The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane (21 page)

Farnley made a choppy bow, cleared his throat
as if to speak, and ended by simply extending a hand in which he
shakily clutched a scrap of pink, scented notepaper.

“This should, er, explain it all, your grace,
I do believe,” he quavered.

Avanoll grabbed the paper and walked to the
candelabra near his desk to read the note that his sister Emily had
penned and left pinned to her pillow (this last being supplied
between sobs and hiccups by Pansy).

“
To Whom it May Concern, though I Doubt my
Fate matters a whit to Any of You,” he read aloud. “Life for me
under this roof has become Insupportable. I, like the Simplest Bird
in the Sky, must be Free to Fly where I will. Society gives married
women So Much more Freedom than Ever I had With You, so I am
Winging my way To Wedded Bliss with my Betrothed, a Gentleman who
Understands my Sensibilities and Will not Countenance Beauty Such
As Mine (his own sweet words) to be Locked Away in a Cage. I Fly
now to my Beloved Rescuer. Your Granddaughter, sister, cousin,
niece, whatever—Emily.”

“The dim-wit plans to elope!” the dowager
cried. “Again!”

“‘I shudder at the word.’ Euripides,” Aunt
Lucinda said, and then promptly did.

“Hell and damnation! Was there ever such a
pernicious brat? Fly, be damned! I’ll clip her little wings when I
get my hands on her,” Avanoll declared hotly as he crushed the note
in one large hand and consigned it to the fire.

“Leave a width or two of her mischief-making
hide for me to strip off her smart-aleck bottom, Ashley,” the
dowager put in absently as she tapped her index finger against her
pursed lips.

“But first things first.” She turned in her
chair to face the teary-eyed maid. “All right, missy, nobody here
will harm you. We all know how easily that sly-boots granddaughter
of mine can wrap innocents like you around her thumb. Lady Emily
hasn’t been out of this house unchaperoned in a fortnight.
Therefore it stands to reason her Beloved Rescuer,” she sneered a
bit over the words, “and she used you as their Cupid. Am I correct
so far, dearie?” she ended kindly. “Just nod, you don’t have to
speak.”

Pansy nodded.

Avanoll cut in, an idea having just struck
him. “How long have these messages been traveling to and fro
through you?”

Pansy rolled her fear-widened eyes. “Oh,
laws, your worship, for an age, a fearsome age.”

“‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first
we practice to deceive.’ Sir Walter Scott,” was Aunt Lucinda’s
sage, if secondhand, observation.

The Duke gave himself a mental kick as he
realized how the names Pansy and Tansy could so easily be misread
for each other, but his musings were caught up short by the
dowager’s next question.

“Just one more little jot of information.
Pansy, and you may retire. The name. Give us the name of Lady
Emily’s correspondent.”

“Did you want all the names of all the notes
or just the ones from the gentleman dear Lady Emily has loped off
with?” Pansy asked innocently.

“If I—no, not if!—when I lay hands on that
girl I’ll fix it so she has no choice but to eat all her meals for
a month standing at the mantelpiece, her rump will be so tender!”
Lady Emily’s nearest blood kin and guardian vowed.

The dowager pushed on, unperturbed by this
outburst. “Just the one, Pansy, please. But hurry, do, as every
moment is precious if we are to put a stop to this nonsense.”

Aided by a poke in the ribs from Farnley’s
pointed elbow, Pansy burst out, “His name be Sir Rollin Whitstone
and he lives at—”

“I know where he lives. That blackguard, that
underhanded, despicable cod,” the Duke bit out, crossing the room
to take down a dueling sword from over the mantelpiece, “and he’ll
rue the day he dared to trifle with my sister! I’ll have his liver
and lights before the hour is out. Farnley!” he called over his
shoulder as he trotted hastily from the room, “I’ll need your
assistance with my jacket and boots. Hurry man, I have no time to
waste.”

Farnley hastened after his master, while
Pansy disappeared through the door and down to the kitchens, where
she could hide in a corner scraping vegetables until her part in
the affair was forgotten.

Aunt Lucinda, who the dowager had more than
once commented possessed more hair than wit, clapped her dimpled
hands in girlish glee and sang out, “‘No sooner said than done—so
acts your man of worth.’ Quintus Ennius.”

“Lucinda, you brainless ninnyhammer,” the
dowager exploded, “this is not a play performed upon the boards
where Good never fails to triumph over Evil and the hero always
emerges unscathed from any heated encounter. This is the real
world, and both my grandchildren are in mortal danger.”

Aunt Lucinda subsided into her chair, pulled
her rosebud-red mouth down at the corners, and proceeded to look
properly subdued.

Soon footsteps were heard to pass hurriedly
by, and the banging of the front door told the women that Avanoll
was off to Half Moon Street and his appointment with Destiny. The
dowager looked disinterestedly about her grandson’s private salon
until her eye alighted on the brimful brandy decanter at her elbow.
“Lucinda,” she ventured, “if you could search out another snifter
for yourself, we might better pass the time sharing a sip or two of
my grandson’s best stock.”

By the time Tansy returned to Grosvenor
Square some twenty minutes later—both the card party and the
company having proven too dull to hold her interest—she followed
the trail of voices to the Duke’s salon and was quickly brought up
to date on Emily’s latest indiscretion.

“All that meek and innocent manner she has
been parading by us these past weeks were nothing but a sham. She
has made a May Game of all of us, the little monster!” Tansy
exclaimed hotly when the dowager told her what was going forward.
“She promised me she would behave, and like a fool I believed
her.”

“‘A woman’s vows I write upon the waves.’
Sophocles,” Aunt Lucinda quoted with a wise nod.

“And Sir Rollin! Why, everyone with a jot of
sense knows he’s nothing more than a hardened seducer who eats
babies like Emily for breakfast,” Tansy continued as she paced
furiously back and forth, her fist pounding into the palm of her
other hand. All at once she stopped, took a deep breath, and yelled
at the top of her lungs, “Farnley!” (which was really quite
unnecessary, as the valet was eavesdropping just outside the door
to hear whether his beloved—who was by some coincidence also the
greatest admirer of his exceptional insight and knowledge—was to be
sacked for her blunder).

The valet appeared at once, and watched in
gape-mouthed astonishment while Tansy took down the black leather
case containing the Duke’s favorite dueling pistols and calmly
loaded the pair. Tansy hefted each piece and nodded, apparently
satisfied, before slipping a pistol into each of the ample pockets
in the evening cloak she had yet to discard. “All right, Farnley, I
am ready. About-face, my good fellow, and let us shove off.”

“Wh-where do you think you are going?” the
dowager asked hollowly.

“I’m off to stop a duel, your grace,” Tansy
replied without a blink. “A rare bumblebath it will be if Ashley
kills his man and must flee the country. Men don’t think, you know.
A simple horsewhipping or a sound thrashing would serve the purpose
just as well, but men tend to lean toward histrionic displays
whenever they believe their honor is at stake. I’d be damned if I’d
get myself exiled for a silly chit like Emily. Better to blacken
Sir Rollin’s peepers and lock Emily in her room on bread and water
than spend the next five years touring India or some other
outlandish spot, don’t you think?”

The dowager was sure she should put a stop to
Tansy’s plans, but love of her grandchildren (and a goodly intake
of vintage brandy) had dulled her wits just enough that she could
not think of any rebuttal but to say chaperons do not carry pistols
or disrupt duels.

Tansy quietly pointed out that it wouldn’t
matter a tinker’s curse (oh, these recurrent lapses into cant
language!) what her title was if Emily was ruined—because then,
logically, chaperon or no, the Lady Emily would be beyond the pale,
never to set foot in Society again. Therefore she, Tansy Tamerlane,
was off to do her best to aid Avanoll in saving the day.

‘“United we stand, divided we fall.’ Aesop,”
Aunt Lucinda proposed, taking another large sip from her
snifter.

“Indeed,” the dowager echoed, drinking a
toast to her companion’s oratorical brilliance.

It did not require the wisdom of Solomon, or
any of the other sages Aunt Lucinda was so fond of quoting, to
deduce that both the dowager and Aunt Lucinda were—to put it
kindly—a trifle up in the world due to the brandy they had so far
ingested. But Tansy hastily decided that a tipsy dowager was better
than a frail old woman lying prostrate on a bed of sorrow over her
missing granddaughter and knight-errant grandson, and opted to
ignore the situation.

Grabbing the bewildered Farnley by the
sleeve, Tansy bundled the valet down the stairs and through the
door Dunstan already held wide open, then ordered the valet to flag
down the first hackney cab he saw. Once inside the shabby vehicle
Farnley hired, Tansy ordered the valet to tell the driver Sir
Rollin’s address, which she was sure the busybody servant would
know.

He did, and they were off, clip-clopping down
the street behind a large conveyance that was proceeding with all
the speed of a funeral procession. “Give that carriage the go-by,
driver, and push that slug of yours to his limit. There’s a guinea
in it for you if you do,” Tansy promised rashly.

For a guinea the driver would have gotten out
and pulled the hackney himself if it would make it move any faster,
and the next two blocks passed quickly.

The only other vehicle now on the street was
a fully loaded hay-cart, just then approaching from the opposite
direction, and looking very much out of place in Mayfair.

“Oh, no,” Farnley cried. “Was there ever
worse luck? A full hay-cart, and coming right at us!”

“So?” Tansy inquired without interest, her
thoughts devoted to the scene that would greet her in Half Moon
Street.

“Any child knows a loaded hay-cart is only
lucky if it is traveling in the same direction as you. To pass one
means bad luck sure as check.”

“Really,” Tansy said absently, turning in her
seat to lean out and look at the evil cart just as it disappeared
around the next corner. Suddenly Farnley saw what she was about and
rudely hauled her back under the canopy. “Please say you didn’t
look at it. Miss Tansy,” he begged.

“I confess, Farnley, I did peek at the cart,
but not for long, I promise, for it rounded the corner as I
watched.”

Farnley turned white as a sheet at her words
and for a moment Tansy really suspected he might cry. “The worst
luck, the very worst luck to see it turn a corner. Oh, Miss Tansy,
your uncaring attitude toward proven omens has destroyed any chance
at a successful rescue tonight by either the Duke or yourself. Oh,
woe! Oh, woe, betide us now,” he whined, rocking back and forth on
the greasy leather seat like a man demented.

There were a lot of things Tansy was willing
to put up with in this life, but traveling with a weeping valet
through the streets of London in a hackney carriage after midnight
was not one of them. Just as she was about to soundly box his ears,
a lone rider out late passed by and, wonder of wonders, his
handsome grey mare tossed her hind shoe just as Farnley was casting
his eyes about and mumbling incantations calling for a miracle.

“Stop! Stop this hackney at once!” he
screeched, as he jumped nimbly into the street and ran forward to
pick up the lost horseshoe. The hackney driver sawed on the reins
and he and Tansy watched in stupefaction as Farnley gazed
reverently at the shoe, spit on it, made a mumbled wish, and tossed
the shoe over his left shoulder before walking away from both the
shoe and the hackney without looking back.

Never turning his head an inch, he called
back to the driver to move up so that he could re-enter the
hackney, as looking about would destroy his good luck. Once back
beside Tansy, he assured her this latest bit of good luck overruled
the lesser evil power of a loaded hay-cart—and that the chance for
a happy ending to the night’s trials was now assured.

“You cannot possibly imagine how gratified I
am to hear that, Farnley,” Tansy said dryly, before adding more
candidly, “I would wager a pound note to a hat pin you make up
these curses and counter-curses as you go along. When it comes to
downright silliness and superstitious nonsense, Farnley, I vow you
bear off the palm.”

Before the aggrieved servant could form a
rebuttal, the hackney had drawn up before a rather dusty stucco
building. The driver announced his belief that he had earned his
bonus, even if the odd gent had slowed them down a bit chasing
horseshoes and all that.

Tipping his battered hat in thanks to the
pair who had quickly scrambled onto the flagway and up the short
flight of steps, he then tested the shiny guinea with his two good
teeth—and turned his horse toward the nearest tavern known to
supply cheap gin and convivial female companionship.

F
arnley, showing a
belated sense of manly courage (an emotion abetted by the
fortuitous grey-mare horseshoe), jumped in front of Tansy and
pounded the brass knocker mightily until a harassed-looking
manservant-cum-jack-of-all trades yanked open the door with an
admonition to “leave off that racket afore Oi calls the Watch down
on ya.”

Tansy pulled Farnley back discreetly by the
hem of his coat, and stepped into the dim light shining out the
doorway. Aping Avanoll’s most supercilious expression (a masterful
combination of haughtiness, pride, and utter contemptuousness), she
cast her eyes up and down any creature so foolhardy as to dare to
block her way—reducing the man to a quivering mass of jelly as he
felt a shivering recollection of another such examination not too
lately past also directed in much the same way. On that occasion,
however, the examination had ended with his person being firmly
deposited, rump-down, in a nearby potted plant.