Maggie MacKeever (10 page)

That contact gave her renewed courage—or perhaps foolishness. “Perhaps it might help,” she ventured, “if I spoke with Lady Grey.’’

Chapter Eleven

Tabby set out through the streets of Brighton, past buildings that were gaily painted and plastered as if to make up for the local absence of timber and stone. Her destination was Lady Grey’s lodging on the Royal Crescent. Tabby might have undertaken to meet her own executioner with more enthusiasm than she did her task.

Still, something must be done about this dreadful muddle, and Tabby could think of no other step. Surely Lady Grey would not be impervious to reason. If she cared for her fiancé, she would not be eager to believe the worst. She might even lend her efforts to achieving some happy resolution of the current troubles. Heaven knew Tabby would welcome assistance from any source.

Surely Lady Grey was not so unreasonable as she had been made out. The Elphinstones were prone to exaggeration, as Tabby knew well. Having mustered as optimistic a frame of mind as was possible, she walked up to Lady Grey’s front door.

The footman who answered Tabby’s summons was not welcoming. “Lady Grey is not at home,” he said haughtily, and made to close the portal. Tabby thwarted him with an inventiveness born of desperation. “Lady Grey must be in!” she cried. “She is expecting me to call.”

The footman raised his brows fractionally higher. “The mistress isn’t expecting anyone,” he retorted. “She told me so herself. At the same time she told me to turn away anyone who came calling, because she wasn’t up to receiving visitors.” He looked suspicious. “Particularly if their name was Elphinstone.”

Tabby decided not to send word to Lady Grey that Sir Geoffrey’s governess was here. Rather, his daughters’ governess, though Tabby felt at this particular moment that Sir Geoffrey was her most troublesome charge. She might smile now to remember how she had worried about her ability to instruct the Misses Elphinstone in such commonplace topics as grammar and geography and the gloves; she might even think wistfully of employers who required a governess to spend her spare moments stitching a tidy seam. But the footman was preparing to close the door with her on the outside. “Maybe Lady Grey is not precisely expecting me,” Tabby said quickly, “but she should have known I’d call. Tell her—tell her I must speak to her regarding a very delicate matter. I can say no more at the moment, but also mention to her the name Quarles.”

The footman’s jaw dropped open. Lady Grey’s high principles did not prevent the servants in her employ from enjoying a gossip about their betters. The footman had not been surprised to learn that Sir Geoffrey had a wandering eye; it was not a prerogative solely of the upper class. The footman had a bit of an eye for the ladies himself. But he
was
astonished at the temerity of this female walking right up to the front door. And he was even more astonished at her appearance. “Quarles!” he repeated. “Cor!”

Tabby wondered why the footman was staring so at her. She took advantage of his befuddlement to walk past him into the entry hall. “Shouldn’t you inform your mistress that I am here?” she asked.

The footman didn’t know what he should do, so thunderstruck was he. This bizarre situation must be referred to his superiors, posthaste. Perhaps the butler would have an opinion, or the housekeeper. “Follow me, ma’am.” He abandoned Tabby in a small anteroom as he fled for help.

Tabby didn’t mind being left alone; it gave her an opportunity to collect her thoughts and marshal her arguments. Lady Grey must be brought to realize that Sir Geoffrey, above all, was good and generous and kind. Perhaps he was also a trifle foolish, but that did not signify, surely, in light of his other excellent qualities?

Tabby sighed. It would be difficult to convince Lady Grey of something she didn’t believe herself. Tabby didn’t think she’d want a husband who was foolish, no matter how generous and kind. Not that she was likely to have a husband of any nature now. This was hardly a fit moment in which to mourn her spinster state, particularly since a tall and very superior-looking female had walked into the anteroom and was looking disapprovingly at her. So disapprovingly, indeed, that Tabby wondered if she had a rip or a smudge. “Lady Grey?” she asked, though she knew it could not be. By all accounts Lady Grey was as beautiful as she was disagreeable.

The woman’s long nose twitched. “I’m Grimsley,” she said. Very fortunate it was that the shaken footman had encountered Grimsley; she had more opinions than the butler and housekeeper combined. “Her ladyship’s abigail. Herself sent me to fetch you.” She walked down the hallway and up the stair, leaving Tabby to keep up as best she could. So brisk was Grimsley’s pace that Tabby was breathless when the abigail stopped outside a door. “ Herself is within,” she said, and stepped back a pace.

Tabby stared at the closed door and then at Grimsley. The abigail looked wooden, a task to which her harsh features were suited admirably. Tabby took a deep breath, turned the door handle and walked into the room, taking a somewhat unchristian pleasure in closing the door in Grimsley’s face.

The room was in shadow, the draperies drawn. Tabby paused just inside the doorway while her eyes adjusted to the dim light. All was quiet except for the ticking of an ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. Tabby wondered if the abigail had led her to the wrong room.

Lady Grey had the advantage; her own eyes were accustomed to the gloom. She stared at the intruder, who stood so very far away that her features were indistinct. From this distance, she didn’t look the sort of female who—who would wear that absurd hat. At least she’d had sufficient sensibility to adapt a more subdued fashion for her visit here. A pity her sensibility hadn’t been sufficiently exquisite to keep her away altogether! Augusta rose abruptly from the daybed upon which she had been resting and flung open the drapes.

As sunlight so suddenly poured into the room, Tabby gasped. “Goodness, but you startled me! I had thought I was quite alone.” Still the woman silhouetted against the bright window did not speak. “Lady Grey?” Tabby asked doubtfully.

Augusta was also feeling doubtful. She had broached a bottle of her deceased spouse’s excellent claret—not that she was a secret tippler; wine-and-water was known to be an excellent headache cure—and now wondered if the liquor had adversely affected her eyesight. The intruder looked absurdly young, but Gus’s far vision had never been good.

Certainly the liquor had affected her reasoning abilities. Gus’s initial response to this intrusion was curiosity. “I have a headache,” she said, and vaguely waved the dampened handkerchief that had lain across her brow. “Come closer, do!”

So peremptory was that tone of voice that Tabby instantly obeyed. She felt like an applicant for a post, quavering under Lady Grey’s stern gaze. Obviously Lady Grey realized that she was the Elphinstone governess. That was one explanation saved.

“I would have expected you to be more, er, flamboyant,” remarked Lady Grey. “Perhaps that hat was a single aberration in good taste. Not that you are to be commended for your current course of action. Tell me, I do entreat you, what purpose you think to accomplish here?”

What hat? wondered Tabby. The stench of eau de cologne in the small room was enough to give anyone a headache. “I wished to speak to you,” she responded. “In Sir Geoffrey’s behalf.”

“In Sir Geoffrey’s—” So startled was Lady Grey by this information that she sank back down on her day bed. “I never heard of such a thing!”

Lady Grey had more in common with the Elphinstones than Tabby had imagined, including a certain incomprehensibility of speech. “Sir Geoffrey is in a sad way,” she persisted. “He is so unhappy that we fear for his health. I do not mean to presume, but I fear you have done him a great disservice, ma’am.”

“A great disservice,” echoed Lady Grey. Her initial shock—a less kind person might say inebriation—was wearing off, and a vast anger was taking its place. How dare this brazen hussy accost her in her own home and accuse her of acting shabbily? With her back to the bright window, so Augusta still had no clear notion of what she looked like?

That at least would change. With resolution Lady Grey abandoned her daybed, strode across the room, and grasped the intruder by the arm. At last she had a clear view of her rival’s face.

Augusta stared. “Gracious!” she said weakly. “You’re just a child. The man must be mad. He looks mad. I thought so just the other day when I told him that our betrothal was at an end.”

Tabby thought that not only Sir Geoffrey’s powers of logic were in question. Like called to like, after all. But clearly Lady Grey doubted her qualifications and must be reassured. “I am not so very young!” Tabby said hastily. “And youth is not always a disadvantage, you know! I am perhaps more flexible than an older woman in my position—more able to adjust to new situations. I am not so young that I cannot give satisfaction, I promise you!”

Lady Grey was overwhelmed by such outspokenness. She released Tabby and fumbled for her vinaigrette. “Depraved! The man is positively depraved!” she moaned.

“Surely not!” Tabby was mystified to know what had inspired Lady Grey’s outburst. “If he has misbehaved, it is nothing so terribly bad, because the gentlemen will occasionally do that which we would rather they did not, you know!”

Lady Grey did not know, nor did she wish to, nor did she doubt Tabby’s ability to present her with numerous accounts of errant gentlemen, complete in every detail. “I beg I may hear of no such thing!” she cried. “Such vice in one so young—it’s Geoffrey’s fault, of course! What a monster of depravity he is, to first, er, take advantage of you and then send you here to intercede for him!”

Sir Geoffrey had taken advantage of her? Tabby supposed he had. Lady Grey was certainly prone to see things in the worst possible light. “You put too fine a point on it,” she protested. “Perhaps matters appear a trifle irregular, but had not Sir Geoffrey come to my rescue, my situation would have been much too dreadful to contemplate. But I did not come here to speak of myself! Pray reconsider your decision, Lady Grey. Sir Geoffrey is so unhappy that I fear he may go into a decline.”

She was expected to care about Geoffrey’s well-being? So far as Augusta was concerned, that vilest of seducers could sink speedily into the bowels of hell. She had been right to have reservations about him. What a fool he had made of her! At her age she should have known better than to believe his pretty blandishments. Augusta experienced a sense of burning resentment at the easy, skillful manner in which he’d led her astray.

The last cobwebs of sleep and claret were dissipated now by her resentment. “Hussy!” she cried. “Trollop! What gall you exhibit in coming here, what colossal nerve! But I am not surprised; I know of your sort! Not that I am accustomed to entertaining bits o’ muslin in my house!”

Tabby stared at Lady Grey. “Good God!” she said. “You think that I-”

“I don’t think!” interrupted Lady Grey, with admirable accuracy. “I
know!
I hope I am not one to kick up a dust over trifles, but I find myself totally unable to swallow this with a good grace. Oh, why did you come here? As if that were not improper enough, then you forced me to listen to you, instead of having immediately had you shown the door. And now you will bandy
that
all about the town, as well as the other, and I shall seem little better than one of the wicked myself, in addition to being a laughingstock!’’

Lady Grey made a pathetic figure, dropping on her daybed, a sight pitiful enough to wring the hardest heart. Tabby might well have pitied the woman, had not the suggestion that she was Sir Geoffrey
’s petite amie
inspired her with the giggles. “It is a misunderstanding!” she gasped. “I’m not! How could you think— Oh! Because of the name Quarles!”

“You’re laughing!” Augusta was pink with outrage. “You’re
laughing!
Have you no sensibility, you horrid thing?”

Tabby choked back her laughter. “Well, no, I don’t think I must!” she confessed. “Which is as well for all concerned, since it is apparently up to me to see that this muddle is cleared up. If you will forgive my plainspokenness, Lady Grey, you have treated Sir Geoffrey very shabbily, and by so doing have brought a great deal of misery upon both him and yourself.’’

Forgive such plainspokenness? Augusta was not one to tolerate in others a virtue that she did not cultivate herself. “Oh!” she said faintly, and swooned gracefully across the daybed.

Tabby regarded the recumbent Lady Grey with some dismay. She was making a sad botch of this attempt at affecting a reconciliation, it seemed. Why Sir Geoffrey was so enamored of Lady Grey, Tabby could not imagine;

a female of such determined refinement must find it difficult to coexist with any lesser being.

It was not Tabby’s place to question her employer’s choice. With a sigh, she picked up the vinaigrette and waved it beneath Lady Grey’s delicate nose. This having little effect, she then tried to loosen the fastening of Augusta’s yellow-spotted muslin gown.

Lady Grey regained her senses then, to realize that the female who had been before her in Sir Geoffrey’s affections was now making bold with her own person in a very forward way. What
was
the creature about? It passed human bearing. “Grimsley!” Augusta wailed.

Grimsley had been hovering in the hallway, awaiting just that summons—and quite an earful she’d gotten in the meantime; there was no doubt who’d be the center of attention at the servants’ table this day. She drew herself up to her full height, put on her sternest face, and went forth to evict the encroaching Mrs. Quarles.

Chapter Twelve

Vivien Sanders wore a brooding expression as he walked down the hallway of the house his sister had hired for the summer. Not all the visitors who flocked to Brighton were attracted by the salubrious waters or the bracing breezes that benefited sluggish and debilitated constitutions; nor by the possibility of viewing the remains of old Saxon camps, or royalty at play at the Pavilion, or the Tenth in review. Not that Vivien had failed to enjoy all these diversions in the past, as well as water parties and riding on the Downs, and above all the Lewes and Brighton Race Meetings, traditionally held at the end of July. However, none of these attractions had lured Vivien, this time, to Brighton. And he had not, despite appearances, followed the divine Sara there. Indeed, at this particular moment, there was no thought of that lady in his mind.