Maggie MacKeever (33 page)

Lord Roxbury, pacing the floor irritably, espied his reflection in a mirror and winced. Sir Malcolm had outfitted his future son-in- aw with definite malice aforethought. “It is very likely,” he said sternly, “to be more serious than that.”

“Fiddlesticks!” Adorée sank down on the settee beside the opera cloak. “Things simply couldn’t be in a worse case.”

“No? Not even if you and Innis are both tried at the sessions at the Old Bailey upon an indictment for conspiring together to commit theft?” Lord Roxbury was stern. “His illegal activities were conducted from this house, Adorée.”

“Moonshine!” uttered Lady Bliss. “I can’t imagine where you came by such a hubble-bubble notion! Innis explained the whole to me, and he expressed himself in the most subdued and penitent manner.” It occurred to her that such behavior was most unlike her brother. “In short, he spun me a tissue of falsehoods from beginning to end and I believed him! Was there ever such a cabbage-head?”

Lord Roxbury and Miss Lennox were unanimously agreed that never had there been, but so great was Adorée’s nervous agitation that their opinion went unaired. “He said it was the most trifling of misdeeds!” she wailed, into the rich folds of the opera cloak. “And that he would never have stooped to anything truly bad! Worse yet, I took it all in. Oh, to go to prison is no more than I deserve!”

It occurred to Jynx that this reaction was, even for the volatile Adorée Bliss, rather extreme. “You’ve seen Innis recently?”

“This morning!” sobbed Adorée. “Then he went away, because he said he could not bear the ignominy of having bailiffs in the house. But he is to return and meet Cristin and Percy, and then I will strangle him!”

Briefly, Jynx contemplated Lady Bliss’s newfound blood-thirst. “When he returns, he is likely to walk smack into the waiting arms of Bow Street.” Suspicion struck her with a thrill of horror. “Cristin and Percy!”

“I don’t know why I allowed it,” Adorée moaned. “In the agitation of the moment it seemed the only thing! They were to be allowed to elope as a reward, and I was to go to a peaceable and retired village—but now I see that it is impossible that any of us should be reprieved!”

“I think,” Lord Roxbury said wearily, “that if you could calm yourself, we might be able to learn just what is going on. Take a deep breath—take several! Now tell us what Innis said to you, and where Cristin and Percy have gone.”

As was her habit when addressed by a personable gentleman, even a personable gentleman in hideous disguise, Adorée obeyed. So pathetic did she look that Jynx sat down beside her and clasped her cold hands.

“Innis told me he had stolen a few little things, but nothing from anyone who could not bear the loss! He said he could not bear to see me reduced to such dire straits—which when I consider it is pure poppycock, since it is very much his fault that I am in these straits! But Innis can be very convincing.” She applied to Miss Lennox.
“You
know that, my dear!”

Miss Lennox glanced at her fiancé, who looked increasingly irate. “Indeed! Do go on, Adorée.”

“Had not my mind been overheated by debts and earls and green peas, I should not have listened,” Lady Bliss said sorrowfully. “Or perhaps I should have! I generally
do
listen to Innis, though I should not, as Courtenay used to tell me. Do you know, even though people say Courtenay was a scoundrel, things went on a great deal better before he died? There were debts; there always are; but Courtenay knew just how to go about giving one’s creditors the slip.” She glanced up and noted the long-suffering expressions of her audience. “I suppose you do not want to hear about Courtenay.”

“Just now,” apologized Miss Lennox, “we are a great deal more interested in Innis.”

“Are you?” Adorée looked surprised. “I was sure you weren’t! He is sadly lacking in principle and wildly extravagant, and that he would steal your betrothal ring argues in him an unhappy lack of character. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll have Shannon.
He’s
not a clodpole!” Doubtfully, she studied the viscount. “Even though he does look like one just now. Shannon, whatever possessed you to make of yourself such a figure of fun?”

“Bow Street.” Since Miss Lennox had collapsed against the back of the settee, Lord Roxbury took over the interrogator’s role. “Stop trying to throw dust in our eyes, Adorée! Where are your niece and Percy?”

“Oh, very well!” Adorée’s shoulders slumped. “If I did not have to, I would not tell you, but I suppose it must come out! Innis knows the law is after him, so he sent Cristin and Percy to dispose of his latest, er, windfall.” Miss Lennox was heard to moan. “My dear, you
are
unwell! Shannon, you must take better care of this child.” The viscount uttered a growl. “They will be safe enough, Innis said, because they look so very
respectable!
No one will suspect that they are carrying about the proceeds of theft—and when they return with the profits, we will all go safely away. Or so Innis said.”

“Good God!” Shannon uttered faintly. “And you believed him?”

“He
is
my brother!” protested Adorée. “And it
sounded
logical! And surely even Innis would not ask Cristin and Percy to do something that would be dangerous. Or so I thought, until the two of you appeared! Almost I wish you had
not
appeared, though I understand that you meant it, for the best. Why is it, Miss Lennox, that what you mean for the best always turns out for the worst?” Miss Lennox, who clutched at the opera cloak as if it might provide her a lifeline, said she did not know. “Don’t fret, my dear! Things may yet resolve themselves happily.”

Lord Roxbury, in a few short words, dispelled this faint gleam of hope. He informed Lady Bliss that since Bow Street was on the alert, Cristin and Percy were very likely to tumble into the net that was being held for Innis. “Oh, no!” Adorée had recourse to her laudanum bottle. “But they are innocent! There is only one thing for it, you must go and find them, and bring them home!”

“Not home, I think,” said the viscount. “I might as well take them to Bow Street as here. And how the devil am I to find them when I don’t know where they’ve gone?”

“But I do know!” Adorée was delighted to contribute something of value. “Innis told them where to go and I have a very good memory for addresses.” In proof of which she rattled off a list of destinations that made Shannon’s head swim. “You must set out immediately.”

Lord Roxbury frowned. “You must come with us. We cannot leave you here.”

“No.” Adorée’s voice was unusually firm. “I have been very foolish, so it is only fair that I must take my punishment. Beside, if I can’t have my place in the country, I’d as lief be in Newgate. Even a prison cell is preferable to going on the streets!”

“Don’t despair!” Miss Lennox said cheerfully, and rose. “You may have your place in the country yet, if you do exactly as I say.”

“You are very kind.” Adorée looked confused. “But I never meant to live in the country
alone.”

“And so you shan’t!” Jynx ignored Shannon’s impatient gestures. “Lord Erland will be arriving very soon, and if you are a little bit conciliating, I think you may have what you please of him.”

“Nicky!” Adorée clutched the opera cloak. “Coming
here!
What shall I
say
to him?”

“Whatever you please, but as little as possible!” advised Miss Lennox, as Lord Roxbury grabbed her arm and dragged her out the door. “Convince him that you are in need of rescuing!”

 Lady Bliss again bolted the door, then sank back down upon the settee, and took Lord Erland’s cloak in her hands. That her lovely face was contemplative was only reasonable after the events of this dreadful day. However, Adorée was not thinking of how shocking it was of the gently reared Miss Lennox to advise her to throw her bonnet over the windmill; nor was she dreading the imminent apprehension of a large number of her family and friends by Bow Street. Instead she considered her promised confrontation with Lord Erland, and wondered what a lady desirous of abduction should most effectively wear.

Chapter Twenty-seven

After considerable difficulty, contingent upon their unprosperous modes of dress, Lord Roxbury and Miss Lennox hired the services of a hackney coach. The coachman first demanded to see the color of Lord Roxbury’s blunt, and secondly expressed a strong reluctance to venture into the sections of the city where Lord Roxbury wished to go; and the horses exhibited an equally strong desire to kick themselves free of the carriage; and Miss Lennox stated stern displeasure with the carriage’s interior, which was littered with straw and redolent of strong odors, among which the least offensive was fish; but at length they were underway.

“Poor Shannon.” Miss Lennox displayed her dimpled grin. “You were such a marvel of discretion, once. Will you ever forgive me for bringing you so low?”

“Of course.” Lord Roxbury’s tone was absent, owing to an erratic and most untimely recollection of the occasion upon which he had heard the Condemned Sermon preached at Newgate Prison. A coffin draped with black had stood on the enclosure called the dock, and grouped around the dock had been the prisoners condemned to die. The public was admitted to this edifying spectacle, for a slight fee. “I imagine I always shall.”

Miss Lennox was greatly moved by this declaration. “I do not intend,” she said thoughtfully, “that in the future you’ll have anything to forgive me for. Once we are free of this abominable fix—if we are ever free of it!—I intend to be an absolute model of propriety.” She frowned. “Except that I would not wish to snub Cristin or Adorée.”

This casual remark roused the viscount from his memories, and he instead contemplated the reaction of the Upper Ten Thousand were his wife to hobnob publicly with his one-time inamorata. It staggered the imagination. “Even if they are in Newgate?” he asked, hopefully.

“Especially if they are in Newgate.” Jynx replied. “Since a great deal of this is my fault, I can hardly abandon them.” She noted his expression. “Shannon, you don’t mind?”

Lord Roxbury in turn studied his fiancée’s face, which was both smudged and wan, and callously condemned himself to an existence no less notorious than the Devonshire
ménage a trois.
“Why should I mind?” he said, a trifle ironically. “You must do as you think fit.”

“Well, I don’t know that I
do
think it fit. Certainly Eulalia would not! Papa does not seem to mind, but one can hardly look to Papa as a model in such things.” Thought of Sir Malcolm recalled to Jynx the purpose of this jaunt. “Shannon, how
does
one go about retrieving stolen goods?”

Lord Roxbury’s tone was rather testy, owing to the fact that he was embarked upon an expedition quite contrary to what he would have preferred. “One ideally calls in Bow Street! Good God, Jynx, how should I know?”

“You are angry with me,” Jynx said gloomily. “I perfectly understand it, but I wish you would not be. It makes me very unhappy.”

If there was anything the viscount did not wish, it was that his fiancée should be in the dumps. He told her so.

“I’ve given you a disgust of me,” mourned Jynx, with patent disbelief. “Once I thought you would mind that I was so wanting in dash, and now I’m sure you must be dismayed that my blood is every bit as wild as that of the Ashleys. All this is an illuminating example of the infinite follies of mankind, as enacted by myself! It is not comfortable to be the plaything of fate, Shannon, believe me!”

Lord Roxbury had been put in a remarkably cheerful frame of mind by these absurdities. “And never,” continued Miss Lennox, in an excess of dolor, “has anyone been caught in so many compromising situations! I am surprised that you have not long since thought the worst of me.”

Shannon had quite forgotten the purpose of this trip. He pointed out that the aforementioned situations were not so compromising as Miss Lennox seemed to think, since she had not given any indication of wishing to return any gentleman’s embrace.

Jynx did not deem it prudent to remind the viscount that it was he who had first accused her of being compromised. “No,” she said, with devastating honesty, “but I will not deny that I was curious.” Shannon looked stunned. “In truth, I have been curious ever since the marquess.”

“Who was a great deal too ardent,” supplied Lord Roxbury. “What are you getting at, Jynx? I thought you didn’t like ardent courtships.”

“I didn’t.” Miss Lennox stared fixedly at her lap. “But that was because the wrong gentlemen were ardent and I thought that
you
would not wish to be ardent with
me.”

So
bizarre a misapprehension was this that the viscount stared. “My word, Jynx!” Shyly, she glanced up at him. Shannon cast aside all attempts at rational conversation and, with his fiancée’s willing cooperation, proceeded to be as ardent as any young lady could have wished. They were interrupted some time later by the coachman, who demanded rather acerbically to know if they were desirous of entering their stated destination, or if he should simply drive them around while they billed and cooed.

Recalled to the present. Lord Roxbury straightened his wig, ascertained that his moustache was firmly attached, and disembarked. Since Miss Lennox refused to be left behind, she accompanied him into the jeweler’s shop, where she occupied herself with gazing at gold seals, chains and brooches and rings, while Shannon bartered with the shop’s proprietor for the items that a young lady and gentleman had recently exchanged.

This was not concluded speedily. The proprietor harbored doubts both about the apparent tradesman’s intention and ability to pay for the goods. There was good reason for his apprehension; a man in his profession was always haunted by the specter of Bow Street. The law did not deal easily with those charged with receiving stolen goods. Finally, however, the transaction was completed, and the shopkeeper’s profit was so handsome that he was privately convinced that this queer pair were not only flats, but dicked in the nob to boot.

It was an opinion with which Shannon would have agreed. That he did not do so, did not even consider the matter, was because no sooner had they reentered the carriage than Miss Lennox snuggled in a positively brazen manner against his side. “What the devil,” he inquired hoarsely, “are you doing, Jynx?”