Maggie MacKeever (30 page)

“Nephew,” stressed the Baroness, before Ivor could voice an indignant retort. “That is the key word, I believe. There is an old adage, Calvert, suggesting that people who live in glass houses should refrain from throwing stones.”

Percy’s flushed features had turned ashen. He looked accusingly at Leda. “You told her?”

“I told no one,” retorted Leda. Ivor looked stunned. “Save Mary Elphinstone, and that was a confession for which I dearly paid. For years the wretch blackmailed me.”

“That will teach you,” Lady Bligh said severely, “the dangers of drowning one’s sorrows.” Crump followed the odd conversation with bewilderment. Could it be that Viscount Jeffries was not Lord Calvert’s nephew, but his son?

Mignon, who had come to a similar conclusion, took pity on Percy’s distress. “So you went to Jesse’s apartments,” she murmured to Dulcie, “hoping to catch them all with their misgotten gains. I don’t understand why they had to kill Mary Elphinstone.”

“They didn’t
have
to,” said Dulcie. “I fancy Barrymore enjoyed murder for its own sake. They had rifled Leda’s lodgings, you will recall, and doubtless found among her papers some reference to Mary Elphinstone. I imagine it seemed to Tolly a perfect opportunity to have Leda appear guilty of Mary’s murder in case she somehow cleared herself of Warwick’s death. Consequently, the footprints around the well, made by Leda’s shoes, which I imagine Charity wore.”

“She did.” Mignon remembered the day she’d seen the maidservant limping. “I suppose the jewels were left there for Bow Street to find, thereby implicating Leda in the robberies?”

“Yes.” The Baroness favored Crump with a severe look. “Bow Street overlooked a great deal. Zoe was killed because she refused to disprove Ivor’s alibis. It was Charity, incidentally, who released the truth of Ivor’s relationship with Leda to the newspapers. You will recall, Jessop, that I tried to prevent your untimely confession. Charity made a practice of listening at keyholes.”

“It seems to me, Baroness,” Crump said testily, “that you could have prevented a great deal of this!”

“Proof, Crump, proof. One cannot proceed on mere conjecture. And Mignon, given the opportunity, displayed considerable spirit.”

Leda cackled. “I told you, girl, that your aunt would have plans for you.” She squinted at the milling crowd, and then raised her voice. “Willie!” Lord Calvert winced.

Willie fluttered up to them and saluted Dulcie’s hand. “I have a present for you, Lady Bligh! A token of my appreciation.” He dropped a rather untidy package into her lap

“I do adore surprises!” said the Baroness, with an odd glance at the doorway. “I take it you’ve had a successful interview with Kean?”

“I have.” Willie was blissful. “He has agreed to replace Jesse, though at a staggering price. Alas, that so noble a figure should nevermore tread the boards! Such are the workings of Fate, I suppose.”

“A noble figure, indeed,” mocked Dulcie, her slender fingers busy untying knots. “Had not Jesse had so great an urge to triumph on the stage, you would have been killed after forging those banknotes. Tolly was not one to leave potentially dangerous tools lying idly around.” Her voice was very stern. “Don’t you think it time you explained those abraded knuckles of yours?”

Willie looked wounded. “Never had I thought to see so many aspersions cast upon my character!” He spread his hands and flexed his fingers, looking remarkably like a bird preparing for flight. “I suppose it makes no difference now to admit that there were not one but two attempts made on my life. Hired thugs, no doubt. They could not be expected to know that a journalist early learns a certain nimbleness of foot and manual expertise. Though I may be slight of stature, I am not less handy with my fists than with my pen.”

Leda snorted. “Does this successful play mean that you will no longer wield that pen in my behalf, Willie? Has the world seen the last of the Bystander?”

“Why, Leda!” Willie raised his monocle, this one on a black velvet ribbon and set in gold. “Do you mean to continue with your career? I had thought you might retire from the profession now that your circumstances have so drastically changed.”

“Retire?” Leda was offended. “Never! I would never consider such a thing.” Lord Calvert uttered a sound remarkably like a moan.

“Pardon,” said Ivor, and took Mignon’s hand. She gazed up at him. “Does that mean what I think it does?”

“Yes,” replied his mother calmly, “though I quite forgot to tell you in the fuss. Your uncle and I have decided at last to, er, legalize our relationship.”

“Better late than never. It will save no end of legal fuss.” Lady Bligh rose gracefully to her feet. She looked at the Runner. “You will find Gibbon presiding over the refreshments. Crump. I suggest you owe him an apology.”

What Crump owed Gibbon was a tongue-lashing, and he was not at all averse to delivering it. Reflecting that Lord Calvert did not appear particularly thrilled at the prospect of matrimony, he wandered into the anteroom.

“In that case,” mused Willie, “I believe the Bystander will write an article lauding the detective abilities of Lady Bligh. It will be a masterpiece of pithy acumen, though it will not show the authorities in a particularly favorable light. All I require now is an appropriate headline.” But he had lost his audience. Willie craned his neck to gawk at the doorway, as had everyone else in the huge room.

The gentleman who paused there was worthy of their fascinated attention; indeed, it was only his just due. He was tall and muscularly fashioned; his dark hair and beard were streaked with gray; his bronzed face was so magnificent of feature that he might have been called beautiful if not for the nose that was harshly aquiline, the lips that were frankly sensuous. If any of the Baron’s attributes could be adjudged more remarkable than another, the prize would have to have been awarded to his black eyes. Set beneath strongly marked brows and heavy lids, those mesmeric orbs were irresistibly seductive.

The crowd parted silently as Lord Bligh strolled into the room. Like royalty, thought Mignon, though no prince she’d ever seen had possessed so regal a bearing or moved so confidently. Miss Montague now understood why the bolder of her uncle’s exploits had been kept from her ears. The swashbuckling Baron’s most exotic explorations had no doubt taken place in the boudoir.

As her aunt might have informed her, Mignon’s deductions were correct. Maximilian Bonaventure Bligh was the most profligate of rakehells, an unparalleled voluptuary, steeped in vice and iniquity, lost alike to virtue and shame, a libertine who even in that enlightened age would dare practice
droit de seigneur;
and there was not a female present who didn’t take one look at his compellingly amoral visage and wish that he would make her wicked, for there could surely be no more rapturous fate than to be led by the Baron into sin.

“Maximilian,” said the Baroness, and held out a languid hand.

“Not Bat?” he inquired, regarding his wife with a hunger that made every woman in the room more than slightly envious. “I conclude that I am in your good graces again.”

“You are.” Lady Bligh cast an assessing glance over his superb physique. Her husband was clad in an elegant blue coat with gilt buttons, a white velvet waistcoat, frilled shirt and lace ruffles, light kerseymere smallclothes and a muslin cravat with a huge ruby pin. Another ruby flashed on one bronzed hand. “As I will shortly demonstrate. But first I must make you acquainted with your niece. Mignon!”

The Baron turned and Miss Montague was subjected for the first time to the full impact of his gaze.
One
would have no secrets from this man, she thought, dazed; those piercing eyes stripped one to the soul, exposed every vulnerability. “Charmed!” murmured Lord Bligh, and flashed his niece a smile that left her positively weak-kneed.

So forceful was the Baron’s personality that the arrival of yet another guest had gone unremarked. Going unnoticed did not please Lady Montague, although in precedence Lord Bligh outranked her, the widow of a mere knight. With a viselike hand, she urged her son forward. Maurice wondered if Dulcie might help him to persuade his parent to return to Yorkshire while he remained unchaperoned in town.

“There you are!” said Lady Montague. Mignon blanched and clung to Ivor’s arm. “I’d like to know just what you’ve been up to, miss! Your brother has been telling me the most remarkable things.”

“Has he?” inquired Lady Bligh, looking a trifle bemused, perhaps due to the fact that Lord Bligh was caressing her bare shoulders. “Then you know that Mignon is to marry Lord Jeffries.”

“My poor girl!” Lady Montague’s faded beauty was not enhanced by the martyred expression that she wore. “It is not necessary. I will allow no one to force a marriage that is repugnant to you.”

“You misunderstand, Mama,” replied Mignon, not at all happy with this scene. “I
want
to marry Ivor.”

“Well!” Lady Montague was remarkably displeased at the thought of losing a live-in companion who would fetch her myriad medicines, bathe her aching brow with lavender water, and who furthermore did not require to be paid. “I consider it a shocking negligence that no one has thought to consult me.”

“There was no need.” Dulcie leaned back against her husband’s muscular chest. “Maximilian is the head of the family, and he will give his consent.”

Lady Montague, no admirer of the adventurous Baron, glanced at his swarthy face, at the supple fingers that had moved from the Baroness’s shoulders to her bare forearms, and hastily looked away. “What of this Lord Barrymore who you described in such glowing terms?” she demanded of her son. “I thought you said
he
was to marry Mignon.”

“He would have liked to,” replied Maurice. “Had not Dulcie shot him dead.”

“Dead!” gasped Lady Montague, and staggered back a pace.

“Dulcinea,”
said the Baron, devils dancing in his eyes. “I congratulate you on your aim.”

“It is not felicitations that I would have from you, Maximilian.” Dulcie turned in his arms. “But a certain felicity.” The fifth Baron Bligh, to the scandalized gratification of their various guests, swept his wife off her feet and into his arms.

“I have it!” sighed Willie, a trifle wistfully. “ ‘The Further Adventures of the Baroness of Bow Street’
.
”

Copyright © 1980 by Gail Clark

Originally published by Pocket (067183391X)

Electronically published in 2008 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.