The Mischievous Miss Murphy (10 page)

A natural-born mimic, as were many Irish, Candie could readily portray anyone from a drooling imbecile to a royal princess without fear of discovery, and now, as she stood up and practiced the measured shuffling of a weary pie seller bent over after years of carrying his heavy tray through the streets of London, it did not occur to her that hers was an accomplishment not common to other young females.

Just as she considered herself satisfied with her impersonation, her eye was caught by the confident stride and neat figure of a lone male just then crossing the street in front of number sixty-three. What a laudable example of the “Compleat English Nobleman,” she mused appreciatively, knowing that her own shorter stature and thin build made it impossible for her to ever carry such an impersonation off with the dash and flair this man possessed naturally. She made a tolerable African prince, she owned placatingly, but when it came to English lords, she limited herself to the roles of effeminate fops or out at the elbows second sons.

Her attention caught by the well-dressed gentleman, Candie abandoned her lessons for the day and, as had been the case of late, the moment her mind was unoccupied it became peopled with visions of the Marquess of Coniston, crowding her brain with images of the man as he had looked each of the three times she had been in his company. So real was her imagining that even the gentleman in the street now took on the guise of the unsettling Mark Antony.

Pushing back the curtains, she placed her hands on the windowsill and took a closer look at the man who had just reached the flagway beneath her window.

“Oh dear Blessed Virgin, it
is
him!” she exclaimed, suddenly very nervous as she whirled away from the window in the hope he hadn’t seen her staring down at him like some love-struck infant.

She made a mad dash to the mirror to straighten her hair, once again confined simply by means of a rose satin band holding it back from her forehead, with loose curls falling halfway down her back. She then smoothed down her demure rose and white sprigged muslin gown—an ensemble Max had dubbed her “innocent maiden deserted by her governess and in need of a small loan for coach fare rigout.”

Her inspection of her appearance complete, she only had time to press a calming hand to her heaving bosom before the Marquess’s loud, imperious knock came on the door. Candie counted slowly to ten before walking with deliberate slowness to the door, calling through it inquiringly, “Who is it, please?”

“Betancourt,” was the clipped reply.

“What do you want?” Candie asked, happy to hear how calmly neutral her voice sounded.

“I’m not peddling oranges house to house, if that’s what you’re worrying about,” Betancourt shot back rather testily. “I’ve come to see you, Miss Murphy, if you’ll condescend to opening the door.”

“What do you wish to see me about?” she persisted with childlike ingenuity coloring her voice while she held on to her sides to keep from laughing aloud at the thought of keeping the so-sure-of-himself Marquess cooling his elegantly shod heels in the hallway.

“Let me in, Candie, love,” he hissed menacingly, “else I’ll let the whole building know precisely why and
how
I wish to see you.”

He would, too, Candie had no doubt, painfully envisioning the Marquess eloquently or inelegantly—she was not positive on this one point—describing some torrid scene of debauchery his fertile mind was more than capable of producing for her neighbors’ benefit.

“Just a moment,” she called as brightly as she could, beginning another slow count to ten, then hastily pulling open the door as she reached seven and Tony’s clear baritone could be heard drawling reminiscently, “Ah, my dearest love, I’ll always remember the evening we stole away to my rooms for a few precious moments of privacy. As you rushed headlong into my waiting arms I—well, hello, Miss Murphy. How nice of you to ask me to tea.”

Pulling the grinning man inside the room, Candie hastily closed the door—but not before Mrs. Clagley, her nearest and nosiest neighbor, had got a good look at her visitor—and went on the attack. “Are you out of your little mind? What do you hope to accomplish by such inexcusable behavior? I have to live in this place for the next few months you know. Max wishes to keep a low profile while we’re here, and you come knocking down the door, spouting ridiculous nonsense designed to having our neighbors complaining to the landlord that we’re undesirables. Mrs. Clagley already has it half set in her mind we’re running a brothel—I could see it in her eyes, so don’t stand there looking like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth—and waltzing in here while my uncle is out only contributes to the appearance of guilt.
Oh
!” she exploded, the word uttered in an exasperated growl. “Why can’t you just go away and leave us alone? I’ve had less trouble fending off mad Russians and overzealous bill collectors than I have encountered in attempting to get myself shed of
you
.”

The whole time Candie was speaking—stamping angrily up and down the small room, only stopping once in a while to point an accusing finger in his direction—Tony stood quietly, his weight resting mostly on his left leg, his arms crossed carelessly across his broad chest, and his amused expression nearly inciting Candie to mayhem.

When he was sure she had finished—Candie having flounced to the settee and plopped herself onto it with scant regard for the arrangement of her gown, the furniture’s fragile construction, or the fact that she resembled nothing more than an enraged nursery tot who has just been told she could not have another sugarplum—Tony sat down beside her and cradled her clenched hands in his own.

“Let us take this conversation in ascending order of importance,” he began smoothly. “First, I am aware you are unchaperoned as I saw Max an hour ago at the Cocoa Tree, where I imagine he is still, having gained himself an adoring audience of one in Will Merritt, whom I left hanging on every pearl of wisdom your uncle let dribble from his mouth, on any subject from Napoleon’s errors at Waterloo to the correct way to judge the quality of small beer.

“That I chose this time to visit brings us to point two. I’m sorry to have offended Mrs. Clagley’s sensibilities, although I rather believe a little excitement will do the old tabby a world of good, but I am not accustomed to being reduced to conversing through a closed door, especially when the person I’m speaking to is setting me up as the butt of her own warped sense of humor.

“To get down to it without any further silliness or fits of temper, I am here because we have to decide what I am to do with you,” he ended flatly, realizing as he said the words that they had not come out sounding at all the way they should.

Candie made a move to reclaim her hands, but Tony wasn’t ready to relinquish them and, rather than stooping to a tugging match, Candie allowed him this small victory, even if his warm touch was doing strange things to her insides.

“Do with me?” she countered, until that moment not considering any problem but her own. The Marquess, as she saw it, had picked Max and herself up on a whim, and he could just as easily put them back down once his curiosity was satisfied. It was Candie who would feel the void his disappearance would leave in her life while he had a world of friends—not to mention a plethora of willing females—about him so that her disappearance would hardly be noticed.

“Yes, pet, do with you,” he averred, giving a small, rueful smile. “You and your Uncle Max. What began as a casual acquaintance has, thanks to my sister’s matchmaking proclivities and a certain, er, wager I entered into with your uncle, mushroomed, I fear, into a ticklish situation for us all.”

“Have you been drinking?” Candie asked, peering intently into his dark eyes.

Tony laughed deprecatingly. “Sounds that way, doesn’t it? But, no, I’m perfectly sober—not thinking too clearly perhaps, but sober. It’s simple, really, if you’ll but consider the thing a moment.

“Patsy, that adorable air-head, has taken quite a shine to you and Max and wishes to introduce you about in the winter-thin ranks of society. Before you become too flattered, however, I might point out that Patsy has been bringing home stray dogs, lame pigeons, and a steady stream of wretched, downtrodden souls for as long as I can remember. Lord, you should have seen her late husband! But that’s another story. Is it any wonder then that she took one look at you and your ramshackle uncle and immediately decided to take you in hand while you’re still young and pretty enough to snag a suitable husband?”

“But I don’t want a husband,” Candie broke in protestingly.

Tony dismissed this argument with a wave of his hand before gathering Candie’s fingers once again in his firm grip. “I doubt your wishes are paramount in Patsy’s plans. Not only does your beauty challenge her—she sees herself as pulling off a minor coup when you succeed in breaking a half dozen or so hearts—but I fear she is harboring a notion or two concerning a possible match between us. My sister is an incurable romantic, you know.”

Again Candie tugged at her bonds and again she failed to gain her freedom. “But that’s absurd. A Marquess can’t marry a bas—a nobody like me. I have no background, no dowry. Besides,” she added brightly, as if her information proved her point beyond any glimmering of doubt, “I’m a criminal, a petty conniver. Why, I could be clapped up in Newgate tomorrow. I’m the least suitable bride this side of the moon.”

Tony raised one expressive eyebrow. “You want to run that one past Patsy?” he asked facetiously. “Somehow, I don’t see her crying off just because of your rather checkered past. Oh no,” he said, shaking his head, “you would simply be handing her another cause. First she’d turn your toes back onto the straight and narrow, and then she’d throw you at my head.”

“Well, she can’t launch me into society if I refuse to hoist anchor and set sail,” Candie declared after a short pause during which she roundly cursed do-gooders in general and matchmaking sisters in particular, even though she did like Patsy prodigiously. “Max and I will simply decline any invitations. She’ll take the hint eventually. After all, even if she is a Betancourt, she’s bound to have
some
sense.”

At last Candie was given back her hands as Tony rose to pace the room a half dozen times before deciding to make a clean breast of his wager with Max. He described the incident with the workmen and his subsequent obligation to lend his countenance to Patsy’s scheme for at least the next fortnight.

He did not dwell on Max’s reasons for wishing to see his niece out in society, nor did he see any point in divulging the side stakes for the wager—two weeks of unhampered pursuit of Candie’s virtue—especially since he was temporarily, at least, on the losing side.

Since Max had never questioned Candie’s decision to remain a spinster, she did not suspect her uncle of anything more than using Lady Montague’s establishment as a birthing chamber for yet another of his money-making schemes. That he would be using the unsuspecting Patsy in his pursuit of wealthy, gullible gentlemen eager to be relieved of a portion of their cumbersome fortunes by way of some bogus get-rich-quick scheme designed around, to recall one of Max’s earlier successful brainstorms, a surefire way to turn coal into gold, did not set well with her.

But that was family business, not something she would even think of discussing with an outsider like the Marquess. She’d confront Max when he returned to Half Moon Street, pointing out the cruelty of exposing an innocent like Lady Montague to possible embarrassment or censure, and the two of them would hammer it out between them. Candie was not angered by the realization that her uncle planned to use her in his scheme; in fact, a part of her was disappointed to think about the fun they would miss if Max couldn’t find a way to execute his plan without unduly involving Coniston or his sister.

Her bout of concentrated thought resulting in conclusions she found bearable if not entirely comfortable, Candie raised her eyes to look at Tony, who was once again pacing the carpet, still obviously agitated.

“So you lost a wager to Max,” she said matter-of-factly. “You will learn, if you spend much more time in his company, that Max only bets on sure things. Actually, I can’t remember the last time that jolly conniver lost a wager. No matter. Two weeks shall pass quickly enough, I’m sure, and then we’ll be out of your life.”

Tony had no great love for the thought of propping up his sister’s drawing-room walls while Will Merritt and every other buck made asses of themselves over the beauteous Miss Murphy, no more than he could envision himself engaging in the tame courting expected when dealing with an innocent maiden when he was sure Candie would laugh in his face while he ran about fetching her lemonade and retrieving her misplaced shawl. And he certainly didn’t plan to allow Candie to walk out of his life with nothing settled between them.

No, Tony’s object had not altered by so much as a hair since first he clapped eyes on Miss Murphy—he intended to bed her as soon as possible. That he had amended this plan to include the possibility of setting her up as his permanent mistress in some discreet little house on the fringes of Mayfair (with Max nowhere in sight) did not overly concern him. He was getting too old to be forever climbing down drainpipes and dodging jealous husbands.

Tony’s plan—and he had banked all his hopes on it—centered around getting Max to wager with him again. He didn’t care a fig how much blunt Max named as forfeit (as he didn’t envision losing again), while his prize would once again be that dreamed-of two weeks of unimpeded pursuit of Miss Murphy’s delectable body.

He’d have to stick close to her once she was presented, just to keep the field clear of any Romeo intent on staking a claim to her affections, though it would tax him greatly to watch her putting on ladylike airs when he knew she was no more than an uncommonly pretty shell covering a larcenous soul.