The Wicked Marquess (22 page)

Either the abbey was haunted by ghosts other than Lady Dulcibella, or Nonie was suffering an overwrought imagination in addition to her other woes. She squinted at the corner where the courtier had vanished. Nonie might enjoy theatrical dramas that incorporated ghosts and haunted castles, but she was less enthusiastic about being a player in one herself.

She started as Miranda burst into the bedchamber saying, “Nonie, we must talk.”

Nonie didn’t wish to talk to anyone. She had spent considerable time already today listening to Sir Kenrick lecture her about reaping machines and safety lamps and the immense potential of steam.

Gingerly, she sat up. The stiffly angular daybed was far from comfortable.

Miranda wrinkled her nose. “Has Colum been doctoring you again?”

“Melancholy thistle,” explained Nonie. “It hasn’t helped me any more than did your poultice of violets, or vinegar and meal of rye. What do you want to talk about?”

Somewhat dubiously, Miranda regarded her companion. The library had supplied a great deal of information, but not the information that she sought. Elephants, for instance, had little desire to mate, but on those rare occasions when they undertook the business, they did it back to back. Of the two different kinds of weasels, one conceived through the ear and gave birth through the mouth, while the other did the opposite. If one hurled a parrot at a rock from a great height, the bird would save itself by landing on its beak, a piece of information that had nothing to do with mating, but which fascinated Miranda all the same.

To diminish a woman’s ardor, the genitalia should be rubbed with blood taken from ticks residing on a wild black bull. If a gentleman aspired to increase the dimensions of his reproductive organs, he should take sea grass, powder it, and mix a sieved portion of this powder with an extract of the liver of a white dog killed during the first moon; apply this ointment three times to the area in question; and rinse it off after the final application with well water drawn fresh in the early morn. If that same gentleman smeared himself with male goat’s fat and then made love to his wife, she would never again have a desire to make love to any other man. Miranda had filed away this tidbit of knowledge for future reference, along with a recipe for a love potion made by mixing a house leek with powder made from periwinkles and earthworms.

Nonie shifted on the daybed. “Well?” she irritably inquired.

Miranda left off contemplating what earthworms might or might not have to do with conjugal relations. “I want you to tell me exactly what ravishment involves.”

 “You mean you don’t know?” Nonie grimaced. “That is, you and Lord Baird—”

Miranda hadn’t expected that Nonie would provide her with enlightenment, but she was disappointed all the same. “Yes, but we didn’t! Or if we did, it was just a little bit. And when I told Benedict I did not entirely understand the business, he said I must find out.”

“You told Lord Baird—” Speech failed Nonie, because her imagination had not. When she regained use of her tongue, she demanded to be told what a ‘little bit’ of ravishment involved.

Before Miranda could explain, or not, as was her inclination, a footman scratched at the door. Colum’s efforts to relieve Lady Darby’s gout having proved ineffectual – his most recent attempt had involved the head of a young kite burnt to ashes and taken every morning in a little water — he had suggested his patient avail herself of Miranda’s expertise.

“Hah!” said Miranda darkly, upon hearing this. “He’s trying to make me be nice to the old witch. Do come with me, Nonie.”

Reluctantly, Nonie rose to her feet and set herself to rights. Duty demanded that she dissuade Miranda from calling Lady Darby an ‘old witch’ to her face.

The footman led the way through the abbey’s drafty corridors to Lady Darby’s bedchamber. The door was opened by her maidservant, Meggs.

“Don’t just stand there gawking!” demanded a querulous voice from the depths of the vast chamber. “Come closer to the bed.”

The room was definitely gawk-worthy. Walls and windows, ceiling and fireplace were elaborately designed in delicately carved plasterwork. The wainscoting was gilded and decorated with what looked to be small pearls. Painted on the plaster walls was an idyllic woodland scene abounding with animal life, most notably a fleeing deer with a leopard in pursuit. Scattered around the chamber were numerous chests and stiff carved chairs.

“Come here, gel!” repeated Lady Darby, from the depths of an enormous canopied four-post bedstead draped about with rich decorative hangings that harmonized with the wall mural. Beside her, on a lace-trimmed pillow, snoozed her cat. Meggs took up a position on the far side of the bed.

Miranda obediently moved closer. Nonie followed, not only because Miranda had a firm grip on her wrist: every inch of the bed’s high headboard was covered with carving, save the panel of embroidery worked in a treble cross-stitch done in wool and cut open to a close pile. So exquisite was this turkey work that Nonie briefly forgot her queasy belly and aching brow.

Lady Darby made a pathetic figure in the great bed, her mobcap twisted all about, her features even more wizened without their usual layers of paint and rouge. Miranda said, “Berries of cuckoo-point beaten with ox offal are supposed to be excellent for the gout. As is English tobacco, after it is left to sit in dung for fourteen days. Can you tell me what physics you have already taken, please?”

Lady Darby was uncertain how she had been persuaded into this consultation. “You shan’t poison me, miss!” she snapped.

“No, I shan’t,” retorted Miranda. “So long as you don’t provoke me, that is. Shall we cry pax, and start all over again? My name is Miranda Russell, and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, my lady.”

“Produce me a remedy for this damnable gout and I’ll forgive you nigh anything,” retorted Odette. “But I warn you that I shan’t drink a posset of horse dung.”

Nonie took little part in the ensuing conversation, which concerned the remedies Lady Darby had already tried, from Pills of Hermodactils and Pills of Erphorbium to the enema of snail water mixed with turpentine, mention of which made Nonie shudder, and Miranda click her tongue. In the end, the ladies settled on hemlock root roasted in wet paper until soft and laid on the afflicted area; and for good measure the ingestion of a decoction of powdered seeds of broom-rape.

No little time passed in the preparation of these remedies, a process further delayed when Chimlin roused from his nap and demanded to be involved. In attempting to dissuade him, Meggs received a nasty bite.

Finally, Lady Darby had been made more comfortable, and Meggs’s wound appropriately treated, and Chimlin persuaded to resume his nap. Miranda informed Lady Darby that she was to be allowed only meat and plain boiled rice to eat, and forbidden all wine. “Go shoe the goose!” protested Odette.

Miranda folded her arms and gazed sternly at her patient. Surely so venerable a lady must possess considerable wisdom concerning the amatory arts. “I might agree to a compromise,” she said. “If you agree to do something for me.”

Warily, Lady Darby regarded her new medico. “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t. Open your budget and we’ll see.”

Miranda leaned close and spoke in a low voice. “I want to know, what is the difference between being ravished and being seduced? How is sex a tool of the devil? Why is it ‘better to marry than to burn’?”

It took a great deal to surprise Odette, but she was surprised now. “Who told you that sex is a tool of the devil?” she inquired.

“Benedict,” retorted Miranda. “He is a great one for mentioning things and then refusing to tell me what they mean.”

With no little fascination, Odette surveyed the young woman to whom her nephew had gotten himself betrothed. “What were the pair of you talking about?”

“Lady Dulcibella.” Miranda recalled that Benedict claimed his aunt had seen the ghost. “And he said I must ask someone to explain. So I searched the library, and though I learned a great many interesting things – Did you know that Pope Alexander VI had many teenage mistresses? Or that Queen Marguerite of France was involved in intense but platonic love affairs with twelve men at the same time? Or that St. Ursula went on a pilgrimage with eleven thousand virgins, and the Huns beheaded the virgins and shot Ursula dead with a bow-and-arrow – I did not discover what I sought.”

At this point, Nonie moaned. Odette raised her quizzing glance in an effort to ascertain whether the woman was merely mortified by the conduct of her charge or genuinely in pain. Miranda added, “I also read that if one smears a gentleman’s hand with a mixture of nettle and the juice of house leek, when he next enters a body of water, fish will be attracted to his privities. Which sounds very queer to me, though I am not entirely certain what privities are!”

It also sounded queer to Odette. So very queer that it was some moments before she could speak, not because she had lost her voice in shock, but because she was laughing so hard that she roused Chimlin, whose sensibilities then had to be soothed.

Miranda glanced from Nonie, who was rigid with embarrassment, to the wooden-faced Meggs, to Lady Darby, who was still shaking with mirth. “I don’t know what you find in this to amuse you.”

Clearly the chit did not, which was demned odd in itself. Odette regained sufficient breath to banish Nonie and Meggs from the room. “Now!” she said, when the door had closed behind them. “Tell me what you think the business involves.”

Had not Miranda just explained that she was uncertain? And very embarrassed she was to have to ask. But there was no one else she
could
ask, and therefore she screwed up her resolve and related what she had read about elephants and weasels, and ears and mouths and backs, all of which just went to demonstrate that a little bit of information is indeed a very dangerous thing.

Lady Darby was astonished at the degree of ignorance possessed by modern youth. She reached for a piece of paper, and began to sketch. Miranda craned her head to watch. “This is the woman!” said Odette, and pointed. “And this is the man. And
this
, my girl, is what is referred to a gentleman’s privities or private parts, about which they are generally either very nervous or very vain. You will discover that the equipment varies. The pieces fit together thusly.”

Miranda stared at the paper. Granted, she had a suspicion, but— “Oh, my!” she said.

“‘Tis God’s truth!” responded Odette, who was enjoying her companion’s discomfort. “And you may trust my word on it, for I have been married several times.” She went on to describe in some detail the movements involved in the amorous congress, the blanket hornpipe, the feather-bed jig.

“Gracious!” commented Miranda, after Lady Darby had concluded her explanations with the advice that did someone seek further enlightenment she should apply to a number of volumes that could be found on a certain high and not readily accessible library shelf. “So
that
is what Benedict—Um.”

Odette wondered at the precise nature of the memory that had caused Miss Russell to fall silent. “I’m surprised you didn’t already know all this.”

“Because of my mama and the rest, you mean?” Miranda replied, with dignity. “True, I had a general notion, but I can hardly be expected to grasp details I’ve not been told. Benedict would not explain, and it turned out Nonie could not explain, and I don’t know why I hoped she might after what she told me about kissing was all wrong.”

It became more and more obvious that Miss Russell had not yet been tumbled, which led Odette to wonder whether Sinbad was or was not a buck of the first head. “I don’t scruple to tell you that I dislike this business,” she said.

“Yes, well, and so do I.”

“You will admit that you have landed on your feet.”

“That is one way of viewing matters, I suppose. However, I mean to cry off.”

Odette was astonished. “You don’t
want
to marry Baird?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want! I cannot marry him.”

A tap came at the door. “Come!” called Odette.

The door swung open to admit not Nonie or Meggs but a portly balding gentleman. “Odette, My cabbage!” he said, in the strident tones of someone whose hearing has been adversely affected by advancing years. “I came as soon as I heard you was here.” As he clasped Lady Darby’s hand, Miranda slipped off the bed, bobbed a curtsey, and hurried out of the room.

The newcomer stared after her. “What ails the gel?”

Odette readjusted her poultice, which had slipped when she sat up. “Faith, ‘tis a pea-goose! Sit down sit here beside me, Phineas, and I shall tell you all.” Chimlin hissed and withdrew to a far corner of the bed.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Benedict was in his study, going over estate ledgers. Rather, that was what he had meant to do. The books lay disregarded on the desk in front of him while he stared at the tall wooden clock that stood in front of a far wall.

With the best intentions in the world, or almost the best, because Benedict had to admit that he had been more than a little motivated by his baser self, he had landed in a pickle of rare proportions. Now the duke of Chalmondly had joined their merry little party. Benedict hoped that, by her old friend’s arrival, Odette’s mood might be improved.

Phineas was as rich as Croesus. He loved a good wager, as well as all matters concerning sport, and had been a more than competent gentleman jockey in his youth. The duke had also been, and still was, an unrepentant reprobate.

Benedict wondered what Lord Chalmondly would make of his other houseguests. Specifically, his youngest houseguest. He hoped the duke would not greet Miranda, as was his habit, with a tickle and a pat.

As if his thoughts had conjured her, Miranda entered the room. She looked curiously about at her surroundings then went over to inspect the wall hangings, long strips of tempura-painted canvas that depicted a progression of ferocious lions and dragons and unicorns. “I have never seen a ferocious unicorn before,” she said.

She was standing in front of the square-headed mullioned windows. Light shone through the thin fabric of her dress, leaving her perfect little person vividly outlined. Benedict tried unsuccessfully to tear his gaze away. “Is there something I can do for you?”