The Wicked Marquess (20 page)

The stricken groom was currently uppermost in neither of their minds. Colum was fixing a primrose upside-down in the earth, his intention to obtain a flower shaped halfway between a primrose and a cowslip, of maroon color with a deep yellow eye. Fresh cow droppings placed atop the plant, he insisted, would guarantee success. A watering of urine was also considered helpful, he added, and then fell mute. Miranda eased his embarrassment by means of a receipt for a plague cure that involved a series of cock chicks whose rumps had been plucked bare. Colum countered with a remedy for nosebleed that involved hanging a dried toad around the victim’s neck. Miranda supplied a remedy for convulsions made from powdered dried moles. Colum topped this with a remedy for pleurisy that contained six ounces of fresh horse-dung.

He looked over his shoulder as a travelling carriage, piled high with an extraordinary assortment of luggage, lumbered into view. The vehicle rolled to a stop beside the house.

The carriage door flew open. A middle-aged, bombazine-clad female tumbled out of the conveyance and deposited a feline, none too gently, on the ground. The cat promptly vomited all over her shoe.

Behind them, in the open door of the carriage, loomed an elderly woman.

 “You, gel!” she announced, upon espying Miranda. “Come here at once.”

Miranda hesitated. She recognized the
grande dame
who had accosted her in Oxford St. Had the old witch followed her here? And if so, why?

Colum was standing behind Miranda. He gave her a little nudge. She frowned at him. He jerked his head. Reluctantly, Miranda approached the berlin.

The witch descended from the carriage, expertly managing both hoops and quizzing glass. “So you’re the flibbertigibbet Benedict has got himself betrothed to. Demned if you ain’t your mother all over again.”

Miranda studied the greatly magnified eye. “I’m told there is a resemblance. And who, pray, are you?”

The quizzing glass trembled. “Impertinence!”

 “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Madam Impertinence.” Miranda bobbed a curtsey. “Gracious, but your face is red. Are you going to have an apoplexy? I advise a good dose of camphor water. It is an excellent remedy for nervous complaints.”

The ancient lady’s cheeks puffed up in an alarming manner. Colum hurried forward, a concerned expression on his face.

Concern for the newcomer whom Miranda had treated so rudely, that was. No one had any concern for Miranda herself. She spun round – and walked smack into Lord Baird.

He put out a hand to steady her. Miranda shrugged him off. The marquess watched her disappear into the depths of the gardens and then turned back to his aunt.

Servants bustled all around them, unloading the boxes and bundles and various paraphernalia without which Lady Darby refused to budge. Meggs handed Chimlin into the care of an unenthusiastic footman and brushed cat dander off her dress.

Odette sank her bony fingers into her nephew’s arm. “You’ve properly landed yourself in the scandal broth this time, my boy! What are you going to do about that rag-mannered saucebox?”

Were Benedict the stuff of legend, he would whip out his magic teleporting tapestry and whisk both Miranda and himself away. But he was not, and there was nothing heroic left in him, if ever there had been anything heroic in him at all. “I am going to try and do as little damage as possible,” he replied.

Chapter Twenty-six

Bent over in the posture so favored by gardeners, Miranda grubbed in the dirt. She was enjoying a few precious moments of solitude. Colum was in his workroom, beating the roots of sciatica cresses into a salve that, mixed with hog’s grease into a poultice, would be applied to Lady Darby’s gouty knee. Two hours later the afflicted areas would be bathed again, this time with wine and oil mixed together, then wrapped with wool and the victim left to sweat.

There was no reason for Benedict’s aunt to approve of her, but the old witch might have been civil, even though it was as clear as the nose on Benedict’s face that he did not want to be betrothed. Not that Miranda wanted to be betrothed, either; or if she did, she shouldn’t, because of her mama and her grandmama and the rest; and it was doubtless most unchristian of her to long to wring her progenitors’ collective faithless necks. Yet she could not break off the betrothal without further tarnishing Benedict’s reputation, and she was furthermore surrounded by people determined that she should, unlike Tipoo Sultan, live a lamb-like life.

Miranda felt as though she were pinned beneath one of Tipoo’s tiger’s paws. She wondered how many ladies had dwelt in the sultan’s harem. Didn’t foreign potentates have a great many wives?

Rumor claimed that Benedict had visited a harem. Miranda sank back on her heels. There must be some way to persuade him to embrace her again. Perhaps Colum had a plaster for young ladies who ached to be kissed.

“Well met, Miss Russell,” came a voice from behind her. Miranda turned to find Mr. Hazelett gazing down on her. “How fortunate I am to stumble upon you here.”

Was the man attempting to get up a flirtation? Miranda rose stiffly to her feet. “You are trespassing again, I see.”

“I hoped to further increase my knowledge.” Mr. Hazelett glanced around. “Where is Baird’s gardener?”

“He will be back shortly. Which do you prefer, sir? Nature untrammeled or Nature restrained?”

Mr. Hazelett raised his eyebrows. “I hesitate to commit myself.”

Miranda’s own sympathies lay with the latter. “Colum admires the works of Capability Brown, who states that one should construct scenes that waken ‘the Poet’s feeling’ and please ‘the Painter’s eye’, at the same time removing all defects left by history and nature, and creating a landscape characteristic of the locality. He does not have a taste for the picturesque, or think that gardens should seem to have been arranged by other than nature’s hand. You will find no crumbling towers or broken arches or Gothic ruins at the abbey. Rather, you may find all those things, but not in the gardens, which is in my opinion a great pity, because the abbey seems well suited to that ‘pleasurable melancholy which can be inspired so agreeably by the contemplation of Nature in the rough.’ “ As she spoke, Miranda allowed Mr. Hazelett to draw her down a graveled path. “Colum also believes in informing the plants of a death or disaster in the family, and that burying a dead cat under a rosebush will inspire the shrub to better growth, so make of all that what you will.”

Mr. Hazelett led her deeper into the gardens. “You must tell me more of Colum’s lore.”

Either the man had an explorer’s instinct or he was more familiar with the abbey gardens that he cared to admit. Still, Miranda was pleased to encounter someone who wasn’t cross with her. “A traveler who carries mugwort on his person will be immune to fatigue. The walnut has merely to be placed among most deadly plants for all poisons to be expelled. Eating figs will remove wrinkles from the face.”

“You have no need to eat figs, Miss Russell.” Mr. Hazelett drew her arm through his. “I have never seen a lovelier face.”

Fustian. Flummery. Further proof that Miranda was bred for depravity, because a stranger’s compliments were cheering her no little bit. “You have been ruralizing too long, sir. Else you would not grow so bored as to try and empty the butter-dish over the head of every chance-met miss.”

“I am grown sadly out of practice, judging from your response.” Mr. Hazelett indicated that Miranda should sit down beside him on an ancient oaken seashell bench. “Miss Russell, I admire you very much.”

Here was an opportunity to discover just how depraved she was. Miranda fixed her gaze on Mr. Hazelett’s superbly tied cravat. “Tell me about Launceston,” she said.

An odd request, thought Mr. Hazelett, for a young woman on the verge of being kissed – and Miss Russell was indeed on the verge of being kissed. But he could wait a few moments for her maidenly hesitations to subside. “What do you want to know? Launceston was the ancient capital of Cornwall. It is still an important market center. In Saxon times it was the site of a Royal Mint.”

Perhaps she was not so bred for depravity as everyone expected. Now that she was seated side-by-side with Mr. Hazelett, Miranda was not certain she wished to be embraced. “You are well-informed about Launceston,” she said.

“I have visited here before.” Mr. Hazelett slid one arm behind Miranda and moved closer. “And now—”

Miranda had no small experience in these matters. She scooted sideways on the bench. “And now, sir, I would like to hear about The Cornish Bruiser, and The Black.”

Mr. Hazelett was discovering, as had many a gentleman before him, that Miss Russell was not easily wooed. “You want me to talk to you about prizefighters?”  To converse with a young lady about sporting matters was hardly the thing.

“I do.”

Since it was also hardly the thing to try and embrace a young lady in her
fiancé’
s garden, the topic of their conversation was rather beside the point.

Mr. Hazelett capitulated: “Very well.” The Cornish Bruiser, he explained, was a native of Cornwall. The brute was as much noted for the form of side-stepping he employed as for his use of the straight left. The Black was a Negro from America, a cabinet-maker turned semi-professional boxer who had knocked his last opponent cold in less than a minute. There was considerable local feeling that the upstart should be put in his place.

Miranda imagined the scene. Gladiators stripped to the waist and circling the ring, displaying rippling muscles and brute strength; chopping at each other with swift naked fists, dislodging teeth and flattening noses and tearing eyes from their sockets while blood spattered on the grass—

Mr. Hazelett grasped Miranda’s hand and pressed it to his chest. “I am your servant to command, Miss Russell,” he murmured. “Just feel the beating of my heart.”

She could hardly fail to feel it. Mr. Hazelett’s heart was beating very fast. Miranda was tempted to prescribe leaves of the willow, bruised and boiled in wine and drunk, to cool his overheated blood. “I did not realize that prizefighting inspired gentlemen to such transports.”

Mr. Hazelett drew, or dragged, her closer. “You might be astonished what odd things inspire gentlemen to transports. There, I have taken you by surprise. Although I don’t know why I should have, for you must know that you are irresistible.”

Irresistible? Benedict did not think so. Was Mr. Hazelett going to kiss her? Would she like it if he did?

He leaned closer to Miranda. His grip tightened on her arms. His lips pressed against hers. He poked his tongue
into her mouth.

Thus was her question answered. One kiss was not like another, and gentlemen’s lips could not be interchanged. Miranda pressed her palms against Mr. Hazelett’s chest, and shoved. At the same time she bit down, hard. He clapped a hand to his wounded mouth. “Pfthlasht!” he said.

Miranda whisked herself off the bench. “It would be inadvisable for you to venture further in those gardens, Mr. Hazelett.” Before he could formulate a coherent answer – though his eyes spoke angry volumes – she slipped through Colum’s prized yew hedge. The hedge had been clipped and trained into a gallery with openings called
clairvoyes
that provided a sheltered walk in inclement weather.

No sounds of pursuit followed. Miranda slowed her pace. By the time she arrived at the greenhouse, her pulse had returned to nearly its normal rate.

The abbey greenhouse was no simple structure of stone and iron and glass. Landscape murals covered the interior walls. In addition to the usual geraniums and heaths, Colum also grew violets and primroses and cowslips to make a pretty display during winter months. Here he also conducted his more exotic experiments, such as growing chrysanthemums on tomato plants.

Miranda passed a row of cold frames. Mr. Hazelett’s kiss had not made her heart beat faster, or her flesh pop up in goose bumps. She had experienced no desire to fling off her clothes. Miranda could only conclude that she had already been kissed by the rascal destined to break her heart. She supposed this was preferable to her breaking his.

Perhaps if they exchanged no more kisses, swore no wedding vows, no hearts would be broke. But that was hardly a Tipoo-way to live one’s life.

This was no good moment to recall that the sultan, despite all his tiger-like tendencies, was dead.

Miranda wandered among Colum’s tender tropicals, his cannas and coleus and wax begonias. Now she must experience remorse not only for all her previous misbehavior, but also for the liberties she had encouraged Mr. Hazelett to take with her.

At least no one knew about those liberties except Mr. Hazelett and herself. She hoped the man would keep a still tongue
in his head. Miranda glowered at one of Colum’s less exceptionable experiments, a new variety of double yellow rose, so fiercely as must surely impede the poor plant’s growth.

She heard the crunch of footsteps. Had her jailers come looking for her? Miranda had been left unchaperoned for an astonishing amount of time. Or was Mr. Hazelett in search of retribution for her mistreatment of his tongue? Many gardening tools were scattered about the greenhouse, from spades and rakes to displanters and transplanters and dibbles, wheelbarrows and double ladders and garden shears.

Not Paul Hazelett stepped through the greenhouse doorway, but Lord Baird. “Have we come to this?” he asked, as he looked from Miranda’s defiant expression to the gardening shears that she held thrust before her as if they were a fencing sword.

She regarded him suspiciously. “Have you come to read me a scold?”

Benedict strolled further into the greenhouse. “Do you think I should?”

Miranda considered. “I was very rude to Lady Darby,” she allowed.

“So you were.” Benedict plucked the shears from her hand and set them aside. “My grandaunt was also rude to you. Since you have taken each other’s measure, I trust you may be civil when next you meet. That is enough about Odette.  There is something I would like to show you, brat.”

‘Show you something’ sounded promising, if ‘brat’ did not. “I would like that very much,” Miranda said.