Maggie MacKeever (2 page)

“Not,” Delilah repeated patiently, as she simultaneously mourned the chickenhearted tendencies of her fellow conspirator and polished off the remainder of her breakfast, which had grown cold, “if you are with him when I do so. Moreover, I shall throw him off the track by pretending to be smitten with him. Perhaps he’ll think I’ve been abducted.” Still Athalia looked doubtful. Delilah drew a deep breath. “I realize I ask you to take a risk. You will be repaid.”

This promise did not sit well with Athalia, who pointed out irately that Delilah’s previous promises of repayment had brought this predicament about. Delilah merely smiled and delved into the bodice of her gown. Suspiciously, Athalia regarded her outstretched hand.

“Take it,” said Delilah. “If you help me, it’s yours.”

Greedily, Athalia contemplated the wedding ring. She was fond of such baubles, as witnessed by her countless necklaces and bracelets, most of which had turned the skin beneath them green. Had not Delilah been such an innocent, Athalia would have had the ring from her without further ado, but it was not Athalia’s way to take advantage of damp-eared infants. This was a failing that she frequently had cause to regret, as in the present instance. Were Johann to learn of this conspiracy— avarice warred with prudence, and won.

“I’ll just add a couple lines to this letter,” Delilah remarked cheerfully. As she did so, Athalia bit the ring. It passed muster, and she slipped it on her finger. Delilah dropped the letter into her hand. “Speed is of the essence,” she said solemnly. “And secrecy.”

Her decision made, Athalia tucked the letter in her bodice. “Never fret.
I’ll see this on its way. “

“I shall be eternally grateful,” Delilah replied humbly. This meekness deserted her immediately Athalia had gone. Quickly, she moved to the window. Athalia set out not toward Johann’s wagon, as Delilah had half-feared, but across the field. So far, so good. It remained now to await Sir Nicholas Mannering’s response to a dramatic epistle from a daughter he had not seen in five years.

CHAPTER TWO

Athalia was, after her own fashion, a woman of her word: as pledged, she posted Delilah’s letter—after doubling back to her own wagon and initiating a great search, the fruits of which were a scrap of paper and a charcoal stub. Athalia could not read, but she could trace letters as well as anyone. A queer coincidence, surely, that the characters on Delilah’s letter were also engraved in the golden wedding ring? Her task accomplished after monumental labor, Athalia once more set out across the field. ‘It is easier to milk a cow that stands still.’  Athalia was very curious about what sort of trickery was being set in train. 

As were certain other individuals, almost a week later, although those other individuals lacked Athalia’s appreciation of Delilah’s enterprise. It was the dinner hour in the elegant Brighton residence of the Duke of Knowles, an hour anticipated with no great pleasure by any member of the duke’s family, all of whom were present in the pretty dining room, which had been done in the Classical manner with fine stucco decorations.

Said family, which was currently grouped around a brilliantly polished mahogany table that stood upon pillars and claws with brass casters, numbered three. Seated at the duke’s left hand was his cousin Edwina Childe. A woman in her fifth decade, Edwina’s manner suggested a girl half that age. Her hair was an improbable shade of yellow, her eyes a trifle too close-set, her features and figure gaunt from constant dieting. On this particular occasion, which would go down in the annals of family history as even more-than-usually memorable, she wore a lovely and totally unsuitable gown of sea-green.

In direct contrast to Edwina’s beribboned and beruffled finery was the attire of the lady seated to the duke’s right. Her evening gown was of pale yellow muslin, its only claim to high fashion its Mameluke sleeves. Nor did the gown’s owner aspire to modality, though she possessed stunning amber eyes and an abundance of lovely chestnut-colored hair.

The hair was currently drawn back into a severely unflattering style; and the golden eyes expressionless. Even so, there were those who appreciated Sibyl Baskerville’s understated beauty and quietly ironic demeanor. Her cousin the duke, who was not among that number, had often taken leave to wonder, aloud, why she should have left so many hopeful suitors languishing on the vine while she pursued a determination to remain unwed. Spinsters who had achieved the advanced age of twenty-seven, he stated, could not afford to be so very particular in their preferences—unless they did not mind the embarrassment of being firmly on the shelf. To these taunts, Binnie always responded with her habitual goodwill: preferable to marriage with a man whom she could not love was leading apes in hell—or, which was much the same, an existence in which she served as the duke’s unacknowledged housekeeper. As usual in such confrontations, the duke was left with no adequate response, a fact that did not in any way prevent him from continuing to vent his spleen.

Seated next to Binnie, contemplating a sideboard table rather as if it were his own coffin complete with lions’ heads carved in the mahogany, was her brother Neal. A young man of twenty-two, clad in the dashing evening regimentals of the Tenth Dragoons, Neal resembled his sister to a startling degree; but where Binnie was so self-effacing as to appear almost colorless, Neal was astonishingly handsome. His chestnut hair was not cropped so short that it failed to curl, his amber eyes were most often merry and warm and sincere.

Those eyes held no such expression now, as they gazed upon the duke, nor did the eyes of Binnie or Edwina. All three members of the duke’s retinue stared at him blankly. As usual, Binnie was the first to speak. “Good gracious, Sandor!” she murmured serenely. “Bits o’ muslin, high flights— have you been into the port?”

The duke turned his cold blue attention on Binnie, without appreciation of the temerity that had prompted her to speech. Blandly, she met his regard. The duke repressed an impulse to swear, not from consideration for the delicate sensibilities of the females present at his dinner table, for the duke was not in the habit of considering anyone but himself, but because he knew it was futile to try and get a rise out of Binnie. For the fact that she neither fawned on him nor exhibited awe in his extremely overbearing presence, as did the majority of the females of his acquaintance, including those privileged to be taken under his protection, he accorded Binnie no plaudits. Indeed, he was accustomed to referring to her, among his cronies, as Miss Prunes and Prisms. The satisfaction accompanying this admittedly childish and churlish behavior was greatly lessened by the conviction that she spoke even worse of him.

“Mannering’s girl.” He waved a singularly dirty piece of paper under Binnie’s Grecian nose. “The missing heiress has come to light. In a tinkers’ camp, no less. So dire are her straits that she’s written to her father, begging for rescue—and in the process, I might add, scribbling a great deal of fustian.”

“And since Mannering is dead, and you are his executor, the letter came at length to you?” Binnie contemplated the dinner table, strewn with the remains of an excellent meal, among which had been stewed pippins, scalloped oysters, crayfish in jelly, lobster in fricassee sauce, stewed mushrooms, and a solid syllabub in a glass dish. “You will have to do something about the girl, for to ignore her plight would be shockingly remiss. Dear me, how very tiresome! A man of rank and fashion should hardly be expected to trouble himself over a schoolroom miss. When would you have time?”

Though these remarks were delivered in the most sympathetic of manners, the duke was not deceived. Nor were the others, who were—to their sorrow—well acquainted with this long-standing enmity. “A letter!” said Edwina hastily, before the duke could utter a withering rake-down, and thusly spoil her appreciation of her apricot tart, an indulgence for which she would atone by going without both her breakfast and her nuncheon on the following day. “Miraculous, is it not, how bad news always seems to catch up with one, while good news so often goes astray? And in a tinkers’ camp, you say? God bless my soul! I cannot help but think, dear cousin Sandor, that this is shockingly irregular conduct. Well-brought-up young ladies simply do not
do
such things!”

“Nor do they employ vulgar expressions,” remarked Binnie, who had tweaked the letter from Sandor’s fingers and was perusing it with vast appreciation. “Mistress Delilah, it would appear, has little patience with ladylike things. Neal, you will enjoy reading this—do be careful with it; heaven only knows where it’s been! In the coal-scuttle, from the looks of it. Sandor, do you think this girl may be an impostor, out to claim Mannering’s wealth? Apropos of that, I wonder if she knows he left his entire fortune to her. She could hardly expect such generosity, after she ran away.”

“Run away?” echoed Edwina, as she took a second helping of the apricot tart. “Mercy! Dear Sandor, you cannot mean to take up such a rag-mannered girl.”

Until that very moment, His Grace had contemplated no such thing. It was not his habit to cater to the sentiments of his dependents, if anything the contrary; and the contretemps that would result from the introduction of a hoydenish madcap—as Miss Delilah Mannering most obviously was— into his household was a notion that afforded him marked satisfaction. The duke’s sense of humor was practically nonexistent; he was dissolute and stern and selfish; he admitted scant fondness for anyone or anything, especially the cousins who dwelt beneath his roof, and who evidenced an unshakable determination to cut up his peace. Therefore, he thought it would be a very good thing if they received a richly merited comeuppance. That of the three Binnie alone set herself at loggerheads with him did not occur to His Grace; and if it had, he would have thought merely that Edwina and Neal deserved to suffer for the sin of being spiritless. His Grace, it becomes apparent, was a man impossible to please.

Binnie, who had from experience learned to read the expressions that flickered across the duke’s attractive countenance—for the duke’s countenance was a direct proof of the adage that beauty is only skin deep— awaited his next remark with no small suspense. She was not disappointed. “How can I do other than offer the girl a home?” he said, in a noble manner that Binnie found sickening. “The poor child has no living relatives of any close degree. I can hardly leave her with a band of tinkers, especially when Mannering charged me to look after her. Beside,” he added, quite ruining his selfless performance, “I’m already encumbered with the lot of you; what matters one more?”

A brief silence greeted this ungentlemanly remark. Binnie, who might have responded in a manner calculated to take the wind out of His Grace’s sails and simultaneously send him into a thunderous rage, was occupied in keeping her brother from reacting similarly, an act accomplished by kicking his shin. What Sandor said was true enough; they were dependent upon him and would be for three more years, until Neal came into his own inheritance, on which happy day the Baskervilles would be privileged to bid the duke go and be damned.

Edwina, who could not anticipate a similar release from Sandor’s ill-tempered dominion, choked on the apricot tart that had turned into a sodden, tasteless lump in her mouth. “Tea!” she said thickly. “Tea is very refreshing when one is in trouble. Pray let us have some!”

“If you wish to curdle your insides with that stuff, do so; but don’t try and inflict it on the rest of us.” Sandor had missed none of the byplay, including the pained expression on Neal’s face as Binnie’s shoe had connected with his shin, and was as a result regaining a degree of good humor—or humor as good as was possible for him. “How much trouble can be caused by a mere dab of a girl, even if she is—and she sounds to be—a pernicious brat? Don’t distress yourself, Edwina! Binnie will look after her.”

“To be sure I shall!” said that lady cheerfully. “I shall exert myself to bring her into fashion. In truth, I must consider this a piece of astonishingly good fortune. ‘Twill be an excellent way to prevent myself falling into a lethargy.”

Sandor was not pleased that his deliberate provocation should be met with smiles and sweet good humor; he scowled.

Binnie patted his hand. “Give it up, cousin! I shan’t allow you to stir coals. You are certain in your own mind that this Delilah is who she claims to be?”

The duke jerked away his hand, and rose. “I am. Neal, you will find the chit and bring her here. Tomorrow.”

Neal, who had been sorely regretting his decision to dine
en
famille
instead of in the officers’ mess, roused from his abstraction. “Tomorrow I cannot. I am otherwise engaged.”

“Then break the engagement!” advised the duke, callously. “If you don’t show some independence now, you’ll live forever under the cat’s paw.” He looked at Binnie, who was fiddling with her fork. “Even more so than you do now.”

Binnie glanced up at her cousin and smiled. In a very nasty temper, the duke strode from the room.

He was a damnably attractive man, she thought, with his golden hair, his arrogant sun-bronzed features, his chill blue eyes; and his athletic figure showed to good advantage in evening dress. Had Sandor not been totally deficient in all the graces, he would have been nigh irresistible. Despite his various inadequacies, many women had found him so, current among them the dazzling Phaedra, who had held Sandor’s erratic attention longer than most. Doubtless Sandor was even then en route to an assignation with the lady, after which he would perhaps adjourn to the theater, then pass half the night at the gaming tables or possibly in company with fellow members of the innumerable societies for convivial purposes which flourished in Brighton—the Choice Spirits, or the Knights of the Moon, or the Humdrums. Sandor was popular among the gentlemen; even the Prince Regent was pleased to call him friend. Binnie could only consider the gentlemen very undemanding in their tastes. For herself, she was grateful that the life of a gentleman of leisure involved little time spent at home.

“I knew it!” uttered Neal, as soon as the duke had passed from earshot. “Sandor means to prevent me from marrying Cressida; I suppose he thinks to keep me under
his
thumb for the next three years. Well, I shan’t tolerate his cursed interference! I
shall
marry Cressida, and once I am married my inheritance will be my own.”