The Wagered Miss Winslow (26 page)

The Manchester Defiance was just pulling into the yard as the hackney Lord Coniston had hired arrived at The Swan With Two Necks some scant ten minutes later.  The hustle and bustle of the arriving passengers, mixed with the well-orchestrated pandemonium that marked the inn as the main competition of The Bull and Mouth in Aldersgate in the race to be the finest coaching hostelry in London, caused the Marquess to remember that his bout of drinking and wenching had left him with a fearsome hangover.

“I suggest we adjourn to the breakfast room and to some good eggs and ham before speaking with the innkeeper,” he said, already making his way toward the front door of The Swan.

“I wouldn’t be sorry to get a glass of spirits,” the bogus Maharajah seconded happily. “‘Tisn’t day yet if I haven’t had a bit of good Irish whiskey, y’know. None for the gel, y’know, though I’ll wager she wouldn’t say no to a fine cup of tay.”

From the moment the handsome young lord had smiled at her in the alleyway the girl had not spoken a word, remaining mute throughout the journey to The Swan, her thoughts her own.

In truth, part of her was thankful for the man’s timely intervention, yet another part of her deeply resented his notion that they had indeed been in need of rescue. She thought she had been handling the matter quite well, actually, and would have had them out of their scrape in another few minutes.

As she preceded the Marquess into the crowded breakfast room a smile hovered on her full, dusky-pink lips as she recalled the nervous perspiration on the brow of the assistant constable. The intricate ins and outs of bilking her fellow man were just business; it was the fancy footwork of the thing that gave her such a thrill and got her heart to beating in such a delightful way.

After their order was taken by a sleepy barmaid, Lord Coniston formally introduced himself to his guests and then sat back to see if they were going to return the favor. His sally with the girl in the alleyway had caused the Maharajah to break into delighted laughter and, as the girl could have told him, if you make an Irishman laugh, he’s yours.

And so now, instead of running yet another rig on their savior, the Maharajah leaned over confidentially and whispered, “The name is Murphy, my lord. Maximilien P. Murphy, of the County Donegal Murphys, and this lady here is my young niece and ward, Candice Murphy. We thank you for your service. After all, far better a hasty retreat, y’know, than a bad stand.”

Miss Candice Murphy, who had been studiously ignoring the Marquess’s intent stare, lifted her head to take umbrage with her uncle’s statement. “I take exception to that last remark,” she cut in defiantly, glowering at Mr. Murphy. “We were coming about nicely before his lordship poked his fine, aristocratic nose where it had no business to be poking.”

Turning back to the smiling Marquess, she rested her elbows on the table and narrowed her slanted cat-amber eyes. “Let’s talk with the buttons off, my lord,” she said bluntly. “What’s your lay?” At the man’s questioning look she expanded angrily, “Your enterprise, your pursuit, your angle?”

Tony Betancourt assumed a crestfallen expression. “How you malign me, Miss Murphy. I acted out of good Christian charity only.”

Miss Murphy tossed her head and sniffed unbelievingly, “Of course you did. And when the sky falls, we’ll all catch larks.”

“Here now,” her uncle remonstrated, “it’s a fine broth of a boy you see before you, Candie. Don’t be measuring his lordship’s corn by our own bushel, girlie. He wants nothing more of us than to give us a good turn, or me name’s not Maximilien P. Murphy.”

“Ac-tu-ally, “ Tony interrupted, leaning forward on his chair, “Miss Murphy is not altogether incorrect. I ask no payment for services rendered, Mr. Murphy, but I had hoped you would satisfy my curiosity. Call me one of life’s observers. My interest has been piqued, and I sense a fine story in the tale of your exploits.”

Maximilien P. Murphy measured his breakfast companion with the acquired wisdom of a man who need understand the motivations of his fellow creatures and decided the young lord was in earnest. Besides, if there was one thing Max Murphy craved more than his Irish whiskey, it was flattery, and as his niece moaned her defeat, he spread his hands magnanimously, immodestly acknowledging the fact that, indeed, the story of his life was worthy of great interest.

Candie, knowing the only time her uncle told the truth was when he was somehow unable to summon up a lie, kept her head bowed low over her plate as Max began his tale by claiming kinship to every great Murphy that ever roamed the earth. From the barony of Banagh to Marie Louise O’Murphy (mistress of Louis XV and sometime artist’s model), Max was related to them all. Even Candie did not know how much of this was true, seeing as how Murphy was the most common name in Ireland and Max could just as easily have been the second son of a family of itinerant potato farmers.

Tony listened with what looked like rapt attention to Max’s tale of sheltered youth passed in luxury suddenly stripped away by, begging his lordship’s pardon, some low, conniving Bug (the Irish’s none too flattering term for an Englishman). Left without resources, and with little Candie no more than a babe, he had been forced to live by his wits, and had been doing nicely, thank you, for nearly two decades.

“You catch us a mite down at the heels at the moment, y’know, but we’ll soon right ourselves. But for now, y’know, I think it would be best if the Maharajah of Budge-Budge takes himself on a little holiday.” Rising from the table, Max wrapped his robes about himself and said, “If you meant it about our luggage...”

Also rising, and after helping Candice out of her chair —earning for himself no more than a curt thank you— Tony pressed, “But what will you both do now?”

“He’ll be an inspector of public buildings for a time,” Candie supplied, getting a little of her own back from her uncle, who knew that she meant he would roam the streets with nothing to do.

But Maximilien P. Murphy merely laughed, nudging Lord Coniston with his elbow, saying conspiratorially, “A woman’s tongue is a thing that does not rust, m’boyo, and don’t you go forgetting it either. To listen to her, you’d think I’ll next be landing in the spring-ankle warehouse you call Newgate. Not so, y’know, as I’ve other fish to fry. There’s a lot of wisdom inside this head,” he ended, tapping his massive turban with his finger.

“That there is,
Uncail
,” his niece piped up, grinning, “and a multitude of sense outside it as well.” Looking not in the least penitent, she asked, “And what rig will you be running now,
Uncail
? This pinching of pennies is such a dreadful bore, don’t you know.”

Instead of answering, Max took up one of the portmanteaus the innkeeper had grudgingly dumped on the floor, winked broadly at Lord Coniston, and repaired to the small room off to one side of the inn, leaving his niece alone with their rescuer.

They stood in silence for a few minutes, Candie idly inspecting the people wandering in and out of The Swan and Tony idly eyeing her. When the tension between them grew annoying, Candie offered nastily, “You’re dreadfully in the way, my lord. If you’ve had enough sport, you may be on about your travels now, and it’s not my eyes that will be crying as you fade from sight.”

“Why are you such a prickly pear, sweetness?” the Marquess asked in his smoothest, most seductive voice. “Such a ravishing creature as yourself cannot be unaccustomed to admiration. Why have you taken this particular admirer in such dislike?”

Candie stepped back a pace and reexamined the man standing beside her. “It would seem Max has put the fox to mind the geese. If it’s a quick tumble in the hay you’re after, my fine upstanding lord, might I suggest that redheaded creature standing near the door? She seems eager enough. As for me, there isn’t gold enough in all England to even tempt me into doing what you are thinking.”

As seductions went, this one wasn’t going so well, a deduction Tony attributed to the fact that he had been up all night and was not appearing at his urbane best. He was sure Max and his “niece” had been down on their luck before, with the comely wench commissioned to replenish their pockets by means of assuming the customary horizontal position.

But perhaps he had misread their situation. He had seen himself as the closest, most accessible target for her attentions, but if he didn’t soon take his foot out of his mouth she would disappear into the bowels of London and he would never know how her white-blonde hair looked when spread out across his pillow.

“Please excuse me for my forwardness,” he begged prettily, bowing. “You will find that I am nearly always stupid at this hour of the morning. My words were spoken in all admiration, mixed perhaps with a bit of concern for you and your uncle now that you are out on the street with nowhere to go. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

At that moment Max reappeared, dressed to the teeth in the trappings of an Italian nobleman, the only recognizable feature to give him away being those same sparkling green eyes.

Executing an elegant leg for his awestruck audience of one (Candie had seen it all before), Max announced in heavily accented English, “I am the Conte di Casals, lately arrived from Florence. You see with you my niece Gina. Would you be so kind as to have some one of these
servitu
load our
bagagli
into a, how-you-say, conveyance so we may repair to our
alloggio
that is on your Half Moon Street?”

 Taking Tony’s arm, as the young lord was standing as still as a wax statue, Max made a shooing motion with his free hand that sent his grinning niece scurrying ahead of them into the sunlight before asking his lordship urbanely, “I am considering either Bigelow or Crimpson to set up my cellars. Who, dear sir, do you recommend for my favor?”

“I am all admiration,” Tony said honestly as the trio settled back in yet another hired vehicle and headed off toward Half Moon Street. From the top of his head to the tip of his toes, Maximilien P. Murphy was every inch the Italian Count, and it would take a more discerning eye than Lord Coniston’s to find any flaw in the appearance the man projected. “But I also confess to being abominably slow. According to your niece, you were without resources. How did you ever command a set of rooms on Half Moon Street?”

The fat is nicely in the fire now, Candie thought, mentally flogging her uncle for giving in to the urge to show himself off in front of this new, unknown outsider. In all her twenty years she could not remember Max exposing himself so—giving away secrets to a total stranger. Their survival depended on snap judgments of people, though, and so far Max’s intuition had been dead center on target. Perhaps, she opined, if the man were not so terribly handsome, with the devil’s own black eyes dancing in his head, she would trust him more.

While Candie sat in her corner of the crowded hackney and muttered to herself, Max took command of the conversation, magnanimously explaining his method of convincing his prospective landlord that he was not only expected to arrive on this date, but had already paid his first quarter’s rent to the man’s agent in the City.

“Are we going to stay at number sixty-three again then,
Uncail
?” Candie asked idly. “There’s such a pretty view from the front windows there, don’t you think?”

Tony’s original mission—bedding one Miss Candice Murphy before the week was out—took a backseat to his interest in Uncle Max and this latest scheme. “You’ve stayed here before? And paid for the privilege?” he asked, suddenly in awe of this great trickster.

“Don’t be a goose, sir,” Candie answered as her uncle went off in a paroxysm of laughter. “We never pay for anything. That’s the beauty of the thing. Oh, we never bilk honest people—just the money-hungry ones or those who have more gold than they’ll ever need.”

“Of course,” Tony affirmed, trying very hard to look solemn. “But won’t the landlord recognize you?”

Max Murphy slapped a beefy hand on his thigh in delight. “O’course not, boyo. Does my darlin’ girl here look anything like an African crown prince?”

Tony looked again at the fair skin and fairer hair of Candice Murphy. “Not at all,” he answered, confusion in his face.

Max laughed again. “Well, she did last summer!” he fairly shouted and, thoroughly enjoying the dumbfounded expression on the Marquess’s face, uncle and niece indulged themselves in their best laugh since before the assistant constable had hauled them away to the guardhouse.