Maggie MacKeever (18 page)

One of the visitors, however, could not look upon such dissipation complacently. “I have a poor view of music,” stated Shamus for Tess’s unwilling ear alone. “I fear it often draws a person to mix with much company he would otherwise avoid.”

“Ah!” replied Tess, who had been hard pressed to greet his more inane utterances with civility. “Then I must allow myself to be guided by you, and refrain from exposing myself to contamination by remaining safely at home.”

The sarcasm was entirely wasted; Shamus looked gratified. “I wish you would!” he murmured. “You know it is my dearest wish that you should place yourself in my hands. Nor am I alone in that desire, as your—but I must not give
that
away!—as Clio has intimated to me.”

Tess cast a fulminating glance at that young miss, who was looking rather subdued. Surely Clio didn’t wish her to marry a dullard whose conversation was flat as a street pavement! “I am not,” she retorted repressively, “in the habit of considering Clio’s wishes above my own. I beg you will say no more on this subject, Shamus! It is very bad of you to plague me when I have already told you that it is impossible.”

“Nothing,” reproved the curate playfully, “is impossible! You do not know your own mind. But I will say no more on
that
matter now!” He did not, but he elaborated on any number of other topics, discussing them with a thoroughness that Tess found exceedingly tiresome.

The countess was not the only one to be acutely ill at ease; Mistress Clio nurtured a burgeoning suspicion that things were not going at all as she had planned. Even the forty invitations that were already lying on a table in her room had no power to lift her spirits. Clio pondered Cedric’s inexplicable behavior. Although he had appeared, as requested, at Bellamy House, he made no attempt to address his attentions to her, but gave every indication of wishing to dangle after Tess. Clio, recalling her hapless comment to him about her sister’s wealth, glowered so terribly that Lucille, feeling the onset of a spasm, fled the room in search of her cordials and her laudanum.

Drusilla quickly claimed the abandoned chair. “My dear,” she said, touching Clio’s hand, “you are looking sadly knocked-up! It will not do! I have some excellent complexion powders that will quickly bring the roses back to your cheeks.”

“You are very good,” murmured Clio, bewildered by this unexpected friendliness.

Cedric, perfectly aware that he had aroused Clio’s wrath, studiously avoided her gaze. He had dressed carefully for the occasion, and knew that he was positively eye-catching in his exquisite raiment, the
pièce de resistance
of which was a pristine cravat arranged in the intricate folds of the Mathematical, a feat that had taken countless ruined neckcloths and two hours to achieve. He also knew that the countess regarded him with abhorrence despite his efforts to be charming, but Ceddie did not easily despair. He could not, lest he be arrested and imprisoned in King’s Bench prison for his debts. Cedric had that very morning—having adjourned after the ball to visit Mother Windsor, a notable procuress in King’s Place—heard a harrowing tale of a young gentleman who, after giving a splendid supper party at his club, had returned home to swallow a lethal dose of prussic acid rather than face arrest and ruin. Though Ceddie would not go to such lengths, he foresaw that he might have to follow the time-honored tradition of fleeing the country if his luck did not soon change. Lady Tess, wealthy and unworldly as she was, seemed the answer to his prayers. Clio would surely forgive him after the
fait accompli.

But the worthy Shamus was grievously interfering with the execution of Ceddie’s schemes, and he considered it nothing less than an exhibition of boundless effrontery. Cedric smoothed his golden locks, cropped short in the fashionable Brutus, and once more interrupted the conversation with a nicely phrased compliment. It earned him only a glance of pure dislike from the countess. Disgruntled, he turned away.

Constant, who had been watching his prey with mingled anticipation and curiosity, saw his opportunity. In no time worth mentioning Ceddie had forgotten Tess in an animated discussion of the turf—the barren heath at Ascot, the horseraces at Newmarket—for like many an aspiring young aristocrat, he dreamed of proceeding to the unsaddling enclosure at Epson as the owner of a Derby winner, and of bringing an illustrious career to culmination by being elected a steward of the Jockey Club. Constant played cleverly upon these boyish visions, and soon had convinced Cedric—whom he mistakenly judged to have more money than brains, neither of which commodities Ceddie owned in abundance—that he was most knowledgeable in such things.

Drusilla, piqued that Sir Morgan should have so long ignored her in favor of her mother, and angered to have learned from her abigail that Sir Morgan had gone riding that morning with Tess, stirred restlessly and temporarily shelved a half-made plan to spread a tale that Clio was so hardened to shame that she engaged in brazen flirtations with young officers.
“Maman!”
she called out, nicely silencing the various conversations. “I have heard the strangest thing!”

“Eh?” inquired Sapphira, who thought nothing could be more droll that her daughter’s efforts to ensnare the Wicked Baronet.

“You will barely credit it.” Having secured a unanimous attention, Drusilla paused dramatically. “Bianca has suffered a robbery.” She glanced at Sir Morgan, animated by a very bad spirit indeed. “She is mighty careless, it seems, and has lost that diamond necklace you gave her, Morgan. I wonder that you will treat your flirts so generously!”

No one exhibited the least surprise at these words; it was common knowledge that generous as he might be with his inamoratas, the Wicked Baronet had never given Drusilla any presents at all. Ceddie eyed her with open admiration; Sir Morgan smiled. Shamus, alas, was a great deal more easily shocked. “I am astounded,” he muttered, “at such familiarity and upon such a subject! It is not at all, I think, what we are either of us used to, dear Tess.”

The countess, distracted by that mention of a diamond necklace, thought if she had to listen to one more word from her worthy suitor they should come to cuffs. With vast relief, she saw Giles paused on the threshold, looking excessively handsome in a fashionable blue coat with brass buttons, a buff-colored waistcoat, pale yellow breeches, and gleaming top boots. “Excuse me!” she said, rather disjointedly. “I must speak with the duke! About his son.”

Shamus stared after her, indignant at having been interrupted in mid-soliloquy. Not a clever man, as he himself would be the first to rather ponderously admit, Shamus saw nothing remarkable in Ceddie’s pretty attentions to the countess, and thought it admirable that the young man conducted himself so nicely toward the curate’s intended bride. Tess’s continual refusals of his hand were, of course, nothing more than maidenly modesty. However, Shamus—as he was also fond of saying—was far from a dunderhead, and therefore saw in the Duke of Bellamy a rival of the first magnitude. He did not even briefly consider that the duke would have Tess, with her disfigurement, but he thought it not at all unlikely that she might develop a
tendre
for him. As Shamus watched, Tess reached the duke’s side, and he smiled at her in a manner that convinced the curate that the case was desperate.

Drusilla was still speaking of the necklace, which had been blatantly removed from its owner in the lobby of the Drury Lane Theatre, despite the Bow Street Runner who was engaged by the management to prevent that very thing. “You have just heard of this?” inquired Giles absently, his attention fixed on Tess. “You are behindhand, sister! The news has been for some time all over town.”

“I had it from Bianca herself. She now believes that the robbery was planned—-and perhaps executed!—by one of her acquaintance.” Drusilla looked pointedly at Sir Morgan. “Perhaps our friend can tell us more.”

“Not I!” responded Sir Morgan. “Bianca and I are not, er, precisely on terms.”

Much as Clio deprecated the presence in Sapphira’s drawing-room of the Wicked Baronet, she was not thinking of either Sir Morgan or diamond necklaces. Instead, she covertly watched her sister and the Duke of Bellamy, engaged in a murmured conversation that, from the duke’s expression, was both lively and humorous. It seemed, she thought with oddly deflated spirits, that there was yet hope for her scheme.

Sapphira was not similarly encouraged. “That chit,” she observed to Sir Morgan, “is one of the greatest curiosities I have ever seen! I wish you would make an effort to disentangle my son from her coils.”

“Don’t disturb yourself.” He looked uncommonly amused. “She won’t have Giles.”

“Little you know about it!” snorted Sapphira, blandly overlooking the fact that Sir Morgan possessed a far vaster knowledge of the opposite sex than was seemly. “That  artful woman who will take him in as far as it lays within her power.”

Sir Morgan wasted no time in pointing out that the duke had for many years avoided far more practiced snares. “What would you have me do?”

“Surely you don’t need
me to
tell you that!” Sapphira cackled. “Set her up as your fancy-piece, you seem to like her well enough. Though for the life of me, I can’t see why!”

“I don’t expect you to.” Sir Morgan glanced at Clio who, from all appearances, was reading the unhappy Cedric a thundering scold. “What of the other one?”

Sapphira followed his gaze and glared at Cedric, who happened to look up at that unpropitious moment. “Coxcomb!” she announced, in tones that were more than audible. He flushed. “Clio,” she added, for Sir Morgan’s ears alone, “is an unconscionable little liar, but not for the likes of you! I have plans for her.”

“I thought you might.” Sir Morgan was bland.

“Humph!” Sapphira smirked. “I always said you were a downy one. You don’t want Clio anyway. She’s a mere dab of a girl.”

“You might say the same of the other one,” Sir Morgan pointed out. “She isn’t in my style either. Furthermore, she limps.”

“Since when are you so nice in your tastes?” inquired Sapphira. Exchanging barbed insults with Sir Morgan was her favorite pastime. “I’ll warrant you already have seduction in mind. You may proceed, and with my blessing! Remove the wench from my house before she takes all kinds of encroaching fancies and sets my plans at naught.” She studied him. “By the by, why the devil were
you
putting up at that inn? Some discreet rendezvous, I’ll wager!”

“Sapphira,” said Sir Morgan in admiring tones, “I am every day more struck with the endless mine of your intellectual resources! After I have ruined the girl, what would you have me do?”

“Lud,
I
don’t care!” Sapphira shrugged. “I want only that you should place her beyond the pale. It won’t take long, I vow! You’re as plausible and cunning as the devil himself.”

“And,” added Sir Morgan, “according to you, I am also cruel to the greatest degree.’“

“Where are you going?” Sapphira demanded suspiciously.

“To do your bidding, you old griffin!” Sir Morgan swept her an elegant bow. “You must have known I would not refuse.”

It was with no little trepidation that Tess observed the approach of her fellow conspirator, for she anticipated that her next interview with Sir Morgan would be highly unpleasant. With reluctance she broke off her conversation with the duke—which, had Sapphira but known it, concerned nothing more potentially dangerous that Nidget’s encounter with Lady Jersey’s bonnet. “You’re leaving?” inquired Giles.

“I am. We’ll meet later at White’s? Good!” Sir Morgan’s golden gaze fixed speculatively on Tess. “Come, little one, and see me to the door. I wish to speak with you.”

Tess considered refusing this rather odd request but was given no opportunity; Giles smoothly and firmly thrust her forward. It was a departure that went unnoted by no one in the room. Drusilla seethed with indignation, and Constant stifled malicious laughter only with great effort; Clio’s spirits sank right to her toes; Sapphira wore an evil little grin, and Cedric looked thoughtful. Of them all, Shamus was the most strongly affected, and his withers were positively wrung. A man of insuperable vanity, the curate didn’t briefly consider that he would receive a final rebuff from the countess, but he did feel that she was shockingly unappreciative. When Shamus considered his flawless character, the faithfulness and extent of his attachment to her, and the lengths he had gone to in making that preference obvious, he thought that the countess was behaving in a monstrously ungrateful manner.

The countess had no thought to spare for the others; she stood in the deserted hallway, looking up at Sir Morgan, and waited for the axe to fall. “My treasure!” he said, rather gruffly.

“Well, yes,” Tess agreed cautiously, “I know I said I’d give it to you, but I have changed my mind.” She read anger on his swarthy features, and stepped back hastily. “Surely you must see why! But we cannot talk here.”

“On that head, at least, we are in agreement.” Sir Morgan moved down the hallway and threw open a door. “If you will, madam?”

Silently, Tess proceeded into the book-room and watched him close the door. “It will not serve to offer me violence!” she said hastily, when he turned. “I retain possession of the diamonds, remember.”

“So you do.” Sir Morgan looked no less forbidding. “However, you have already told me where they are hidden. I could very easily dispose of you, reclaim them, and make a getaway with no one the wiser. You might consider
that,
Tess!”

The countess did so, judiciously, then burst into laughter. “You are the most absurd man!” She moved across the room toward him. “I see that I have offended you, and I am sorry for it! But you did look rather diabolical, you know, and I expected you would be angry when I refused to return the gems.”

Sir Morgan did not appear to share her amusement. “Very perspicacious of you,” he replied, in tones totally devoid of praise. “Would you mind telling me why you changed your mind—although I think I can guess!”

“You could,” agreed Tess, watching as he folded his arms and leaned against the wall, “but I don’t think you have! When I first learned that the necklace had been given by you to one of your, er, friends, I thought perhaps you had reclaimed it when your, ah, relationship had come to an end—and I couldn’t blame you for that at all, though it does seem a trifle nipfarthing to take back a gift! Then I wondered if perhaps she hadn’t given it back to you and then regretted the action, so claimed it had been stolen so that
you
would give it back to
her.
But then, I fancy I hit upon the truth!” Tess smiled triumphantly. “It
was
stolen from her, by persons unknown, and she called upon you to bring about its return!”