Maggie MacKeever (15 page)

That presence was very fine, clad in the attire requisite for riding in Hyde Park: blue coat with brass buttons, snowy linen and intricately pleated cravat, leather breeches and top-boots; and it displayed to excellent advantage a manly physique. Broad shoulders and narrow waist and—Well! Angelica decided to ask Valerian about this giddiness that afflicted her on sight of Simon Brisbane. Perhaps there was some simple medical explanation, some disease that included among its symptoms palpitations and an oppression that settled on the breast. That Angelica was an innocent in matters of the heart need hardly be explained; nor that the member of the Millikin family whom Lord Chalmers trusted to be always prudent, and the other members of the family trusted to be immune to fits of folly, was unwittingly embarked upon a most serious madness. The cool and sensible Angelica had fallen under the spell of a magnificent profligate, in which development can be found a most salutary moral: even ladies of great good common sense may conjure up visions of cloud-cuckoo-land.

Among the people ignorant of this departure from good sense was not Simon Brisbane. Wise in the ways of women, as well he should have been—let there be no doubt of the matter: Simon was a remorseless rakehell; his far from blameless reputation had been very fairly earned—his lively sense of humor was still tickled by the unpredictable Miss Smith. Were she the designing woman Durward proclaimed her, he reflected, she had but recently embarked upon her infamous career. That Miss Smith was fascinated by a man so visibly used up by dissipation as himself strongly indicated to Simon that the lady had never before made the acquaintance of a reprobate. Since London teemed with such, and since it was a strange adventuress who had never encountered her male counterpart. Miss Smith was either new to London, or no adventuress. With the view of learning which explanation was correct, Simon interrupted Sir Randall’s soliloquy, pointed out that Miss Smith’s fingers must be quite cramped, and suggested tea.

“My dear Miss Smith!” cried Sir Randall. “You should have told me I was overtaxing your strength. Here, let me relieve you of this, and that—there! Now are you quite comfortable.”

Angelica was anything but comfortable; outdoor gardens on cool if sunny days were not her idea of settings most conducive to the penning of memoirs, especially when such activity was conducted under the clear green gaze of a hardened rakeshame. “Perfectly comfortable, thank you!” she responded, in a tone she fancied was brisk and businesslike, and which might have been precisely that, had not her throat gone dry. She glanced at Simon. “Your father’s memoirs promise to be most interesting, don’t you agree?”

Simon quirked an auburn brow. “Dull stuff!” said he. “If you wish to make your fortune, Papa, you must be a great deal more libelous. Look at Caro Lamb, and that book of hers. You have read
Glenarvon,
Miss Smith? Then I take leave to explain to you that ‘Glenarvon’ is meant to be Byron. ‘Buchanan’ is Sir Godfrey Webster; ‘Lady Mandeville’ is Lady Oxford; ‘Lady Augusta’ is both Lady Jersey and Lady Collier—but you look doubtful! I assure you it is true; Caro told me so herself.”

“Caro Lamb?” Angelica echoed, curious. “I have heard the strangest tales—that she dressed up like a page and hid herself in Byron’s rooms.”

“Where he eventually appeared with another lady-friend in tow,” said Simon. “There was quite a rowdy-do.”

“Here’s Williams with the tea!” interrupted Sir Randall, before his aggravating offspring could issue further provocation, as it was clear from the offspring’s expression that he meant to do.

As a diversion, the tea worked very well. Angelica grasped her cup and occupied herself with peering into its depths, contemplating the lifestyle of a rakeshame, which she vaguely fancied must involve all sort of depraved activities. A lady of gentle birth should not know of such things, alas, and would not dare speak of them—which was rather a pity because Angelica was developing a keen interest in the subject, indeed was wondering precisely what was involved in an orgy. Meanwhile, Sir Randall balanced a teacup and a biscuit in one hand while with the other he scratched the ears of the shaggy buffalo, and Simon engaged in a tussle with one of the panthers for possession of a sandwich. Simon, too, was deep in contemplation, not of his various depraved pursuits but of the puzzling Miss Smith. His frequent requests of his parent to explain the lady resulted only in blunt suggestions that Simon address his questions to the lady herself. Accordingly, Simon put to her an inquiry concerning the condition of her consumptive parent.

Angelica was not easily roused from her mental foraging among the fleshpots. “My what?”

“Your consumptive parent,” repeated Simon, with a Mephistophelean smile. “The one who works her fingers to the bone sewing by candlelight so that her ragged youngsters might have bread on the table once a week. Surely you haven’t forgotten her, Miss Smith!”

“How could I?” replied Angelica, who had certainly forgotten that Banbury story, and therefore disliked this demonstration of Simon’s excellent memory. “She does as well as can be expected, sir—Simon!”

“You do not like to think of so sad a matter, I see.” Simon’s saturnine expression indicated that he saw all too clearly. Angelica transferred her gaze once more to her teacup.

“Consumption!” echoed Sir Randall. “My dear Miss Smith!”

“I hope you are paying her a generous wage,” Simon persevered. “It is Miss Smith’s role to keep the wolf from the door, she tells me.”

The so-called Miss Smith, cheeks aflame, was at that moment tempted to gift Simon Brisbane with her blunt opinion of his aggravating character. That she did not do so was due to Sir Randall, in whom mention of consumption had sparked reminiscences of the London hospitals. He discussed the protocol of such establishments, where patients were accommodated in lines of parallel beds on each side of the ward, and those patients who were ambulant were required to assist in the work; he commented acerbically upon the offensive odor attendant upon closed windows and bedding that was not frequently enough washed and aired; he put forth the novel viewpoint that patients might recover quicker if their entertainment was not confined to religion, if they were instead allowed to play at cards and dice and other games, even to curse and swear. These latter activities put him in mind of the female hospital staff, who to a fondness for crude language added a weakness for drink, and who often turned up for work intoxicated, if they turned up for work at all. Then he paused and scowled at his son. “But
you
have no interest in such things.”

“How can you say so?” Simon had given up his struggle with the panther and was now popping sandwiches into its grinning jaws. “I fail to understand what in my behavior has led you to believe that I hold the gentle sex in disinterest.”

Sir Randall snorted but let this provocation lie. “You can’t deny that you’re lazy.”

“I do deny it.” Simon shoved the hopeful panther away and propped a gleaming boot on the marble bench that Angelica shared with the goat. “You have no notion of the exigencies involved in the life of a man of fashion. I must deal with my tailor and my hatter and my boot-maker; I must spend hours in the intricate and painstaking process of creasing down my cravat. Then I must saunter down Bond Street, exhibit myself in all the fashionable spots at the appropriate hour—to say nothing of my practice with the
épeé
and my bouts with Gentleman Jackson, my clubs and my bits of blood.”

And his high-flyers, silently added Angelica, whose errant thoughts had a shocking tendency to dwell on that forbidden subject. Suddenly, brilliantly, she realized that Simon Brisbane had no notion that she was a lady of gentle birth— if anything, he must think her the opposite. Since he didn’t know she was a lady, he could hardly be surprised if she failed to comport herself with decorum and dignity. Therefore she demanded of him an explanation of orgies.

“Miss Smith!” Engaged in stroking the nose of the llama, which had in an excess of affection deposited its head on his shoulder, Sir Randall looked absurd. He also looked appalled. “What did you say?”

“I suppose I am being vulgarly inquisitive,” sighed Angelica, “but I am cursed with an inquiring mind. Since I am very likely to never be freed from the shackles that hamper single ladies, I shall never know what it is like to be, er, unfettered, unless I ask.” She gazed beseechingly upon Simon. “Moreover, I am most unlikely to ever have a better opportunity, because it is most unlikely that I shall ever encounter another rakeshame.”

“Oh, not so unlikely as all that!” Simon sat down beside Angelica, and the goat, on the marble bench. “We aren’t quite so rare. Very well, Miss Smith, I will instruct you with the greatest pleasure. Just what is it you wish to know?”

“Simon!” said Sir Randall, rather awfully. With the llama in tow, he took up a position very near the bench. Simon regarded this chaperone, grinned, and brazenly promised to refrain from making a violent attack on Miss Smith’s virtue.

“Palaverer!” Miss Smith responded appreciatively. “I should imagine you’re beyond such stuff. A gentleman who has for years been philandering with pretty wenches would hardly conduct himself so indelicately.” The expression on Simon’s face gave her pause. “Would he, sir?”

“He might,” Simon retorted, “were the temptation sufficiently great! I freely confess I do not know what to make of you. Miss Smith. One moment you are all propriety, and the next a rag-mannered baggage. I expect that now you will ask me to recount the various escapades and scandals in which I have been involved.”

“Oh!” breathed Angelica. “Would you? I vow my heart is quite wrung with envy—not that I could similarly serve as an object lesson in triumphant depravity, of course, but I can see that
you
like it excessively!”

“Good God!” Simon was simultaneously horrified and amused. “What will you say next, you little wretch? And why
can’t
you?”

“Why can’t I what?” Angelica ignored her employer, who was making grotesquely cautionary gestures at her from behind Simon’s back. “Oh! You are in a very teasing mood, I think; I am not at all the sort of female to indulge in
affaires de coeur.
Gracious,
you
must know that! I’ll wager that among all the ladies to whom you’ve paid your court, there was not one who bore the least resemblance to me.”

Simon reviewed that long list of bits o’ muslin and fair barques of frailty, and was forced to admit that Miss Smith was correct. Obviously his education was shockingly incomplete. He offered to remedy the situation immediately.

“You’ll catch cold at that!” chuckled Miss Smith. “I’ve told you that there’s no need to try and turn me up sweet, though it is very kind of you to make the effort! I have been impertinent, and I did not mean to be—I beg your forgiveness. Nor did I mean to sound as if I disapprove of you, because I can understand perfectly how a gentleman might prefer to remain unattached, to flit from flower to flower.”

For temerity, Simon accorded Miss Smith full marks; no one had ever before dared compare him to a lustful bumblebee. Never had Simon met a female who made so little effort to administer to his vanity. Because he had not, he began to wonder at the degree of truth in the romantical effusions whispered into his receptive ears by bits o’ muslin and fair barques of frailty. Clearly he was not so wise in the ways of women as he had previously thought himself. There was a large gap in his education, a gap that must be bridged before he could again enjoy the honors of his position as a hardened rakeshame.

With an eye to bridging that gap in his education, Simon reached across the goat and touched Miss Smith’s hand. The task he had set himself was not an easy one. Miss Smith might be equally fascinated by his dissipations and himself, but she had no understanding of the basis of that fascination, interpreting it as a very natural interest in one of the greatest curiosities that had ever come her way. Simon could not force realization on her, lest with that enlightenment she take fright, thus ruining the pleasure derived by both of them from this bizarre acquaintance. How was he to number among his amorous vagaries a lady who had no notion but to hold him at a distance? It was a pretty puzzle! Moreover, the lady was regarding him quizzically, perhaps because he still retained possession of her hand. “Your fingers are cold!” he said, rather foolishly.

Sir Randall saw his opening and immediately jumped in, with several erudite remarks concerning the body-heat of vegetables, while Simon pondered how best to persuade Miss Smith that she was his favorite of the moment, and Angelica thought wistfully of the countless fair unfortunates privileged to participate with Simon Brisbane in the exhibition of his natural inconstancy. Precisely what that exhibition might involve Angelica could not guess; but even the most innocent of ladies had only to glance at Simon to know that, whatever the practicalities of the matter, he sowed his wild oats with praiseworthy panache.

The shadows had lengthened considerably when Sir Randall ceased to speak. He had progressed from vegetables to folk remedies, sovereign among which were the application of goose dung to alleviate baldness; the placing of a live eel in liquor to ward off drunkenness; the use of grated human skull, mixed with food, to cure fits. He might have continued much longer in this vein had not Simon pointed out the lateness of the hour and the delicate condition of Miss Smith’s consumptive parent.

“My dear Miss Smith, you are a perfect angel,” said Sir Randall, “to allow me to ramble on this way.”

“I,” Simon interrupted firmly, “will escort Miss Smith to the gate.” Angelica disentangled herself from the goat and placed her hand on Simon’s extended arm.

“On one point, at least, my father was correct, Miss Smith,” he offered genially. “You are truly not mortal but divine.”

Angelica surveyed her escort, rather ironically. “And you, sir, are the most complete hand! Are you seeking to revenge yourself on me for my impertinence? I wouldn’t blame you for it! It was abominable in me to be quizzing you that way. You must think me dead to shame.”

“Not at all,” Simon responded politely. He might easily have explained to Miss Smith why she acted like the greenest of girls in his presence, but he had no wish to sound the veriest coxcomb. “And, as you have pointed out, I should know.”