Maggie MacKeever (4 page)

As they pondered how many other betrothals Camilla might have entered into, and if her apparent tendency to break off said betrothals might work to their advantage, Lady Emmeline and Lady Dimity exchanged another pointed glance.

That glance did not go unobserved. “In case you are puzzling over why Pennymount offered for
me,”
their hostess kindly remarked, “it was because he knows me to be a biddable female, which is something that he values, having already been leg-shackled to someone who was not! At least I gather she wasn’t. The only time I asked Pennymount about her, he sent me off with a flea in my ear.”

This inelegant turn of speech caused Lady Emmeline to grimace, and her twin to wince. They grimaced and winced even harder when their hostess added: “You must have known Pennymount’s first countess! I wish you would tell me about her. I cannot help think that a gentleman who would divorce one wife might divorce another, because I have often noticed that things are very often easier the second time, and I do not think I would like to be divorced. Therefore, it would be a very great help to know where Pennymount’s first wife went wrong.”

“I regret that we cannot oblige you.” In a single fluid movement, Lady Emmeline rose and yanked her sister to her feet. “It would be very improper for us to discuss the topic with you when our nephew will not.”

Ever amiable, Lady Camilla rang for a servant to conduct her callers to the front door. “I feared you might feel that way. Pennymount’s first wife must have been truly lost to shame! He doesn’t often speak of her, but when he does, he calls her a ‘Jezebel’!”

“Oh, no!” protested Lady Dimity, freezing herself from her sister’s grip with difficulty and a discreet application of the toe of her half-boot. “Not ‘Jezebel’!”

“‘Jezebel’! I assure you!” responded Lady Camilla, delicate eyebrows raised.

“Jessabelle!”
persisted Dimmy, ignoring her sister’s stifled protest, and spelling out the name of Lord Pennymount’s first countess. “It is the result of a fancy taken by Jess’s mother to the name ‘Jezebel,’ the connotations of which she did not know, and likewise the proper spelling. Jess’s father raised no objection, to poor Jess’s everlasting regret.”

“Dimmy!” interrupted Lady Emmeline. “That’s enough!”

Lady Dimity looked gently wounded. “I have told you before that I wish you would not
shout;
it makes me very sad! But no matter how much you may raise your voice, or claim my heart is tender as a chicken, I cannot allow Lady Camilla to think Jessabelle is a fallen woman! She has sunk herself quite below reproach, I’ll admit it, but all the same she is
not
a Jezebel. Despite her name. Oh, you know what I mean!”

“I know that Vidal will have both our heads for washing if you say another word!” growled Lady Emmeline, as she grasped her protesting sister’s elbow and steered her out of the drawing room.

Contemplatively Lady Camilla looked after her departed guests, whose queer conduct made her even more curious about her predecessor. Unless Milly missed her guess—a not-unprecedented contingency; Milly was no intellectual high-flyer, as she herself confessed—the Ladies Emmeline and Dimity had been fond of Jessabelle.

Jessabelle. An odd name, surely? And one whose possessor should not be difficult to trace. Lady Camilla’s secret ambition was to do precisely that. With this new resolve held firmly in mind, she set out in search of the member of the household most likely to be of assistance. At length she discovered the Honorable Adolphus Aethelwine in the tiny garden located behind his papa’s townhouse, staring gloomily at a lilac bush.

There was good reason for that young man’s gloom; Dolph was trying to devise some means by which to extricate himself from the River Tick. This was no new endeavor for Adolphus, who at two-and-twenty was already an inveterate gambler. Alas, gaming was not a pastime at which he was particularly skilled, to the sorrow of the various individuals who held his outstanding vowels, and the tradesmen responsible for sending him countless post-obit bills. As any of those unhappy individuals could attest, the Honorable Dolph was, alas, a pair short of a full house.

“Dolph!” said Lady Camilla, a trifle breathlessly, having peered into every nook and cranny of the townhouse before locating him at last. “I have been looking everywhere for you. There is something I must know.”

“You didn’t look in Papa’s study!” crossly retorted the Honorable Dolph, who bore a startling physical resemblance to his younger sister. “Stands to reason, because if you
had
you’d have known I was there! Or that I had been! And I don’t mind telling you that the old gentleman cut up damned stiff! Dashed if I know why he must always make such a deuced kick-up when I try and put him to the touch—but there! He always
did
like you best.”

Lady Camilla had no difficulty following her elder brother’s somewhat disjointed manner of speech, nor in comprehending the source of his distress. His display of sibling disaffection she very sensibly ignored. “Oh, Dolph! You’re not badly dipped again!”

“
Again
?” Adolphus scornfully curled his lip, an ability achieved as result of many hours spent posturing before the looking glass. “Unless the old gentleman can be persuaded to part with some of the ready-and-rhino, I’ll never contrive to get clear. And if I don’t get clear, I might as well put a period to my existence without further shilly-shallying!”

“A period to your existence!” As if to forcibly restrain him from the immediate execution of this threat, Lady Camilla clutched her brother’s sleeve. “Dolph, you must not say such things!”

Slightly mollified by this show of sisterly concern, the Honorable Adolphus refrained from complaining that she was mutilating his coat. A very nice coat it was, fashioned by the incomparable Weston from blue superfine, and worn with tight-fitting pantaloons, Hessian boots, an elegantly speckled waistcoat, excessively high shirt-points, and an elaborately arranged cravat—Weston and the other merchants responsible for this sartorial brilliance looming large among those tradesmen whose post-obit bills the Honorable Dolph had not yet found himself in a position to pay. “Daresay I wouldn’t actually put a period to my existence, when all’s said and done!” he soothed. “Still, there it is. I’m in Queer Street and the old gentleman won’t come across with the wherewithal to see me clear.”

Thusly reassured that her brother meant to take no such drastic measures as ending his own life, and long inured to his perennial financial crises, Lady Camilla returned to the topic that interested her most. “Dolph, do you know a lady called Jessabelle?” She spelled out the name.

Briefly distracted from his perennial financial crises, the Honorable Adolphus regarded his sister with a critical brotherly eye. “What wheedle is this you’re cutting? Or maybe you think I don’t know the name of Pennymount’s first wife—and why you should wish to marry such a curst cold fish I can’t imagine. At least he
sounds
a curst cold fish, from what Mme. Joliffe’s let drop.”

“Mme. Joliffe?” echoed Milly.

“Jessabelle!” he snapped. “She calls herself ‘Mme. Joliffe’ these days, you know.”

That Milly had not known any of these intriguing details about her predecessor until very recently, she was not so foolish as to point out. “How I should like to speak with Jessabelle!” She launched into an explanation of her reasoning, concluding: “Though I may not be precisely needle-witted, I am perfectly aware that the most useful account of any
débâcle
is the tale heard straight from the horse’s mouth! I’m sure Mme. Joliffe could provide me barrels of good advice. Do pay attention, Dolph! I am telling you I do not want to be divorced.”

“Divorced?” echoed Adolphus, with absentminded scorn. “The knot ain’t even yet been tied and already you’re thinking about divorce? Sounds smoky to me, sis! Anyway, you’re as different from Mme. Joliffe as chalk from cheese. And if that don’t set your fears at rest, you need only recollect
not
to go about eloping with other gentlemen!”

“Eloping?” Lady Camilla’s delicate little ears pricked up. “Lud! Is that what she did?”

A sulky look descended upon her brother’s handsome face. “You needn’t be plaguing me for an introduction,” he said bluntly. “The old gentleman would turn me off without a farthing was I to do him such a rum turn. Tell you what it is, sis: you’re a feather-head!”

Lady Camilla was not at all dismayed by this callous rebuff. Feather-head though she might be, Milly was very much accustomed to having her own way.

Chapter Four

Queer Street was an address not unknown to Lord Pennymount’s first countess. No extravagance was responsible for her financial straits, no lack of economy; a nun could not have been more frugal, or less prone to frippery. Vidal had done her a great disservice by making her an allowance, reflected Jess. He had provided her enough money to prevent her seeking respectable occupation, yet not enough to provide her with more than the most meager comforts. It was yet another example of the man’s diabolical nature. He would be well served if she sought to eke out her slender resources by means of a disreputable occupation, Jessabelle thought bitterly.

This was not the first time so ignoble a reflection had occurred to Mme. Joliffe; her thoughts proceeded along those selfsame lines each quarter day, when she presented herself at Childs Bank to receive her allowance from the disapproving individual who handled the Pennymount accounts. It was of Jessabelle that he disapproved, not the Pennymounts. Ladies did not usually present themselves in banks. Ladies did not usually do any number of things to which she had by necessity been forced, reflected Jess, as she trod through the London streets.

Childs Bank, most ancient of all the City’s private banks, was located at No. 1 Fleet Street. Jess took a deep breath, threw back her shoulders, then marched into the bank. As usual, she was whisked into a private office immediately she stepped through the door.

With that single act, all adherence to custom ceased. No disapproving bank official awaited Mme. Joliffe in the small office, but a tall dark-haired gentleman wearing a drab benjamin over his tightly fitting coat of superfine and yellow buckskins. In his hand he held a curly-brimmed beaver hat. Jessabelle could only be grateful that his back was turned. So great was the shock attendant upon this unexpected meeting that she experienced difficulty drawing breath.

“Vidal,” she said, when the pressure in her chest eased a little bit, aware that he must know she was there. Perhaps he already regretted the impulse that had resulted in this confrontation, the first since their divorce. If so, Jess was glad of it. In return for her own perpetual discomfort, a few moments’ embarrassment was a great deal less than Lord Pennymount deserved.

She had misjudged him, as became apparent the instant he turned around. No trace of embarrassment lightened those saturnine features, nor probably ever had. His dark eyes fixed on Jess. Curious, she wondered what he would say.

She had not long to wait. “Jade!” announced Lord Pennymount, and dropped his curly-brimmed beaver on the desk. He then leaned himself against that same desk, arms folded across his chest.

“Brute!” responded Jessabelle, none too cordially. “Now that we have dispensed with the amenities, Vidal, let us hasten to the point. Why are you here?”

Lord Pennymount was not an obliging gentleman, especially as regarded his ex-wife. No sooner did she indicate a wish to cut short this interview than he formed the opposite intent. Therefore he subjected her to a keen scrutiny, and was very gratified to observe her flushed cheeks. It was not the act of a gentleman to savor a lady’s discomfort, he knew, nor was it fair of him to have so deliberately set her at a disadvantage. Despite his customary harsh temper, Vidal was not usually unfair—except as regarded his ex-wife.

Awareness of this failing in himself did not put Vidal in any especial charity with Jessabelle. “You are looking a positive dowd!” he remarked. “I recall that rig. You would do better to buy yourself some new clothes with the allowance I make you, instead of frittering it all away across the board of green cloth.”

Jessabelle did not know whether to grow more incensed over Vidal’s slur upon her raiment—an untrained long-sleeved walking dress with narrow tucks at the hem, fur-trimmed and belted spencer of lead-colored silk, chip straw bonnet, jean half-boots, gray stockings, and kid gloves; which even if he
did
recall it, was still these many years later the finest thing she owned—or his insinuations of fecklessness. Determined to be every bit as perverse as he, Jessabelle refrained from explaining that the nearest she came to a gaming table was when she attempted to persuade some luckless gambler not to spill his blood and brains thereupon. Let Vidal think the worst! He was obviously determined to do so, no matter what she said. Lest she succumb to the impulse to spill
his
blood and brains across the wooden desk, Jess retreated to the far corner of the little room.

“You of all people should know better!” remarked Lord Pennymount, rendered almost benign by the wholly erroneous notion that he’d put his opponent to flight. “You’ve already blotted your copybook, my girl. Now it seems you are determined to make a byword of yourself. I can’t let you do that that. We begin to understand one another, I think.”

Certainly Jessabelle understood. If her copybook was blotted, it was Vidal who had overturned her inkwell; and she had not without his assistance made herself a byword. Now, as if his past sins were not sufficient to damn him to eternal perdition, he dared ring a regular peal over her again, as if they still were wed.

“I confess it pleases me beyond measure that you have proven so reasonable!” remarked Lord Pennymount, farther deceived by his companion’s silence. “I will also confess that I had not expected it of you. I thought you would take a distempered freak when I insisted you give up your inamorato
.”

“Distempered freak” was far too mild a phrase to adequately convey Mme. Joliffe’s frame of mind, which would find no satisfaction in anything so tame as a simple exchange of hostilities. At this current moment, Jess would have been content with nothing less than his lordship’s head presented to her on a platter. “You have been listening to the gossips,” she retorted, with an unfriendly glance. “Shame, Vidal!”