Maggie MacKeever (9 page)

Angelica did so, without hesitation; Sir Randall made a sympathetic, if unusual, confidante. She told him of Hyacinth and Violet; Amaryllis and Camilla, the twins; Hysop, the youngest of the clan; she even explained to him the estrangement between Valerian and their younger siblings, due to the efforts of Marigold. “She is the most tiresome creature,” Angelica concluded. “But my tongue has run away with me. I beg your pardon!”

“Get married!” advised Sir Randall. “Let your husband take over the responsibility.”

“Sir, you have not seen my sisters,” Angelica responded ruefully. “Even if I wished a husband—which I do not!—to attract the attention of any gentleman to myself when my sisters are all far more lovely would be very up-hill work. Enough of my affairs! Where are you taking me?”

Angelica was correct in deducing that Sir Randall had in mind a specific destination, toward the attainment of which he had led her past the Royal Exchange, the Bank of England, and the Guildhall. “You’ll see soon enough,” he responded enigmatically, as he paused by a vendor and presented her with a potato baked in its skin. “For the nonce, Miss Smith, you must trust me.”

Perhaps it was foolish in her, but Angelica did trust Sir Randall. Once more she worried at the puzzle of why Durward expended such energy in spying on him. Surely Sir Randall was engaged in nothing so nefarious as made such surveillance necessary?
Could
there be some dark secret in his past, a repetition of which was so greatly feared that he must be spied upon? So absurd a notion made her smile. Given a choice between Sir Randall and his valet as potential villains, she would without hesitation choose Durward. Angelica heartily disliked the valet, whom she considered an odious little monster of unscrupulous nature. So far as she could tell, Durward cherished equally inimical sentiments toward her.

Sir Randall, engaged in consuming his own potato, had digressed into reminiscences of his own hey-day, when his eyes had been keener and his hands more steady and dissection his delight. “We teachers were completely at the mercy of the resurrectionists,” he explained. “At the commencement of each new session at the hospitals, those rascals would appear, flitting around the dissecting-rooms and through the hallways, even appearing during lectures. They are simultaneously the blessing of the medical profession and its curse.”

Having abruptly lost her appetite, Angelica surreptitiously disposed of the remainder of her potato. “The wretches operate in gangs,” continued Sir Randall, oblivious to her onslaught of squeamishness. “Each has its own territory, and if one dares invade the domain of another retaliation is swift. The gangs will do anything to spoil the success of their rivals, even to desecrating cemeteries. Still, they need to be circumspect to a degree, lest they come to the attention of irate townspeople.”

Not only was Angelica put off by this grisly topic of conversation, she was beginning to harbor a burgeoning suspicion. “You seem to know a great deal about these men, Sir Randall.”

“Oh, yes!” Sir Randall replied cheerfully. “So does your brother, I’ll warrant. Here we are!”

Angelica was relieved that her employer’s attention had strayed from the topic of resurrectionists and graves; and eager to see where he had brought her. She was, due to the wearying nature of her various responsibilities, eager to embark upon what her brother Fennel would have termed “a bit of frolic,” and curious to see what Sir Randall’s notion of such frolic might be. What were these iron gates toward which he was leading her? Surely no public pleasure-spot was surrounded by so high and wicked-looking a fence? Realization burst upon Angelica, leaving her very much shocked indeed.

“Faint-hearted?” inquired Sir Randall, as he pushed open the gate. “I had thought you made of sterner stuff, Miss Smith.”

Angelica did not answer; she was visited by a very vivid recollection of a certain room in Sir Randall’s house, a chamber bare of all furnishings except an operating table. Coupled with recollection was a memory of Sir Randall’s frequent expostulations upon the art of dissection and the valuable information gleaned therefrom. Appalled, she stared about the cemetery to which Sir Randall had led her. Could this be the reason for Durward’s vigilance? Was the eminent Sir Randall Brisbane prone to undertake his own resurrection work?

So very agitated was Angelica that she might have asked these questions outright, had she not just then become aware that she and Sir Randall were not alone. Sir Randall, quicker on the uptake than she, was brandishing a fist beneath the nose of the huskier of two extremely disreputable-looking individuals.

“A pretty pair of scoundrels you are!” he announced. “At least Couch and Murphy have the decency to postpone their unsavory activities until after nightfall. Well, Bimble, what excuse have you for this despicable conduct? I conjecture you will resort to outright murder next.”

Bimble, it soon became evident, had any number of things to say. First he stated that though Ben Couch, leader of a gang of four extremely capable London resurrectionists, might be a bit nicer in his tastes, he was nowhere near so successful as Bimble himself. He then explained the highly competitive nature of his business, and his own aversion to such time-consuming activities as trailing into the country in search of a corpse. “Get ‘em while they’re fresh, that’s the ticket!” he said, while Angelica stared in horror and the second resurrectionist—Mallet by name—watched with interest. “This is a dog-eat-dog world, guv’nor, and the sawbones prefer corpses that ain’t been below ground. As for the other—you’d make a nacky corpse yourself!”

“Bosh!” Sir Randall snapped. Angelica admired his courage, a quality in which she was sadly lacking. “Be on your way or I’ll call a constable.”

Bimble greeted this threat with the courtesy it deserved, which was none. “By all that’s holy! You wouldn’t dare, being as your own presence here stinks to the sky of fish.” His red-veined eye alit on Angelica, cowering behind her employer. “Who’s this, your doxy? Damned if you ain’t a rum one! And at your age!”

Here Mallet grew weary of this exchange of pleasantries and intervened. “Cut line!” he abjured. “Was you to slip a Ned into our crooks, Sir Randall, we might be persuaded to shove our trunks. Have a bit of hub and grub, eh? Being as you won’t want anybody about whilst you conduct your little business.”

To this incomprehensible speech—which, when translated into less colorful terms, meant merely that Messrs. Mallet and Bimble would, if Sir Randall paid them a guinea, retire forthwith to indulge in food and drink—Angelica paid little heed. She was stunned by the realization that Sir Randall was acquainted with these ruffians.

“One must cut one’s garment to fit one’s cloth,” remarked Sir Randall, as he delved into a coat-pocket.

“Knew as soon as I clapped my glaziers on you—” began Bimble, only to be silenced in mid-speech by Mallet’s elbow in his ribs. He whoofed. Mallet muttered a single word. They took summarily to their heels.

“A
most
infamous proceeding!” remarked Sir Randall, restoring the guinea to his pocket. “I wonder what made them take fright. Odd, that, since the brutes usually fear nothing, even going so far as to snatch the bodies of those unfortunates who meet with violent death before the coroner’s inquest. Did you take note of their tools? The sharp curved long-handled spades, the scoops on jointed shafts, the grappling tongs and crowbars? Naturally it is essential that in their work they leave no trace. Miss Smith, what ails you? Why are you yanking in that annoying manner on my sleeve? My dear, you are looking absolutely sick with fright! The wretches will not return, I promise you.”

Certainly Bimble and Mallet had vanished, but the inspiration of their hasty departure had not. In fact that inspiration minced ever closer, an expression of extreme distaste on its pinched features, prominent among which was a twitching nose. Angelica strove desperately to compose herself sufficiently for speech. “Durward!” she hissed.

Sir Randall swung around to follow her anguished gaze. “That’s put the cat among the pigeons!” he muttered bitterly. “I daren’t hope Durward will refrain from pitching tales.”

“But sir, to whom?” Though Angelica was appalled by her discovery for the reason underlying the surveillance kept on her employer—said reason being her employer’s attraction to cemeteries and the contents thereof—she was in no way reconciled to the possessor of that twitching nose.

With as cherubic a countenance as ever graced a church-choir, Sir Randall gazed heavenward. “My dear, have I not explained? How very remiss of me! Durward is in the employ of my son.”

“Your son!” Angelica gasped. Her employer had heretofore made no mention of any progeny.

Chapter Eight

It was yet mid-afternoon when Lord Chalmers returned to his elegant town house, behavior so unlike his lordship, who usually departed the premises at dawn and remained absent until sunset, that his butler stared. Lord Chalmers then added to that august individual’s confusion by inquiring the whereabouts of his baroness, another unprecedented event. The butler controlled his amazement sufficiently to respond that he believed Lady Chalmers had retired to her boudoir. Lord Chalmers mounted the pretty wooden staircase with barley-sugar twisted balusters and finely moulded handrail; the butler retired to the nether regions, there to inform the superior French chef that something had put his lordship in a right rare tweak, for which her ladyship was about to be raked over the coals, unless the butler had misread the signs.

In point of fact, the butler had done precisely that: Lord Chalmers was not in a temper but in a state of extreme contemplativeness, due to a conversation held that morning with his old friend and political antagonist, the Duke of Kingscote. Gervaise, it seemed, was greatly taken with Lily, to such extent that his casual remarks had sent Lord Chalmers to inquire of his wife the state of her sister’s heart—if Lily
had
a heart, of which Lord Chalmers was not convinced, due to her distinctly off-hand treatment of Messrs. Meadowcraft and Gildensleeve, Steptoe and Pettijohn. Lord Chalmers could not decide whether to be amused by this development, or appalled; matrimony, in his experience, had a most adverse effect on the Misses Millikin. Who would have thought that Rosemary would with marriage evolve from a fresh and simple country girl into a fashionable lady of immense consequence? Chalmers was not sure he approved the transformation, but supposed it was only to be expected that Rosemary should try to live up to the dignity of her newly acquired estate. It did not occur to him to tell her that such effort was not necessary.

It should perhaps here be stated that Lord Chalmers was, in his fashion, fond of his young wife. That he did not expend much thought on her, or much time in her company, was due to his involvement in matters he considered to be of far more immediate import. The government and Parliament had with a lavish hand supported the Continental wars, with the result that the national debt had risen from £252,000,000 to £861,000,000, with the necessity of an annual £29,000,000 to discharge the interest alone, and the additional necessity of somehow transposing this burden from the aristocracy to the common folk. Along with Wilberforce and his evangelists, Lord Chalmers believed that it was the privilege of the poor to be patient in adversity, and of the rich to accept without question the kindly dispensations of Providence.

Alas, the poor were not similarly inclined toward that viewpoint, and the government had been inundated with petitions from the commercial interests, even threatened by its own supporters, did not expenditures and taxation decrease. Meanwhile the old, blind, mad king was immured in a wing of Windsor Castle; Prinny was embarked on his most costly project to date, with the assistance of his favorite architect transforming the west end of the capital into a fashionable new park and a sweeping avenue; the royal dukes were deep in debt and controversy; the Princess of Wales was traipsing around the Mediterranean with an Italian courtier and a retinue of rogues and buffoons. With all these matters plaguing him, it is little wonder that Lord Chalmers had scant time for his own domestic affairs.

Still, this matter of Kingscote had perturbed Lord Chalmers sufficiently to distract him briefly from matters of state; and now that his shrewd mind was directed toward matters matrimonial, he had come to the conclusion that, in his own household, something was definitely amiss. He saw little of his wife even at the best of times, but lately it had seemed as if she was deliberately avoiding him. Lord Chalmers decided to demand an explanation of this bizarre conduct, for which no justification came readily to mind. Rosemary need not think to put him off with her vaporing; he fancied he knew just how to deal with that missishness. As becomes apparent, subtlety was not Lord Chalmers’s
forte.

Lady Chalmers was indeed in her boudoir, as the butler had taken leave to guess; clad in a pretty morning gown of lawn, lavishly embellished with ribbons and lace, she reclined gracefully on her
chaise longue.
Had it not been for the scowl on the baroness’s exquisite countenance, as she stared at several sheets of papers strewn across her lap, she might have posed for a portrait of beauty at rest.

Lord Chalmers was not especially appreciative of so lovely a tableau; he allowed the door to close smartly behind him. Rosemary started and blanched. “Chalmers! What the deuce are
you
doing here?”

“You’re in high bloom today!” responded her lord, politely. “As to the other, I live here—or had you forgot?”

“How could I, pray?” With what she hoped was nonchalance, Rosemary gathered together her papers and stuffed them out of sight under a pillow. “You gave me quite a start; I did not expect you.”

“That much is apparent.” Lord Chalmers seated himself in a brocaded chair.

“Of course I am glad to see you,” interrupted Rosemary, seeking to divert him from the pages on which she’d been trying to arrive at the total of her debts. “To what do I owe the unexpected pleasure of your presence here at this time of day?”