Maggie MacKeever (4 page)

“As if I’d do such a thing!” she responded, dimpling. “You sound just like Lady Birmingham. I’ll wager she wished
she’d
thought of it. Because Captain Birmingham was ever so solicitous when he saw the blood—and it’s no use your asking why the Captain had gone into the sewing room instead of to the parade ground, where he belonged, like she did, because I’m sure I don’t know!”

“So you were turned off.”

“Oh, no! Not then!” Melly’s philosophy of truth-telling was simple: admit only what might otherwise be learned.
“That
occurred after Captain Birmingham had taken me to dine with his regiment in the mess hall, to make up for the horrid things Lady Birmingham said.” She heaved a great sigh. “Such a rowdy-do over nothing! I don’t know what she thought could happen with all those people around—rather, I
do
know, because she said—but. . .”

“Never mind!” Madame interrupted. “I don’t care to hear the rest.”

“I wouldn’t have, anyway!” Melly added virtuously, momentarily encouraging Madame le Best’s hopes that her own high-minded principles had been passed on to her niece. Alas for Madame’s peace of mind. Melly then added: “I didn’t like him half well enough for that sort of thing. At any event, Captain Birmingham was raked over the coals for neglecting the drill, and
I
was turned off without a character. Again! And so I have come here to you, so that you may tell me what I must do next.”

What Madame le Best contemplated bidding her niece do did not accord with either high-mindedness or principles. “Since Brighton did not do for you, we must think of something else.”

“Bless my heart! I did not dislike Brighton!” Melly was pleased to set forth at least one assertion with perfect truth. “It was great fun and I liked it very well, Aunt Hel—— Perhaps I should just call you Aunt Hell But Lady Birmingham didn’t like
me.”

Madame le Best clearly understood how that dislike could be inspired. Melly was precisely the sort of giddy young female whom any quiet and modest—and in the case of Lady Birmingham, homely—female must instinctively distrust. Madame had a tendency to distrust Melly herself.

Melly watched her aunt, feeling rather like a prisoner at the bar, awaiting the judge’s verdict. It was a sensation with which Melly was not unfamiliar, though thus far no true practitioner of law had been called upon to evaluate her scrapes. They would probably have been more lenient than her aunt, thought Melly glumly. Doubtless, Aunt Helen would pack her off somewhere as far away from London as could be found. Melly sighed. It wasn’t her fault that her Creator had made her so highly susceptible.

As Madame le Best perambulated around the perimeter of her showroom, seeking a resolution to the problem posed her by her niece, she heard Melly sigh. Though Madame was ambitious, she was not devoid of feeling. Covertly, she studied the child. Child? Melly was nineteen, and so very flighty and mischievous in demeanor that any gentleman who espied her must stop  and stare. For her own sake, the chit should be married, Madame decided.

“Melly!” she said.

That damsel looked up from an issue of
La Belle Assemblée,
through which she had been leafing with an envy that made her feel half-sick.

Her aunt was looking cross, Melly thought. “I’m in the basket again, ain’t I?” she sighed, letting the book drop. “I am very sorry! I do not
mean
to get into trouble, you know.” Tears filled her big brown eyes anew.

Almost, Madame le Best’s determination to discover some permanent solution for her niece failed her; she looked away from Melly’s woeful face. “Very well!” she said, quickly, before she could change her mind. “I have been thinking of engaging an assistant to help me in the showroom. You may have the position, Melly, providing I have
your
promise that you will do only as I tell you and keep a still tongue in your head!” The child could hardly get up to her usual mischief whilst dwelling under her aunt’s thumb.

It was fortunate for Madame’s spiritual well-being that she had bent to retrieve
La Belle Assemblée
from the floor, where Melly had let it fall, and thus was spared observing the excitement that blazed in Melly’s eyes. “Thank you, Aunt Hel!” murmured Melly, with her most sincere and virtuous expression. “I will try very hard to be good!”

Chapter Four

“A nice bit of cross-and-jostle work, with a muzzier to finish it!” avowed Sir Malcolm, looking rueful. “I have a very handy bunch of fives, I promise you that! Even my victim, when he awakened from his slumbers, was of the opinion I gave a good account of myself. In proof of his lack of hard feelings, he brought forth some excellent ale.”

Lady Davenham’s side ached with suppressed merriment. “And what of the serving-wench?”

“Ah, the serving-wench! She sampled the ale, also—not for the first time, I suspect!” Sir Malcolm innocently replied.

“Rogue!” said Lady Davenham, appreciatively. “You haven’t altered in the least. Your behavior
still
merits the most severe reproof.” She paused to sip ratafia from a crystal glass.

Perhaps he had not changed during his travels abroad, thought Malcolm, but he fancied his cousins had. With the shrewd attention of the connoisseur, he contemplated Lady Davenham, clad in a habit-shirt with high frilled neck, and three-flounced skirt fashioned from colored sprig. He had forgotten Thea was so voluptuous, and so prim. Then he glanced at Vivien, standing at the window, gazing serenely down upon his gardens. As always, it was impossible to guess what dwelt behind that aloof facade.

Alerted by the silence to the fact that the conversation had lagged. Lord Davenham turned a vague eye on the participants. “Puncheons.
Jardinieres,”
he said.

“Puncheons?” echoed Sir Malcolm. “What the deuce?”

“Tubs on wheels which can be trundled through the garden to distribute water,” explained Thea, looking glum.

“And
jardinieres?”
persisted Sir Malcolm.

Lady Davenham drained and set aside her glass. “The terracotta tubs in which Vivien grows his fruit trees. At this time of the year they are brought outside. They spend the winter within doors, you see, where stoves are used to protect them from the cold.” Her tone was distinctly ironic. “Charcoal, Cousin, is far preferable to wood! Gardening is Vivien’s passion, Malcolm—if you can conceive of Vivien being passionate about anything, which I concede is difficult. Now, if you please, I would rather hear about
your
exploits!”

Sir Malcolm looked from Lord Davenham, whose serene attention was once more directed outside, to Lady Davenham, who was tapping her elegant fingers on the scrolled end pieces of the straight-legged sofa where she sat. There were few nuances of the game of hearts with which Sir Malcolm was not familiar. This marriage between his cousins had room for improvement, he thought.

“You wish to hear about my passions?” he murmured wickedly. “Shame, Dorothea! You have just got through chiding me about my shocking misadventures, and now you ask to hear
more
of them. I have already told you about my journey here, and of my travels on the Continent. That’s all dull stuff for me, my Thea; I was there. I would much rather hear what you have been doing during our separation.” He smiled. “Much as
you
may like to hear it,
I
do not especially enjoy talking about the fleshpots!”

Lady Davenham toyed with a curl which had escaped its severe braid to nestle on her cheek. “Le Roué,” she responded. “You were ever a disobliging wretch! I am not a ... a prattle-bag; you may trust me to treat your disclosures in confidence.
Not
that I wish to hear about your conquests among opera dancers and demi-reps!” Her expression was speculative. “Have you never considered contracting a marriage, Cousin? You must realize you are a bachelor of the first stare. At thirty it is time your affections became fixed.”

Why Lady Davenham should seek to persuade him to enter into an estate for which she herself exhibited little enthusiasm, Sir Malcolm had not the most distant guess. “Though I may not enjoy talking about the fleshpots, neither do I intend quitting them. You may not reform me, Thea,” he responded, with his forbidding half-smile.

Thea was not unacquainted with her cousin’s temper, which his expression gave her good reason to recall. “Oh!” she said abruptly. “I did not mean to presume. It is just that I have got in the habit of arranging things. You will forgive me, Malcolm?”

In his window, Lord Davenham stirred. “Not flesh-pots!” he was heard to mutter.
“Jardinieres.
Terracotta tubs.”

To this interruption, Lady Davenham and Sir Malcolm wisely paid no heed. “It is you who must forgive me,” he protested, sitting down beside her on the sofa and taking her hands in his. “I should not have ripped up at you in that odious fashion. My manners have not improved during my travels, I fear.”

“Pooh!” Her cousin had lost none of his charm, reflected Thea, gazing not into his sun-bronzed face, but upon their clasped hands. “I do not stand on ceremony with you, Malcolm; you were right to deliver me a setdown. I
did
presume. But it was not idle curiosity! Everything is an adventure for you, even carriage accidents. I think I must be envious.”

Had all the population of his homeland been stricken with a thirst for adventure? wondered Sir Malcolm, dismayed. One man, however sympathetic, could accomplish only so much. Lord Davenham remarked from the window, “A Gothic ruin.”

“Oh!” Lady Davenham’s dark eyes flashed. “How can you speak so to me, Vivien? I am only five-and-twenty. And though I may not be a diamond of the first water, neither am I an
antidote!”

“An antidote?” his lordship echoed, looking puzzled. “I’m sure I never said you are any such thing. It must have been Malcolm, which is not especially kind of him, after you went to all the trouble of opening the house on his account.”

“On
my
account?” interjected Sir Malcolm, feeling as if he had wandered by accident into Bedlam, and was privy to an exchange between two of the inmates.

“Of course!” Thea’s indignant attention was still focused on her spouse. “We are seldom in town, Malcolm. Vivien is wholly dedicated to the improvement of the estate. We now have improved strains of sheep and, cattle, and all the houses have been rebuilt. Vivien takes his position as head of the family very seriously.”

A less likely figurehead for the adventurous Davenants was difficult to imagine, thought Sir Malcolm, eyeing the current Duke, whose perplexed countenance had been withdrawn from the window and turned instead toward his Duchess. It occurred to Sir Malcolm that even so amiable a gentleman as Vivien might not care to see another man clasping his wife.

Malcolm was not without experience concerning jealous husbands. He released Thea’s hands. “Oho!” said his lordship, so suddenly that Malcolm suppressed an instinctive guilty start. “I wasn’t referring to you, but to the garden, my dear.”

Lady Davenham was feeling less charitably inclined than usual toward her aggravating spouse. “What about
the garden?” she irritably inquired.

“And you say
I
do not listen!” Lord Davenham quirked a whimsical brow. “In this instance, at least, the shoe is on the other foot—and very pretty feet they are! You are a diamond of the first water, my dear. I have always thought so.” He turned back to the window. “A Gothic ruin might look nice set among the rhododendrons, I think.”

In a somewhat dispirited manner, Lady Davenham contemplated her fireplace. “The gardens of Davenant House already contain a lake, and several picturesque vistas enhanced by weeping willows from China and tulip-poplars from America,” she explained to Sir Malcolm. “Not to mention the rustic shelter fashioned from tree branches and roots. And all this is in addition
to the rhododendrons, magnolias, and, of course, the fruit trees.”

“Apples and apricots and cherries!” supplied his lordship helpfully.

Certainly Vivien was no jealous husband, decided Malcolm; the Duke would doubtless be more incensed by trespass upon his garden than upon his wife. Again, he clasped Thea’s hands. “I begin to understand why you wished to hear of my adventures!” he said softly. “Poor Thea! You have a dull time of it.”

Guiltily, Lady Davenham flushed. “Oh, no!” she protested, without any great conviction. “I must applaud Vivien’s dedication. He considers that he only holds the property in trust, and that it is his responsibility to pass it on in the best possible condition to his sons.” Not that there would
be
any sons, she added silently, did not her husband devote to more practical matters some of the dedication deployed in his potting shed.

Lord Davenham stirred, glanced at the doorway, smiled. “The patter of little feet!” he very aptly observed.

“Little feet?” Again, Sir Malcolm abruptly released Lady Davenham. “I had not heard!”

“There’s nothing
to
hear.” Thea flexed her fingers, still warm from his grasp. “Vivien refers to Nimrod—oh, yes, the wretched beast is still alive, though he must be all of sixteen.”

In accompaniment to these unkind remarks, there appeared in the doorway of the drawing room a long-eared, low-bellied, bandy-legged, sad-eyed, dew-lapped hound of liverish disposition and hue. Immediately, his sad eyes fixed on Lady Davenham. Snarling, he bared his remaining teeth. So stiffly did he move across the polished floor that his audience could almost hear the hound’s ancient joints creak. When Nimrod at last gained his objective, and collapsed with a final wheeze across Lord Davenham’s highly polished boots, his lordship and his lady and Sir Malcolm heaved a collective sigh of relief.

“All these improvements must be deuced expensive,” remarked Sir Malcolm, for want of a more brilliant thought. The Duke left a bit to be desired as a conversationalist.

“I suppose so,” replied his lordship, vaguely. “Tell me, Malcolm, what do
you
think of a Gothic ruin? I am inclined toward the picturesque school of gardening.” He looked pensive. “Although I will concede Thea is correct in predicting that a Chinese pagoda might look somewhat incongruous in a classical setting.”