Maggie MacKeever (13 page)

Mr. Thorne looked as if he might indeed object. “Tell me,” Lady Regina said quickly, “do you mean to go back?”

‘To Russia, you mean? I think not.” An astute gentleman, Marmaduke guessed his interrogator’s intent. “And if I did eventually return, I doubt Nikki would care to come along. Let us talk without roundaboutation, Lady Regina. If you mean to have my nephew, you must also have his stepmama.”

No advocate of plain-speaking, Regina very nearly took offense. Only thought of Mr. Thorne’s influence made her hold her tongue. Could he but be persuaded to speak out on her behalf—yes, but how was the thing tobe done? So that Mr. Thorne might not guess at her intentions, Lady Regina turned her face away. In so doing, she had hoped to portray a maiden woefully misjudged.

Briefly, Regina’s intention was realized. Then her lips parted and her eyes narrowed and she bit back an oath. Intrigued by his companion’s sudden transformation from modesty offended to rage scarce repressed, Mr. Thorne glanced in the direction of her fixed stare. At its terminus was his nephew. “Here’s a pretty piece of business,” remarked Marmaduke.

“You’ve no idea how pretty, sir!” So incensed was Lady Regina that she abandoned all pretense. “Sweetbriar was promised to me, but he cried off. Now I discover he has taken up another female in his carriage. After he said I
wasn’t
playing second fiddle to his—oh, you take my meaning!”

Mr. Thorne, no stranger to the sort of female to whom Lady Regina so delicately alluded, cast his nephew’s companion another glance. It was difficult to secure a clear view of the young lady, due to the number of people and carriages in constant movement between himself and the distant whiskey. Furthermore, the damsel in question seemed to be either weeping or giggling into her gloves, which further obscured her face. “She doesn’t have the appearance of a demi-rep,” he said.

“A—oh!” Under other circumstances, Lady Regina would have dealt severely with a gentleman who sullied her ears with such vulgarity. “It distresses me beyond description that Rolf could use me in this monstrous manner. Although I should have expected as much. Did he not promise me Lady Sweetbriar’s—but never mind that! What sort of gentleman, I ask you, makes a promise he can’t keep?”

Mr. Thorne was also distressed, not by his nephew’s ill-considered conduct, but that he himself had gotten caught up in the subsequent fuss. Still, he was not an unkind man, and Lady Regina obviously suffered distress. “Poor puss! Do you want my nephew so much as all that?”

Lady Regina thought of her wastrel sire and their increasing debts. “Mr. Thorne,” she responded frankly, “you can have no idea.”

Mr. Thorne had no idea either why Lady Regina and his nephew should prefer one another, but since they apparently did, he would do his utmost to promote the romance. The well-traveled Marmaduke had a partiality for romance. “Lady Regina, put yourself in my hands.”

“In your hands, sir?” Regina looked confounded, then coy. “Why, Mr. Thorne! I had no idea—can it be that you seek to—a man of substance like yourself! You
are
a man of substance? But I had thought you were seriously angry with me.”

“I shall be, if you don’t cut line,” promptly responded Marmaduke. “I have no desire to pay you distinguishing attentions, my girl. What I
will
do is tell you how to reclaim my nephew’s wandering attention—but in turn you must promise to cease plaguing me about Nikki.”

Beset by conflicting emotions, Lady Regina lowered her eyes to her horse’s mane. She was furious with Sweetbriar for his offhand treatment, and fearful also that while she had sought to persuade Rolf to sever relations with his stepmama, his affection had strayed. Above all, she was mortified by her own conduct as concerned Mr. Thorne. She had practically hurled herself at him, and had been sharply rebuffed. “What is it I must do?” she asked, very meekly.

By that meekness, Mr. Thorne was not deceived. “You would like to load me with reproaches, I know,” he murmured. “But to do so would accomplish nothing save that I would withdraw my offer of assistance. You would not wish to stand on bad terms with Rolf’s uncle.”

What Lady Regina wished to do with Rolf’s uncle is far too horrifying to here relate. Suffice it to say that boiling oil, and tar and feathers, were in comparison very mild punishments. “You are truly an abominable man!” she retorted. “I do not know why I am listening to you.”

As expertly as had Lady Regina before him, Mr. Thorne quirked his brow. “Had you not sought to lead my nephew such a dance, you would not be in this fix. Do I but manage to fix it up all right and tight for you, you must administer to Rolf’s vanity occasionally, instead of expecting that he always administer to yours! Oh yes, I am being familiar and impertinent, and all manner of odious things—but you did ask my advice. Having explained to you the theory behind our campaign, and what we want to accomplish, I suggest we take the offensive.”

Lady Regina had passed beyond such petty emotions as rage and humiliation; Mr. Thorne’s frank accusations left her numb. “How do we go about that, sir?”

Mr. Thorne had no desire to wholly demoralize his companion, merely to insure that his nephew dwelt under no hen’s foot. “We shall get up a flirtation,” he responded, and revived her spirits with his most disarming smile.

Thus it came about that Lord Sweetbriar was roused from contemplation of his uncle’s infamy, as evidenced in lust for the Sweetbriar fortune, by the spectacle of his uncle engaged in animated conversation with Lady Regina Foliot. As first the implications of this spectacle did not burst upon his already overburdened consciousness. “Look,” he said, and nudged his own companion. “There’s Uncle Duke.”

Since Mr. Thorne figured largely in Miss Clough’s air-dreams, it was with a guilty expression that she elevated her gaze from her hands, which were clasped tightly in her lap. “Is that not Lady Regina with your uncle?” she inquired.

“Dashed if it ain’t!” Ferociously, Lord Sweetbriar scowled. “She was promised to
me
this afternoon. It seems it ain’t enough that Uncle Duke is wishful of laying his hands on my blunt.”

“But, Rolf!” As he spoke, Lord Sweetbriar had encouraged his horse to undertake a spanking pace, as result of which Miss Clough was required to clutch in an undignified manner at the carriage seat. “It was you who cried off.”

Indignantly, Lord Sweetbriar twitched his shoulders. “Cried off? I did no such thing. Oh, you mean that I am here with you. But that is Nikki’s fault!”

Clearly, there was no use in argument. Clytie clung grimly to her seat and hoped that their headlong progress would result in no injury save to her pride.

At length—having scattered carriages and pedestrians and occasioned a great deal of incensed comment—Lord Sweetbriar drew up his horse. “Hah!” he barked, at his Uncle Duke. “I have caught you out!”

“Have you, nephew?” Mr. Thorne’s attention was all for his nephew’s companion, whose bonnet during their headlong progress had fallen forward on her nose. What Mr. Thorne could see of her features was tantalizingly familiar, however. “And what have you caught me out
at?”

Rolf glanced suspiciously from his uncle to his beloved, whose incensed expression he interpreted as indicative of guilt. “As if it were not bad enough that you want Papa’s blunt, now you are throwing the hatchet at the lady I wish to make my wife. Don’t bother denying you was trying to turn her up sweet. I’ll go bail you would have been happy as a grig
had
Nikki murdered me outright!”

“Murdered you, nephew?” Marmaduke looked intrigued.

“When she caught me in her bedchamber. You needn’t play the innocent!” Rolf snapped. “You must know very well that I was there. Now you’re trying to take Lady Regina away from me, too.”

“But I don’t
want—”
Mr. Thorne, fascinated by the feeble attempts of Rolf s companion to extricate herself from her bonnet, belatedly recalled his offer, of assistance. “Ah!”

“‘Ah’?” echoed Lord Sweetbriar, in tones of ringing scorn. “‘Ah’?! By God, if you weren’t my uncle, I’d call you out for that.”

“Take a damper, nephew.” Marmaduke’s tone was definitely abstracted. “We were merely indulging in a light flirtation. If you wish to, you may flirt with Lady Regina yourself.
I
don’t mind!”

“Flirtation?”
Lord Sweetbriar’s softened tone was due to no abated wrath, but result of his tardy realization that no little attention had accrued to their small party. “I don’t want to flirt with her. No, and I don’t want
her
flirting with you! Dash it, flirting is something of which I can’t approve.”

“You
cannot approve?
”
Lady Regina could no longer restrain her indignation. “It is
you
who begged off from our engagement this afternoon. A matter of great urgency, you claimed.” The look which she flung at Rolf’s companion was venomous. “Urgent, indeed! First you admit that you were in your stepmama’s bedchamber. Now you cast me aside in favor of a—
a demirep!”

Brief silence greeted this astounding accusation. Most appalled of all was Lady Regina herself. In point of fact, had she not been on horseback, and therefore a great distance above the ground, she might very likely have swooned from the shock of her own lapse from propriety.

The first to recover, Lord Sweetbriar shook his head. “Deuced if I know where you took this notion I’m in the petticoat line. It must be Uncle Duke you’re thinking of. He’s the only member of the family that I know indulges in such stuff.” He frowned. “And I don’t
know
that. Papa always said—”

“We will not discuss your papa just now,” firmly interjected Mr. Thorne. “I think a great deal of this confusion might be cleared up if you were to persuade your lady friend to come out of hiding, Rolf.”

“She ain’t my lady friend.” Stiffly, Lord Sweetbriar turned his head to regard the damsel perched beside him on the carriage seat. She was fidgeting with her bonnet in the strangest manner. Tactfully he inquired, “What the deuce?”

Though Lady Regina was mortified by her own outspokenness, her anger was not assuaged. “If she’s not your lady friend, and not a—er—then who
is
this female, Sweetbriar?”

No longer able to stand idly by while the damsel in question mauled her pretty hat, Mr. Thorne urged his steed forward, rescued and readjusted the bonnet, and pinched its owner’s cheek. “Allow me to provide you reassurance, Lady Regina. This young woman is no lightskirt, but merely Miss Clough.”

“Dear,
dear
Duke!” exulted Lady Sweetbriar, and availed herself of his arm. “How good it is of you to act as my escort. Avery is at some dreary function or other, and anyway, he would not like to come here.”

‘Here’ being a discreet gaming hell equally famed for its ruinous wagers and exclusivity, Mr. Thorne found Sir Avery’s attitude not unreasonable. “Your fiancé is also apt to dislike me bringing you.”

“Dislike?” Lady Sweetbriar’s tone was absent, her dark eyes busily inspecting her surroundings, which included facilities for almost every kind of gambling game, set amid brocaded furnishings and gilded mirrors, beneath crystal chandeliers. “Pooh! You do not even know Avery, so you can hardly say what he would dislike. At any rate, I told him I meant to discover— I mean, that you and I are old friends!”

It is perhaps unfortunate that Mr. Thorne was not attending more closely to his old friend’s conversation, thereby to be put on the alert. Mr. Thorne’s thoughts, however, currently had much more to do with a freckle-faced damsel than with Lady Sweetbriar. Could it be that Miss Clough had taken exception to being described as “merely”? Unless he had misinterpreted the glance she awarded him, it had brimmed with dislike. Marmaduke was not accustomed to being taken in dislike, at least by the gentle sex. If only he had realized it was Miss Clough in his nephew’s whiskey, he would never have embarked upon a spurious flirtation with Lady Regina Foliot. So much for unselfish motives, Marmaduke thought wryly. He was denied even the enjoyment attendant upon a flirtation. Exchanging appropriate remarks with Lady Regina was very up-hill work.

“Darling Duke, we were used to have a great deal of joking together!” murmured the most accomplished of all flirts, in a very provocative manner, as she squeezed his arm. “Now you have grown positively stodgy. We needn’t marvel at it; that Foliot female would dampen anyone’s joie de vivre
.
But if that is what you want—though
I
would consider her a very poor sort of amusement—still, it leaves Rolf free for Clytie. Come, let us try your luck at macao! Or would you prefer whist?”

“What I would prefer at this particular moment is conversation.” Mr. Thorne relieved a passing servant of a glass of champagne. “You mentioned Miss Clough in connection with Rolf. I had thought his affections were firmly fixed on the Foliot chit.”

Without appreciable success, Lady Sweetbriar sought to look severe. “You made a dead set at the young woman you believe your nephew to favor? Shame, Duke! Rolf is doubtless a little out of sorts; so would anyone be. But he must someday understand how
good
a turn you served him when you cut out Lady Regina and left him Clytie.”

“Let me understand you.” Mr. Thorne had the uncomfortable suspicion that he’d made a grave misstep; and Lady Sweetbriar’s each renewed assertion concerning her stepson and Miss Clough furthered his unease. “You want Rolf to make a match of it with Miss Clough.
Why,
Nikki?”

“Why not?” countered Lady Sweetbriar, reminded that her escort’s motives were not above question. She released him to step back a pace, eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You are monstrous interested in Miss Clough.”

So he was, Duke realized. This somewhat startling discovery, he did not feel inclined to air. “The young lady has freckles,” he somewhat enigmatically remarked. “What is your pleasure, Nikki? I think I shall play a rubber or two of piquet.”

“As you wish.” Lady Sweetbriar donned her enchanting pout. “I prefer to watch E.O.” With a smile and an apologetic gesture, Marmaduke left her, and took up a position at a table in an adjoining room.