Maggie MacKeever (16 page)

Ceddie made no response; Drusilla, having become aware of the direction of his fascinated gaze, had shot him a smile so brilliant that it rendered him half-senseless. He watched with some envy as a military gentleman led her away, and Constant adjudged it time for his next move. “This is your first visit to town?” he said with the tolerant air of one already well-versed in the ways of the world. “You will find it vastly diverting.”

“I already have,” Cedric replied wryly. The squire’s son did not care to be patronized. “You must not think me a flat.”

“I see I must not! Still, I daresay there are things you have not yet seen.” Constant may not have been particularly clever, but he possessed sufficient wit to see in Cedric not only an aspiring tulip of fashion, but a young buck ripe for any spree and concurrently a pigeon to be easily plucked. He mentioned various expensive and well-appointed brothels in King’s Place and the Haymarket; he spoke with amused tolerance of the prostitutes who stood naked in indecent postures at their windows, or rushed out in their underclothes to drag gentlemen inside; he waxed enthusiastic about the well-known courtesan who had recently appeared undressed at a fancy ball. From there it was but an easy step to the East End’s gambling halls, though Constant refrained from elaborating on the Greeks and Captain Sharps who were forever on the alert for unsuspecting young blood.

Ceddie did not lack for experience of the more titillating varieties, but he quickly became aware that his most outrageous undertakings—such as being taken to court and fined £5 for fighting a main of cocks in his private rooms on a Sunday—would be seen by more worldly gentlemen as mere schoolboy pranks; and with each word he heard he grew more anxious to remedy the serious gaps in his education. By the time Constant’s masterful dissertation came to an end, Cedric was so much impressed that he believed Constant to virtually possess the keys of the town, and professed himself more than willing to undertake an expedition to Ratcliffe Highway in Shadwell, scene not only of horrid murders that had taken place recently, but gathering-place for lower-class prostitutes. Constant turned away, pleased with his work, and exchanged a glance with his sister-in-law.

Cedric, lost in visions of rather unfeasible debaucheries, returned to the present when Clio tugged impatiently at his sleeve. “I have come to a conclusion!” she hissed, completely unaware that Cedric had fallen into Constant’s clutches or that Constant and Drusilla were regarding her with a certain complacency. “Ceddie, you must help me!”

“Help you
what?”
demanded that suspicious, and disobliging, young man.

“Lower your voice!” begged Clio, and looked mournful. “It’s Tess. She’s behaving in the most bird-witted manner. If we don’t contrive to stop her, she’ll land herself in the briars.”

“Tess?” repeated Cedric, with such shocked incredulity that heads turned. Clio kicked his shin, and he attempted an unsuccessful look of innocence. “Why should I help Tess?” he demanded, in lower tones. “She don’t even like me above half.”

“Of course she does!” lied Clio. “She only thinks I should not marry you. Listen, Ceddie! I fear Tess may form a lasting passion for a
most
unsuitable gentleman. Heaven knows he’s making a dead set at her.”

“So?” Ceddie, though far from needle-witted, was perfectly aware that the countess had taken an implacable dislike to him. “That’s no bread and butter of mine.”

“Oh, yes, it is!” Clio was an enterprising miss; if cajolery would not serve, coercion would. “In short, dear Ceddie, if you do
not
assist me, I shall tell your papa about your intimate acquaintance with a young married woman of excellent family. He would be very angry, I imagine, that you had dallied
there,
and would probably cut you off without a farthing.”

Never had Cedric thought, when he came to town, that he would find himself engaging in a brangle with Clio in the Bellamy ballroom. He had no notion of how she could have come by such damning information. In Cedric’s admittedly limited experience, young ladies weren’t supposed to know of such things. He gaped at her, speechless, as he struggled with an ignoble impulse to bid her go and be damned. “I’ll do it, too!” added Clio grimly. “Don’t think I won’t.”

Having been acquainted with the young lady for the greater portion of his life, Ceddie did not doubt that she would not fail to make good her threat. For a young man already in the hands on those unscrupulous moneylenders known commonly as Bloodsuckers, the prospect of disinheritance was much too dreadful to contemplate. “Oh, very well!” he gloomily agreed. “I must say, Clio, I think it very hard of you!”

Clio shrugged. “What would you have me do? When the fate of my beloved sister is at stake? I cannot stand idly by, surely, while she condemns herself to a life of misery, or worse!”

Cedric’s long experience of Mistress Clio had hitherto left him unacquainted with the sisterly devotion she now professed. “Worse?” he asked cautiously.

“Worse!” Clio was tragic. “I very much fear, Ceddie, that the odious man is a fortune hunter. Look! There he is, and talking with her
again!”

Cedric obediently gazed upon the countess, laughing up at a dark-skinned man.
Had
Lady Tess a fortune? he wondered. If so, how had he failed to know of it? It was growing obvious to Cedric that he had in the past failed to award the lady the attention she so richly merited. Lady Tess was extraordinarily lovely, now that he took a close look. “A fortune hunter,” he repeated thoughtfully.

“Yes!” Clio was pleased by this indication that her fellow conspirator was not entirely want-witted. “I’m sure of it! Tess is
very
wealthy, you know, and that brute has her positively bewitched, though there is Another who looks upon her kindly, and who is perfectly eligible.”

“Aha!” said Ceddie. “Another.” Cedric was in great need of wealth, and not one to boggle at a certain unscrupulousness. He wondered if the Countess of Lansbury, who was growing by the second more attractive to him, might be induced to alter her unhappy estimation of his character. Barring that miraculous conversion, he wondered if she might be susceptible to some polite blackmail, either on her sister’s or her own behalf.

Clio, long used to Cedric’s little mannerisms, paid scant heed to this indication that he was preoccupied. “Or there
will
be Another,” she added somberly, “once I can put into effect a certain Plan. I think you may also help me with that.”

“Hmmm.” Cedric, in the process of evolving a Plan of his own, tugged thoughtfully at his side whiskers. “What would you have me do?”

“I’m not sure.” Clio was gratified by his capitulation. “I think you might dangle after me once again. That will distress Tess, and she will seek to reason with me; I shall pay her no heed, and she will turn to—ah!—Another for comfort. And we must strive above all to keep her safe from Sir Morgan!”

Cedric, who couldn’t imagine Lady Tess behaving in such a vaporish manner, looked doubtful. “That’s all well and good,” he protested, “but what’s to stop her from keeping
you
safe from me?”

“You forget.” Clio grinned. “Tess is a mere companion, and her wishes little signify—particularly since Sapphira thinks you an old friend of the family! She doesn’t like Tess at all, and should Tess protest, will do the exact opposite. It will work very well, you’ll see!”

Cedric expected to see nothing of the sort, and considered this hubble-bubble scheme all that one could expect from a hoydenish miss with more hair than sense; but Cedric possessed a strong sense of expedience with regard to himself. Therefore, when Mistress Clio demanded his presence in Berkeley Square on the following day, he thought of the measures he meant to immediately set into effect regarding the countess, and of the opportunity of gazing once more upon the tantalizing Drusilla, and promptly agreed.

“Here comes Shamus!” he added, a wary eye on his mentor, whom in kinder moments he termed a ‘crashing bore.’ “I’ve no wish to hear him prosing on about my responsibilities. Don’t worry your head about your, er, Tess. We’ll fix it up all right and tight between us. Until tomorrow, then!”

Clio had not expected such a great degree of cooperation from Cedric.  She looked after him with a little frown and a large suspicion that he had fish of his own to fry. However, so did she.

“Shamus!” Clio smiled at the curate. “How lucky it is that you have come to Town. Tess was remarking just the other day that London only needed
your
presence to make it most agreeable!”

This artless comment accorded well with the curate’s own estimation of himself. He blushed and smiled and remarked gravely that though he could not precisely care for the
tone
of town life, he was at all times ready—nay, eager!—to oblige his dear Tess.

“Yes, and she is very grateful for it!” said Clio, spreading her eggs among a great many baskets indeed. “You must call at Bellamy House tomorrow, Shamus, so that she may tell you so herself!” Beaming, the curate agreed.

Chapter 13

It was not surprising, after a night passed in such gay dissipation, that the inhabitants of Bellamy House should the following morning keep late to their beds. There was, however, an exception to this general air of exhaustion and
ennui:
Lady Tess had not only wakened early but had dressed herself and slipped rather stealthily out to the stables, there to collect her dappled mare and her faithful groom. Perhaps this rather unbecoming amount of enterprise—ladies were expected to be languid creatures, robust constitutions and energetic dispositions being considered rather vulgar—may be partially explained by the fact that Lady Tess, fed up to the teeth with her earnest swain’s solicitations and driven half-wild with anxiety prompted by Cedric’s presence in town, had remained at the ball only until midnight, when the footmen passed around champagne punch and lemonade and sandwiches; and then, after a clandestine supper with Evelyn and Nidget, neither of whom could be expected to sleep through such excitement, had retired gratefully to her bed.

The countess’s spirits, alas, had been in no way elevated by a night enlivened by unhappy dreams, the gist of which can easily be imagined; her fine eyes were shadowed, her face pale beneath her elegant hat. Her companion cast her a searching glance. “Come out of the mopes!” he urged. “Surely it can’t be
that
bad.”

“Hah!” retorted Tess. “It is easy to see that you do not know Clio. I vow I could murder the little wretch!”

An odd way for a lowly companion to speak of her employer, perhaps, but Sir Morgan made no comment. Instead he pointed out various items of interest as they rode through London’s cobbled streets, the groom following at a discreet distance behind.

London was deserted at this early hour, few signs of life stirring in the fashionable mansions that lined Piccadilly, or in the pretty little shops that displayed such disparate delicacies as stuffed birds of paradise and funerary urns. Tess had assumed that Sir Morgan meant to guide her to Hyde Park, but they rode in an altogether different direction, down a narrow and picturesque little street lined with small inns and livery stables once, as he informed her, the haunt of highwaymen.

“I’m sorry!” she said abruptly. “I’m very poor company, I fear.”

“What you are,” replied Sir Morgan, “is blue-deviled, and it takes no great intellect to deduce that Mistress Clio is the cause. What has that abominable brat done now?’

“I’m not sure,” Tess replied ruefully. One thing she didn’t have to worry about, at least, was that Clio would catch this particular rogue’s eye. “When we had decided she was to come to London, I distinctly remember feeling free from much alarm—and I’ll swear I haven’t known a moment’s peace since!” She recalled her supposed position. “But I should not speak so frankly.”

“No,” agreed Sir Morgan. “Not if you mean to keep up this ridiculous pretense! I shan’t tease you about
that;
I’m sure you have your reasons and I have a good notion what they are. Not that I don’t think they’re also absurd, mind, but the way in which you live your life is up to you.”

“So one would think,” muttered Tess, then lapsed into reverie. At first Sir Morgan’s words seemed to refer to her imposture, and then to hint at something else. Heavens! Perhaps he thought she truly
was
an adventuress and that, having discovered the necklace among her possessions, meant to keep it for herself.

“Don’t worry,” soothed Sir Morgan, with kind intentions but an unfortunate choice of words. “As I have previously told you, you are safe with me. Now, little one, pay heed, for I am going to show you parts of London that are not considered strictly fashionable.”

Thus Tess was privileged to gaze upon Fleet Street, center of the newspaper world, a street overhung by tall houses and lined with plate-windowed shops displaying books and engravings and silverware; the slender towers of Saint Martin’s-in-the-Fields, the tall columns of Charing Cross and the Temple, where rooks roosted and cawed; and the sleepy Thames, sparkling silver in the early morning sunlight.

“You are fond of this city, aren’t you?” she asked, interrupting Sir Morgan’s somewhat irreverent dissertation on Nell Gwyn, the flower girl who had risen to eminence as the favorite of Charles II, and who had once resided in Pall Mall in close proximity to the royal apartments in the Palace of Whitehall. “Despite its rather grotesque contrasts, the haunts of the aristocracy and the dreadful slums?”

“I am fond of many cities,” replied Sir Morgan, apparently unconcerned at this lack of appreciation for his efforts as a tour guide. “London, Paris—although I have not been
there
in some years!—Vienna, Saint Petersburg, Moscow. And you?”

Tess shrugged. “How should I know? I am a country mouse. I had not expected to enjoy this visit, having unpleasant memories of London, so it comes as no great surprise that I am not deriving any great degree of pleasure from the town. However, a great deal of that can be laid at Clio’s door.”

She had expected, once the words were said, that he would ask her about those unpleasant memories, and had steeled herself to make him a rebuff. Tess remembered all too clearly the accident that had left her lame; the rough young man, several years older than herself, who had dragged her from beneath the wheels of the carriage; and her father’s expression when she had been returned, bleeding and hysterical, to him. Lord Lansbury had blamed himself for the accident and taken upon himself the brunt of a negligence that did not, in fact, exist; for it was Tess’s own waywardness that had prompted her, while her father was engaged upon a business matter, to go adventuring. It was a waywardness for which she had paid, and dearly; and a trait which, alas, Clio shared. Tess doted on her young half-sister, aggravating as that damsel was. She did not wish to see Clio suffer, as she had, from the results of rebelliousness.