Maggie MacKeever (12 page)

Though Henrietta was not in the habit of dagger-drawing with those beneath whose roof she sojourned, she did not kindly accept criticism from any source. “You seem to have a high opinion of Lord Parrington,” she remarked, laying Eleanor’s unkind words smack at Lady Amabel’s door.

“I do.” Lady March was relieved that Henrietta did not mean to sulk. “He was quite unassuming and polite, in addition to being handsome as an Adonis, as Mab had claimed.” Privately, Nell thought Mab’s papa hadn’t been far off the mark when he called the baron a popinjay. Still one could not fairly censure a young man for being a trifle
too
cool and polite. “Indeed, I doubt there is anything in Parrington to disapprove.”

Here was high praise! As she judiciously fingered some cottage twill, Henrietta wondered what it meant. Perhaps she had been mistaken in assuming that Eleanor’s devotion to Marriot was complete. Perhaps Eleanor had, or was at least tempted to—Parrington
was
very attractive, and there was a scant couple years difference in their ages— Gracious! Little wonder, did the wind blow in this direction, that Eleanor had not hesitated to leave Marriot alone with the flirtatious Lady Amabel. Were her husband lured into an entanglement, Eleanor could pursue inclination with a guiltless conscience. Henrietta dropped the cottage twill and turned upon Lady March a horrified glance.

“I hope that now you don’t mean to tell me Parrington is also to be censured!” protested Nell upon glimpsing Henrietta’s Friday face. “Because I do not wish to hear any such thing. And since I have given Parrington leave to call on us, you may as well reconcile yourself to his frequent presence in Marcham Towers—yes, and I must have your word that you will cease to publish the details of our daily existence to the world!”

With this last ungenerous accusation, Henrietta could not fairly quarrel; it was largely due to her efforts that so many rumors and speculations had greeted Marriot’s return. By the indication that her suspicions were not without foundation, however, Henrietta was both horrified and thrilled. One did not
wish
disgrace to descend upon one’s family—but if Lady Katherine had been overset by the intelligence that Lady Amabel had kissed Fergus, the intelligence that Nell contemplated doing likewise would render her prostrate. “Gracious!” Henrietta said aloud.

Already regretting her hasty words, Lady March gazed in a somewhat gloomy manner upon a pair of elegant French gloves. “We understand each other, I think,” she added somewhat lamely. “Now let us talk of other things.”

Understood each other? Henrietta fancied she understood Eleanor very well indeed. Amabel wasn’t the only female who hankered after Lord Parrington. Nell would like to be equally resourceful. Perhaps it wasn’t Marriot whose misconduct had sparked the quarrel that had resulted in his disappearance. Perhaps it was Eleanor who was at fault.

“Why are you staring at me in that exceedingly odd manner?” Lady March inquired plaintively. “If I have wounded your sensibilities, I am sorry for it, but there were things that needed to be said. Now tell me your preference as regards these gloves.”

That matter at length settled, as result of which Nell became possessor of a pair of gloves she neither needed nor liked, the ladies proceeded back out into the street. Slowly, they strolled down the busy thoroughfare to where the carriage waited. Avidly, Henrietta drank in the sights of street sellers and pedestrians, shop windows displaying everything from colored prints to china and glass.

Nell’s concentration was focused on less frivolous matters. “Those robberies you were telling me about,” she said abruptly. “Have there been further developments? Have the thieves been caught?”

Eleanor’s question caught Henrietta by surprise.
“What
robberies—oh! I have read no more about it lately—but you may be sure the culprits will not long escape the notice of Bow Street.”

“Ah.” Lady March hoped she might be sure of no such thing. “Then what will happen to them, do you think?”

“What will happen to the thieves, you mean?” A queer question, Henrietta thought. “The same thing that usually happens to thieves, I suppose. They will be clapped in prison, there to await their trial.”

The ladies had arrived at the carriage, an elegant cabriolet that sported the family crest. “And after they stand their trial,
then
what?” inquired Eleanor, as she climbed inside.

“Why, then I suppose they will be either transported or hanged.” Henrietta settled her bulk on the cotton-upholstered seat. “You are very interested in these robberies, Eleanor!”

Little did Henrietta realize the extent of her interest, Lady March thought grimly. Nor did Eleanor intend she should find out. “Anyone must be concerned. If this menace is permitted to continue unchecked, it will be safe for no one to venture out-of-doors.”

With a pleasurable shudder, as if she expected to be momentarily set upon, Henrietta surveyed the street. Discovering no dangerous-looking scoundrels lurking among the pedestrians and street sellers, the porters and ballad singers and clerks, she sank back on her seat. “I make no doubt the rascals will eventually be brought to justice,” she said indifferently. “There have been handbills distributed, and reward offered.”

Handbills? Reward? With every fresh disclosure, Eleanor grew more apprehensive, until she expected momentarily to be taken into custody herself, in connection with a certain shabby valise currently hid beneath her four-poster bedstead. “I know little of such things,” she murmured. “What exactly is done to people who break the law?”

Though Henrietta was little better informed, it was not her practice to admit ignorance. She drew on her active imagination, well-fueled by the newssheets. “The most dreadful things, upon my word!” she responded knowledgeably. “You would not believe the half of it!”

“Such as?” Nell prepared to hear the worst.

Henrietta was not long at a loss. “I could not reconcile it with my conscience to speak to you of such improper things,” she said piously. Then her glance sharpened. “Why are you
so
curious, by the by? Since you do not wear jewelry, you are not likely to be robbed.”

The last thing Lady March wished to do was further rouse Henrietta’s suspicions. Already Marriot hesitated to send her packing, lest she sense something in the wind. “Anyone must be curious!” Nell protested. “When you said you had read no more about the robberies lately, did you mean that none have occurred recently, or that you have not been reading the news-sheets?”

“I meant that, to the best of my knowledge, no further robberies have occurred for several days.” Henrietta would have sooner given up her morning chocolate than her newssheets—this, despite her taste for sweets. What possible reason could Eleanor have for this sudden interest in crime and punishment?

Abruptly, an explanation presented itself. Henrietta’s eyes bulged. “Eleanor! You don’t think that Marriot—”

“Of course I do not!” Frantic to put off her companion, Eleanor looked—and sounded—very cross. “I beg you will not be such a ninnyhammer, Henrietta! I merely do not care to think I may be murdered in my bed.” This unfortunate choice of words prompted her to grimace. “By thieves!”

Henrietta abandoned the intriguing notion of why thieves should thus comport themselves in Lady March’s bedchamber for even more intriguing speculation upon what connection thieves might have with the bizarre behavior of Lord March. Or perhaps their involvement was with Lady Amabel, whose conduct had lately been more than strange. That some connection existed, Henrietta was certain. Her instinct for mischief was acute.

Nor was Henrietta distracted by Eleanor’s attempts to throw her off the track. “Just why
did
Marriot disappear in that queer manner?” she inquired.

“He did not mean to disappear, precisely.” Now it was Lady March who fixed her attention on the street. “We have explained all that. What has Marriot to do with the present conversation? I thought we were talking about thieves. Of course, we are much less likely to fall victim to such villains now that there is again a man in the house! Not that the servants weren’t there all along—but you know what I mean!”

“Do not distress yourself, Eleanor!” In point of fact, Henrietta did
not
take Lady March’s meaning, nor know what had prompted the distressed look on her patrician face. “I will not press you further for an explanation, even though it’s my opinion no one can seriously credit the story you’ve put about. Cornwall! Poppycock! But that’s no bread-and-butter of mine. Just remember, Eleanor, should you wish to
confide
in someone, that my concern must always be your best interest!”

“Thank you, Henrietta! You are very good.” Only barely did Lady March repress a shudder. Confidences as rendered up to Henrietta would speedily be noised about the town. “I will bear in mind your offer—though I cannot imagine what I would wish to confide in anyone about!”

“Can you not?” Henrietta brushed futilely at the wisps of white hair that had escaped from beneath her domed straw bonnet to tickle cheek and brow. “But I am promised to say no more on that head!” Once more she glanced out into the street, then frowned. “How odd!”

“What is odd?” Eleanor thrust aside a graphic vision of her husband being taken into custody for the possession of stolen goods, and summarily hanged. “What are you looking at?”

Henrietta was looking at a bonnet of red silk trimmed round the front with black velvet and ornamented with a black feather—a bonnet which she fancied she’d seen several times before. Could they be being
followed?
The bonnet was swallowed up in the crush of traffic and pedestrians. “I had thought—but it was just my imagination!” she replied.

CHAPTER TWELVE

While Henrietta imagined that she was being followed by a red silk bonnet trimmed with black velvet and a feather, Amabel was indulging in some imaginative reasoning of her own. “Fergus’s ardor has cooled,” she said sadly. “It must have done—I never was so snubbed—not that he was all that ardent in the first place! Would
you
require that a girl ask you to kiss her, Marriot?”

Lord March glanced up from his book. “That would depend upon the young lady,” he responded with quirked brow.

Lady Amabel wrinkled her pretty nose, which was a not unbecoming shade of pink. Mab was not looking quite herself, result of having passed a very agitated night, during which visions of Lord Parrington and his mama had paraded incessantly through her head. “You are bamming me,” she said. “I know you don’t truly want to kiss anyone but Nell. Nor should you! But
did
you wish to do so, even did it land you in the briars, surely you wouldn’t then tell a girl she shouldn’t have asked you to in the first place!”

Since further opportunity for a perusal of its pages was to be denied him, Marriot set aside his book. “This young man of yours sounds like a dull stick.”

“A dull—oh!” Amabel was hurt. “How prodigious unfeeling you are, Marriot. Fergus is no such thing. And if he is, it’s entirely his mama’s fault. I’ll tell you what, Marriot: sometimes I wish I’d stayed in the country.”

With this sentiment, Lord March sympathized; sometimes he wished he’d remained safely indoors on a certain fateful evening instead of sallying forth to White’s. This opinion he put forth.

“One cannot
blame
Fergus for being prodigious concerned about what his mama may say to him,” insisted Mab, as she paced the solar. Mab was this day in perfect harmony with her Elizabethan surroundings, in her round gown of yellow spotted muslin, wearing a tall steeple hat she’d retrieved from the attics, and carrying a lute. “I don’t doubt for a moment that the old tartar can kick up a dreadful rowdy-do. If only Fergus had a little more resolution! The next thing I know his mama will have persuaded him to hedge off.” She paused by the counting table. “Bother the woman! Let us talk of something else.”

Lord March, seated on an embroidered chair, stretched out his long legs, clad this day in unmentionables and hessian boots, with which he wore a buff kerseymere waistcoat, and a single-breasted morning coat of olive-green cloth. “Gladly, brat!” he said.

“Am I being a dreadful bore?” Looking rueful, Lady Amabel drew up a studded, velvet-upholstered stool. “I apologize. I’m not accustomed to being treated in a cavalier fashion, Marriot—no, or to admirers who blow first hot, then cold.” She rubbed her reddened nose. “Not that Fergus was ever other than lukewarm! It will serve me right for putting myself forward, you think. But I don’t mean to go boring on about
my
sad fix! I havn’t forgot that yours is much worse.”

Though Marriot had hardly overlooked his problems, Mab’s lamentations had allowed him a temporary respite. Now, unhappily, he recalled that he had a veritable quicksand from which to extricate himself, and no means of rescue in sight. “I had expected some indication from someone by now,” he admitted. “Apparently I was too optimistic. The only reaction to my return that I have noticed is a great deal of gabble-grinding as to why I went away!”

“Yet someone must know the truth of it.” Mab looked enchanting in her tall hat, which was made of the white bark of a lime tree and adorned with fringes and braids and peacock plumes. “What about the person—or people—who hit you over the head? Who may or may not have been the thieves? And what about the thieves themselves, who
must
know you have the jewels?”

“I could well be a thief myself, remember.” Lord March reached out for the lute. “We must not discount that possibility—or the possibility that ho one knows I
have
the accursed things, although I can’t think how that might have come about.”

Lord March’s thinking, Mab had noticed, went forth much more lucidly when his wife was not in the immediate vicinity. It must be very nice to command such devotion, she thought sadly, recalling Lord Parrington’s preoccupation with whether his parent had got the wind up.

But prolonged contemplation of Fergus and his mama would only cast her into despair. “You’re not scorched, are you, Marriot? Run aground? Because if you
did
steal those jewels, there must be some reason
why.”