The Wyndham Legacy (36 page)

I
T WAS LATE
that night, a night of warmth and closeness and lingering fear and the weight of staggering loss, that Marcus, the Duchess, and all their friends, who just happened to be their servants, were seated in the dining room, the earl having insisted that all of them dine together, at least this evening, despite Spears's vehement and quite vocal disapproval.

Marcus's mother, bless her heart, had hauled Aunt Gweneth and the Twins off to her own sitting room and told them that it was their own private banquet, that the earl was a man with odd notions that must be respected since he was the head of the Wyndham family, and thus they would conduct their own private party and leave the earl and the Duchess to theirs. She frowned at Fanny, who had the temerity to point out that Lord Chilton wasn't a servant and he was allowed at their party.

When Badger's smiling kitchen minions brought out the bottle of chilled champagne, Sampson, the Wyndham butler for fifteen years, a man of astute judgment, reserved demeanor and sober of mien, rose, cleared his throat and announced, “My lords, my lady, Mr. Badger and Mr. Spears, I should very much like to make an announcement. Miss Maggie will be remaining here with the Duchess as her personal maid. I will also be remaining at Chase Park as butler.”

He paused and Marcus frowned. “I should hope so, unless, naturally, you feel that there's been too much impropriety, too much disorder and untidiness in a nobleman's house.”

Sampson cleared his throat again. “That isn't quite what I meant, my lord. Actually, what I meant to say and what I shall say now is that Miss Maggie has agreed to become Mrs. Glenroyale Sampson. That, my lord, er, is my given name.”

“Oh my,” the Duchess said. She rose from her chair and walked to Maggie, leaned down and hugged her. “Congratulations, my dear. It's wonderful. Sampson is a very fine man. And that emerald necklace looks marvelous on you.”

Maggie, laughing, looking like a coquette while she batted her long eyelashes at the earl, said to the Duchess, “Well, he's a man of great stability, you know, not given to haring off to mills to see those poor men pound each other to death with their fists, or drinking too much ale at that horried inn in Bramberly, or gambling away all his coin at the nest of vipers in Eglington. Yes, I've decided it's better to permanently settle down with a stable man, one who also thinks with his head and not just with his—well, never mind that. In any case, I've decided not to return to the stage in London.”

“He is stable,” Badger said. “He does think with his head. He will be faithful. He will take good care of Maggie. He will be tolerant of her occasional flirtatious lapses. Mr. Spears assures me that Mr. Sampson is just what all of us will admire.”

“I, for one,” North said, “certainly admire his
sang froid.
I was witness to his dealings with an impertinent tradesman just yesterday, Marcus. The man was apologizing, ready to kiss Sampson's highly polished boots before he left.”

“Good God,” Marcus said. “Duchess, what do you think of this?”

“I think,” she said, grinning around the earl's huge table, “that Sampson is quite the luckiest man in the world.”

“That is most kind of you to say so, Duchess,” Sampson said, clearing his throat yet one more time, “but I beg you to consider that Maggie here is also a very lucky lady. She
saved Mr. Badger's life and look what wonderful things have transpired for her in reward for her outstanding good deed. She will have me as her husband and Mr. Spears and Mr. Badger as cohorts. Everyone needs cohorts in life, Duchess, everyone.”

“A husband isn't a bad thing to have either,” the Duchess said.

“Hear, hear,” said Maggie, winking at the earl, “and his lordship here is shaping up quite nicely, don't you think so, Mr. Spears?”

“Indeed, Maggie, indeed.”

The earl flung up his hands and yelled for another bottle of champagne. He turned to Lord Chilton, who was chewing on Badger's fruit meringue on a sponge biscuit. “Well, North, does all this marital bliss warm your sinner's heart? Make you want to consider some leg shackles yourself?”

North took his time swallowing. He looked around the table. He smiled at the Duchess. “Actually, Marcus, all this overflowing of mating euphoria quite makes me want to hare off to that mill Maggie spoke about. Tomorrow, I think. I want to put a good five miles between me and the rest of you by noon. I've done my visiting now and gotten my fill of excitement, jollity, and familial closeness. Now I want to go home to Cornwall and brood in solitude, hug my gloom close to my breast and no one else's. In short, I will remain as I am, alone and quite happy with my own black cloud and seclusion. Yes, I'll walk the moors with my dogs and be quite as somber in my thoughts as any good man should be.”

“We will see, North, we will see,” Marcus said, and raised his champagne for another toast. “To his lordship's seclusion,” he said. “May it end in the not-too-distant future.”

“To his lordship's imminent demise as a black-hearted, quite handsome bachelor,” Maggie said. “He's not a man to be wasted on dogs or moors.”

“Hear, hear,” the Duchess said.

“Your mother was very concerned, my lord. Begging your pardon, Duchess, but I must move on now to other matters. Thus, I read everything I could find on this Botany Bay, and found that we were right. It's a thoroughly nasty place, primitive as that area around the Ganges River. No one manages to escape this Botany Bay. I told this to your mother, my lord. She then stopped fretting about Mr. Trevor. I told her it was at the end of the earth and filled with venomous serpents. She was quite relieved. I don't believe she'll speak of it again, my lord.”

“Well,” Maggie said, tapping her fork against her champagne glass, “I wouldn't be content to send him there, all whole-hided, no indeed. Poor Duchess—she just smacks him on his head. Men don't get hurt when smacked on their heads. No, she should have taken that pitchfork and done him in then and there. I would have known what to do.”

“Botany Bay isn't an easy place,” Badger said. “I agree with Mr. Spears. Master Trevor won't be taking any trips away from there.”

“Still, you were all too kind, too easy on that devil. What matter if he was kin? He lost all his rights when he was so very wicked. Trying to kill the Duchess, trying to do away with both of you and he would have, that one. He wouldn't have stopped and felt all kinds of guilt, no, he would have done away with both of you.”

“That is quite enough, my dear,” Sampson said kindly but with a certain sort of firmness that made the Duchess stare at him. “Surely the topic has been abused sufficiently. Mr. Trevor won't escape that place. Everyone is safe. You have more than enough to think about now without the inclusion of that man who will shortly be gone from England.”

The Duchess grinned at the look of utter astonishment on Maggie's face. “Is that you, Mr. Sampson? You said that to
me?”

“Yes, indeed, dearest.”

“Well, well, the man is capable of surprising me.
Me!
I quite like that, Mr. Sampson, perhaps. Once in a while. Mayhap twice a week.”

“Hear, hear,” the Duchess called out, looking toward her husband as she spoke. She was fingering the beautiful pearls that were looped about her neck, and she was smiling, a very soft smile.

“Twice a week?” Marcus said. “No, surely more than twice a week.”

“His lordship isn't adhering to a gentleman's code if you asked me,” Maggie said. “Not like Mr. Samp—, er, my dearest Glenroyale here.”

“Surprises are quite nice, aren't they?” the Duchess said, still looking at her husband, still fingering those pearls.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

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