Maggie MacKeever (10 page)

Delilah paused in the game of fetch that she was engaged in with her hound. “Compromised?”

Again was brought home to Binnie the enormity of her task. Delilah was simultaneously worldly and naive. “You must not allow yourself to be closeted alone with a gentleman, for people are apt to draw conclusions that are both distasteful and untrue. It would ruin your credit with the world, and might leave you no choice but marriage to the gentleman.”

“Fortune hunters!” Delilah’s cheeks were rosy. “The devil—I mean, oh, my! It makes very good sense, of course, but I have never thought—I mean,
me?”

Binnie could not help herself; she smiled. Miss Mannering was far from a beauty, but she had a fresh and wholesome look about her, and her ingenuous manner could not help but appeal. Thought of ingenuity recalled to Binnie another young lady, these many years deceased. Once the Duke of Knowles had succumbed to precisely this sort of charm. Gentlemen nearing the dangerous age of forty were notoriously susceptible to May and December romance. Surely Sandor would not— But Delilah was very wealthy. Binnie frowned.

“Have I said something I should not?” the young lady demanded. “I did not mean to. Pray forgive me!”

“Nothing of the sort.” As Binnie surveyed the vivid little face turned so anxiously to her, she suffered another queer little ache in her breast. Delilah was so young, so fresh, so curiously unspoiled, despite her tendency to utter the most shocking remarks. “You will be going into society to some extent, though you are not quite of an age to be presented formally, and moreover are in mourning.” She paused, searching for an appropriate phrase. “My dear, people are not always kind. I think that it would be best if in the future you spoke no more of Johann. The walls themselves have ears.”

Delilah contemplated the great hound that had taken, to its detriment, the corner of her shawl into his mouth. “Not even to Miss Childe, or the duke, or your brother?”

Though she could not have explained it, Binnie instinctively responded in the negative. “There is no point,” she said vaguely, “in crying over spilled milk.” It was a remark reeking of hypocrisy—Binnie had in no wise managed to bear her own losses so well. She fell silent.

Though her motives may not have been of the most laudable, Delilah very much wished to please the kindly Miss Baskerville. She also longed ardently to be made a lady, even if it did sound a deuced dreary process; and she was grateful to Binnie for providing the means by which to fashion a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. “Very well! I shall be silent as the grave.”

Binnie said nothing. Delilah cast a quick glance at her shuttered face as she tried, without success, to wrest from Caliban the shawl. “Are you concerned with my reputation? This is all fudge, you know! No one involved will speak of the tinkers, unless it’s Johann himself—and what could
he
say to the purpose? Nothing at all!”

With effort, Miss Baskerville roused from her reflections, which had been of a most somber nature, and which had been totally unrelated to her protégée. “You are correct. We need not concern ourselves with Johann. Let us discuss instead the new wardrobe Sandor has decreed I must provide for you.”

Delilah was nothing loath: she had a young girl’s love of finery, as well as a very shrewd notion of how such finery might best be put to use. With that notion she did not deem it prudent to acquaint her mentor. Therefore it was in excellent charity with one another that the ladies continued their perambulations along the waterfront.

CHAPTER EIGHT

As it evolved, both Miss Sibyl Baskerville and her protégée were very far off the mark. Johann had a great deal to say, and all of it to the purpose. The unhappy target of his remarks was Athalia. Due to their serious differences of opinion— Johann accused Athalia of betraying him and cuffed her ear; Athalia responded that ‘one cannot walk straight when the road is bent’ and then kicked him in the shin—they were quite literally at daggers drawn. The conversation was conducted primarily in Shelta, tinkers’ talk, a language composed mainly of Old Irish, sweetened with some Romany and thieves’ slang. Liberally interspersed throughout were such terms as
strepuck
and
luthrums’ gothlin,
vulgar references to ladies of easy virtue and the offspring thereof.

Not only Athalia did Johann denounce as less than she should be, but also the young lady who had recently and ungratefully departed the shelter of his camp. For the former assertion Johann may have had good reason; for the latter he had none at all. The local innkeeper insisted that the lass had gone off cheerfully to embark upon a life of sin; but Johann—despite Miss Mannering’s firmly stated conviction that he was a nodcock—was not so easily taken in. The reason for his conviction that Miss Mannering was not, as the innkeeper so unwaveringly avowed, a straw damsel was simple: no man so beguiling as himself could be turned down by such. Since Miss Mannering had sent him to the rightabout, and emphatically, Johann could only conclude that her character was unblemished, and her tastes very queer.

Also, he concluded that it was not without assistance that Delilah had eluded him. Only one person in the camp would have dared render that assistance. Strongly he informed Athalia of an intention to use her guts for fiddle strings.

This intention, and the fact that Johann was clutching a very nasty-looking shiv, struck Athalia with a distinct thrill of horror. She suggested that, were Johann to put his knife away, they might engage in a discussion of mutual benefit. She had indeed aided the girl, she admitted, but not for the reason Johann might think. He must not conclude, she warned, that she had meant to betray him. And if he did slit her gullet, as he looked like he wished to do, he would in effect be doing himself an injury. Athalia had gathered some very interesting information during her couple days’ absence from the camp. She did not think that Johann wished to whistle a fortune down the wind.

Certainly Johann wished to do no such thing. Regarding Athalia suspiciously, he put down the knife.

This acrimonious exchange took place outside Johann’s low round tent, reminiscent of a beehive, through the top of which rose a thin spiral of smoke. Smoke rose, too, from the stove where Johann had been, before the outbreak of hostilities, soldering a tin disk. As did many others of his breed, Johann had an aptitude for rough metal work. He made a living of sorts by mending pots and pans, enlivening the camp with the sound of his hammer’s tapping and the clang of tin. Johann, however, was rather more skilled at other pursuits. He was a born trickster, adept, for example, at such ploys as passing off an old horse for young by picking out the hollows of the crows of the teeth and filling them with tar. “Inside,” said Athalia, and jerked her head toward the tent.

Still wary, Johann allowed her to precede him. No window illuminated the tent; what little light there was gained admittance through myriad rips and rents. Johann closed the flap, leaving them in darkness broken only by the glowing embers of the fire. It was a diabolic scene.

Athalia dropped onto a lumpy pallet spread on the ground. She was very tired, not only as a result of a day spent trudging about the countryside laden down with baskets, household goods, toys, and cheap ornaments which she attempted with wily endeavor to sell to unsuspecting householders. When they did not buy, she turned to fortune-telling, at which she was skilled; Athalia could read palms and crystal balls, tea leaves and egg whites. If none of the preceding availed, she usually resorted to begging. Athalia was weary of it all, of sleeping under hedges and tramping in the rain, of a life of grinding, ceaseless poverty. Not much longer, she thought triumphantly, would she cower in a smoky, ragged tent.

Johann was not a patient man, nor was he familiar with introspective moods. Bluntly, he demanded an explanation of Athalia’s remarks. Nor, he advised, would it be prudent of Athalia to try and diddle him.

Athalia was prudent by instinct: she did not remark that Johann had need of no assistance from herself to play the part of fool. Athalia was, on this matter, of a mind with Miss Mannering. Johann was a perfect block. All the same, he was
her
block, and she had need of him. She adapted a lachrymose expression and confessed that she’d been soundly taken in.

“Damn your eyes!” said Johann. “Don’t go nabbing the bib.”

This was encouraging; his temper had cooled sufficiently that he did not want to see her cry. “I was afraid to tell you,” confessed Athalia. “You were right about Delilah all along.”

Johann was surprised by none of these remarks. Naturally he had been right about Delilah; assuredly Athalia should be afraid of him. Still, he required further enlightenment. Therefore he demanded that Athalia open her budget. He pledged himself to refrain from boxing her ears again.

Athalia was relieved to hear this; Johann’s displays of temper gave one a nasty turn. At the moment he appeared amenable. She flattered herself that she still knew how to put the dark eye on a man.

He was growing impatient. “She was telling us the truth in the beginning,” Athalia said quickly. “She really is an heiress. But then she fobbed me off with a tale about it being her mistress who died, and her having not a ha’penny to her name. I never guessed the little miss would play the concave suit! So I agreed to help her.” Her confession was briefly interrupted by Johann’s hands around her throat. “I knew you were taken with her!” gasped Athalia. “I was eaten up with jealousy. I
wanted
to believe her. That’s why I tumbled for her hoax.”

This seemed reasonable to Johann, who could envision no more fitting reason for an attack by the green-eyed monster than himself. His grip loosened. “‘Where the wagon goes a trail is left’!” gasped Athalia, rubbing her damaged neck. Quickly she explained about Delilah’s letter, the address of which she’d noted down. “Moreover, I know how we can see our way clear to getting our hands on some of it.”

But Johann, as is the way with gentlemen, even gentlemen of lowly station, had suddenly turned perverse. “I don’t aim to end up in Rumbo or on the Nubbing Cheat!” he said irritably.

Patiently Athalia took it upon herself to convince her paramour that the scheme she had evolved would see them neither to the gallows nor in prison. She had no intention of kidnapping the heiress, merely of engaging in a little blackmail. The Quality, as everyone knew, were very cautious of their good names. Miss Mannering would be ruined were her sojourn in the tinkers’ camp to be known. A great piece of nonsense, of course; Miss Mannering had probably been better chaperoned among the tinkers, due to the sharp eye kept on her by Athalia, than in her own drawing room; but there it was. Were the affair handled properly, they would stand in no danger of being caught.

Again, Johann balked. Athalia might be a gabble-grinder, females often were; he himself might be a lowly tinker, but he was not without honor. Men of honorable nature did not go blabbing scandalous tidbits about the countryside.

“But you
wouldn’t
be,” Athalia pointed out reasonably, “because you would have been very well paid to keep your trap shut! The girl’s guardian is a person of rank. He won’t like having the screws put to him, but he’d like even less being dunked in the scandal-broth. He’ll want the matter wrapped up in clean linen. To accomplish that, he’ll pay through the nose.”

Johann was not prone to quick decisions, being of a certain slowness of mind. Chewing on his lower lip, he ruminated.

Athalia allowed him to do so uninterrupted. She was certain of her ability to bring him to her viewpoint. In truth, she needed him not for the accomplishment of her plan. She did, however, in case of mishap, require a handy scapegoat. The practice of blackmail was not quite so devoid of peril as she had made out. Of course she did not
plan
that Johann should dance the sheriff’s waltz. Yet, if push came to shove, better his neck be placed in the noose than her own.

Absently, she rubbed that item, sore from Johann’s recent assault. That had been a perilous moment, had unnerved her so much that she’d almost abandoned her schemes. Fortunately, she had made a recover. More than a wish for money motivated Athalia. Delilah had diddled her royally. Athalia wanted revenge.

Her relationship with that young lady she passed in quick review, as well as the various things she’d learned. Athalia had ferreted pit the tale of Lady Mannering’s flight from her cruel cold spouse, a flight for which Athalia privately dubbed Lady Mannering a pea-brain. Events had borne out that opinion. Sir Nicholas had provided his wife with the elegancies of life, if not with affection. Lady Mannering’s flight had resulted in a miserable existence, and at length a pauper’s grave. In Athalia’s mind a command of the elegancies of life was worth the endurance of any cruelty.

For Delilah, who had shared her mother’s miserable existence, and who might have been expected to suffer similarly, Athalia spared no sympathy. Any kindness she’d once felt for the girl had been killed by the shameful advantage Delilah had taken of her. Furthermore, Athalia could imagine no one less worn down by circumstance than the resourceful Miss Mannering.

Angry as Athalia was with the lass, she could not deny Delilah’s resourcefulness. She wondered how Delilah would deal with the difficulties that fate, in the guise of Athalia herself, had in store.

“A well-heeled gentry cove, you say?” inquired Johann. “The guardian?”

“Rich as Croesus,” Athalia replied promptly. “And as high in the instep.” She awaited his next comment.

It was not long in coming. “I knew as soon as I clapped eyes on the lass,” Johann remarked, “that she would make my fortune. I’ve decided to forgive you, Athalia.”

‘The rabbit which has only one hole soon is caught.’ Athalia was not foolish enough to say this out loud, but instead murmured her gratitude for Johann’s approval of her plan and then suggested they set out straightaway for Brighton. It lay not many miles distant. With luck they might arrive within a couple days.

Johann was agreeable, so much so that he permitted Athalia to expound upon her plan. It seemed a good enough scheme, but even the best of plans could be improved upon, and Johann had not abandoned his intention to avail himself not only of the heiress’s fortune, but of the heiress herself. Naturally, he would not acquaint Athalia with this intention, lest she thrust another spoke in his wheel. It was obvious to Johann that Athalia nourished a grudge against Miss Mannering for the gammon that she’d pitched. Johann rather admired the lass. Few could make Athalia out a flat; but Athalia had risen to Delilah’s bait, hook, line, and sinker, like any hungry fish.