The Mandarin of Mayfair (12 page)

The tears brimmed over. She said, "Oh, Jamie! I do love you so!"

Gwendolyn had not seen Gideon leave, but when she encountered Tummet in the morning room he told her "Cap'n

Rossiter" had gone, but that his "temp'ry guv" was still at home.

"Oh, dear," she said.

"Right, mate. I mean—miss!" With one of his horrendous winks the valet said, "Best if they come back fly-an'-spoon, if you was to ask me," and hurried off in response to a distant shout.

Gwendolyn went down the stairs and peered out of the breakfast room windows. A greengrocer's cart came rattling around the corner, and two youthful gentlemen astride horses that appeared no more than half broken to the bridle made their erratic way as often along the flagway as on the road, but there was no sign of the pair she hoped to see. She thought absently," 'Fly-and-spoon…'? I suppose it means something and soon, but—"

The blast of a shot drove every vestige of colour from her cheeks and set her heart leaping frantically. She hurried into the corridor. A shriek from above-stairs undoubtedly emanated from Mrs. Dudley's bedchamber; a pale-faced lackey was hurrying down the stairs, and there came a babble of alarmed cries from the direction of the kitchen. All this Gwendolyn noted as she limped to the dining room, her heart in her mouth and the small pistol in her hand.

Another shot blasted at her ears as she crossed the terrace and went down the steps toward the summer-house. Trembling with the terror that she would at any second come upon August's lifeless body, she rushed inside and stopped abruptly.

He had discarded coat and waistcoat, and stood on the far side of the little house. He held a long pistol steady, and was taking aim at a row of bottles balanced on a plank between two upturned barrels. Tummet sat on the steps, loading another pistol.

Gwendolyn's almost overwhelming relief at once became fury. "Ooh!" she cried.

Falcon, who had not heard her impetuous approach, fired and wiped out the centre of Mrs. Dudley's favourite rose bush.

"Oh, hell and damnation!" he howled, throwing down the pistol and clutching at his hair.

"Are you gone quite demented?" demanded Gwendolyn, confronting him.

"Very likely," he snarled. "Why the deuce must you come creeping—"

"Never mind about that! Do you know that you frightened me—everyone—to death? You cannot fire off that horrid thing in the middle of London Town!"

"Indeed?" His lips curled back in a savage grin. "Watch!" He stretched out an imperious hand. "Tummet!"

"Ain't no use waving yer famble at me, Guv. It takes more'n two seconds to load this here deadly wepping. 'Sides, Miss Gwen's right. You'll have the Watch dahn on us, 'fore you can shrink-and-cry—"

"Blink an eye!" translated Gwendolyn, lapsing.

Tummet leered at her.

"I know what it means," said Falcon. "And when I want your opinion, Tummet— Hey! What're you doing with that?"

Gwendolyn glanced down. She'd quite forgotten she held her little pistol. "It's mine. Now do you see how you scared me?"

A smile awoke little blue gleams in his eyes. "Rushing to my rescue, were you?"

"No, I was not!" she lied, feeling her cheeks burn. "I—I thought Katrina was being kidnapped!" Up went his horrid eyebrow in that beastly way that conveyed so much mockery, and she said hotly, "Had I thought you were out here playing—"

"Playing! I'll show you— Here, give me that little pop!"

"I will do no such thing!" she cried, whipping the pistol behind her.

"Why not? You don't know how to fire the foolish article, and even if you did, the ball wouldn't come within a mile of what you aimed at!"

"Is that a fact?" She flung up her arm so swiftly that Falcon gave a shout and jumped clear in the nick of time. Her shot went straight and true and a bottle exploded in fragments.

"Gwendolyn… Rossiter!" shrieked Mrs. Dudley Falcon, her voluminous Passionata Blush silk negligee billowing as she panted her agitated way through the summer-house.

"Has everyone in this house gone stark raving daft?" trumpeted the Dowager Lady Mount-Durward, marching in from the side gate followed by her footman, a gardener, a groom, and two interested urchins.

"Oh, my heavens!" moaned Gwendolyn, red-faced and red-handed.

August Falcon leaned on Tummet and laughed hilariously, without—as he was later informed—a shred of conscience.

"You did nothing!" accused Gwendolyn, reining her polite dapple gray to a walk as they approached the gardens of Bloomsbury Square.

Mounted on his fiery black, Andante, Falcon said blandly, "Absolute truth. You on the other hand, were fairly caught in the act." He chuckled. "Gad, if ever I saw poor Lady Mount-Durward so shocked!"

"I was the one to be shocked! She snorted at me like—like a bull!"

"How harsh! And to speak so of an elderly lady… !" He clicked his tongue.

"Oh dear. You are quite right, of course. That was very bad." Her eyes kindled. "But—she did!"

"Yes," he agreed, laughing. "She's a terror. Which is why I walked home with the lady before submitting to your demand that I carry you out of retribution's way."

Turning to him eagerly, Gwendolyn said, "Were you able to redeem me in her eyes? Gideon will surely take me home if he learns of my shocking behaviour."

"No he won't. I used my considerable charm to calm the outraged dowager, and you are forgiven. Come, let me lift you down." He hailed a hovering boy and sent him off to walk the horses for ten minutes or so and they went into the gardens.

In spite of the early hour the unexpected sunshine had lured several people there. A nursemaid was walking with a pretty rosy-cheeked small girl who pushed a little cart, and two elderly gentlemen strolled side by side, embroiled in a heated discussion.

Taking the arm Falcon offered, Gwendolyn limped along the footpath amid flowerbeds empty of bloom now, save for some chrysanthemums that were beginning to look scrawny.

"Were you really able to placate Lady Mount-Durward?" she persisted doubtfully.

"But, of course. Did you think me incapable of bringing such as her ladyship around my thumb?"

She frowned. "I should have remembered how you charmed poor Lady Clara Buttershaw."

"That female dragon? Poor? Good God!"

"Yes, I know she is very dreadful, and that she and her sister are involved with the League. But—I believe she really cared for you, and you just laughed at her."

"I did no such thing!" He grinned unrepentantly. "Not openly, at least."

"No, but behind her back—"

His eyes narrowed, and his voice was ice when he snapped, "I do not make fun of people behind their backs, Miss Rossiter! London is already overburdened with mean-souled sneer artists! I neither like nor admire Lady Clara Buttershaw. She is a selfish bullying harridan, but—"

"Well, if that is not mocking someone behind her back, I'd like to—"

"I state facts, which are well known. And I speak to you privately and in confidence. I hope I am not so lacking in gallantry as to shout such remarks in clubs and coffee houses."

"Well I hope you are not, either." His head jerked around, anger blazing in his eyes. Gwendolyn smiled and patted his arm. "No, do not fly into a pelter. Tell me, pray, how you managed to bring your fearsome neighbour around your thumb. I suppose you flattered her so that she quite forgot how angry she was."

He shrugged. "All women are susceptible to flattery."

"At which you, of course, are a past master, besides being quite without scruples. Oh dear. Your eyebrows are knitting again. Now, admit it, August. I'd not be in trouble had you not done so outrageous a thing as to practice your aim in the heart of Town."

"You are becoming tiresome. I shall take you home."

"I am not being tiresome. I am trying to come at why you have no vestige of consideration for anyone but yourself."

He put a hand across his eyes and moaned, "Oh, Lud! Must I endure all this preaching only because I fired a few shots in my own garden?"

"No, do be serious. Did—"

"If we are to be serous, I must sit down, for the strain will be terrible. Here—this bench will do."

He dusted it with his handkerchief, and when she was seated, sat beside her. "Very well," he said with a deep sigh. "Have at me."

She said anxiously, "Am I being a nag? I expect Gideon would say I am."

"I have the greatest respect for your brother's opinions."

"Yes, so do I. But we must help our friends, you know, whether—"

"I have told you before. I neither need nor want friends."

"And there you go again. You neither need nor want. Does it not occur to you that
I
might need you for a friend?" His lips tightened, and he stared at a bent chrysanthemum in silence. "Did it not even dawn on you this morning," she went on, "that your target practice might have really frightened your aunt? She is—well, not so young as she used to be, and she was very upset."

A frown came to his face. He guided a confused ladybird from his hand onto a shrub beside the bench, and said, "I suppose next you will be telling me there was a lady in the Mount-Durward house who fainted and lost the child she was expecting! Or that the old duffer who dwells in the house behind us and is in a drunken stupor nine-tenths of the time suffered a heart seizure! If it pleases you to concoct such nonsensical dramas, by all means indulge your morbid imagination, and believe me to be, as you have so often said, a hard-hearted, conscienceless, care-for-nobody. If 'tis good for nothing else, it should at least cure you of wanting me for a friend."

"It would, if I believed it. I do not. August," she said pleadingly, "why must you always try to make everyone think the worst of you? No, pray do not be cross. I wouldn't bother to pinch at you, if I did not care for you so much."

He caught his breath, and from under his long lashes a tense glance was slanted at her earnest face. Then he laughed and said lightly, " 'Tis unwise to care for sharp-tongued cynics like me, Smallest Rossiter. They have been known to sting."

"Like a scorpion? 'Tis said they sting when they are trodden on."

"Your enterprising scorpion stings
before
'tis trodden on." She laughed, and he added, "As I am sure several of my—ah, lady loves would warn you."

"Oh, pish! I did not mean
that
kind of caring. Besides, I doubt you ever loved anyone, save your family."

"A man may love without giving his heart." He added deliberately, "I have had many loves."

"You mean you have had many
affaires
."

He moaned and closed his eyes. "Shock upon shock! First you upset my chaste neighbours, now you use terms no blushful maiden should even know!"

"I grew up with two brothers, have you forgot? And you might be surprised at what blushful maidens know. Can we go on now? The wind is a trifle chill."

Amused, he helped her up, and they started off again. The wind was indeed rising, and clouds were gathering to hint at rain to come. People were leaving the gardens and the nursemaid and her charge hurried along the path toward them, clearly homeward bound.

The nursemaid bobbed a curtsy. "Good morning, Miss Rossiter."

"Good morning, Bellworth. You're out early. Good morning, Susan."

The nursemaid's admiring gaze was on Falcon, and she murmured that it looked a trifle threatening so she must get Miss Susan home. The little girl's curtsy was less well balanced. She teetered, and clung to the scabbard of Falcon's sword.

It was not a steady support. Her little cart rocked. Righting it, and steadying her, he then picked up the square of blanket that had fallen, and bent to replace it saying laughingly, "Take care, young lady, else your doll will—"

He drew back with a startled cry. The occupant of the cart was not a doll but a large tabby cat which appeared less than delighted to be clad in a baby's bonnet and gown.

Falcon dropped the blanket, clapped a handkerchief to his nose and roared a sneeze.

The cat deserted the cart and fled, but finding its flight impeded paused to pedal furiously at the encumbering skirts.

The little girl wailed, "You frighted my baby!" and, encouraged by the fact that her nursemaid had run after and caught up the escapee, she dealt Falcon a strong kick on the shin.

Falcon yelped, and sneezed again.

"That will do, Susan!" said Gwendolyn sharply.

"He frighted my baby! Din't he, Belly?" shrilled the child.

Struggling to subdue a growling ten-legged feline, the nursemaid panted that she knew as they never should've brought the dratted animal, and that Miss Susan had been told not to call her that, and the nice gentleman hadn't meant no harm.

Variously convulsed, outraged, and hilarious, Falcon's attempt to respond was lost in another sneeze.

"Yes, he did! He's a bad man!" declared Susan, drawing back her shoe.

"Kick be agaid, add I'll… kick you back," gasped Falcon stuffily.

"He kicked me! He kicked me!" howled Susan. "I'll tell Papa!"

"You will be quiet," said Gwendolyn sternly. "Else I shall have to tell your papa how badly you behave when Bellworth takes you for a walk!"

This terrible threat subdued the child and she ran after the nursemaid, pausing to direct black glares at the still sneezing Falcon.

"Is what I deserve," he moaned, "for bei'g ki'd."

"Well, it was kind in you to help the child, certainly," said Gwendolyn. "But if you dislike cats, you shouldn't—"

He blew his nose. "Cats have a purpose," he sighed, recovering somewhat. "They keep down hideous creatures like mice, so I cannot dislike the brutes. But they make me sneeze."

"Goodness me but they do," she said, walking slowly beside him while he dried his tears. "Well, they've gone now, and Bellworth took the cat, so you may be at ease."

He grinned at her over his handkerchief. "Do you refer to 'Belly'?"

"Poor creature." She chuckled. "I think I'd not care to have charge of Miss Susan Ditton. She's only six, but is badly spoiled already."

"How come you to know the brat?"

"She lives on the other side of Lady Mount-Durward. We meet sometimes when I take Apollo for a walk."