Maggie MacKeever (11 page)

By this, the first even vaguely indelicate remark made to her by her fiancé, Lady Sweetbriar was considerably taken aback. Not long did she remain at a loss. A roguish smile appeared on her pretty face, and a twinkle in her eye. Wryly, Sir Avery observed her. “It will do you no good to try and turn me up sweet, my dear. I will be perfectly happy to tell you why I decided to marry you,
after
we are wed.”

“I think that you must like to put me off my stride, else you would not do it so often.” Despite Lady Sweetbriar’s discontent, there was no malice in her tone. “Have it as you will! What were we discussing? Ah.
Has
your daughter spoken to you of Rolf?”

“Not only has she mentioned him—” As Lady Sweetbriar gracefully heaved herself erect, Sir Avery abandoned the mantelpiece and set out on a leisurely tour of the room. “She mentioned him in connection with matters of the heart.”

“How did that strike you?” Hastily Lady Sweetbriar set out in pursuit. “Rolf is not
truly
common, you know! If he and Clytie should make a match of it, what would you think?”

No true gentleman could ignore a lady limping after him in such determined distress. Looking less than enthusiastic, Sir Avery paused so that his pursuer might catch up. “If Sweetbriar has taken to invading ladies’ bedchambers, it’s time he was leg-shackled to someone!” he remarked, as Nikki clutched his arm. “Is
he
sulky as a bear over the breakfast cups?”

“No, no, that was Reuben!” Since Sir Avery was much taller than his fiancée, and his stride correspondingly longer, Nikki had to hurry to catch up. Consequently, she was short of breath. “What, pray, does that signify?”

Whatever thoughts Sir Avery cherished as result of Lady Sweetbriar’s determined possession of his arm, his expression gave no clue. “I am poor company of a morning,” he explained.

Her fiancé was little better company of an afternoon or evening, Lady Sweetbriar thought, but charitably refrained from voicing this ungenerous remark. Roguishly she fluttered her eyelashes. “I’ll wager your mood of a morning will be marvelously improved,” she murmured,
“after
we are wed! I should not speak so to you, I know. I hope you are not cross.”

“Not at all,” responded Sir Avery politely, and continued his perambulations. Lady Sweetbriar cast him an exasperated glance, and grimly kept pace.

In the South Sea Room, the walls of which were papered with a neat mosaic pattern, were many items of interest. In one corner stood the mourning dress of an Otaheitian lady; opposite it were displayed rich cloaks and feathered helmets from the Sandwich Islands. Also arranged around the perimeter of the chamber were rudely fashioned island idols, and primitive works of art.

As she skipped to keep pace with her long-legged fiancé, and listened to his knowledgeable remarks, Nikki’s thoughts raced. As if it were not bad enough that Lady Regina Foliot coveted the fortune that by rights should have been Nikki’s, now Rolf hinted that Marmaduke nourished similarly devilish designs. If Clytie might be persuaded to steal a march on Lady Regina—but that still left the devious Marmaduke to be accounted for.

“You are very quiet, Nikki.” So abruptly did Sir Avery halt that his companion missed a step. He caught her before she could tumble into the display of feathered bonnets. “You still have not told me what brought you here today.”

“Oh, Avery.” Lady Sweetbriar leaned heavily against her rescuer. “Have you so little opinion of yourself? Has it not occurred to you that I might wish to pass some time in your company?”

“I have warned you about trying to bamboozle me,” Sir Avery released his fiancée, having assured himself she was capable of remaining erect.

Upright Lady Sweetbriar may have been, but she did not long remain so, apparently reading in Sir Avery’s words some subtle invitation to cast herself upon his chest. “How well you know me,” she murmured, to his lapel. “There is something perplexing my mind: Marmaduke!”

Though Lady Sweetbriar could not see it, her fiancé’s expression was unsurprised. “Yes,” he murmured wryly. “I rather thought he might.”

“Did
you?” Rapt in machinations whereby her fiancé might be persuaded to look in the other direction while she sought to disarm Mr. Thorne, Nikki did not remark Sir Avery’s tone. “I did not! He was always a scoundrel, but not so much of a scoundrel as to aspire to Rolf’s fortune, as Rolf claims he now does.” She frowned. “Rolf might be mistaken, but again he might not! If you should not object, I think I must find out what sort of rig Marmaduke is running, Avery.”

Lady Sweetbriar’s current role as defender of pea-brained youths threatened by wicked uncles earned from Sir Avery a faint smile. “What am I to do with you, Nikki?” he inquired.

Lady Sweetbriar was not one to bypass such an opening. “Kiss me, I should think!” she immediately retorted, and turned up her pretty face. Sir Avery obliged with a brief salute, and set her away from him. Nikki pouted just a little, then giggled, and after an exchange of commonplace remarks set out as promised for Morgan and Sanders’s establishment in Catherine Street, where she derived temporary distraction from her various difficulties by the purchase of a work-and-game table fashioned of zebrawood.

“Dashed if I ain’t glad to see you!” announced Lord Sweetbriar to Miss Clough. “Even if I ain’t quite sure how it came about. I even thought you was avoiding me sometimes—I tell you that, though it will make you laugh.”

Had his lordship paused to ascertain the aptness of his last prediction, he would have discovered his mistake. Miss Clough was not looking the least bit amused. However, Lord Sweetbriar was as usual rapt in contemplation of his own concerns, and thus the need for enlightenment did not arise. So that the reader may not be condemned to share his lordship’s woeful ignorance, an explanation is here inserted: the comfortable coze Lord Sweetbriar was currently enjoying with Miss Clough was result of the machinations of his stepmama.

Miss Clough, of a less constricted habit of mind than his lordship, felt ready to spit nails. She should have spoken out more firmly when Nikki first put forth the suggestion that Rolf’s affections might be alienated, Clytie thought. She thought also that she would have some very pointed remarks to make to Lady Sweetbriar when next they met.

“You ain’t laughing.” If belatedly, this circumstance penetrated Rolf’s consciousness. “Is it a matter of life and death you wished to speak with me about? Nikki said so, but I thought it was all a hum.”

The only life-and-death matter currently in Miss Clough’s mind concerned her prospective stepmama; and the only decision Clytie had yet to make was by what means she would murder Lady Sweetbriar. With a certain grim relish, so she announced.

“That ain’t very sporting!” Since Lord Sweetbriar had frequently pondered that same topic, his chastisement was strongly reminiscent of pots calling kettles black. “Nikki speaks highly of you. Very highly, in point of fact.” He turned his head to observe the young lady who shared the seat of his sprung whiskey, a light and elegant conveyance perched upon two great wheels and drawn by one horse. “Hanged if I know why!” he added bluntly. “You’re a good sort of girl, and well enough in looks, but a diamond of the first water you
ain’t!”

Miss Clough added Lady Sweetbriar’s stepson to the list of people she wished alternately to break on the rack and immerse in boiling oil. “Thank you!” she said.

“For what?” Lord Sweetbriar looked extremely vacuous. “You ain’t taking a pet because I said you wasn’t a nonpareil? Hang it, Clytie, you’ve got freckles!”

“I know I have freckles.” Miss Clough had passed considerable time studying those items in a mirror, following a conversation with Marmaduke Thorne. “Pray, try not to be such a dolt.”

“A dolt!” So offended was Lord Sweetbriar that he was strongly tempted to set Clytie down. Only horror of what would be said of him by those members of the Upper Ten Thousand currently disporting themselves in Hyde Park prevented him from telling Miss Clough to find her own way home. “What a thing to say! You’re miffed because I said you wasn’t a nonpareil, I’ll wager. Be reasonable, Clytie! I
could
have said you’re looking hagged.”

Hagged, was she? Miss Clough began to cherish sympathy for Lady Regina Foliot, whose longing for fortune and position were like to condemn her to a lifetime of inane conversations and plain-spoken insults. But Clytie did not care to engage in a turn-up with Rolf, especially in public. “So would you look a little weary, had you passed a next-to-sleepless night.”

Lord Sweetbriar’s prolonged contemplation of his companion had resulted in a loss of circulation to his head, so high and stiff were his shirt points. “That’s all
you
know!” he muttered, as he turned his attention to the terrain. “I’ll go bail you had more sleep last night than I.”

Miss Clough—who, in point of fact, looked very pretty in a dress of cambric muslin, pale green shawl and hat of striped sarcenet, her sleeplessness betrayed only by faint shadows under her eyes—shrugged. “I will not argue the point.”

“It wouldn’t do you any good to argue, because I would win: it ain’t likely anyone held
you
at gunpoint.” Lord Sweetbriar was glad to note Miss Clough’s astonishment. “If you doubt my word, you may ask Nikki if she wasn’t fit to blow my brains out. I tell you, Clytie, I am at my wit’s end, what with Lady Regina insisting I favor Nikki, and Nikki refusing to hand over the jewels so I may prove I
don’t!”

To reach his wit’s end, Lord Sweetbriar had not far to travel, reflected Miss Clough. “I do not understand. Nikki held you at
gunpoint?”

That Miss Clough had voiced no lack of comprehension regarding his stepmama’s desire to blow out his brains, Lord Sweetbriar failed to remark. A prudent gentleman would have disclosed to no one his reprehensible actions of the previous evening, he suspected—but Rolf was neither prudent nor prone to contemplate consequence, and he
was
possessed of a strong desire to unburden himself. “She didn’t mean it!” he explained, lest Miss Clough deduce that Nikki was in the habit of dealing with her stepchildren in this unusual manner. “Didn’t know who I was.”

“Nikki did not know who you were?” In an attempt at patience, Clytie closed her eyes. “Rolf,
what are
you talking about?”

Lord Sweetbriar looked confounded by this suggestion that his own stepmama was a stranger. “Of course Nikki knows who I am. Whatever you may say about Nikki, it ain’t that
she
ain’t up to all the rigs. Oh, you are talking about last night! I was trying to explain that to you when you interrupted. It’s deuced hard for a fellow to get a story straight when he’s being pestered with questions, you know.”

As she silently counted to one hundred, Miss Clough transferred her gaze from Lord Sweetbriar—the height of whose sartorial elegance this day were pale pink stockings and a brown-spotted neckcloth—to the leafy pathways of Hyde Park. Elegant equipages and superbly mounted lords and ladies were everywhere. The park had changed considerably since the days when King James I had ridden out with his favorite hounds to hunt the deer, mused Clytie, as her ironic glance passed over a vis-à-vis in which was seated one of the Fashionably Impure.

“But I shan’t scold you,” continued Lord Sweetbriar, when his companion failed to respond. “Daresay you meant it for the best. Yes, and so did I. But just in case Nikki awakened, I took care to disguise myself.”

“Let me understand this, Rolf.” Miss Clough’s patience was wearing thin. “Did you break into Nikki’s house?”

“Lower your voice.” Looking agonized, Lord Sweetbriar ascertained whether anyone was within earshot. “I didn’t break in, precisely; I had a key.” With an economy of words that was quite unlike him, Rolf related the encounter. “Don’t you make a kick-up about it, Clytie!” he was prompted by Miss Clough’s appalled expression to add. “If Nikki didn’t rail at me, I don’t know why
you
should.”

“Nikki is hardly in a position to scold anyone for shockingly irregular conduct.” Miss Clough grimly replied. “Whatever made you think of so outrageous a thing, Rolf?”

Interpreting his companion’s questions literally, Lord Sweetbriar wrinkled his brow. “I can’t recall precisely—something Lady Regina said—don’t you be accusing her of putting me up to it, like Nikki did!” He looked anxious. “I say, Clytie, you won’t tell her about it? Regina don’t even like me to talk to Nikki. She’d kick up a regular fuss if she knew Nikki had been sitting in my lap.”

By the image thus conjured, Miss Clough could not help but be amused. “So I think she might. You need not fear that I shall be indiscreet. Lady Regina and I are not bosom bows.”

A pity, that, thought Rolf; he was very much in need of someone to put in a good word on his behalf. “You are still the best of good fellows,” he said generously, despite the fact that Clytie could not assist in his romance. “By the bye, what
is
this life-and-death puzzle that you was wishful of talking to me about?”

“There is no such puzzle, Rolf.” Miss Clough’s good humor fled. “I fear your stepmama made it up out of whole cloth.”

“Whole cloth?” It occurred to Lord Sweetbriar that a conversation might be more easily conducted if his attention was not divided between his companion and his horse. He drew back on the reins. “If that is true, and Nikki has been telling me clankers, it is very bad! I was engaged to take Lady Regina up in my carriage today, and when I had Nikki’s note telling me you was in a pickle, and that only I could save you, I was obliged to cry off.”

By Lord Sweetbriar’s efforts to play knight errant on her behalf, Clytie could not help but be touched. “That was very good of you, Rolf,” she said gently. “But I fear it was for naught. I am in no difficulty.” Memory of Marmaduke Theme’s swarthy features sprang unbidden into her mind. “Or no difficulties in which you may assist me.”

This effort at reassurance went awry: “I suppose you think I ain’t capable!” Lord Sweetbriar snapped. “Dashed if I ain’t tired of people acting like I have more hair than sense. I don’t. Or if I do, it ain’t by
much!”
Lord Sweetbriar grimaced as Miss Clough’s pointed glance reminded him that his hair had distinctly begun to thin. “Yes, and I also suppose it was to prevent me driving out with Lady Regina that Nikki thought up this business.”