Maggie MacKeever (23 page)

Vivien glanced at Tabby, who was seated on a wooden bench, with Ermyntrude and Drusilla on either side. She was very pale. But he had known she was very fond of Elphinstone; had she not said so all along? Vivien supposed he would have to refrain from damaging the cad too badly, for her sake.

Mr. Philpotts and St. Erth were making some small progress, having decided that since Lady Grey was Mr. Sanders’s sister, then he must have challenged Sir Geoffrey to a duel on her behalf. This was a grave matter, indeed. Any insult to a lady under a gentlemen’s care or protection was considered a greater offense than if given to the gentleman directly. “Yes,” Osbert said judiciously, “but can Lady Grey be considered to be under Mr. Sanders’s care?” The viscount considered and allowed himself uncertain on that point. “But,” he added, “offenses originating from the support of a lady’s reputation must be considered less justifiable than any other kind!”

Vivien had little patience with this business of seconds. “Confound it,” he said. “This business has nothing to do with Gus.”

Sir Geoffrey looked bewildered. “No? The devil, man! Then what do you mean by—”

Gus herself came running around the side of the building then. “Geoffrey! You are surprised to see me here. Yes, and so you should be.” She realized that she had interrupted a tense moment and paused to hear Mr. Philpotts and the viscount discussing the merits of Joe Manton’s dueling pistols, which boasted such refinements as a hydraulic barrel tester, a trigger spring, and a fast-firing breech.

“No!” cried Gus, and flung herself between Sir Geoffrey and Vivien. “I did not mean what I said, Vivien. You must not call him out!”

Mr. Philpotts and St. Erth exchanged meaningful glances. Decision making was a thirsty business, even without interruptions by hysterical females. The gentlemen, along with Perry, withdrew to the taproom to refresh themselves with ale.

Lady Grey clutched Sir Geoffrey’s jacket. “I was very angry with you, Geoffrey! So angry that I could not even sleep. Each time I closed my eyes, I found myself imagining the most distressing things.”

Sir Geoffrey was also distressed to see his Gus in such a taking. And he could not help but be encouraged by the sight. “M’dear!” he said hopefully.

Lady Grey held up a trembling hand. “No, don’t interrupt! I am determined to have my say. I tried very hard to set my face most sternly against you—I felt my heart must break! All the same, I could not believe that you were
truly
a philanderer.” She gazed up at him beseechingly. “Pray tell me that you are not, Geoffrey! Of course, it was very foolish of me to think you had remained, er, faithful all these years to the memory of your poor dead wife. I had even determined to overlook your acquaintance with Mrs. Quarles—that is, if you were not betrothed to
me
at the same time you knew her!”

“Betrothed to—” Sir Geoffrey turned pale at this monstrous suggestion. “Zounds, Gus! Of course I was not!”

Lady Grey sighed with relief. “I knew you could not have been, once I thought the matter through. You may be a trifle undisciplined, Geoffrey, but I could not believe you an out-and-out rogue. I cannot claim I do not care about the scandal, because I do, but I am not a coward, no matter what anyone may say. That is, unless—Geoffrey,
did
you seduce that poor child?”

Sir Geoffrey was suffering an understandable confusion. “
What
child?” he asked.

“Your Miss Minchin.” Gus sniffled and fixed her gaze on Sir Geoffrey’s cravat. “Vivien said—”

“Ha!” interrupted Sir Geoffrey, incensed. “He did, did he? I should call
him
out, for trifling with our Tabby and making her so unhappy that she had to run away and then trying to pin the blame on me!”

Gus stared at her brother, who was following this exchange with a somewhat glazed expression.
“Did
he?”

Poor Tabby was mortified. “Oh, no!” she gasped. “It wasn’t that at all!”

Lady Grey frowned. “Is that Miss Minchin? Why did she come to talk to me? I don’t understand!”

Neither did several of the other people present. Fortunately Lambchop came upon the scene then, with Margot in tow, so startling the russet rooster that had been gorging on muffin crumbs that it jumped into Tabby’s lap. “Lambchop!” cried Drusilla, and rushed to greet her pet.

Margot gladly gave the hound over into her keeping. “Now what’s this? I could not help but hear—Tabby, just why
are
you here?’’

“There you are!” cried Lady Grey. “You’re not going to publish, are you, Mrs. Quarles?”

Sir Geoffrey made haste to reassure his Gus. “She can’t!” said he.

Margot contemplated her onetime admirer. “Well, Geoffrey. You have certainly played least-in-sight. Why can’t I publish, pray?”

Tabby sought to calm the frightened rooster. “I took your letters. It seemed the only way to prevent you from making Sir Geoffrey even more unhappy.’’

Margot frowned. How sharper than the serpent’s tooth— It seemed to her that she was experiencing the full gamut of parental frustrations in a very short time. “I had not even missed the letters. You gave them to Geoffrey, I suppose.”

“Certainly I did not!” protested Tabby. The rooster pecked her, and she set him down. “That would have been disloyal to you. I burned them instead.”

His spirits considerably revived by the innkeeper’s good ale, Perry had strolled back outside. “So she did!” he vouchsafed. “Saw her myself. Still have the stench of that perfumed paper in my nose.”

“It is just as well,” said Margot. “I didn’t truly wish to publish, at all events. Indeed, Geoffrey, all I wished in the first place was to ask your advice!”

“No harm?” Sir Geoffrey goggled. “But you said—”

“I said I wished to speak with you on a matter of personal business, which I did. But that is all I wished until you gave me the cut direct, and then I wished to have revenge. Lud, Geoffrey! If you had thought about it, you would realize I could stand the scandal even less than you.” Having disposed of Sir Geoffrey to her satisfaction, and additionally made Augusta very curious, Margot turned to Perry. “You saw Tabby burn the letters? She was traveling with you, then, and not Geoffrey.”

“Not an elopement!” Perry said quickly. “Just doing a favor for a friend. And I don’t scruple to tell you that it’ll be many a long day before I play the Good Samaritan again!”

Augusta noticed Perry then. “Gracious, Perry, what is that you’ve got on? You look like a giraffe!”

Perry flushed. “Dash it, Gus, that’s no way to talk to a fellow who’s done his best to save your bacon—yes, and so I did, because here you are!”

So she was. Augusta looked mistily up at her fiancé. “Geoffrey, do you think we might go somewhere else? I wish to speak privately with you.”

Sir Geoffrey would have like nothing better. It was with reluctance that he reminded Lady Grey that he was engaged with her brother to fight a duel.

Ermyntrude was growing restless. She rose from the bench and subjected Vivien to a closer inspection still. “So you are Tabby’s rakehell! Well, you may not have her because she is coming home with us. I am going to be married, but Drusilla still needs a governess.”

“I do not need a governess!” retorted Drusilla, breaking off from reassuring the crestfallen Perry that he did indeed look quite top of the trees. “I am quite grown.”

Vivien spoke then, as if rousing from a doze. “Governess,” he murmured. “
Governess?’’

Ermyntrude gave the rakehell no high marks for perception. “Tabby left us a note, and we set out to fetch her back.”

“There!” Gus sighed, gazing up into Sir Geoffrey’s handsome face. “I knew in my heart that you could not be guilty of such infamy. Oh, Geoffrey, can you ever forgive me?” Her eyes filled again with tears.

“Balderdash, m’dear! Nothing to forgive.” Sir Geoffrey patted Gus’s hand. “It’s behind us now! Don’t think of it anymore.”

“If only it
were
behind us! But I fear it is not.” Fear that fate might wrench her once more from Sir Geoffrey caused Gus to move closer still. “Vivien has forbidden me to see you. He will never permit our marriage to take place.”

Sir Geoffrey inhaled Augusta’s sweet perfume. He had missed her abominably. “To the devil with your brother! He can’t stop our tying the knot. And if it’s me you’re going to marry, Gus, then it’s me you must please!”

Lady Grey was enchanted by this masterful attitude. “Geoffrey!” she breathed.

Sir Geoffrey was equally enchanted by the worshipful expression on the pretty face turned up to him. “Gus!” said he. They leaned toward each other. An ardent embrace was clearly imminent, once Lady Grey’s bonnet was got out of the way.

Vivien cleared his throat. “Apparently I owe you an apology, Elphinstone.” Sir Geoffrey was willing to concede this was so. Solemnly, the gentlemen shook hands.

Considering that she had neatly tidied up the confusion, Ermyntrude set out toward the inn. “Osbert! Osbert, there is apparently to be no duel. Now you may pay attention to me, if you please!”

It was obvious to Lady Gray that Ermyntrude intended to lead Mr. Philpotts in search of some romantic and secluded country lane. Augusta had had a similar idea herself. But Ermyntrude promised to be a rare handful, and Gus nobly decided to start out as she intended to go on. “What an excellent notion, Ermyntrude!” she said. “Your papa and I will go along.”

Margot had watched this touching scene with a certain proprietary interest. Now she turned aside. “Such a fuss!” she said briskly. “Tabby, do you go on to London, or do you return to Brighton? It is obvious that there is a place for you in Sir Geoffrey’s household. As there is in mine, though it is not what you are accustomed to, perhaps.”

“Not London!” Perry added hastily. “I’ve remembered an important engagement elsewhere!’’

“Ah!” Margot regarded him. “The gentleman who is not in the petticoat line.” Tactfully, she withdrew to join the muffin-stuffed rooster and shaggy dog watching Perry and Drusilla engage in a game of mumblety-peg.

Vivien had come to stand beside Tabby. She avoided meeting his gaze. Of course she could not go home with her mama to that little house in North Street, where Vivien would be forever underfoot. Or if not that house, because it belonged to Sir Geoffrey, then another of a similar sort. Tabby had no illusions; she had seen how he looked at Margot. “It was good of you to come, as you thought, to my rescue,” she said stiffly. Then she realized he might have mistaken her meaning. “Of course, I knew it was on Mama’s account.

Vivien quirked a brow. “Mama?”

So Margot had not told him all her secrets. “How silly of me! What can I have been thinking of? I meant Mar-got!” Tabby said weakly.

Vivien had scant interest in Margot just then. He sat down beside Tabby on the bench and took her hand.

“What a great many misunderstanding we have had between us—Miss Nevermind.”

Would the man flirt with her now, practically under her mama’s nose? Tabby was very disappointed in him. Yet she remained far from immune to his charm. “You must not speak so to me,” she said gruffly. “It is not kind.”

“Ah, but I have no desire to be kind to you!” Vivien put his fingers beneath her chin and tilted up her face. “You have misled me grievously—and caused me to make a fool of myself. Why the devil didn’t you tell me who you were, so that we might have avoided this blasted comedy of errors?”

“What was there
to
tell you?” countered Tabby. “That I was a mere governess? Frankly, sir, I was enjoying the flirtation too much to bring it to an end.”

Vivien’s restless fingers stilled. “The flirtation?” he asked.

“I know you were only amusing yourself,” Tabby reassured him. “And I do not hold it against you. Indeed I am grateful, because no one had ever flirted with me before.”

“No?” Vivien’s grasp tightened on her wrist. “Nor will again, I assure you.”

It was no more than she had expected. Still, Tabby eyed him curiously. “Was I so very poor at it, then? Oh, you refer to the fact that I am a governess. Well, yes, I thought so myself.”

“The devil with your governessing!” snapped Vivien, so violently that Tabby stared. “That won’t matter to anyone who loves you, my girl.”

“It won’t?” Tabby found this difficult to believe. Still, Vivien had greater knowledge of the world than she. “Perhaps—”

“Will you be quiet?” sighed Vivien. “No one else will flirt with you because I shan’t allow it. I intend to reserve all your future flirting for myself.”

Tabby’s lips suddenly felt dry. “Oh! But I have already told you that I cannot—”

“Don’t remind me that I made you an improper offer!” Vivien said wryly. “It is something that I am trying very hard to forget. This is a very difficult proposal, and you are making it no easier. Despite my reputation, I am not in the habit of offering my hand and heart.”

How vulnerable he looked. Tabby’s throat tightened until she was barely capable of speech. “You cannot be serious.”

“Can I not?” Vivien grasped her other hand, held them both against his chest. “Tabby, I have known many women, and I have never wished to marry anyone but you.”

Tabby could not believe her good fortune. Or perhaps it was her accursed luck. Because, of course, she could not marry Vivien, though it might be her dearest wish. “You don’t understand! I am the daughter of—”

“Oho! Margot! I thought I heard your voice.” St. Erth, in an obvious good humor, had returned outside. “Stafford charged me with yet another message for you, which I quite forgot about! Not that it signifies; they are all the same. He says that he is very sorry he was such a beast, and wishes that you will come home.”

“Ah, Stafford.” Truth be told, Margot was growing a trifle weary of the single life and of being poor. “Tell me, St. Erth, do you truly think the duke has reformed?”

The viscount laughed. “Of course not, and neither have you. But he won’t hear of a divorce. Stafford wants you back, Margot. He is willing to forgive and forget. Can you not be as generous? It’s been a year since you separated and went your separate ways.”

Yes, and she had newly discovered maternal instincts to consider. Margot smiled at the viscount. “Perhaps you are correct.”