Maggie MacKeever (6 page)

“Come here, girl!” snapped Sapphira. “Let’s have a look at you.” Flushing under the combined scrutiny of so many eyes, Clio obeyed. She appeared quite charming in her flounced white cambric gown and her green sarsenet pelisse, and the white gauze bonnet so lavishly adorned with tea roses and foliage; and she looked so unusually subdued that Drusilla immediately decided that her Wicked Baronet would never award
this
damsel a second glance, having precious little interest in the infantry.

“Extravagant and undisciplined!” announced Sapphira, who, though of caustic nature, possessed remarkable acumen. “You have a look of your mother, young woman! I doubt not that if you’re not keenly watched, you too will involve yourself in various scandals and escapades.” Clio’s unhappy face reflected only too accurately her reaction to these words. The dowager duchess chortled and her sharp eyes moved to Tess, who was standing near the doorway, one arm around Evelyn, who was leaning blissfully against her good side, and Nidget at her feet. “Who’s that creature?” she snapped. “Some sort of a companion, I suppose? I can’t see why you had to bring
her
along.”

There was perhaps some basis for the duchess’s misapprehension: due to the fact that Clio’s letters were self-centered masterpieces of omissions and poor grammar, Sapphira had no knowledge of the Countess of Lansbury; and Tess, who still wore her old black pelisse, and who had in her encounter with Nidget lost all her hairpins so that her pale curls were as usual in wild disarray, certainly lacked the least appearance of a gentlewoman. There was, however, no excuse at all for Tess’s subsequent behavior, for she merely sketched an awkward little curtsy and made no attempt to set matters right. “My name is Tess,” she said, with a humility that made Delphine wish to box her ears. “I told Clio she would have little need of my company here, but the dear creature would not hear of me remaining behind.” Clio, astounded to hear herself spoken of in such doting terms, bit back a giggle. It was growing obvious that her sister was set off on a lark, and while Clio had never known such a thing to happen before, she thought it would be great fun. “She has been,” added Tess, making it impossible for either her sister or her abigail to render explanations without making her appear demented, “in my care since she was born, you see.”

Had Sapphira been sufficiently interested in Clio’s companion to consider this statement, she might have thought it odd indeed that an infant should have been placed under the supervision of a child who could not at the time have been more than seven years old; but Sapphira was not accustomed to wasting thought on hired companions. “Find them,” she said, with a dismissive gesture to Lucille, “rooms in the servants’ quarters. I would speak privately with Clio.”

Delphine had tolerated a great deal in the past few days, but she would not stand for this.
“Ma foi!”
she cried, drawing herself up to her full five feet. “It is
mal à propos.
My—” She caught Lady Tess’s gimlet glance and quickly changed her words. “Mademoiselle Tess is not accustomed to being treated as a servant. Mademoiselle Clio will insist that she be given a proper room of her own.”

“Hoity-toity!” snapped Sapphira but Clio dared not follow Delphine’s lead lest she encounter, not for the first time, an energetically wielded hairbrush. “It is true,” she interposed. “Tess is accustomed only to the best. I would not have her subjected to any hardship.”

“Hardship!” snorted the dowager duchess. Lucille turned ashen. “Think you I keep my servants in chains? You do your people no favor by pampering them, girl! While in
my
house, your women will be treated as befits their station!”

“Eh?” Delphine’s plump cheeks were flushed. “Then there is nothing for it than we must leave immediately.” She almost hoped the evil old Tartar would take her up on the threat. Far better, thought Delphine, that she and Lady Tess return immediately to the country, where the countess would be safe from both gazetted rakes and foul-tempered dowagers. Now that she had met the dowager duchess, Delphine had no doubt that Clio was in capable hands.

Sapphira might well have granted Delphine’s wish, as indicated by the rancor writ large on her mottled face; but Giles, who had been watching with some interest the manner in which Tess, while this storm raged about her, engaged in a whispered conversation with Evelyn, and who furthermore possessed a perfectly good grasp of the science of mathematics, chose to speak. “You must not do that,” he interjected smoothly. “My mother was laboring under a misapprehension. Of course you must all be properly housed! What would Clio do without her companion and her abigail?”

His kindly intervention earned for the duke not a single grateful word. Clio, realizing belatedly that she would go on very handsomely without the protection of her two most diligent well-wishers, was crestfallen; Delphine, understanding that she was to act as lady’s maid to that abominable minx, looked sour. Tess awarded the Duke of Bellamy a glance that indicated not only her awareness of every word of the conversation but the diversion it had afforded; and Sapphira exploded with rage. “You dare defy me?” she screeched, parrot-like. Fearing an onslaught of the vapors, Lucille grabbed for her smelling salts; and Constant tried to hide his bulk in a window recess. Drusilla exhibited no reaction at all, being caught up in unhappy thoughts of the pretty birds of paradise that vied continually for the attentions of her favorite profligate.

“Defy you?” repeated Giles, as if it were a novel idea. “It is after all my house,
Maman.”

“Lucille!” The dowager duchess cast her eldest daughter a meaningful look. “See these people to their rooms!”

“Do not trouble yourself, Lucille; I shall see that our guests are comfortable.” Giles bowed elegantly to Tess. “This is your first trip to London? Perhaps you will allow Evelyn and me to introduce you to the city.”

“Do say yes!” cried that young man, and danced around them in circles, the dog barking at his heels. “And Nidget, too, for there are a great many things he has not yet seen.” He tugged at Tess’s sleeve. “You will not mind if Nidget comes along? I promise that he is very sorry for knocking you down, and will not do so again.”

Tess gazed down upon the dog who indeed looked quite penitent, tongue lolling, black eyes raised to her mournfully, and who furthermore threatened to trip her with every ill-considered bound. Then she looked at Evelyn’s hopeful face. “Then he is forgiven.” She smiled. “Nidget must come along.”

The Countess of Lansbury might be in excellent spirits, having met two delightful gentlemen in the space of two short days, but her abigail was less ebullient. Sadly, Delphine considered the implications of the scene she’d just witnessed; and even more sadly she listened to her mistress’s lively, and very knowledgeable, remarks concerning Chateaubriand. Delphine knew, as Tess so obviously did not, that hired companions read not French literature but romantic novels or tomes to improve the mind; she was perfectly aware that the duke’s partisanship was nigh unprecedented and for purposes unthinkable; and she further realized that his defense of her had made for Tess a formidable enemy. The abigail’s misgivings worsened as the duke showed Tess into what had to be the choicest guest chamber, which had certainly been reserved for Clio. The countess gave voice to her enchanting laughter. Delphine frowned so terribly that her eyebrows met her nose.

Chapter 5

Mistress Clio, despite a sleepless night passed in contemplation of the ceiling—hearts and darts set in longitudinal compartments—of her candlelit bedchamber, was in tearing spirits. Whistling in a most unladylike and tuneless manner through her teeth, she performed her ablutions at a washstand covered with gilt arabesques, the marble basin inlaid with silver fish, then moved to inspect herself at the painted and gilt dressing table with a mosaic top. Quite nice she looked, she thought, in her round gown of lawn with its long sash. The dowager duchess would find no cause for criticism.

Gaily, Clio tripped out into the hallway and made her way to the breakfast room. The Duchess of Bellamy had, on first meeting, been overwhelmingly formidable, but Clio was not of a temperament that long sustained awe. Furthermore, Clio had evolved during those long sleepless hours a Plan.

Rather to her surprise, for it was still an early hour, several of her newly discovered relatives were already in the breakfast room, a chamber in which there was a great deal of rococo gilt furniture and yellow damask. Clio suspected that the room might be rather vulgar in its opulence, but no hint of this showed on her charming little face as she made a pretty curtsy to Sapphira, seated near the head of the table. The dowager examined her from head to foot, and did not seem displeased. “Good morning!” cried Clio enthusiastically. “Oh, isn’t it a
lovely
day?”

Various members of the family might be rendered slightly nauseous by such ingenuousness, but Sapphira thought it fitting. “Come here, girl,” she said, with such marked approval that Constant and Drusilla exchanged a pregnant glance. Lucille merely applied herself with determination to her eggs. “Sit there, across from me.”

Clio cast a wicked little smile at the footman who held her chair. He blushed. She seated herself, content. An hour that gained Clio no masculine appreciation was like a day without sunlight.

“Hah!” Sapphira gulped a dish of chocolate. “So you wish to enter Society, miss? You’ll find it very tedious! Dinners and balls are given by the older generation to entertain royalty and statesmen and politicians. Young people are merely allowed to attend.”

“It doesn’t sound dull to me,” Clio replied serenely. She’d already taken this old woman’s measure: Sapphira thrived on conflict. “Balls and concerts, routs and promenades! It will be beyond anything.”

“Humph!” Sapphira was disappointed; she had expected the girl to be entirely crushed by her vague threat. “Prodigiously like your mother—not but what I consider my daughters were entirely to blame for
that
kick-up! I had not expected Mirian to behave so abominably! But I shall say no more.” She paused expectantly but Clio placidly bit into a biscuit.

Mistress Clio was not being deliberately provocative; hers was a one-track mind, devoted usually to herself, and now engaged in schemes concerning her half-sister. It was not to be expected that she should also take upon herself the solving of the puzzle of why her mother had become alienated from the Bellamys. “I suppose,” barked Sapphira, “that your father knew the whole? I would like to hear the tale! Mirian behaved in the most disgraceful manner—though I suppose she would not admit it!”

“Papa?” Clio paused in honest confusion, the biscuit suspended in midair. “Knew what, ma’am? What would Mama not admit?”

“A country bumpkin, no doubt,” deduced Sapphira, with gleeful malice, “with no conversation and less curiosity. He’d think himself blessed to marry so far above his station and forbear to ask questions lest the answers prove unpalatable.”

“You mistake the matter,
Maman!”
Giles appeared, elegant in a single-breasted cloth coat, checked waistcoat, striped nankeen trousers, and pristine cravat; and took his place at the head of the table between Sapphira and his young cousin. “Clio’s father, as she apparently failed to inform you, was the Earl of Lansbury. A scholarly gentleman, I’m told, and a bit of a recluse.” He studied Clio. “She also failed to inform you that her journey here was enlivened by an encounter with highwaymen.”

“How,” demanded Clio, briefly forgetting her missish guise, “did you know of
that?
We agreed to say nothing of it, since no harm was done.”

Giles accepted a cup of coffee and leisurely sipped the steaming liquid. “It is my habit,” he explained, “to indulge in an early morning ride. I saw your carriage—it is most elegant,
Maman;
our Clio travels in style—and engaged in conversation with your coachman. A most informative man! It was he who told me of the attempted robbery.”

Clio was in a quandary; what else had the coachman said? She was full of admiration for the talent of Tess in this daring attempt to bamboozle the dowager duchess, which freakishness the countess explained as an attempt to avoid being herself presented in Society, where she would feel like a fish out of water; but Clio could also see that the deception might prove most difficult. Nor, if the truth be told, did Tess’s self-effacement please her sister, who had very different ends in mind.

Giles was speaking again; apparently the coachman had not given them away. “Imagine!” he said, as he helped himself to a slice of ham. “They were set upon, ambushed in broad daylight! That they escaped unscathed was due only to the pistols carried by Clio’s footmen, the skill of her coachman, and the excellence of her horseflesh. Miraculous! I trust you appreciate your people, cousin.”

“Oh, I do!” Clio replied fervently. She could only assume that Tess had somehow gotten word to the servants. Had Clio but known it, the coachman deserved more than praise, having had scant sleep the night before performing his superhuman feat, due to Sir Morgan’s request that he guard his mistress’s bedroom door.

“Shocking!” agreed Constant. His jowls wobbled as he shook his head. “I have often lamented the condition of the roads. But you are in looks today, Miss Clio! We must be grateful that so dreadful an experience did not overset your nerves. It would be usual, I believe, in most young girls.”

“
I,
” pointed out Clio, with commendable honesty, “am not like most young girls.” Oddly, she thought she heard Giles stifle a laugh.

Sapphira was speaking, and in stern tones. “It is considered rude,” she decreed, “for a young woman not to affect an air of being a little carried away by the gentleman she is conversing with! You will do well to remember that, if to get a husband is your aim.”

Clio looked at Constant, with his stout and flabby figure and, as she had already learned, damp hands; and almost rebelled. “Surely,” murmured Giles, “we need not consider such things within the bosom of the family. Need Clio concern herself with snaring a husband so soon? She can be no more than seventeen.”