Cupid's Dart (13 page)

Georgie was rapidly concluding that the things that were most shocking were also the most pleasurable. "I have come in behalf of a friend," she ventured. "It is a very delicate affair."

"It generally is," Magnus said ironically, and leaned back in his chair. "One's friends are the very devil, I have found. Pray proceed, Miss Halliday. I am all ears. But I must warn you that an appeal to my better nature is futile, because I have none." She looked as though she might protest, and he raised a hand. "Truly! You may ask anyone. The whole world will tell you that I am the greatest blackguard alive."

Georgie didn't doubt it. However, she was finding that she liked the blackguard surprisingly well. Not that she considered him at all trustworthy. "The matter involves a lady. And a certain loss."

Why was it that females, bless them, must forever make mountains out of molehills? "Ah," said Magnus. "A loss. I see."

Was the wretched man laughing at her again? Georgie ignored his twinkling eyes and persevered. "The matter poses the lady a dilemma. The item that she lost was not hers, unfortunately."

Magnus saw that Lady Georgiana's reputation would be in tatters by the time she concluded this long, drawn-out tale. He did not wish Lady Georgiana's reputation to be in tatters on his account. At least not without good reason, such as might involve a mutual jaunt along the primrose path. "I do not recall that a lady has lost anything to me recently," he mused. "At least not anything that can be redeemed."

What an exasperation the man was. Georgie tried to frown. "You are determined to be wicked, are you not? In point of fact, the lady did not directly encounter you. The person to whom she lost the, um, item then lost it to you at play."

Many people lost items to Magnus at play. Magnus's facility with the cards almost equaled his luck with the fairer sex. These two abilities were followed closely by a nose for mischief. Something about this tale smelled deuced fishy. "I am curious," he said. "Why is it you apply to me instead of this lady, Miss Halliday?"

Why, indeed? "Because she is a goose-cap!" Georgie retorted. "You will also, pray, forget that I said that."

Magnus didn't think he would forget a single word of this remarkable conversation. "Your friend sounds like a ninnyhammer," he said. "Not that I dislike ninnyhammers, so long as they are beautiful. Is she beautiful, this ninnyhammer of yours?"

"Beautiful ninnyhammer" precisely described Marigold. Georgie was visited by an appalling vision of her old friend begging a boon of the wicked Mr. Eliot. A boon that he would no doubt grant under certain conditions. Conditions that Marigold would be hard-pressed to resist.

Georgie thought she might be hard-pressed to resist those conditions herself. Given Marigold's propensity for disastrous relationships, she must never be permitted to meet this rogue. "Um!" said Georgie, and looked cautiously around. "The item in question is a certain green-colored, ah, whatchy. Do you still have it, sir?"

A green-colored whatchy? Magnus was intrigued. "Plant? Animal? Or mineral?" he asked.

Just what
was
an emerald? "Mineral," Georgie guessed. "Shiny. Hard. Faceted. Surely smaller than a teacup."

Aha! Magnus realized what Lady Georgiana sought. Wise of her not to name the thingamabob with so many people about. Magnus had been reluctant to part with the emerald, because such extraordinary items seldom came his way. And he had been right to keep the thing, for had he not kept it, he would not be having this equally extraordinary encounter with Lady Georgiana. "I do see that your friend is in a dilemma. I suppose you want the doodad back."

"I
don't want anything to do with it!" responded Georgie. "But she must return the item where it properly belongs or suffer a dire consequence. In short, she may go to gaol."

Mr. Eliot studied her. The lovely Lady Georgiana wore a flounced gown of spotted lawn and a chip straw bonnet that were several seasons out of date. "I hope you haven't taken such a hubble-bubble notion as to think I'll give the doodad back, because if you have, you might as well give it up. Sympathetic as I am to the plight of your friend, I am not in the habit of dispensing charity."

Georgie sighed. She had feared his answer might be something of the sort. "I don't know if you can imagine what it is like, sir, to feel as if you're standing on the edge of a precipice. If you do not help us, I truly do not know what we are to do."

Magnus felt as if he were standing on the edge of a precipice at that very moment. The sensation was very queer. Lady Georgiana wasn't going to have hysterics, was she? Magnus disliked hysterics of all things.

The lady didn't look hysterical, however, merely defeated. Magnus was touched. It was a most unique sensation. Magnus didn't think he cared for it.

"I will make you a bargain," he offered, because he could not help but take advantage of a lady in distress. "You may buy the thingamadoodle back from me for twenty-five thousand pounds. Yes, I know that I'm a scurvy rascal who should be condemned for the heartlessness of his conduct, but I have expenses, too, my darling, and I am extravagant and undisciplined to boot, and twenty-five thousand pounds is the best that I can do."

His darling? Poppet and pet, perhaps, even
chérie,
but Georgie could not let "darling" pass. "I am
not
your darling," she said, and stood up from her chair.

Impossible to chasten Mr. Eliot. "Not yet," he said. "Do not poker up at me, Miss Halliday! It is a word only." His green eyes twinkled wickedly. "One that saves me the trouble of remembering names."

The man was beyond outrageous. Georgie parted her lips to tell him so. At that very moment Lump espied a familiar figure in the crowd passing in front of the library. The figure wore a somber expression, and walked with a limp. Accompanying him was a carroty-haired woman wearing a gown of white pina-cloth embellished with a veritable garden of roses. She was carrying a package of fish
.

Lump jumped up and ran to meet his master. In so doing, he overturned the chair to which Georgie had tied him, and tipped her right into Mr. Eliot's lap.

Andrew and Agatha stared in astonishment. 'The devil!" muttered Georgie, against what could only be considered a most comfortable masculine chest.

Chapter Sixteen

"I do not expect that you will play the coquette," said Lady Denham, "but you might at least try and be civil, Sarah-Louise! I wonder at you, indeed I do." At least this evening the girl had been bullied into foregoing stripes. She looked almost unexceptionable in a dress of white gauze embroidered with sprigs of bright color, her hair dressed in flower-adorned ringlets.

Unexceptionable, that is, except for her freckles and her height. Lady Denham hissed, "Back with those shoulders. Stand up straight. Stop staring at the floor. I begin to despair of you! This evening is entirely in your honor. Pray try and look as though you are enjoying yourself just a little bit."

How could Sarah-Louise enjoy herself in the midst of a crowd of strangers, none of whom were the slightest bit interested in her save Mr. Sutton and her aunt? Obediently, she raised her gaze from the floor to her aunt's face. Lady Denham was an unforgettable figure in red satin trimmed with multiple frills and flounces, artificial flowers and satin leaves, the bodice molded tightly to her figure, the sleeves short and puffed. Atop her raven curls perched a turban made of fine lace and decorated with additional ribbons and foliage. Lump would have liked that headdress very well, Sarah-Louise thought, and smiled.

"Much better!" Her niece's megrims aside, Lady Denham was in alt over the success of her rout. Brummell had put in an appearance, as had several other of Prinny's friends. And if the Regent himself had not yet stepped through her front door—well, one could still have hope.

Candles glowed. Jewels sparkled. In one elegant chamber, gentlemen tried their luck at cards. In another chamber, an orchestra played. In yet another, a cold collation was laid out. All the public rooms were crowded. The music of the violins could hardly be heard above the din of voices. To Amice would go the highest of all accolades: she had achieved a dreadful crush.

Lady Denham returned her attention to her niece. At least the girl only stuttered when she was nervous. Unfortunately, that was most of the time. "Perhaps you might marry a title. The
on-dit
is that Lord Amblecoat is looking for another wife."

Sarah-Louise dared interrupt her aunt. "Another?" she asked. "How many d-does he need?"

Lady Denham tut-tutted at this irreverence. However, it was true that Amblecoat had already gone through four wives. The ladies had an unhappy tendency to die in childbirth. Unlikely that a gentleman so enamored of the marriage-bed would be interested in her great, gawky niece. Lady Denham crossed him off her list. Many other fish, however, remained yet in the sea. She pointed out various eligibles, and listed their assets and their faults. Baron Letchcomb was a bachelor of the first stare who had an unfortunate weakness for gambling and other vices best left unnamed; Viscount Taplow was an excellent creature save for a tendency to drunkenness; Hickleton would make a tolerable husband, even if he was a perfect block. Then there was her own favorite candidate, Mr. Sutton, who was rich as Croesus, against whom one could say nothing, and who held Sarah-Louise in the highest regard.

"You are but a girl, and must trust me to tell you how to go on!" Lady Denham concluded, and tapped Sarah-Louise's knuckles with her painted fan. "Though I cannot but think you would be the perfect wife for Carlisle, he will want you all the more if he sees you have made other conquests."

Sarah-Louise wanted Mr. Sutton no more than she wanted a case of the spots. Somehow she must try and flimflam her aunt. As she was thinking how to do so, a stir rippled through the crowd. Sarah-Louise quivered as she glimpsed the gentleman she
did
wish to wed. Mr. Teasdale was very splendid in a cerise-colored full dress coat, frilled shirt with lace ruffles, white marcella waistcoat, and black florentine silk breeches, to which he had added yellow silk stockings with large violet clocks, a muslin cravat with ends left afloat, and a quizzing glass.

"What are you staring at?" inquired Lady Denham, and turned to look. Disapprovingly, she clucked. "Heigh-ho! That boy's tailor should be hanged."

"Madam, your servant!" Elegantly, Peregrine bowed. He thought it only natural that the ladies should gawk at him, for he was the very pink of perfection, dressed in the first stare of fashion, all the crack. The whispers which followed his progress only bore out that opinion. From her awe-struck expression, Sarah-Louise appreciated his fine appearance, which was fortunate, because Peregrine's creditors were growing most annoyingly persistent, and he did not fancy being reduced to poverty. "There is a country dance forming. May I have the honor, Miss Inchquist?"

Sarah-Louise glanced at her aunt. Lady Denham waved her fan. "Do not allow yourself to become overheated!" she said, and returned her attention to her guests. The rooms were grown so crowded that a person could hardly move. She wondered if the Regent had arrived yet.

Peregrine led Sarah-Louise into the room where the orchestra was playing. "You are a vision, Miss Inchquist. Behold me dazzled," he said, and bent over her hand.
"'Roses red, and violet blue/ And all the sweetest flowers, that in the forest grew.'"

Sarah-Louise wasn't certain what flowers had to do with her appearance. She blushed, all the same.
"'All that in this delightful garden grows/ Should happy be, and have immortal bliss,'"
added Peregrine. Having depleted his store of Mr. Edmund Spenser's poetry, he raised his quizzing glass to survey the throng.

Mr. Teasdale was magnificent! Sarah-Louise felt honored that so splendorous a gentleman should look with an eye of fondness upon someone like herself. How strange it was to converse with him without Lieutenant Halliday looking on. If only Andrew had come to the rout. He had declined on account of his lame leg. Sarah-Louise frowned. It seemed to her that of late Lieutenant Halliday had not been feeling quite the thing.

Why was Miss Inchquist frowning? Was he not paying her sufficient attention? Peregrine hoped she didn't mean to be one of those demanding
sorts of wives. If so, he would have to cure her of that habit.

Training a wife could not be all that different from breaking a horse. He would have to ask someone how it was done.

First, Peregrine must get her to the altar.
"'Gather the rose of love, "'
he murmured soulfully,
"'whilst yet is time.’
My dear Miss Inchquist, I beg you will not keep me long in suspense." He slipped a note into her hand.

Surely he could not think she would read it now! Sarah-Louise stuffed the folded paper into her glove, and with Mr. Teasdale joined the set that was being formed. Eight couples stood facing each other. Nervously, Sarah-Louise watched the top couple to try and learn the movements of the dance. Practicing one's steps in the drawing room was a very different thing from performing them in public. With feet as large as hers, Sarah-Louise could not hope that a misstep would go by unnoticed.

The men took hands and fell back a double, forward-turning single, then the women did the same. Right hands across halfway, turn single; second couple, followed by first couple, cast down into a line of four facing up, first couple outside. Forward a couple and back, first couple falling into first place; first couple cast down into second place and cross over, while second couple lead up into first place, crossing
...

Although Sarah-Louise was not precisely overheated by the time the set was finished, she felt a trifle warm. Then she espied Mr. Sutton walking toward them, and her blood ran positively cold.

He bowed. "Your aunt sent me to fetch you in to supper," he said, and nodded to Peregrine. "Teasdale."

Sarah-Louise did not wish to have supper with Mr. Carlisle, but was too meek to argue. She swallowed hard. Peregrine bowed stiffly, and thanked her for the dance. Sarah-Louise watched his cerise-colored jacket until it was swallowed by the crowd. Then she returned her attention to Mr. Sutton. "I am n-not very hungry, sir," she said.