Maggie MacKeever (22 page)

Upon Lady Camilla, this subtle apology had scant effect. “Piffle!” she retorted, scathingly. “Your birth is probably a great deal better than mine. You may have lost everything when you fled France, but your origins aren’t tainted with trade. Not that
I
care for such stuff, except that I am a wretched little nobody whereas you were a man of position and substance—and will be again someday, because this silly war cannot go on forever, and then the Bourbons will be restored to the throne of France. Do not think that I am throwing out lures! To do so would be most improper even if you
have
taken my fancy to an alarming degree!”

Practiced as he was in the petticoat line, in this situation Capitaine Chançard felt more gauche than even the Honorable Adolphus in a similar fix had done. “I have gone beyond the line of being pleasing,” lamented Lady Camilla. “I feared I might. But I thought I should tell you how I felt, because though I may be shatterbrained I am
not
a pudding-heart!”

With these very strong indications that Dame Fortune was once more in his corner, Michon regained a degree of his
sang-froid
. “I would not want to make sheep’s eyes at you,” he teased. “Or enact romantical high flights.”

“You would not?” Milly’s heart sank. Then she noticed his twinkling eyes. “Oh! You are bamming me!” she gurgled, in delight.

With that delighted gurgle, Capitaine Chançard was lost. He groaned and caught Lady Camilla up into his arms.

No little time later—during which interval the brick floor and slate shelves of the larder bore mute witness to goings-on the likes of which were seldom, in these dank surroundings, seen—Michon’s good sense returned. Abruptly he set Milly away from him.

“Lud!” cried Lady Camilla, and stamped her dainty foot. “Again you blow first hot then cold! It is quite enough to make me understand why Jessabelle wished to offer Pennymount violence—and
his
conduct has made me understand why
she
eloped! But why are you scowling in that dreadful manner, Michon?”

The cause of Capitaine Chançard’s grimace was the blossoming of his conscience, belated but full-blown. “I have told you that I set out to ruin you,” he said grimly, “and that I have grown too fond of you to go through with that evil plan. I am only human,
petite.
If you do not stay your distance, I am likely to forget my good resolutions and ravish you on the spot.”

“Gracious!” Though thrilled by this indication that Capitaine
did
dote on her
à
la folie.
Lady Camilla cast a doubtful glance at the brick floor. “I am very glad to hear it—not that you set out to ruin me, because I don’t for an instant believe you are capable of nourishing an evil design—but because
I
quite dote on
you!
I have doted on you from the very first, I think, but I didn’t realize it until recently!”

Definitely, decided Capitaine Chançard, his luck was out. Presented with a pigeon ripe for the plucking, he had fallen in love, and therefore must persuade the object of his affections that she did
not
wish to entangle herself ruinously with himself—even though that entanglement was what he wished more than anything. Weakly he said,
“Chérie —”

“I see what it is!” Lady Camilla said sadly. “You do not wish to spend a lifetime with a shatterbrain like myself. I do not hold it against you! But if I cannot have you I will have no one. I shall retire from the world and keep cats. My only pleasure will be my harpsichord. Doubtless I’ll sink into a decline. But you must not blame yourself for leaving me to wear the willow, Michon!”

“Minx!” responded Capitaine Chançard, amused in spite of himself. “You’ll do no such thing.”

“Well, no!” admitted Lady Camilla. “But that is because I do not mean to let you put me off! Perhaps I should warn you that I am very much accustomed to having my own way!” And with this frank disclosure, she advanced.

Upon realization of her intention, Michon’s amusement fled. He stepped back. “Lady Camilla, you refuse to believe that I am the rogue I claim.
Eh, bien!
I will prove it to you. Jessabelle did not elope.”

“Jessabelle?” Lady Camilla’s step faltered; her lovely brow furrowed; her big eyes crossed. “But of course she did! That is why Pennymount divorced her, is it not?”

Capitaine Chançard’s retreat was halted by the slate shelves. “So he claimed to believe. Me, I think his pride was hurt by her flight. They quarreled, she ran away—” He shrugged. “And encountered a highwayman who held her to ransom.”

Lady Camilla’s bewilderment had turned to impatience. “And?” she said.

Capitaine Chançard looked uncomfortable.
“
A rogue may be many things in his time.”

Milly’s mouth fell open. “A highwayman?” she gasped. “You are a highwayman, Michon?”

“I
was
a highwayman.” Capitaine Chançard cast a cautious glance at the doorway. “But only once! You see why you must forget me.”

“I see,” Lady Camilla said sternly, as she moved determinedly closer, “that Dolph is not the only one who needs a firm hand on the reins! But if you have my fortune, you will not need to hold ladies to ransom, or to operate gaming-hells. As a sign of good faith, I will expect you to tear up Dolph’s vowels. There, that is settled!” She stood on tiptoe, grasped his lapels, and tugged.

Valiantly Michon resisted temptation. “
Mon
Dieu!
But Jessabelle—you don’t mind?”

Lady Camilla gave a little jump, caught his shoulders and clung. “If Jessabelle doesn’t hold it against you, I don’t know why
I
should take snuff! And now, Michon, I beg you will cease fussing over trifles and kiss me!”

Thus prettily beseeched, no gentleman could fail to comply. Capitaine Chançard kissed Lady Camilla most thoroughly, and in a manner that convinced that young lady her greatest effort must be expended in connivance at her own ruin. Therefore she drew back from him. “Papa!” she moaned. “I had altogether forgot about him! He will tear us asunder. But I’ll be hanged if I so much as ever
look
at another gentleman, no matter
how
many peals Papa may ring over me. Forever I shall be yours, Michon—if only in my heart!”

But Capitaine Chançard was no man to allow himself to be torn from that which he possessed—and such had been the quality of that embrace that degrees of possession were moot. Whether Lady Camilla was Dame Fortune’s boon or bane, Michon was not certain, nor did he care. She was his darling, and he would have her, and his newborn conscience could go and be damned.

“Do not weep,
ma chère,”
he murmured, passing the occupants of his gaming-rooms rapidly through his mind. “We shall not be parted. Trust me in this.”

Milly was pleased to do so. As she blissfully turned up her face for another kiss, no further thought of outraged fiancés or irate papas further troubled her brain.

Chapter Twenty-One

Mme. Joliffe’s brain was similarly untroubled, not because she was being thoroughly embraced, but because she was fast asleep. This blessed unconsciousness did not long endure. Jessabelle was wakened by a noise at her window. It sounded very much as if someone was throwing pebbles, she thought, puzzled, as she sat bolt upright. But who could be such a gudgeon as to toss pebbles at a window three stories above the ground when, if he wished her attention, he need only approach the front door?

The answer to that question was glaringly obvious, even to a lady in a sleep-befuddled state. Among her scant acquaintance, Jess numbered only one looby. Sure enough, it was the Honorable Adolphus who stood in her little garden, to the detriment of the flowers that had flourished there. He made frantic gestures. Jessabelle withdrew her head from out the window, sighed, and pulled a muslin peignoir over her calico night-dress. She did not imagine that the tidings which had inspired the Honorable Adolphus to interrupt her slumbers were joyous.

This impression was confirmed by the young man’s demeanor, she discovered when she opened the front door. “We are undone!” he disclaimed, distrait.

So much for a good night’s sleep, reflected Jessabelle, anticipating that sweet slumber would visit her no more this eve—or morn. “I suppose you had better tell me what has happened,” she suggested unenthusiastically, as she led Adolphus into her pretty morning room. “I conjecture there has been a disaster of some sort.”

“Disaster! I should say there has!” Adolphus swept off his hat and wiped his sleeve across his damp brow. “Milly has broken off with Pennymount!”

“Milly has—oh!” Suddenly giddy, Jessabelle sat down.

Adolphus interpreted this abrupt action as leave for him to be also seated, and so he was, in one of the heart-backed chairs. “Don’t know why you should pretend to be surprised!” he reproved. “You must’ve known something of the sort would happen when you let the cat out of the bag—it must have been you who did it, because it wasn’t me, and I don’t know who else might have guessed! Don’t mind admitting I wish you hadn’t! It put the old gentleman in a rare tweak.”

Truth be told, Jessabelle had not previously considered the possible outcome of her revelations concerning Lady Camilla and Capitaine Chançard. Now that she finally did so, she realized Vidal’s history was not such as to delude anyone that he would tolerate his betrothed’s clandestine romance. Lady Camilla should have known better, Jess thought sternly; Milly had been anxious enough to profit from her predecessor’s mistakes. Not that Jess had
had
a clandestine romance, but Vidal thought she had, which amounted to the same thing.

“What a hobble!” lamented Dolph. “I ain’t blaming you altogether, mind! I’m the one told her Pennymount was depraved—or so she took it, though I meant Michon! Wished to thrust a spoke in his wheel, like you wanted, but Milly took it entirely wrong. And though I ain’t one to ring a peal over a lady, I think you might have known she
would!”

To these accusations Jessabelle paid little heed, being thoroughly preoccupied with contemplation of her irascible ex-spouse. He had been fond of Lady Camilla, she thought; only as result of extreme fondness would a gentleman betroth himself to such a nit-wit. It then occurred to Jess that
she
was likewise betrothed, and without the slightest fondness for her fiancé.

Upon that betrothal the Honorable Adolphus also pondered, especially upon his papa’s intimation that Dolph might wriggle back into his good graces were that betrothal to end. Yet how to go about it? A gentleman could hardly come right out and
ask
a lady to cry off. “I say!” he said plaintively. “Do you think we might have some refreshment?” Still looking abstracted Jessabelle left the room. She returned carrying a decanter and two glasses on a silver tray.

That tray she sat down on a painted tripod table with hinged top and curved feet, used more commonly for tea. Unstopping the decanter, she poured. Eagerly Adolphus grasped his glass, and drank. Then he grimaced, not having a partiality for Madeira, especially of inferior quality. However, his need was greater than his sensibilities.

“I cannot help but feel a little sorry for Vidal,” said Jessabelle, approaching her own Madeira with considerably more finesse. “He doted on Lady Camilla.”

“He did?” Adolphus said doubtfully, recalling his sister’s comments on that topic. “Fancy that! Better you should feel sorry for me, because
I’m
the one who’s been brought to a standstill by this business.  The old gentleman holds me to blame. Damned if I like being at point nonplus! Maybe you forgot you promised you’d bring the old gentleman around?”

Guilt-stricken, Jessabelle set down her empty glass, crossed to Adolphus, took his hand. “I am so sorry! I did not mean to create difficulties for you.”

The Madeira, combined with the several glasses of flesh-and-blood with which Adolphus had fortified himself at a boozing-ken en route, was taking effect. Therefore he did not take advantage of the opening accorded him to explain how easily Mme. Joliffe might assist him to escape the difficulties she’d helped to create. Indeed, he did not even realize such an opportunity existed. The Honorable. Dolph had belatedly comprehended that he was closeted alone with a female
en
déshabillé,
and recalled that he was a man of the world. “By Jove!” he uttered, and lunged. Unfortunately he had forgotten his glass, the contents of which splattered over Mme Joliffe’s peignoir.

“Idiot!” uttered Mme. Joliffe scathingly, as she dabbed ineffectively at the Madeira with the hem of her nightdress.

“I say! Dash it! Dreadfully sorry, and all that! Here, let me.” Adolphus lent his assistance to her efforts.

Their joint efforts with the hem of Jessabelle’s nightdress presented a queer picture to anyone coming upon them unprepared; a picture that must lead any evil-minded person to assume the worst. If Lord Pennymount was not exactly evil-minded, he was of a definitely suspicious bent. The present antics of Mme. Joliffe and her fiancé left his worst suspicions confirmed. “Aha!” he barked.

“Eek!” squealed Adolphus, upon espying his lordship hovering like some vengeful demon in the doorway. “Didn’t mean it, I swear. I was talking about Capitaine Chançard!”

For the Honorable Adolphus, Lord Pennymount spared not a glance. His irate attention wholly for his lunatic first countess, in her stained peignoir and huge beruffled nightcap, he advanced into the room. Prudently Adolphus withdrew from the field of action, and took refuge beside the long-case clock.

At all costs, decided Jessabelle, she would remain calm. She would heed the advice of the Ladies Dimity and Em about the application of honey on flies. “I am more sorry than I can say for what has happened, Vidal. I know you were fond of Lady Camilla.”

Lord Pennymount glowered upon his first countess, who seemed unaffected by being caught entertaining a young gentleman in the wee hours of the morn, clad only in peignoir and nightcap. “You know nothing!” he snapped.

Though Jessabelle had triumphed temporarily over her baser self, at least long enough to issue warning, the inevitable reaction had indeed begun to sink in. “In this case, at least, I knew more than
you
did!” she retorted sweetly. “You needn’t pretend you were aware Lady Camilla had taken up with Michon. But you needn’t thank me for warning you! I would have done the same for anyone.”