The Luck of the Devil (9 page)

R
owanne felt cheated. She finally understood why the fans in the pit felt entitled to throw rotten fruit on the stage. The hero in every other romantic melodrama was dark and brooding or golden and godlike. Hers was a skinny youth with flaming red hair and ears that would make a jackrabbit blush. Heywood Jeffers just could not be anyone's beau ideal, he hardly shaved yet and his nose had a decided sideward tilt.

The nose, she was quickly informed by an enthusiastic Suzannah making the introductions, was thanks to St. Dillon, at whose name Woody's face lost all color, except for the freckles. The
youngster gallantly added that his prospective brother-in-law had the handiest pair of fives he'd ever seen. Rowanne decided the boy's brainbox was too small to hold a grudge, and immediately concluded that, instead of the strong champion needed to keep Suzannah from her wilder excesses, she had another good-natured noddy on her hands—wearing baggy yellow Cossack trousers.

Emonda was tearfully thrilled that someone else was taking responsibility for Suzannah, and Aunt Cora declared she hadn't had this much fun in years. She beamed on the young lovers, together devouring a second batch of raspberry tarts, as the only sensible creatures in the house. "Nothing wrong with an early marriage. I like a gel that knows her own mind. What's that, Rowanne? Sad imps and immense whats? Don't mumble, girl."

"Admit impediments, Aunt. I was just recalling a sonnet."

"You'd do better to recall your age, missy. Look at the young'uns, gathering their rosebuds."

And all the raspberry tarts.

Gabriel could not understand how any gently nurtured female could be as hey-go-mad heedless as Suzannah, not with Emonda's delicate example. "And the chit chatters like a magpie. Really, Rowanne, do you have to fill the house with every stray female you come upon? And that… that schoolboy. Doesn't he have rooms of his own?"

"Yes, but no cook. I am sorry, dear, that your peace is cut up with so many strangers and high spirits. Shall I pack them all up and send them back to Dorset? I'm sure Emonda would go if I expressed a wish to rusticate. Then you could have the house all to yourself again."

"No, no, wouldn't want to deprive the dear lady of her time in Town. Don't think of going during the Season, my dear, not with my maiden speech scheduled so soon." Gabe bit his tongue. What were a little peace and quiet, if he had more time with the delightful widow? What were one or two less raspberry tarts, even if they were his favorites and Cook made them just for him?

Rowanne decreed that Suzannah's first official public appearance, other than rides in the park, was to be at the opera at the end of the week, leaving just enough time for a month's worth of shopping. Rowanne's favorite dressmaker undertook the perfect dress, white satin, as befit such a young miss, but with an emerald-blue net overskirt strewn with pearls. Only shoes and gloves and a hairpiece and reticule remained to be purchased, along with day dresses suitable for half mourning, and boots, bonnets, parasols, and pelisses for warmer weather. Ailing Aunt Cora managed to pull herself off her sickbed for the spending orgy, so Rowanne was able to stay home the next afternoon, working on her miniature books.

She had a handful of real scaled-down books, including a Bible whose words could almost be made out with a magnifier, and a tiny edition of Othello, given out as a favor to commemorate a forgotten actor's benefit performance some thirty years before. These prizes rested on diminutive stands in the various rooms of the collection. She also had a tiny matched set of purple-bound volumes that an admirer had given her in her first year on the Town. She enjoyed the books far more than the admirer, who'd had the effrontery to write a dreadful poem to Rowanne's beauty inside each volume. The embarrassing works stayed on the bookcase in one of the miniature bedrooms. She still needed rows of books for the library room, hence her efforts with the leather and little blocks cut from her watercolor pad. Now she was adding gold leaf to the Lilliputian spines for a more realistic touch. Hating to stop even when the shopping expedition returned home, with Woody since it was nearly teatime, Rowanne called them into her workroom. She kept at lifting the hair-thin sheets of gold with a dampened brush and applying it to her new library, all the while enthusing over the purchases.

Aunt Cora took herself off for a much-deserved nap, and the others relaxed in the sunny parlor, considering whether a visit to Astley's Amphitheater would show disrespect for the recently departed of both families.

Rowanne was barely listening, concentrating now on transferring gold dust to the lightly glued surface of the top pages of the books, where they might be seen on the shelves. The job was not unlike sanding a letter, she considered, sprinkling the powdered dust, then shaking off the unattached glitter onto a clean sheet of paper. It was only infinitely more expensive. Two more books and she would ring for tea.

Then the butler came in with a card on a silver salver. "I cannot look at it now, Pitkin," she told him. "My hands are full. Who is calling?"

The august butler did not have to read the card; he had it memorized. "Harmon Carrisbrooke Delverson," he intoned, "His Grace, the Duke of St. Dillon."

Rowanne dropped the brush, the book, and the small jar, just as a cloud of gold dust rose around her when some fool suddenly opened the doors to the terrace, Woody having decided not to stay for tea after all. Suzannah looked to be following suit and Emonda could not choose between tears or a swoon.

"You stay right there," Rowanne ordered the younger girl, "and you, Emonda, get hold of yourself. He is not going to eat you." She sneezed. "You cannot leave me alone to face the ogre."

Neither of the others saw why not, and Suzannah saw an open door. "I'll be right outside listening. Please, please, Miss Wimberly, don't give me away!"

Emonda was too slow. Rowanne had an iron grip on her arm. "Show His Grace in, Pitkin."

"Gilding the lily, ma'am?" were his first words after a silence really too long to be polite.

God, she's still as beautiful, he thought, bowing over her hand, while Rowanne thought the duke looked much more vulnerably human than the soldier ever had. He was thinner, with fine lines at his face and a tired look to his eyes where she had used to see a mischievous glint. St. Dillon's hair was mussed and sprinkled with gray; his Bath superfine coat was too large for him. The Delverson dimples never showed, only one edge of Carey's lips quirking up when he saw the gold dust all over her, as if his mouth had forgotten how to smile.

"Not intentionally, I can assure you," she said, recalling she was hostess, not a portrait painter fixing his image in her mind for later study. "Welcome home, Your Grace, and welcome to Wimberly House. We were about to send for tea, but if you would prefer sherry or—" She led him to Emonda, who seemed to burrow deeper into the cushions of the sofa with each halting step he took closer to her.

Carey bowed to his stepaunt. "Nothing, ma'am, but I thank you, and I regret that once again I am an awkward guest. Would you mind terribly if I had a private word with Lady Clyme?"

"Not at all. If you'll excuse me."

Rowanne nodded and started to leave but Emonda squealed, "Don't leave me!" Then she turned to Carey and announced, "Miss Wimberly has stood my friend. She knows All."

"Then she knows more than I do," Carey muttered, but he nodded that Rowanne might stay if she wished.

She did wish, for curiosity's sake if none other, but going would have been hard in any case, with Emonda clinging to her arm like a barnacle, so she sat next to the pale girl on the sofa. Rowanne thought to wipe the gold off her cheeks with her handkerchief, but one glance at Emonda's quivering lip told her the lace-edged cloth would be better held in reserve.

Carey did not sit. He limped toward the shelves holding her collection and seemed to study the tiny objects there. When he spoke at last, just when Rowanne thought Emonda would go off in a faint after all, his words were surprisingly mild. "I suppose that I am sunk beneath reproach, Emmy, but do you think you might tell me why?"

"Why?" Emonda squeaked, nearly jumping out of her seat.

"Really, Emonda, what an impression Miss Wimberly must be getting. I have never beaten you yet. Not that I haven't been sorely tempted, but yes, my dear, dear Emonda, why?" His voice rose with each sentence, until he practically shouted: "Why the bloody hell couldn't you have stayed in Dorset for two more blasted weeks and looked after Suzannah as I asked you?"

Rowanne frowned at the nobleman's back and handed the scrap of linen over to Emonda. She clutched it like a lifeline and barely whispered, "You said you would… I was afraid that you might…"

He turned around slowly. "What kind of cockleheaded nonsense have you talked yourself into now? I said I would make other arrangements, open the London town house, hire a companion for the two of you or something. Hell and damnation, I should have hired a bloody keeper!"

"Carey, your language!" Emonda glanced fearfully at her hostess.

"Oh, Miss Wimberly won't wilt from a rough soldier's speech. She's got more bottom than that. And yes, Emonda, we have met before, three very memorable occasions to be exact. I only regret our fourth meeting is under these conditions, thanks to you and my stubborn, spoiled sister. I expected better of you, Emmy. I really thought you had grown into a sensible young lady."

He even sounded regretful, to Rowanne's ears. Emonda must have thought so too, for she tried to explain her precipitous departure from High Clyme. "That Mrs. Reardon came to call."

Carey sat down heavily, shaking his head. "But Emmy, Mrs. Reardon is a whore; you are a countess. Doesn't that tell you something? Doesn't it seem to you that you could have stuck your nose in the air and walked past her? Tarnation, Emonda, if she couldn't rattle you, she'd stop trying and we could have brushed through, instead of having our dirty linen hanging out for all of London to see. Devil take it, Emmy, I told you to tell her to go to hell."

Emonda sprang up from the sofa, tears pouring down her cheeks, her voice quavering on every word she managed to get out on her way across the room. "I cannot do things like that, Carey, and you always ask me! I cannot control your sister and I cannot face my friends knowing that… that what-you-said waves to me in church. In church, Carey!" She sobbed at the doorway. "And I cannot stand it when you yell at me just because I don't have b-b-bottom!"

And here Rowanne had been wondering how Emonda could turn down such a charming rogue.

Rowanne thought a glass of wine would be timely. Carey might need one too. He was staring at the gold head of his cane when she put the glass near his hand and said, "Very well done, my lord."

He grimaced, reaching for the wine. "I do have a fine light touch with your delicate fair sex, don't I?" He raised the glass to her in a toast. "My apologies again, Miss Wimberly. I am not always so cow-handed. Someday perhaps we shall meet without such high emotions."

But not today, Rowanne was sure, not after he found out about his sister. The longer she put off that discussion the better. She sipped her wine and smiled. "I wonder that you were surprised she ran away. Of course you are used to everyone obeying your every command, aren't you?"

"Do I detect a note of censure? I assure you my men never deserted under fire."

"Far be it from me to criticize, Your Grace. I'll just go fetch another dozen handkerchiefs or two, distill some rose water, perhaps burn a few feathers under her nose."

Carey ran his hands through his already disordered curls, then rubbed his injured leg. "Please forgive my wretched manners. Of course it is you who shall have to bear the brunt of Emonda's megrims, and I am in your debt for looking after the ninnies in the first place. I can only blame my heavy-handed treatment of Emmy on how frantic I have been to get here and make sure they were safe. They did not even take a maid, you know."

She knew better than he did, thank heavens. "I am certain you are also tired and aching from the drive and yesterday's rain," she stated matter-of-factly. "Perhaps you should find your bed and call again tomorrow. By then maybe Emonda will talk reason."

"And maybe pigs will fly. I'll stop cluttering your sitting room as soon as I have spoken with my sister."

"Ah, about your sister…"

He sat forward in his chair. "My word, she is here, isn't she?"

"What would you do if she is? Would you shout and send her flying to her room in tears?"

"No, I thought I'd have her burned at the stake. I begged my father to strangle the nuisance in her cradle. He should have listened."

"What if she is not here?"

"Then she's ruined." He stood slowly, with the aid of his cane. "You were my one and only hope. Now I'll have to track down that Jeffers whelp and shake her whereabouts out of him before I murder the poor beggar. A young cawker like him should not be hard to find in London. I simply have to inquire at every cockfight, horse race, and brawl, or check the dives where some ivory-tuner will be relieving him of his patrimony. People are bound to have noticed a carrot-top with a broken nose."

Rowanne ignored the more lurid promises of violence. "And when you find him?" she pressed.

"Then I suppose I shall have to let them get married. Set the puppy up as manager of Delmere, or call in some chits in the War Office and make some poor sod take him on as a secretary, if he can read. I don't care anymore, they can even live off her money. Lord knows I can spare more when they go through it. I just want my sister back!"

"You do?" cried a rushing swirl of draperies and sprigged muslin, hurling herself through the glass doors and into his arms. "Oh, Carey, you do care about me!"

The duke fell back in his chair, a lapful of radiant young female laughing and crying at the same time.

Rowanne had seen another facet of the duke, his own eyes suspiciously damp. Now she felt de trop and stood to leave the brother and sister alone.

"No, Miss Wimberly, you must stay." Carey's request was not quite a question. "I believe I have you to thank for this pretty little puss in her cropped curls and
à la mode outfit."