Maggie MacKeever (28 page)

“Yes! That is it exactly!” Callie cried. “It was never meant to be an elopement, but a kidnapping! No, Alister, you may
not
shoot the viscount! He didn’t truly
kidnap me! It really
is
all a hum. Morgan thought—”

“Stuff!” the doctor interrupted rudely. “Morgan
doesn’t
think! She was used to be very reasonable, but that was before you and your stepmama came to town. Not that you are responsible!” Sandy eyes fixed on the masked gentleman, he slowly lowered the blunderbuss. “This is Viscount English, then.”

Though not best pleased to be caught out in so ridiculous a situation, the viscount was delighted to no longer be held at gunpoint. He shook the doctor’s hand and clapped him on the back and suggested that after the exigencies of the past half hour some refreshment would not be remiss. Dr. Kilpatrick admitted to having developed a thirst, and Miss Whateley to a hunger. The landlord was apprised of these decisions, the table righted and its cloth replaced. At length the trio was seated before a very handsome repast.

For a time conversation was forestalled by the pleasures of the palate. Miss Whateley sampled cold fowl, noble joint, tansy cake and hasty pudding and raspberry tart. The gentlemen indulged in canary and bishop and stout. At last the clank of cutlery and glass was silenced. They sank back in their chairs, replete.

“Now,” said Dr. Kilpatrick, dabbing with his napkin at his lips, “kindly tell me what Morgan thinks she is about.”

“It is difficult to say precisely.” Callie, who had not refrained altogether from sampling the fruits of the innkeeper’s cellar, frowned. “I believe Morgan’s initial intention was that Sidoney should think I had been kidnapped. It was all part of a scheme to convince my stepmama that it is no disgrace to have a physician in the family. First Sidoney was to be allowed to fret herself to flinders, and then
you
were to save the day, Alister, by rescuing me.”

By this example of female reasoning,
Dr.
Kilpatrick was rendered almost sober. He reached for his glass.

“I knew you would not lend your efforts to such a scheme,” continued Callie, “especially when it makes no difference if Sidoney approves our marriage or not, because I have nothing against an elopement if you were involved. I told Morgan she must not count on you for assistance and thought she would let the business drop. Instead, I discovered that English had gone on with it—too early by one day. So here we are. You must tell us what to do now, Alister.”

As Dr. Kilpatrick pondered that question, he refilled his own and Miss Whateley’s and the viscount’s glasses. This was an absurd means by which to gain the approval of his future stepmama-in-law—an approval, moreover, that he was not sure he wanted. By a stepmama-in-law with more hair than wit, the quality of his life would not be enhanced. Nor was he in any greater charity with Miss Phyfe. Morgan would fly straight into the boughs when she discovered her plan had been prematurely put into effect. Perhaps thereby she might learn a lesson that would prohibit her from further meddling, especially in
his
life.

“Does Morgan know that you are here?” the doctor inquired.

Callie shook her head. “We had to go somewhere, and English thought of this. He said no one would ever think to look for us in a coaching inn.”

“So they won’t,” mused Alister, as with unholy glee he imagined Miss Phyfe’s distress. “They will not, indeed. I’ll tell you what: since we’ve come this far, we might as well go on with it!” Recipient of two astonished glances, he then explained his reasoning. That logic appealed immensely to two individuals who had suffered equally from the antics of strong-willed females. The trio settled down to make an evening of it, and the doctor rang for additional liquid refreshment. As they waited for the arrival of this stimulus, Viscount English picked up the blunderbuss and inquired how the doctor had come by such an antique piece.

The doctor smiled. “I appropriated it from a shop en route. Said it was a medical emergency. And I promise you, the shopkeeper didn’t half mind.”

Never had Miss Whateley anticipated that London would prove so greatly to her liking. “Who would have ever thought that it could be so much
fun
to be kidnapped!” she breathed, a remark that caused an amazed expression to appear on the face of the landlord, entering the room with several very dusty bottles clasped solicitously in his arms. He then glimpsed the blunderbuss which the viscount was so carelessly inspecting, abruptly set down the bottles and beat a hasty retreat.

Generously overlooking this queer abruptness on the part of their host, Dr. Kilpatrick and Viscount English fell upon the dusty bottles and with the assistance of the contents passed a most convivial half hour. The doctor held forth most eruditely upon the distinction between apothecaries (permitted to charge for their services but not their advice) and surgeons (permitted to operate and treat externally but not to prescribe internal medicine) and physicians (the elite of the profession, permitted to do almost everything). In return, the viscount proved most informative about Savage Shelton and Tom Cribb and the legendary Belcher, and other such denizens of the sparring ring. Miss Whateley drank it all in, occasionally making such appropriate comments as “Coo!” and “What larks!” in such crowing spirits as must animate any unprepossessing young lady who finds herself closeted alone with two eligible gentlemen.

Unfortunately, this great good humor, this enviable conviviality, was not destined to endure. As Laurie was describing to his rapt companions a fight he had personally witnessed at the Fives Court in Saint Martin’s Street, and simultaneously attempting to ascertain if the blunderbuss was loaded, three ladies clad in the garb of the Fashionably Impure burst into the private parlor. “Celestra! Francesca! Annys! The deuce!” Viscount English cried, dismayed. So excessive was his consternation that his finger tightened on the trigger—and the gun went off.

Pandemonium broke out. When at length the three newcomers were persuaded to remove themselves from atop Laurie’s inert body, it was discovered that the viscount had merely suffered a flesh wound in his foot. Lest further damage be inflicted upon an innocent party, Miss Whateley gingerly picked up the blunderbuss.

Dr. Kilpatrick straightened up from the foot over which he had been bent, performing the arcane rituals of his profession, and muttering under his somewhat aromatic breath about skitterwittedness. “There!” he said, with a final savage tweak to a bandage he had fashioned—without so much as a by-your-leave—from a strip of muslin torn from his fiancée’s petticoat, an act that had earned Miss Whateley raised eyebrows from the newcomers, and many an arch look. “And you may thank your guardian angel that it wasn’t any worse!”

But London was not high among the resorts favored by guardian angels that season. In prematurely praising Viscount English’s good fortune, Alister had reckoned without their host, reminded of the queer trio in possession of his private parlor by the issuance therefrom of a terrible loud noise.

As result of the landlord’s sudden recollection, a dapper little man appeared in the doorway of the private parlor—the same dapper little man, clad in shockingly striped waistcoat, who was last glimpsed toasting his toes before a wood fire. No longer did he hold a pungent pipe, or that potent concoction known as a dog’s nose, but a very businesslike pistol in each hand.

“Hoi, my cuileys!” he said in genial tones. “And lass, put down that blunderbuss! Seldom have I seen so likely looking a group of miscreants.”

Stunned by this abrupt intrusion, only Miss Whateley remained capable of speech. “But we aren’t—” she gasped.

“Lord love you, lassie, of course you are!” The dapper little man took in the scene before him with a quick glance of his bright blue eyes. “Kidnapping and shopbreaking and attempted murder, at the very least.”

A babble of excited voices broke out.
“Oh, I
didn’t!”
Miss Whateley wailed.

“Of course she didn’t!” snapped Viscount English, as he attempted to free himself from the three high-flyers who, seeking protection, had huddled by him on the floor.

“This settles it, puss!” stated Dr. Kilpatrick firmly. “I’m sticking as close to you as a courtplaster until the knot is tied!”

“Silence!” barked the runner, for such the dapper little fellow was, and not just any runner, but one of the best-known adjuncts of Bow Street Public Office. So stern was his tone that he was instantly obeyed. “I must tell you that whatever you say about the matter will be used against you. And now I take you into charge and notify you that you will be taken into the safekeeping of the Chief Magistrate of Bow Street.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Pandemonium did not cease to reign, merely moved with its proponents to the office of the Chief Magistrate of Bow Street. This was a bare and inhospitable chamber, redolent with an atmosphere of fear, despair and dust. The furnishings were sparse, consisting of several wooden chairs and a scarred desk.

At that scarred desk, looking very forbidding, sat Bow Street’s Chief Magistrate, a man with a permanent frown and a deeply lined face. His office was crowded with people who appeared to be in various stages of inebriation, including one of his own runners, who was clutching an antique blunderbuss. The Chief Magistrate was not thrilled to have brought before him an eminent physician and an unexceptionable viscount and a young woman of breeding, to say nothing of three very voluble specimens of the Fashionably Impure. Therefore he suggested,
sotto voce,
that his runner might like to turn the blunderbuss on himself.

“Lord love you, guv’nor,” responded that amiable individual, “you do like your little joke. What we have here are a whole roomful of miscreants. The young lady was heard to confess to a kidnapping, and this other fellow—” the blunderbuss pointed at Dr. Kilpatrick “—to theft. Desperate and suspicious characters they are, and should be lodged in the Newgate Prison to await their trial.”

“Our trial on what grounds, sir?” interrupted Miss Whateley, the specter of impending imprisonment being an excellent remedy for reticence. “We have done nothing criminal. I was
not
kidnapped; it was all a hoax. And though Alister
did
borrow the blunderbuss, he had every intention of returning it until this strange little person burst in on us and took it away from me.”

The Chief Magistrate felt charitably disposed toward this unprepossessing young lady with her excellent good sense. His strange little subordinate earned a withering glance. Looking somewhat less genial than was his habit, the runner moved to the window, where he lit his pipe and stood staring down into the street. “Suppose you start at the beginning, Miss Whateley,” invited the Chief Magistrate.

In the rendering up of explanations, Miss Whateley excelled. The Chief Magistrate was regaled with a very erudite account of her history, including relationship with a skitterwitted stepmama and the seditious Miss Phyfe, her dislike of social functions, her clandestine romance. “Not that I
wished
it to be clandestine!” Miss Whateley hastened to explain. “It merely came about that way. And so to reconcile my stepmama to Alister, Viscount English and I pretended I had been kidnapped—but Alister saw us and thought we were fleeing to Gretna Green. Previously, he had thought I was falling into scrapes with gay and profligate men, and other such havey-cavey stuff, so it is not surprising that he assumed I was keeping yet another assignation, you see.”

With enlightenment, the Chief Magistrate had not been blessed. In certain other aspects, however, he was more clear-sighted than Miss Whateley, whose back was turned to the doorway. Through that portal burst  three newcomers, one of whom was known to the Chief Magistrate. With “Devil” Darby were two frantic-looking females.

“And that’s why Alister borrowed the blunderbuss!” Callie triumphantly wound up. “He’ll be glad to give it back, I’m sure! Oh, and
I
did not shoot English. He shot himself when these three ladies arrived on the scene.”

Here the three ladies, hovering solicitously about the viscount, who was seated in a wooden chair, voiced indignation. Had their quarry shot himself, it was not on
their
account. He might be a trifle poor-spirited, and sadly unsympathetic, and very inconveniently inclined toward cheese-paring, but he was
not
of a temperament to put a period to his existence. For this excellent character reference the viscount rendered no thanks, but gazed, wistfully at the blunderbuss.

If the character reference rendered up by the sisters Milhouse sparked scant visible reaction from its object, its effect on others privileged to be present was much more obvious. The Chief Magistrate still watched the newcomers. One of them, an intriguingly disheveled-looking female clutching a parcel to her bosom, turned her eyes heavenward and groaned. The second lady froze in mid stride, looking adorably confused.

It was not the suggestion that her pudding-faced stepdaughter might indulge in havey-cavey behavior that had stopped Lady Barbour in her tracks; Sidoney might not have had a stepdaughter for all the concern that damsel currently agitated in her mind. Nonetheless, Sidoney’s mind
was
exercised. She stared at the sisters Milhouse, whom she recognized from their encounter at Vauxhall. The sisters Milhouse were, in Sidoney’s mind, irrevocably bound up with a certain masked adventurer.

Could it be that she
would
encounter him again?
Could
Fate have granted Sidoney a last-minute reprieve? “You!” she cried. “Oh, where
is
he? And I issue warning, Morgan, that though you have stolen all my other
beaux,
you shan’t have him too!” A growl came from the gentleman around whom the sisters Milhouse hovered. Prudently, the sisters leaped back. Thus was Lady Barbour privileged to view Viscount English, one foot swathed in bandage, and from one ear dangled a loo mask. “Mercy on me!” she gasped.

Since little enlightenment would be gleaned from two individuals staring at one another as if they were either mentally deficient or thunderstruck—most of their audience inclined toward the former explanation—the Chief Magistrate turned his frowning attention toward the one member of this party with whom he had been acquainted previously. “This is the devil of a contretemps,” observed that gentleman, with what the Chief Magistrate deemed very inappropriate good cheer. “I expect you’d like me to explain.”