The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane (28 page)

“Oh, twaddle,” Tansy cut in just as Emily was
catching her breath by striking a tragic pose with the back of one
trembling hand pressed to her forehead. “If Ashley had truly wanted
Digby’s liver and lights the young looby wouldn’t be lying in your
lap right now with that ridiculously inane grin on his face and
milking every drop of enjoyment from his comfortable, if
outrageous, position that he can. Oh no, you gullible widgeon. He
would be toes cocked up and stone cold by now sure as check if your
brother’s intentions were any more than to throttle your swain and
perhaps,” she paused a moment to look at the Duke who was still
standing ramrod stiff in the center of the room, hands bundled into
fists at his sides, “if I am correct, to right what he feels has
been a wrong done, heaven bless us, to yours truly herself. Am I
right, Ashley?” she asked directly.

“‘We have made you for a time out of marble,’
Virgil,” Aunt Lucinda said as she scrutinized the silent Duke from
her vantage point.

At last Avanoll found his voice. “I will
thank you, Aunt, to refrain from any more of your pithy
observations as to my person. I received a note from my grandmother
telling of a wedding announcement soon to be made from this
household. This young cub,” he jerked his head toward the still
recumbent Digby, “has been dangling after Tansy these weeks past,
the two of them peacocking about in Society together, and I
assumed, now I can see quite wrongly, that they had decided at last
to make a match of it. So when I came upon Eagleton and m’sister
close as two turtledoves in here, I acted as a man enraged at a cad
of a perfidy so evil as to allow himself to become engaged to one
member of my family while maintaining a clandestine romance with
another. It is as simple as that,” he ended in a valiant try at
bravado that fooled nobody. The Duke was in disgrace and everyone
in the room, which even with most of the servants now gone, was a
considerable number, knew it.

Aunt Lucinda fidgeted in her chair and then
could resist no longer. “‘Look ere you leape,’ Heywood,” she
muttered in a loud stage whisper that was heard by all.

“It is all my fault, your grace,” Digby
gulped bravely as he strove to disentangle himself from Emily’s
clutching arms and rise to face the man who must agree to give her
to him in marriage. “You see, there was this idea...”

“‘Wise men say nothing in dangerous times,’
John Seldon,” Aunt Lucinda interjected hurriedly with a nod toward
the unknowing Emily, and the dowager quickly stepped in front of
the would be confessed conspirator and cajoled, “Now, now, poor
Ashley has had more than enough confusion for one evening. Anyone
can see he’s exhausted.”

She aimed her next words at her grandson,
“You look like a death’s head on a mop-stick actually,” she
observed not unkindly before addressing the whole room again. “I
can see no need to setting him off again, so to speak, don’t you
all agree?”

Since anyone with eyes in his head could see
that Avanoll truly was looking more than a little fagged as well as
sorely confused and miserably embarrassed, the room cleared most
rapidly.

Aunt Lucinda went off to ponder the evening’s
events. Tansy escaped to her room to sift through Ashley’s
uncharacteristic volatile behavior and try to make some sense of
it, the servants escaped to share this latest bit of domestic
gossip with their less daring fellows who did not have the backbone
to remain on the scene, and Emily, the wounded Digby leaning
heavily on her arm, marched off with the remains of her righteous
indignation slowly fading before the more pressing concerns of
bathing up Digby’s bruised nose and praying Comfort knew how to get
those horrid blood stains out of her favorite blue cambric
gown.

That left the dowager with the task of
informing Avanoll that Digby and Emily had at last agreed to
acknowledge a mutual passion that could only end happily in a trip
to St. George’s, Hanover Square before the
ton
removed to
Bath the end of July. Tansy’s heart, she insisted, had not been in
the least bruised as she considered Digby, an assertion she had
already made to Avanoll, merely a very good friend. And that, no
matter how hard her grandson questioned, was all she would say.

Much later, after washing away the grime of
travel and filling his protesting stomach with some cold meat and
cheese, the Duke sat slumped in his favorite chair in his private
study and tried to make some sense of all that had happened.

Horatio, who just happened to be passing by
the Duke’s opened door and who could be counted on only for his
unpredictability, padded into the chamber, sat himself down in
front of Avanoll’s chair and proceeded to attack an annoying itch
on his shoulder with some energy.

The Duke directed a long, dispassionate stare
at his uninvited guest and then said with remarkable
sang-froid
, “If you can recall George Brummell, Horatio, the
man who assisted in your rescue, I would like to tell you that he
is a man whose word is considered law as pertains to personal
grooming. Beau advocates regular bathing, indeed, he is most
adamant about it. You might do well to profit from his wisdom and
at the same time rid your ungrateful hide of some of its more
irritating inhabitants.”

Horatio chose not to be insulted, but merely
cocked his head to one side and returned the Duke’s gaze with
canine candor until once again itch came to scratch and he gave in
to the impulse.

Avanoll sighed in exasperation. “You disturb
my peace, you encroaching hound.”

Aunt Lucinda, who was just then returning
down the corridor from a fruitless search for her needlework, heard
this last exchange, and peeked in to coo, so Avanoll thought, quite
sickeningly, “‘His faithful dog shall bear him company.’ Pope.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” the Duke retorted. “He
is only here to gloat over my disgrace.” As Aunt Lucinda wisely
retreated, Horatio yawned a wide doggie yawn, stretched himself out
full length and rested his toad-eating head on his master’s
slippered feet as if to proclaim he was both totally at his ease
and prepared to spend the rest of his evening giving aid and
comfort to his former adversary.

“Oh, good grief!” Avanoll exclaimed and
reached for the brandy decanter.

It really was a pity the Duke could not have
been left to enjoy his solitude and have sufficient time to ponder
the events that had brought him so low as to have only a hound, and
not even his own hound, for company. For in time, experience of the
Duke’s ability to see himself in an honest light taken into
account, he would have been able to laugh at himself.

But life was not being particularly kind to
Avanoll that night, for it wasn’t too many minutes since his aunt’s
departure (only enough time, in fact, for Horatio to have set up a
raucous snore or two), before Tansy, in search for her missing pet,
entered the study.

Avanoll looked up at his cousin who was
dressed head to toe in an unflattering pea-green robe from her
governess days with her bare feet sticking out from the skirt and
her long brown hair done up in a single plait down her back, and
thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Tansy, on the other hand, was thoroughly
dismayed at having been caught out in such shabby garments and
would have given everything she owned (not all that much, but
important to her) to have been swallowed up then and there by a
large hole that came supplied with a lid for shutting over
herself.

As she stuttered and mumbled something about
Horatio, the Duke rose from his chair, tripped over the still
dozing dog, and said curtly, “Wait, cousin. I had thought to put
this off until the morning but there is no time like the present, I
guess. Please come in for a moment, for there is something I wish
to say to you.”

Here it comes, thought Tansy, I’m to be
sacked. Fired, sent off without a reference. Her courage faltered
for a moment but she stifled her impulse to flee and took refuge in
cold civility. “Very well, your grace. As upon another occasion,
you will insist on an interview when I am at a decided
disadvantage. The first time I was cold, tired, and dowdy. Since
tonight I am only tired and dowdy, I can see no reason to postpone
what I am sure will be another uncomfortable interrogation.”

She crossed to the cavernous arm chair facing
his and plunked herself down (unlike the dowager, Tansy’s bare feet
did touch the floor and she quickly raised them to hide her toes
under the hem of her gown on the cushioned seat). “Proceed,
cousin,” she invited wearily.

“Er—perhaps you are right, my dear, the
morning will suit just as well,” Avanoll relented, but at the sound
of that so-loved “my dear” Tansy lost all desire to cut the
interview short and begged him to go on.

And so, as if the gods had specially designed
this day for disaster, Avanoll went on.

He had rehearsed his speech over and over on
the mad dash from Newmarket, but the words deserted him now that he
had need of them. Instead, he launched into a bracing pep talk on
how Digby was too much of a green boy for her anyway and she should
not be too overset by his defection.

“I never cared a rap for that child and you
know it, Ashley. Do get to the point.” In retrospect, Tansy was
beginning to believe her first impulse had been the right one and
she should have fled while she could.

“Uh—um, er, yes. Yes. Of course your heart
was not involved,” he corrected himself hastily before blurting,
“Have you thought at all of your future now that Emily is to be
taken so neatly off our hands?”

So it had come at last, the dismissal. Well,
if she were to go down, she would go down fighting. “I am sorry to
say I have been so busy settling your sister I have not really
devoted much time to my own future. What do you suggest, cousin,
should I try to bag a husband of my own in the short time left in
this Season, or go directly back to governessing? As I have no
dowry, I believe suitors for my hand will be rather thin on the
ground, so I guess governessing it is.”

“Damn you, madame, you are not so sorely
straitened!” the Duke rallied. He came over to her chair, leaned
down to put one hand on each upholstered armrest and peered deeply
into her eyes. “You’re bright, reasonably pretty, a good
housekeeper, a tolerable hostess, and possess a clever, if
outspoken, wit. Any man would be glad to have you.”

Tansy looked up at the Duke’s flushed face
and an imp of perversion invaded her tongue. “Any man, your grace?”
she teased with a twinkle in her eyes. “Even you, Ashley?”

Avanoll straightened abruptly. “Yes, dammit
all, even me! Why not? Why not me? My nose bother you?” he asked,
immediately on his high ropes.

Tansy giggled. “Indeed not, the Benedict nose
is highly distinguishing. Clearly my father’s best feature. But you
are not serious, Ashley, you couldn’t be.”

“I am deadly serious, Tansy. I’m only five
and thirty, so I am not too old or too young for you, don’t you
agree?”

“Certainly, sir,” Tansy answered, tongue
still in cheek. “I would say, upon reflection, your age seems to be
just right.”

Avanoll stopped his pacing and looked down at
her from his great height. “Well, then? Just think of the
advantages to such a match. You will no longer have to worry about
your future, for one thing. There would be no need to concern
yourself over your welcome into the family as you already have my
entire relation at your knees and the servants of the house
positively drooling over you. As for myself, I have grown rather
used to having you about the house. We don’t fight above once or
twice a fortnight, and you don’t hang on a man, spoil his life with
demands for amusement and the like,” he argued reasonably.

The twinkle in Tansy’s eyes had all but
disappeared. “Yes, I suppose we could rub along quite tolerably,
your grace,” she agreed dully.

Then Avanoll supplied the coup de grace: “One
final compensation we cannot overlook is the desirability of being
called Tansy Benedict rather than Tansy Tamerlane. I should think
you would be grateful to shed that sing-song handle.”

Tansy’s head jerked up at this last statement
and Avanoll took the motion for assent. “Then it’s settled,” he
sighed. Really, proposing wasn’t at all the mind-shaking,
heart-stopping trial his cronies had talked it up to be. He relaxed
visibly. “We’ll be married next week, before Emily can say we have
thrown a damper on her moment of glory.”

“No.”

Now Avanoll’s head jerked. “What did you
say?” he rasped incredulously.

“I said, no,” Tansy replied with some spirit,
twin flags of color waving in the cheeks of her otherwise ashen
face. “No. Negative. On the contrary. Out of the question. I
decline,” she added sarcastically. “Cognizant of the great honor,
your condescension, etcetera, but no!”

And while the Duke was still striving to
raise his lower jaw from its half-mast position, she quit the room,
Horatio hard on her heels.

T
he sun was well up
when the Duke rose the next morning, his head cleared of drink this
time, but groggy none-the-less due to the fact that it was almost
dawn before he got to bed at all. As he stood glowering into the
mirror above his dressing table, Farnley was pushed to remark that
a face such as that was apt to crack the glass, bringing on seven
years of sure bad luck.

“Six years, nine months, and three or four
days, Farnley,” his grace corrected.

The valet was confused, for he had never
heard of this particular omen. “Sir?” he questioned.

Avanoll sighed. “Miss Tamerlane arrived in
March. It is now late June. I do not believe any further
explanation is necessary.”

Farnley bobbed his head in enthusiastic
agreement, then wisely handed the duke his cravat in silence.
Suddenly the door to his dressing room, that most private of
sanctums a gentleman can hope to have, was thrown open and Aunt
Lucinda, draperies at full mast, came sailing in to exclaim, “‘It
was not for nothing that the raven was just now croaking on my left
hand.’ Plautus.”