Maggie MacKeever (20 page)

To this volley of information, the aunts returned identically blank expressions. “Gracious!” gasped Dimmy, very disappointed to discover that Jessabelle’s confidences had nothing to do with the more intimate aspects of her ill-fated reign as Pennymount’s first countess.
“What
fortune hunter?” inquired the more practical Em.

Unhappily Jess gazed upon the chest of drawers, inlaid with bone and ivory, which supported the cabinet decorated with marquetry of ivory, mother-of-pearl, sycamore and ash, and other woods. She had always liked that piece. For that matter, she had always liked Pennymount Place, even though it was ancient and drear. Egyptian furnishings were not what she would have chosen to ease the gloom.

But that choice was not hers to make, and unless Michon was to persuade Lady Camilla to put her money to his more personal uses, Jess must act. “I suppose I must begin at the beginning,” she decided, and explained to the Ladies Emmeline and Dimity her friendship with the émigré who ran a gaming-hell in King Street.

“I have known Michon forever,” Jess said in conclusion. “He is a charming rogue, and wholly lacking in principle—and he will know just how to intrigue a wealthy young woman. Nor can there be much doubt of his intention. He told me Vidal has several surprises in store.”

Here was potential tittle-tattle titillating enough to satisfy even Lady Dimity. Lord Pennymount’s affianced bride had fallen under the spell of a practiced rogue. What exciting development would next occur? “Oh!” Dimmy blissfully gasped, her pleasure only slightly dimmed by the realization that it was her own nephew who teetered once more on the brink of disgrace.

Lady Em cast her sister a reproving glance. “You came to warn Vidal of his rival, Jessabelle?”

The assumption that she might behave so selflessly in regard to her ill-tempered ex-spouse annoyed Mme. Joliffe. “I came because I feel responsible!” she snapped. “If not for me Michon would not have taken it into his head to steal a march on Vidal. But now he has, and I don’t know how I may stop him—or even if I should! Had I not met Lady Camilla, did I not like her—” Jess sighed. “I simply cannot sit back silently and watch that absurd child tumble into a scrape.”

“A scrape! Poor Lady Camilla!” Wistfully Dimmy regarded the cats snuggled so close to their guest. “But what can we do to throw a rub in this rascal’s way? Apropos of which, how came you to know such a rubbishing fellow, dear Jess?”

“Michon isn’t a rubbishing fellow.” Jessabelle was spending a great deal of time defending various of her acquaintances one to the other, she thought. “Even if at the moment I am quite out of charity with him. As for how I met him—I know all manner of unusual people these days.”

That her questions had not been answered, Lady Dimity was aware. That perseverance would earn her another sharp nip from her sister’s fingers, she was also aware. With a wounded glance at that disapproving individual, Dimmy lapsed into gentle sulks.

“You wish to warn Vidal?” Lady Emmeline drove straight to the heart of the affair. “What makes you think he will believe you, Jessabelle?”

“I do not think it.” Jess sighed. “Perhaps it is for the best that he is not here. Doubtless we would have been instantly at loggerheads, and I would have decided
not
to warn him, even though I know I should!”

By these affecting revelations, Lady Dimity’s tender heart was touched. She could not restrain her fellow-feeling, even though its expression earned her sister’s displeasure. “Do not put yourself in a taking, my dear!
We
will warn Vidal, and without even mentioning your name.” She edged sideways, out of range of Lady Emmeline’s strong fingers. “Tell me, have you ever noticed that honey catches a great many more flies than vinegar, dear Jess?”

Chapter Nineteen

Among those diverse individuals who did not subscribe to the theory that honey is an excellent catcher of flies was Sir Edward Aethelwine. This lack of belief he was currently demonstrating. Sir Edward’s setting was his incomparable drawing room. His target was his son.

They were not alone. Scheduled for this evening was an elegant dinner party—a feast twelve courses long, featuring entrees and roasts and removes, sweets and savories and fruits, after which the gentlemen would linger long over their host’s excellent port, to emerge and join the ladies at midnight—and the guests had already arrived. They moved gracefully about the drawing-room, remarking in hushed tones upon the furnishings fashioned from imitation bamboo; the window hangings of an Oriental nature in shades of reds and blues and violets, with a little green and yellow, on a white ground; the Chinese mandarin who leered from the doorknob.

The Honorable Adolphus was worthy of no less note, although he was clad for the occasion, and at his sire’s insistence, in unusually somber hues. Dolph appeared almost unexceptionable, save for the staggering intricacy of his cravat, the painful height of his shirt-points, the studied manner in which his hair tumbled forward on his brow.

He also appeared excessively uncomfortable, and with good reason: his papa was reading him a dreadful scold. Somehow the old gentleman had gotten wind of Dolph’s pecuniary embarrassments. “Pea-wit! Bufflehead!” he hissed, but softly to avoid attracting the attention, of his dinner guests. “Why the deuce didn’t you tell me you was badly dipped?”

“Thing is,” Dolph admitted, “I thought you’d cut up devilish stiff if you knew I was regularly under the hatches. And I wasn’t wishful of receiving a rare trimming, sir.”

Nor was Sir Edward wishful of having a cod’s head for a son, as he acerbically observed. “A rare trimming is what you may wish for, my lad, afore you and I are through!” he stated in a very ominous manner that made the Honorable Adolphus quake in his Hessian boots. “You expect me to come across with the ready and rhino to fix it up all right and tight, eh?”

Energetically, hopefully, the Honorable Adolphus nodded. “That’s the ticket, guv’nor! Make it right as a trivet! Haven’t a feather to fly with, alas.”

“That’s no bread-and-butter of mine!” Sir Edward snapped. “And I’ll be hanged if I know why
I
should be expected to bear your expense. Especially when I will no sooner provide you with the wherewithal to make a recover than you’ll be badly dipped again!”

“Dashed if I meant to put you in a tweak, sir!” Adolphus pleaded. “Thing is, deep doings must be in the blood! Because I can’t contrive to be beforehand with the world no matter how hard I try to keep it all shipshape and aboveboard. Which I don’t mind admitting is a dashed unpleasant fix to be in. It ain’t like I’m
wishful
of rubbing shoulders with ivory-tuners and bloodsuckers and Captain Sharps!”

Very carefully Sir Edward folded his hands across his comfortable little belly, and contemplated his son. “So gaming runs in the blood,” he repeated scornfully. “Whose blood is that? Neither your mother nor I were ever fond of play. Unless you mean to suggest that your mother planted the antlers on my brow? I thought not! But since I’ve no doubt you
are
my son, I’ll give you one last chance.”

Dolph’s careworn countenance lightened. “You will? By Jove! It’s dashed generous of you, sir.”

Sir Edward thought of the countless hours of hard work put in by children in his factories to provide the rolls of soft so heedlessly squandered by his son—a topic that irritated his conscience much more than it had used to before his introduction to the Ladies Dimity and Em. “No it ain’t generous!” he snapped. “There are conditions, my lad. Concerning this doxy you’ve betrothed yourself to. I’ll pay your debts
if
you persuade her to cry off.”

Persuade the strong-willed Mme. Joliffe to cry off? Once more the Honorable Dolph looked excessively careworn. “I say!” he protested feebly. “I
like
Jessabelle!”

Sir Edward snorted, in a manner reminiscent of an overheated horse. “Talking don’t pay toll! Persuade her to cry off—you can’t do it yourself without looking the veriest coxcomb—and I’ll tend to your creditors. Refuse and it’ll be bellows to mend with you, my lad! Think on that a while.” On this dire pronouncement he went to mingle with his guests.

Adolphus had no desire to mingle; politely noncommittal conversation was beyond his capabilities at this point. Instead he sought out his sister, who was decoratively languishing near an Oriental lacquered cabinet, japanned in bright colors on a black ground, which stood on an elaborate carved stand. Lady Camilla was a bedazzling vision in an evening gown of lace over a pink silk slip, full in the skirt and pleated at the waist, trimmed with festoons of flowers. Posies were also tucked in her hair. On her lovely face was an expression very strongly at odds with her festive appearance. Milly looked very much like a young lady who’d wandered into a garden of earthly delights only to have the gate slammed shut in her face.

Even Adolphus noticed that his sister exhibited less than her customary good cheer. A simple soul, he decided that Lord Pennymount’s tardiness had put Milly out of sorts. Adolphus was himself feeling a trifled liverish; he was very hungry, and dinner was being held up for the tardy earl. But then the thought of his irascible sire’s reaction to the intelligence that Adolphus had introduced his sister to Capitaine Chançard, the émigré owner of a gaming-hell, caused that young man’s appetite to flee.

Perhaps Milly might be warned against Capitaine Chançard. Adolphus eyed his sister, who was muttering beneath her breath about gentlemen who blew first hot then cold. “Tell you what!” he said abruptly. “The fellow’s on the dangle for a fortune! Thought you should know.”

Lady Camilla raised her big brown eyes to her brother’s face. “What the devil are you talking about?” she inquired.

Obviously, decided Adolphus, he had taken the wrong approach. “Pennymount is late!” he offered, in hasty retreat.

Had her brother just said Pennymount was on the dangle for a fortune? Lady Camilla decided to find out. Since direct interrogation invariably confused Adolphus, she took a circuitous route. “So he is, and I dislike to play second fiddle of all things. What were you saying about a fortune, Dolph?”

“A fortune?” Adolphus lounged against the lacquered cabinet, looking blank. “Dashed if I know. Wish I had one, at all events, because then I wouldn’t have to get leg-shackled to a violent female!” He frowned. “At least I think I wouldn’t. And now the old gentleman has told me it’ll be bellows to mend if I don’t persuade her to cry off.”

“Cry off!” Lady Camilla also frowned. “How does Papa expect you to do that? Anyway, I thought you liked Jessabelle!”

“I
do
like her!” retorted the Honorable Adolphus. “Which ain’t to say I wish to fly with her to the Continent! You know what, Milly? We’d have all been spared a great deal of trouble if Pennymount had had her clapped in Bedlam where she belongs instead of leaving her run loose wheedling innocent folks into thinking they wish to get leg-shackled when they don’t!” So severe had grown Dolph’s scowl that he resembled a gargoyle. “Which reminds me: what sort of wheedle is it
you’re
cutting, sis?”

“I am not cutting a wheedle!” Lady Camilla replied coolly, and with a shocking disregard for the truth. “And if you
truly
wanted me to intercede on your behalf with Papa, you wouldn’t accuse me of such a thing.”

Maybe, with his sister’s assistance, the Honorable Dolph’s head might yet remain intact on his shoulders, and his place of residence removed from Queer Street. “Didn’t mean to accuse you of anything!” he hastily responded. “Mean to say, it’s your business if you wish to cut a wheedle! None of my affair!”

“See that you remember it!” snarled his sunny-tempered sister, glaring around the room.

Something, decided Adolphus, had put Milly in a tweak. He too inspected the guests, conversing in a desultory manner amid the imitation bamboo furnishings, leering doorknobs, and japanned screens. Lord Pennymount’s absence grew momentarily more conspicuous. That absence might well become permanent if Lord Pennymount discovered his bride-to-be had been engaging in clandestine meetings with Capitaine Chançard.

With that dreadful thought in mind, as well as the even more horrid thought of Sir Edward’s reaction were Pennymount to hedge off, Adolphus once more sought to drop a subtle hint. “You may be a nonpareil, but some fellows won’t care for that! The old gentleman is prodigious plump in the pocket and might be expected to come across handsomely—even if
we
know he won’t! And you have your own blunt, moreover. Thing is, Milly, you’re a good catch!”

So she was, and Lady Camilla knew it well, even if her fiancé did not. “He is the most bad-humored wretch in existence!” she murmured. “Yes, and selfish too!”

Bad-humored? Adolphus could not fairly agree. In his experience Capitaine Chançard was serene even when making clear the dire misfortune bound to descend upon those feckless gamesters who failed to promptly redeem their vowels. Dolph could not doubt that his sister knew whereof she spoke, however. Things had gone much further than he had imagined if Milly knew Michon better than he did himself.

Gentle hints, obviously, would not suffice. “Worse than that!” vowed Adolphus. “If only you knew!”

“If only I knew
what?”
inquired Lady Camilla. “Be more specific, pray.”

Alas, Adolphus could not comply, lacking first-hand experience with the practices enjoyed by the depraved. “I cannot!” he responded dramatically. “Modesty forbids! Dash it, sis, you can’t expect me to sully your ears with such tales. It just ain’t done! But I
will
tell you that if I
did
tell you what I know about the fellow, your hair would stand on end!”

As if to assure herself that it did not already do so, Lady Camilla’s hands flew to her flower-bedecked curls. “Are you hamming me, Adolphus?” she inquired suspiciously.

“No, I ain’t!” The Honorable Dolph looked wounded, a trick he had accidentally discovered in the nursery and employed ever since, which consisted of folding his hands in a prayerful fashion and gazing devoutly heavenward—a trick, it must be stated, that was much less effective now than then. “On my honor, he’s
depraved!”