Somerville Farce (7 page)

Glynde took a long sip of wine. What did it
matter, anyway? The deed was done, the women were upstairs, and the
scandal had to be suppressed. He put down the glass, his heart
heavy. He couldn’t drown himself in drink; he had to think.
Somehow, in some way, he had to come up with a reasonable
explanation that would divert his Aunt Amelia from the truth and at
the same time enlist her aid.

The woman had, thankfully, remained in
London for an extra day—the delay having something to do with
modistes or milliners, or some such feminine foolishness—and it
would be up to Harry to explain away the Misses Somerville once
Aunt Amelia returned to Glyndevaron. His dark eyes hardened as he
glared into the flames. And that Stourbridge chit had better go
along with whatever story he made up or he’d see her carted away to
jail for her pains—and the devil take the hindmost!

“Hullo. Goodness, it is dark in here, isn’t
it? Are you drinking alone? Trixy says a man who drinks alone is a
man who drinks because he has to, not because he wants to. Is that
true? Are you a sot? Trixy says England is thick with sots, that
you can’t go more than three feet in London without running into
one of them. They’d drink ink if there was nothing else handy, so
needful are they of liquid solace. I think Trixy doesn’t like to
see people drink. What do you think, your grace? You are the duke,
aren’t you? I mean, you don’t much resemble Willie, but I should
think no one but the duke could sit in here and drink wine all
alone without somebody putting up a fuss. Isn’t he simply adorable?
Willie, that is.”

Harry leapt to his feet, nearly tipping over
the small table holding the wine decanter as he all but gaped
openmouthed at the apparition standing just inside the doorway.

It was an angel—no, that would mean he
really was drunk. It was a young girl, the most beautiful scrap of
femininity he had ever been privileged to lay eyes on, drunk or
sober. She was small; she was petitely, perfectly formed. She was
golden from head to foot—from the hem of her sunshine-yellow
nightrobe to her waist-length spun-gold curls. Her eyes were huge,
and sky blue—opened wide in innocence and framed by ridiculously
long black lashes. Her lips were a marvel—soft, full, and naturally
pink—at least three shades deeper than the natural, healthy flush
on her flawless cheeks.

As a matter of fact, if the apparition had
not spoken, advertising her extreme youth, Harry would have said
she was perfect.

“Who... who are you?” he managed to
articulate, still staring, mouth remaining agape.

The “apparition” put a hand to her mouth and
giggled. “I shouldn’t be here, should I? I should be upstairs,
tucked up in my bed—but I’m much too excited to sleep.” She
advanced into the room. “I’m Helena, by the way, Helena Adriana
Theresa Somerville. Trixy says I’m not ever to embroider all my
various initials on anything, or else people should think I’m
selling hats. Do you understand? Helena—H, Adriana—A, Theresa—T,
and Somerville... well, you must have figured it out for yourself
by now. Isn’t Trixy funny? Did you really plan to murder my papa? I
shouldn’t wonder, as he is an odious man. Trixy says so.”

Harry blinked twice, trying to reconcile
Helena’s inane chatter with the vision of ethereal beauty she
presented. He was supposed to wed this creature? Live with this
girl? Listen to this girl? The bloody hell he was! Only if he were
to be struck deaf on his wedding night!

But wait, there were two of them—wasn’t that
what Willie had said? Surely they couldn’t both be so empty-headed,
could they? He closed his eyes and lifted a silent prayer that the
twins were identical in everything but intelligence.

He motioned for Helena to take the seat he
had so abruptly vacated, then excused himself to walk to the
hallway to fetch Pinch. It was one thing to have Myles Somerville’s
daughters in his house temporarily by way of blackmail; it was
entirely another kettle of fish to have himself compromised into
the bargain. He wasn’t sure how Pinch would feel, being employed as
chaperon, but with Aunt Amelia absent, neither he nor the butler
had much choice in the matter.

Pinch, however, was nowhere to be found.
Instead, once he had passed into the hallway, the duke came
face-to-face with Miss Beatrice Stourbridge, clearly a woman with a
mission.

“Where do you have her?” she demanded,
looking about the hallway as if Glynde had somehow stuffed the
Somerville chit under a nearby table. Beatrice’s long single braid
whipped from side to side as she completed her visual inventory of
the hallway and whirled about to face him. “I was just counting
noses upstairs and found that Helena has gone missing. You have
seen her, haven’t you? She wouldn’t have been so silly as to go
searching after Willie again.”

“Again, Miss Stourbridge... Beatrice?” the
duke questioned, one eyebrow rising in confusion. “She went
‘William hunting’ earlier tonight? Whatever for?”

“Call me Trixy, if you please,” she
commanded shortly, brushing past Harry to enter the study. “I can’t
abide ‘Beatrice,’ and ‘Miss Stourbridge’ is entirely too formal for
two people who are dealing on the level upon which we two are being
forced to operate. Helena? Are you in here? Come out, come out,
wherever you are—you headstrong little minx.”

The duke sidled up behind her. “And I
imagine you may address me as Harry—although for the life of me I
don’t know why I just said that. Stop fluttering about like an
ancient hen who has misplaced her one chick. She’s over there—good
Lord, she’s asleep in my chair! How could she do that?”

Trixy turned to look at him, a smile teasing
the corners of her mouth. “Ancient hen? I’m at my last prayers, I
agree, but I hadn’t thought I was ancient. I think, Harry, that I
must take umbrage at that statement.”

Harry bowed from the waist, returning her
smile. “My profound apologies, Trixy. It must have been the
nightrobe that put me off. It is horrible, you know. I have never
been fond of plaid. Now, back to the matter at hand—how do you
suppose Helena could fall asleep so fast?”

“It’s the quick, untroubled sleep of the
innocent—which is another way of saying the little darling doesn’t
have the intelligence to work up to a bout of insomnia. Help me get
her to bed, will you?”

Harry put a hand on Trixy’s arm to stop her.
“Just a moment, Miss Stour... Trixy. What did she want with my
brother?”

Shaking off his hand, Trixy crossed the
room—the duke hard on her heels—to stand, hands on hips, staring
down at Helena. “It’s quite simple, really. She thinks your
brother—the young miscreant who planned to kidnap her and then set
her up to be ravished—is adorable. What can I say, Harry? The child
isn’t overly bright.”

His grace looked down wistfully on the
angelic face. “And her sister?” he asked, voicing his earlier
thoughts aloud.

“Eugenie? Why do you ask? Oh, don’t tell me—
you’re already trying to decide which of the twins is to become
your duchess. I must say, Harry, you’re not too slow off the mark,
are you?”

Harry spoke through gritted teeth. “Just
answer the question, Miss Stourbridge.”

“Trixy,” she corrected, leaning down to give
Helena’s shoulder a small shake. “And Eugenie is much the brighter
of the two. Not that that’s saying much,” she added under her
breath as Helena opened her eyes, blinking in confusion.

“Oh, hullo, Trixy,” Helena trilled,
uncurling her legs in preparation for rising. “Have you met the
duke? Yes, of course you have. You told us all about it at dinner.
You were right. He is extremely handsome, in a dark sort of way—and
he’s quite old too. Not at all like Willie.”

“Yes, pet,” Trixy agreed tightly, longing to
strike the child. Wasn’t it bad enough that she had been forced to
chase all over the house for the brat, finally running her to
ground, only to present a view of herself to his grace while
dressed in her shabby, frayed nightclothes? Did the child have to
deal out glimpses of her earlier private statements about the
man—and then insult that same man, into the bargain—although, of
course, it did give him some of his own back for that nasty crack
about ancient hens. Still, she couldn’t help defending him. “I
agree with you, darling, he’s not at all like Lord William. His
grace has all his second teeth. Now, come on, Helena. It’s hours
past your bedtime.”

Harry leaned down to whisper once more in
Trixy’s ear, the feel of his warm breath tickling her throat and
sending small shivers down her spine. “It would appear the two of
us have one foot dangling into the grave, if this child is to be
believed. Have you ever considered leading strings, Miss
Stourbridge?”

“That—as well as a muzzle, your grace,
although Helena doesn’t think I’m old, just not very young,” she
answered quickly, leading her charge away. “And, please, the name
is Trixy,” she added as she paused at the doorway.

Harry lowered himself heavily into his
chair, picking up his wineglass. “I shall try, madam, but I must
tell you, I once had a pet rabbit named Trixy. It seems odd to call
a woman what I once called a pretty piece of vermin.” He smiled,
lifting the glass to her. He didn’t know why, but he was feeling
much more the thing than he had a few minutes ago. “Then again, as
I think on it...” he ventured silkily, laughing as the governess
fairly pushed Helena into the hallway.

Trixy took two steps back into the room.
“How disappointing—and just when I had begun to believe I had
finally met an intelligent man. You know, my father once had a
large ugly green parrot named Harry,” Trixy was stung into lying
quickly, glaring at him so as to belie the fib. “He did a fearsome
amount of talking, but he never had anything to say! And now, good
night to you... Harry. Perhaps you should retire as well, for
tomorrow you shall meet Eugenie and begin deciding which of your
enemy’s daughters you shall wed!”

Harry, alone once more, took a deep drink
from his wineglass as he realized that Miss Trixy Stourbridge had a
most disconcerting way of always getting in the last word.

“G
ood old Harry,”
Willie murmured contentedly, sighing in obvious delight as he
lowered his frame sideways into the overstuffed chair in the sunlit
morning room. “He’s taking all this rather well, isn’t he? I mean,
he has been a real brick about everything, don’t you think?”

Andy, already lying full-length on the
settee, his booted feet resting square in the middle of one
overblown tapestry rose, tipped his head to the side and
contemplated the grin on his friend’s face. “Do I really think so,
Willie? No, you gullible twit, I do not, and neither would you if
you stopped congratulating yourself on your lucky escape long
enough to reason it out. I mean, consider the thing carefully.
Would you be happy to learn that Harry had brought home two girls
for you to marry?”

“Two girls for him to marry?” Willie shook
his head in disgust. Sometimes he wondered about Andy. The fellow
was his best friend, but there were times he could be very silly.
“Don’t be such a Nick Ninny. I never did any such thing. He can’t
marry the both of them—that’s not even legal, I don’t think.
Besides, I had no intention of bringing them here for Harry to
marry.”

“No, you wanted to bring them here to be
ravished. Now that I consider it, I suppose Good Old Harry would
have been over the moon about that.”

Willie laid his head back over the arm of
the chair, to stare up at the stuccoed ceiling and the dimpled
amorini
that cavorted there among flowing stucco ribbons and
stars. “It all sounded so simple at the outset, didn’t it? Now,
here we are, knee-deep in women, and Harry is going about the house
whistling, of all things. Maybe you’re right, Andy. Maybe he isn’t
happy. Maybe he has just gone round the bend.”

He sat up, turned about sharply so that his
feet slammed against the floor, and looked at Andy searchingly. “Do
you suppose that’s it? Do you suppose m’brother’s mind has snapped
under the strain? My God, it must be—and it’s all our fault!”

Andy was immediately caught up in the notion
of the duke’s tragic proposed addled mental state. Sitting up
himself, he all but licked his lips, prophesying, “You shall have
to lock him away, you know. Someplace like Bedlam—only cleaner. My
cousin Bertram just came out from one of those private places, and
he’s fine as ninepence now—except for when there’s a full moon, of
course, but that’s just a piddlin’ thing compared to the way
Bertram used to be. Wore a leather collar, for criminey’s sake, and
plopped onto the floor every time he had an itch, to scratch behind
his ears with his foot. But he’s out now, like I said, and received
nearly everywhere—besides being heir to an earldom into the
bargain. It can be done, Willie, if you just have faith.”