sad. “She would not have broken off her betrothal to Pennymount in so public a manner, no matter how great the provocation; she would not then have run away from her father’s home and exhibited herself publicly in a gaming-house. In short, Lady Camilla, your reputation is in shreds.”

To this unsugared pill, a lady of delicate sensibilities must take exception, and Dimmy instantly did. “Do not take my sister’s harsh words to heart, Lady Camilla!” she soothed. “I’m sure something may be done!”

“I suspect something already
has!”
uttered Lady Emmeline, for her sister’s ear alone. “Dimmy, stubble it!”

Thus abjured, Lady Dimity stepped back, the better to regard the young lady she’d sought to console. Lady Camilla did not look in especial need of consolation. A determined expression sat on her lovely face. Defiantly she raised her chin. “Excellent! That makes it a great deal easier!” Milly announced.

“Makes
what
easier?” inquired Sir Edward, restraining a base impulse to vent his wrath on the innocent harpsichord. “I’ll tell you what, my girl: you could have Pennymount wrapped again around your finger as quick as winking if you tried!” He scowled at his audience. “And you
will
try, make no doubt of that!”

Lady Camilla’s little chin positively jutted out. “No!” she retorted. “I shan’t!”

“You shan’t?” The reddish tinge in Sir Edward’s cheeks had spread to his eyes. “I thought you didn’t like to be scolded, miss? Well, scolded you shall be until you agree to what I say!”

The better to withstand her bullying parent, Lady Camilla rose. “It is very true that I do not like dagger-drawing!” she allowed. “And once I would have let you badger me into marrying a man I do not love, just so you could puff up your own consequence, but that was
before!
Now you may rip up at me all you want and it will not signify, because I will not marry Pennymount! And if you somehow make me, I shall simply elope—or seem to!—and then he’ll divorce me also.” She pursed her eminently kissable lips. “If he
can!
I think that may be bigamy.”

Bigamy? Was his daughter so dim-witted she did not even understand the ins and outs of divorce? Sir Edward parted his lips to deliver a stinging denunciation of her intelligence.

By Capitaine Chançard he was forestalled.
“Mais non, petite,”
said Michon, drawing Milly to his side. “You will not be forced to marry Pennymount. Nor will you be scolded any more, unless it is by me. But
le bon papa
will not wish to scold, once he knows how it is with us,
n’est-ce pas?”

To this blithe assumption Sir Edward took marked exception, as he would have made clear had he been given the chance. Instead Milly burst into speech. “I
knew
you would suit me to a pig’s whisker!” she sighed. “You will never make me play second fiddle, or glower at me across the breakfast cups! And you don’t care a fig whether I’m biddable or not, which is a vast relief.”

Lady Dimity, who had been following these remarks with the keenest interest, and observing Sir Edward’s ever-reddening countenance with awe, felt compelled to speak before Sir Edward exploded before her eyes. “That was why Vidal betrothed himself to your daughter,” she gently explained. “Because she is the opposite of dear Jessabelle.”

“Indeed!” confirmed Lady Emmeline. “To use the word with no bark on it, Milly is a harum-scarum young woman whose manners lack polish. She could not ordinarily aim so high.”

These adverse comments Lady Camilla took in good part. “Nor would I
wish
to! And if you try to part me from Michon, Papa, I shall never so much as look at another gentleman! I shall retire from the world and keep cats and it will be all your fault that I have broken my heart.”

The intimation that he could not as a result of his daughter’s marriage mingle with persons of the first consideration was a crushing blow for Sir Edward. However, he was sincerely fond of Milly, disappointing as was her conduct, and did not relish the notion other unhappiness. “Daughter—” he said, stretching out his hand.

Lady Camilla was paying not the least attention to her unhappy sire. “I wonder,” she mused, “if I may keep my bride gifts. Some of them are perfectly dreadful, but I should not like to give back the stoneware Turks or the sauce tureen or the stirrup cup. Not to mention the Pontypool jasper coffee urn!”

Fondly Capitaine Chançard gazed down upon Milly’s flower-bedecked head.
“Ma chére,
you may have as many stoneware Turks and sauce tureens and stirrup cups as you desire! Not to mention coffee urns.”

Once more Sir Edward considered assaulting the harpsichord. “I say!” came a voice behind him. “Dashed if Milly ain’t cutting a wheedle, like I said all along! But hanged if I see why you’re cuddling my sister, Michon!” The Honorable Dolph’s somewhat haggard countenance brightened. “Oho! Sits the wind in that quarter? Can’t say I’m surprised, but wish you joy all the same.”

“So you might,” wryly replied Capitaine Chançard. “Since your sister has convinced me it would not be
convenable
for me to press my brother-in-law for payment of his vowels.”

“Oh, Michon!” sighed Lady Camilla. “I am so proud
of you!”

If two of the three existent Aethelwines were in charity with Capitaine Chançard, the remaining member of the clan was not. No longer could Sir Edward restrain his spleen.

“Man Dieu!”
said Captaine Chançard, as a result. “Would someone please explain to me why
le bon papa
assaults my harpsichord? Its tone is excellent, I think.”

“Yes, but yours ain’t!” helpfully offered the Honorable Dolph. “Doubtless the old gentleman thinks it’s your fault I’m all to pieces, and that Milly’s being cuddled by a curst rum torch!
I
don’t think so, mind!” he added hastily, as Michon awarded him an unappreciative glance. “Think you’re the best of good fellows! In fact, I’ll lay a monkey—”

“No, you won’t!” interrupted Sir Edward, nursing the limb with which he had assaulted the harpsichord, which consequently had been bruised. “Because I’m going to cut you off!”

Here once more, Lady Dimity was driven by her tender sensibilities to speak, this time on behalf of Pennymount’s first countess, who had sunk so very low in so many people’s books. “Oh!” she sighed. “Poor, poor Jess!”

“Poor Jess?” echoed Adolphus, impressed mightily by the perspicacity displayed by this elderly female whose rusty black dress was so liberally festooned with animal hair. “But it just happened! I’ll be hanged if I know how you found it out.”

Dimmy clasped her hands to her heaving breast.
“What
just happened?” she breathlessly inquired.

Upon his papa’s muttered wish that his son and heir might indeed be hanged, preferably from the lacy pendant drops that extended into the bow window, Dolph’s attention had turned to his irascible sire. “Dashed if I can figure out what’s put you in such a tweak!” he frankly announced. “Thought you’d be pleased to hear Mme. Joliffe cried off! Thought it was what you
wanted
her to do! Thought you said if she did, you’d settle my accounts!”

“I’ll settle your accounts right enough, my lad!” retorted Sir Edward, the reddish gleam back in his bulging eyes.

Upon this indication of how futile had been the great effort made by him to please his sire—had he not hurled pebbles at Mme. Joliffe’s window, thus rousing her from slumber? Had he not craftily maneuvered her into hedging off? To say nothing of delivering a facer to Pennymount?—Adolphus too saw red. “Hang it! You always
did
like Milly best! It ain’t fair, I tell you, especially when it’s her fault I got betrothed to Mme. Joliffe in the first place, because she’s the one said I’m in the petticoat line. Which I ain’t! And while you were ripping up at me for tumbling into the River Tick,
she
was cuddling with Michon—forgive me, old fellow! Don’t mean to insult you!—which is a great deal worse!”

Thus reminded of his daughter’s arrant misconduct, Sir Edward glared at Lady Camilla, who was demonstrating how very snugly her head fit into the little hollow where Michon’s shoulder was fitted to his arm. Milly glared back at her sire. Although they looked like two glowering bulldogs on the verge of battle, that unflattering comparison presented itself only to Dolph.

That comparison reminded him very strongly of the matter that had occupied his thought between Park Lane and King Street. “I say,” he said, looking nervously around, “Pennymount ain’t here, is he? Thing is, now that I think about it, I’ll wager a—sorry, Papa! I’ll
warrant
he’ll be wishful of blowing out my brains when he comes around! And I ain’t any more partial of having my brains blown out than I was to flying to the Continent!”

“‘Comes around’?” repeated Lady Emmeline sternly.

Adolphus looked abashed. “It’s a long story! Pennymount said Jessabelle had washed his dirty linen in public and said he wished to murder her for it! Said too that she was going about casting out lures! He shook her and she kicked him and I tipped him a doubler—and when he recovers his senses he’ll be like to murder me!”

“‘Tipped him a doubler’?” inquired Lady Dimity, while Sir Edward, fortunately stricken speechless by this latest outrage committed by one of his chowderheaded offspring, upon the ex-fiancé of the other, glared impotently.

That glare Adolphus noted, and did his utmost to avoid, placing the harpsichord between his parent and himself. “Planted him a facer! A wisty cantor! Flattened him!” Dolph impatiently explained.

“Flattened! Oh!” Dimmy’s keen sensibilities were already highly titillated by the drama currently being enacted in Capitaine Chançard’s saloon. Upon intimation that her favorite nephew had been milled down like, and by, a commoner, her heartstrings became so hopelessly tangled that she fainted dead away—straight into the handy arms of her host.

“Zounds!” cried Lady Camilla, into whose arms by extension Dimmy also fell. “Is she dead?”

Lady Emmeline rummaged in her reticule and brought forth her vinaigrette. “No! Just distressed!” she said. “Her sensibilities are very tender, and we did not deem it suitable to bring along the cats.” She squinted at Sir Edward, who hovered still on the brink of an apoplectic fit. “It has not occurred to you, apparently, that many émigrés are of excellent birth.”

“And Michon
is,
Papa!” enthused Lady Camilla, who was not so chowderheaded as to overlook so obvious a cue. “He was a man of position and substance before he fled his country! The war with France cannot go on forever, you know!”

Of this latter assumption Sir Edward did not look convinced, nor was his doubt without foundation: hostilities with France had already lasted more years than Lady Camilla had been alive. Here Capitaine Chançard took his own cue, and put forth a mumbled comment about “le comte.”

“‘Comte’?” Sir Edward enacted a miraculous restoration of good humor before countless interested eyes. “‘Comte’ you say?”

Indeed Michon had said it, and he could not be held to blame for whatever erroneous conclusions Sir Edward leapt to upon hearing the word—conclusions the erroneous nature of which, Michon devoutly trusted, would not be made apparent for many a long day.
“Oui,”
he responded, gaze modestly downcast.

Lady Dimity stirred, drawing all attention, and earning herself the eternal gratitude of Capitaine Chançard. “Oh!” she sighed, and raised a feeble hand to her brow. “What happened? Where am I?”

Reminded by Lady Dimity’s recovery of the cause of her distress, the Honorable Adolphus glanced nervously around. Among the many gamblers present in the tall lofty saloon was none with the recently abused and undoubtedly ill-tempered features of Lord Pennymount. Dolph wiped perspiration from his brow, an act that did not escape the notice of Capitaine Chançard. “Pegs!” he called out to that burly individual who had been hovering fascinated on the perimeters of the drawing room ever since bolting the front door. “If Pennymount shows his face here, you are to show him straightaway to the rightabout.”