The Rambunctious Lady Royston (26 page)

Watching this interchange from her position in a nearby armchair, seated as she was at her ease and still dressed in her inappropriate attire—with her comfortably relaxed posture and sprawling lower limbs showing a picture that could be titled "The Young Buck At His Leisure"— Samantha quipped to Zachary as he rejoined them, "Do come and sit down, dearest. This is as good as a play. Such a delightful pair of cockleheads you are apt never to see again. Why, I feel almost old, watching them. Not as old as you, of course."

"Stow it, brat," Zachary admonished her cordially. "Robin," he then went on in a more serious tone, "I have just now sent off a message to our grandmother, apprising her of the return of the prodigal and requesting she meet us at my estate in Kent in two day's time. If we are to beat the dear dragon to the country—as this place, despite its size, is not nearly large enough to house both her and me without war breaking out—I suggest we make ourselves ready to travel by tomorrow morning, if you feel yourself up to the journey."

As Robin nodded his agreement to this plan, without bothering to disclaim Zachary's allusion to the less than wonderful relationship between his brother and the dowager, Zachary went on, "Naturally, we will ask Sir Stephen's permission to take Isabella with us to the country, as I can see by that death-grip you have on her hands that you are not likely to let her out of your sight any time soon."

"Time has not dulled your intelligence, brother," Robin agreed happily, as Isabella flushed to the roots of her hair—an occurrence that caused Samantha no end of amusement.

"Do strive to control yourself, Samantha," her husband warned, as her laughter brought her back to his attention. He could not help but frown at her outrageous attire, even if it did mean admitting to himself just how greatly he resented anyone else (including his own brother) being privileged to glimpse his wife's long, shapely limbs parading about in skin-tight breeches. "And sit up straight, if you please," he almost growled, in his agitation. "At times I believe you to be ramshackle past reclaim. Parading about town as Samuel Smythe-Wright was bad enough, but to instigate an elopement—well, it is at times inconceivable to me to understand the workings of your mind."

Adding that last little bit was merely a ploy to keep Robin from guessing the true, if petty, reason for his brother's outburst.

Yet it was Isabella who was moved to protest. "I was also part of the plot, Zachary," she was emboldened to say.

St. John readily accepted that this was true, but added that she never would have contemplated it if not for the urgings of her sister and that, by and large, he had found Isabella to be a "most sensible puss."

Neither was this statement to be left unchallenged. "Meaning," interpolated Samantha, "in your backhanded way, that I am not?"

St. John turned to face his wife and favored her with a bow. "If you wish, m'dear," he returned affably.

Isabella, feeling brave as long as Robert—she still could not think of him as Robin—was close by, was again moved to speech. "I think that to be excessively shabby of you, seeing as how it has all worked out so famously." She clapped her hands to her mouth as she belatedly realized she had just dared to challenge "the Devil" himself—and in his own house! "Oh, dear me!" she exclaimed. "I'm so dreadfully sorry, my lord."

"In a pig's eye you are, Isabella," Robin laughed. "Don't

try to wrap it up in clean linen. The man's behavior is indeed—excessively shabby, did you say? How mild that sounds! A royal pain is what he's being, that's more like it. Though I must say," he added reflectively, "I doubt if I myself could be brought to find enjoyment in the thought of my wife traipsing about, kicking up all sorts of larks while dressed as Samuel—I mean, Samantha—is now."

Isabella, her sisterly loyalty having flown in the face of wishing to be known as a woman who agreed with her man in everything he said—be it that the moon was made of green cheese or that her sister's behavior was indeed reprehensible—voiced her agreement with Robin.

Seeing that Isabella's defection had raised Samantha's hackles, Zachary—his mood again on the upswing—decided to have himself a bit of fun at her expense. "Quite so," he sighed with the air of one sorely used. "In fact, dear friends, my wife is the embodiment of far and away too many ills for me to contemplate them all without risk of my becoming emotionally overset."

Robin took a sip from his glass before saying, "I really must confess to being abominably slow, brother. Please enlighten me a bit if you will on a few, um, minor points. You speak as if Samantha's mode of dress and behavior both are no recent news to you, certainly not as recent as they are to me. If you are so disapproving, why haven't you simply put a stop to her little escapades? You know, I believe that your wife—in the guise of one Samuel Smythe-Wright—and I have met fairly frequently in recent days. In the space of that time, she has at times spoken to me of her travels in London. Please, dear brother," he pleaded, in patently feigned worried tones, "Please tell me she has only conjured up these stories in her head. As I cannot imagine her actually doing all the things she told me she has done, I must inform you of another of your enchanting-but-naughty wife's failings: she tells some shocking rappers!"

One side of St. John's full mouth shot up in a rueful grin. "Unfortunately, my dear, concerned little brother, I can only plead guilty to your supposition that I, in my indulgence, have turned a blind eye toward Samantha's truancy until only recently. But I must disabuse you of harboring any doubts as to my wife's credibility. All that she has told you—and most probably much more that she has not mentioned, too alarming to contemplate—is all so lamentably true. I have been," he ended, with a splendid imitation of deep sorrow, "sorely, sorely used by this woman I have married. Pity me, brother—moderate, temperate man that you know me to be—for I'm bewildered by such irresponsible actions as hers." His outrageous speech concluded entirely to his satisfaction, St. John repaired to the Adam fireplace to rest one arm negligently against the mantel and wait for Samantha's inevitable explosion of fury.

It would have come too, had not Robin intervened. "I do believe my head to be sufficiently free of concealing fog to recall a few less than laudable exploits committed by you in your grasstime, Zachary, old fellow. Let's see. There was that time when I was about ten, and you were sent down from school for firing blank cartridges at one of the proctors. Oh, yes, I remember that incident well. It was also while you were at home that you and some of your ragtag friends from the village went about changing all the inn signs, causing no end of confusion, as I recall."

Zachary stood away from the mantel. "Enough, Robin, enough," he cut in hastily, not liking at all the militant gleam that had come into Samantha's eyes.

But his protest fell on deaf ears, as Robin was not finished. "When you grew older and went up to town, you were still known to kick up a lark or two—or so Grandmama's cronies wrote her in their tattlemongering letters. I also remember hearing how you bought out some baker's entire stock and paraded down St. James' Street in broad daylight, pushing this huge cart before you and calling out, 'Buy my fresh loaves' at the top of your lungs. Oh, Grandmama squirmed for days after she heard about that one. And there was the year you took to wearing a nosegay of gilded oak-leaves on your lapel—oak-apples you had saved from the previous fall, I recollect, taking care not to wear them until they were out of season and nearly impossible to come by. As a gentleman known to be an arbiter of fashion, it was not long before half the young bucks in London were sporting oak-apple clusters—though to what lengths they went to procure them I shudder to contemplate. And what did you do then, my fine, conservative, temperate brother? You immediately stopped wearing your nosegays and made snide jokes about anyone who would wish to wear such an emblem on any day other than Oak-apple Day!"

It was plain to see that Robin was enjoying himself mightily now, basking in Isabella's open admiration and thrilled with Samantha's eager attention. "Tell me, Zachary: was it before or after the gilded oak-leaf incident that you and your fellows had that punch-up with the Charleys, the one that landed you all in the local guardhouse overnight?"

"Blister it, Robin!" St. John succeeded in breaking in at last. "Must you throw my past in my teeth?"

"Certainly not," Robin answered, seemingly much affronted. "My memory, total as it may again be, is really most adaptable—if that's what you wish. But first, Zachary, may I tell of the time you and three friends were tossed out of that brothel near Covent Garden for—"

"Pas devant la enfant!"
Zachary warned—not in front of the child—meaning Samantha, of course, who would, were she ever to hear of them, no doubt fling the details of such an incident in his face at every opportunity.

St. John's plea came too late however—about five sins too late as a matter of fact.

Samantha, having had time for a bit of reflection, was just then feeling more than a little out of countenance with her husband. Rising from her chair to stand at her full height, she confronted the Earl, her legs spread defiantly wide and her hands clenched into fists jammed down on her hips. "Not quite the perfect paragon of propriety yourself, eh, husband? Though I admit sins committed in your youth are only to be regarded as ancient history. And yet, after indulging in adventures of your own—far and away adventures more scandalous than my worst departures from the accepted feminine pursuits—you would deny me the very excitement you so obviously once craved yourself. Oh, that is very poor spirited of you, Royston."

Zachary, with Samantha's scowling face and dramatic stance totally wasted on him, smiled unrepentantly back at her.

This served only to make Samantha truly angry. "And worse—yes, everyone, the worst is yet to come—you did not even trust me to be discreet, or even honorable for that matter, if I read your interpretation of my visits to Conduit Street correctly. You," and she said the word with magnificent contempt, "hired some lowly Benedict to dog my every step each time I set foot outside Portman Square. Oh, yes," she told him heatedly. "I saw your man following me. I allowed it for a time, I admit, but today I led him on a merry chase. I really believed I had lost him, but he was a tenacious little monster wasn't he, this man you set on me like a jailhouse guard."

Robin and Isabella were silent as their eyes shifted back and forth between Zachary and Samantha, like spectators following a batted shuttlecock. Robin was still prone to believe Samantha was feigning her anger, but Isabella knew better. She reached for Robin's hand and squeezed it hard.

Advancing on her husband and wagging her finger in his face, she accused, "Like some deity judging a lowly sinner, that's what you were as you came bursting through Jack Bratting's parlor door. Confess, Zachary. What wild scenes of debauchery did you have pictured in that great hoary head of yours? How low did you think I had sunk, husband? Speak to me, Zachary. Have you lost your tongue?"

Samantha was full to bursting with pent-up wrath, soon to explode completely, and St. John saw no choice but to reluctantly recognize that fact. More to the point, he had to agree she had a few valid arguments—not to mean she was entirely in the right of things—and his attempts at a bit of playful teasing had run afoul of Samantha's acutely probing mind.

Seemingly without wasting time on any detours along the way, she had gone straight to the heart of the matter: Zachary had not trusted her. It was lamentable, but there was nothing else for it. He would now have to take his punishment like a man; that is to say, he would feel inwardly guilty while outwardly admitting to nothing.

He looked to Isabella and Robin, cravenly seeking a clever way out of this hole he had so neatly dug for himself. But Isabella was nervously worrying her lower lip, and Robin—the coward—was busily engaged in smoothing away a nonexistent crease on his coat-sleeve. No help was forthcoming from that timid pair, Royston told himself.

He looked again to Samantha, who now stood tapping one booted foot, her accusing finger still aimed at his nose. He searched his brain for a way to mollify her. Thinking it best to get over the heavy ground as lightly as he could, he smiled, chucked his wife playfully under her belligerently thrust-out chin, and whispered meaningfully, "Couldn't we settle this little misunderstanding later, pet? Perhaps in my chambers? Just the two of us?"

Samantha bid Isabella a pleasant, well-mannered adieu, and bowed before Robin in her best Samuel Smythe-Wright way before quitting the room with a flourish—leaving in her wake a goggle-eyed sister, an openly amused brother-in-law, and a sadder-but-wiser husband still gingerly touching the livid red handprint blazoned on his left check.

"Pity I missed the ceremony, Zachary. Would that I could have known this Samantha of yours before she could be so mellowed by marital bliss," Robin remarked, his ready smile hovering about his lips. "What first drew you to her? Her beauty? Her dainty footwork on the dance floor? Surely not her dowry—you would not be so mercenary, not to mention blind to her more obvious attributes.

"Confess, brother, what was it about my sweet new sister—soon to be my sister twice over, if Isabella chooses to bestow her hand on this humble servant—that caused London's premiere bachelor to stick his head in parson's mousetrap?"

St. John sniffed. "It all seems so ridiculous now, but, with you gone, or so I supposed, I felt obliged to beget myself an heir. As Samantha's antics—I first saw her dressed as Mr. Smythe-Wright, you see—also served to amuse me, I felt I would get both an heir and a diverting companion who could banish some of my depressingly ever-present ennui by the simple expediency of marrying the child. All of which, for my sins, I told her when I proposed."

"That was a bit cold-blooded, even for you, Zachary," Robin admonished. "Not to mention brick stupid of you, which I just have."

St. John's only answer was an acknowledging grimace, an admission of fault that, coming from him, was on a par with anyone else donning sackcloth and ashes and parading through the streets ringing a bell in repentance. That made it twice in one day that St. John had admitted to being fallible: once only to himself, and now publicly to his brother (if a grimace can be called a public admission). Even more damning, both his lapses from perfection could be attributed to his less than tactful handling of the same infuriating red-headed minx.