Fallen Angel (34 page)

Finally, she asked, "How long will that last?"

"A month or so."

In Drumoak it would do them for a year. Her thoughts strayed to Janet and Banshee and Kelpie, all abandoned in her haste to escape Deveryn. Inevitably, a wave of nostalgia brought the familiar ache, filling her senses with the taste, feel, and sights of home and all the things she loved best in the world.

She could almost hear the roar of the breakers as they surged against the shore, and feel the spray on her face as she rode hell for leather across the sand dunes. Since her arrival in London, she'd been out riding only once. The sedate pace which was permitted to ladies along Rotten Row in Hyde Park was more torture than pleasure to one who had roamed the Forth shoreline and hills of Lothian at will. If there were compensations to living in the lap of luxury, she had yet to discover them. In her own mind she was convinced that nothing could compensate for the loss of Drumoak or the freedom she had enjoyed before Deveryn came into her life. She could never forget that it was by his design that her safe and ordered life had become lost to her.

Her throat seemed to tighten and she could feel the burn of tears at the back of her eyes. Better leave, she thought, before turning into a watering pot. She waited only till she could gain command of her voice.

.Before she could do so, the door to the harness room opened, and a young stable boy, a bright-eyed lad of about fifteen summers, came in at a trot. He spotted Duncan, but missed the small, erect figure stationed in the shadows.

"Mr. Ross, Mr. Ross!" he exclaimed excitedly. "The mill's on fer ternight. They've found a real bruiser ter stand up wif yer. Mr. Lloyd told me ter tell yer. Same time, same place."

The boy suddenly noticed that the face of the man to whom he was speaking had gone beet red. He broke off and his gaze followed Duncan's to take in the bristling form of a young lady who stood a little way off behind the open door.

Willie groaned. "He knew better than mention the coarse masculine sports in a lady's hearing. Ladies, he knew from sad experience, regarded it as their God-given duty to turn men into milksops. Look at his da.

"Cor! I'll come back later!" he averred, and spun himself about.

A cool, imperious voice nailed him to the floor. "Just a moment, boy! A word with you, if you please."

Willie didn't please, but didn't dare say so. Reluctantly, he turned back to face the pretty young lady whose face seemed to be carved out of granite. He remarked, with some relief, that her glacial stare was trained, not on himself, but on poor Mr. Ross. That giant seemed to have shrivelled by several inches and shrunk by a couple of stone. Women! Da was right. One look from an irate woman, and a man could feel as if he'd been caught with his breeches down. The glacial expression was turned on him, and his hands went automatically to the waistband of his trousers.

"What bruiser? What mill? Where and when?"

Her voice, he thought, could make hell itself freeze over. He was not brave enough to dissemble. Haltingly, he stammered out everything he knew. He couldn't bring himself to look at Mr. Ross.

"Thank you. You may go. And close the door behind you."

He made his escape with unabashed alacrity.

Maddie began a furious pacing. She rounded on Duncan. "What are you thinking of, Duncan? Didn't you learn your lesson, last time, at Balmedie?"

The red tide of colour had faded from Duncan's cheeks to be replaced by a vacuous grin that hovered somewhere between an apology and anguish.

"Och, Miss Maddie, we're no talkin' prize fights. That was when I was a professional. This is strictly amateur."

She stopped in her hectic perambulations. "It is? What's the difference?"

"We're no out tae kill each other. The mill only goes for ten rounds."

"Is that good?"

He pressed the advantage he sensed. "Only ten rounds? I've never fought in anything less than twenty-five in a professional fight. A man can take a hellova poundin' when he's forced tae fight till one or t'other is lying flat on his back."

"A lot can happen in ten rounds. You know what the doctor said. You ought never to fight again." Her voice gentled to a cozening, coaxing lilt. "Have you forgotten how it was last time? Oh I'm not talking about your broken ribs and your other injuries," she said with a swift return of impatience when he tried to break in. "I'm talking about your loss of memory, and oh, that daft look you had in your eyes for the longest time. You're only now coming back to yourself." She gave him her most melting expression. "Duncan, I couldn't bear it if anything happened to you, and Janet would never forgive me."

"Now, now lass," he soothed, "I swear ye're makin' a mountain out o' a molehill. I'm only sparrin' wi' other coachmen, and they couldna fight their way oot o' a lady's bandbox."

"Yes, that's how it begins," she said, turning away wearily, "but one thing leads to another. What I can't understand is how you got started again."

Duncan saw his chance of distracting Miss Maddie's thoughts from their unhappy direction.

"Me and some of m' mates went out to Grantham to watch the mill between Gully and the Chicken. Och that wer
somethin' to gladden sore eyes."

"And?" prompted Maddie when she observed the dreamy expression softening her lackey's rocky features.

"Och, well, we were havin' a quiet pint in the taproom at the Falcon after it was all over, when, through no fault of m' own, mind ye, I got involved in a wee bit o' a scuffle."

That intelligence did not surprise Maddie. It was common knowledge that the big mills that took place in and around London ofteti ended in punch drunk orgies of violence.

"I'm all ears. Pray continue."

"Ye'll be rememberin' Lord Deveryn?" He missed the sudden change in her expression. "He got in a wee spot o' trouble, and I took it upon myself to help him oot o' it. Now there's a gentleman who kens how tae employ his dukes! Aye, he owns the finest pair o' fives I've seen
oot
o' the professional circuit, and that's sayin' something!"

"Lord Deveryn resorted to fisticuffs?" Her tone was patently credulous.

"Och, he didna start it," Duncan hastily explained. "It were a group o' rowdies, drunk as lords but fine young gentlemen every one o' them, who
kent
the crest on his carriage. There was a rumour that he had a woman in his chamber. They were just oot for a bit o' lark." He laughed at some private reflection. "They got more than they bargained for."

"Wh-what happened?"

"Me and m' mates followed them up the stairs. They burst into his lordship's chamber. A moment later they came flyin' oot, and he as naked as the day he was born and roarin' like a lion. Well, it was five agin one. M' mates and me didna like
thae
odds. We had
tae
help him."

"And . . . and was there a woman with him?"

"So they say. I couldna really tell ye."

Maddie knew better. She stewed in silence for some few minutes. She remembered the Faleon. They had given that particular coaching house a wide berth on the last lap of their journey to London. 'Too unsavoury," Raeburn had called it. Just the kind of place a man of Deveryn's stamp would seek out to "sow his wild oats," she thought, recalling Lady Bessborough's words of only hours before. She wondered whose field he had been ploughing, and remembered the name

'Dolly Ramides.'

"And was he suitably grateful?" she demanded. No doubt he had tried to bribe poor Duncan to silence. But there was no guile in Duncan as Deveryn would learn to his regret. .

At the unexpected return of ice in Miss Maddie's tone and demeanour, Duncan blinked rapidly. "Grateful?" he par- rotted.

"You did save his miserable skin, didn't you?"

Duncan blinked again. He felt as if he had somehow missed something in the conversation. "His lordship didna see me," he said slowly. "It were dark on the stairs. And I carried two o' them off by their coat-tails."

He didn't care for the angry way Miss Maddie folded her lips together. He sensed a storm coming.

"Next time," she stormed at him, "next time you jump into the fray, kindly remember that Lord Deveryn is the enemy! Have you got that, you dunderhead? Lord Deveryn is the enemy!"

She looked at him in shocked silence. Her hand flew to her mouth. Finally, she said in a low, contrite tone, "Oh Duncan, that was unforgivable! I should not have called you 'dunderhead.' Can you ever forgive me?"

He nodded mutely. Everybody, at least everybody at Drumoak, knew about Miss Maddie's temper. It flashed to a white-hot heat then evaporated into thin air like the brandy which flamed the Christmas pudding. There were compensations. For days afterwards, she would be as sweet as honey.

"We'll talk about this later," she said, visibly striving for control. "I'm not myself. Just try to stay out of trouble. All right?"

Again he nodded.

"Thank you." And she slipped quietly out of the room.

Duncan sank onto the stool. Miss Maddie hadn't given him a chance to explain about his mates being so bowled over by the way he had handled himself that from that moment onward he'd been accepted as an equal. More. He'd earned their respect. He wasn't about to throw it away because of a young girl's squeamishness. One day, he promised himself, he'd make her proud of him.

The commodious green saloon at the Rossmere's handsome residence in Manchester Square was habitually, on the second Thursday of every month, reserved for what the Countess of Rossmere was pleased to call her "ladies' day." Her husband, the earl, was once heard to affectionately refer to his wife's Thursday gatherings where ladies of an intellectual bent indulged their taste for the academic over tea as "The Bluestocking Brigade." The name stuck.

Maddie made her debut into this august company as a guest of Lady Mary Branwell on the very afternoon following her conversation with Duncan. And she was enchanted.

She found a group of about twenty ladies informally helping themselves to biscuits and tea which had been set out at one end of the room. Some of those present she already knew. The Countess of Bessborough was there as was the reigning beauty of the Season who was nicknamed "The Toast," Lady Elizabeth Heatherington. That she was also heiress to a considerable fortune ensured that the young woman had an enormous following. Lady Rossmere, her hostess, Maddie would have easily recognized as the mother of the girl who had brought her. The connection of these subdued and attractive wren-like creatures to the Viscount Deveryn missed Maddie completely. She had no recollection of ever having heard the names "Rossmere" and "Verney" in connection with each other.

She'd heard of the Bluestocking Brigade from her aunt, Miss Spencer. From what she had heard, she had expected to find
herself in company of a group of hatchet-faced dowds whose conversation was too rarified to admit of the commonplaces of ordinary mortals like herself. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The chatter was as typical as was to be found among any group of ladies, with one notable exception. Whenever Lady Mary introduced Maddie to one of her mother's guests, she frequently added a word of explanation.

"Miss Smith's interest lies in Physics. She delivered a paper not so long ago entitled 'The Horseless Age—A Peek into the Future.' Fascinating!"

"Miss Paxton-Brown is an entomologist. She takes her work very seriously. Would you believe that Meg is working on a cure for—now what was it?—oh yes, warble fly? Papa can hardly wait for the results of your experiments, Meg. It decimated his herds last year, you see."

By degrees, they made their way to Lady Bessborough who was in conversation with a startlingly pretty young woman whose vivid beauty put Maddie in mind of home. Complexion like cream, hair like fire, amber-eyed, young Lady Rutherston was the epitome of the fair skinned girls who were typical of the more northern climes. Maddie was conscious that her own more subdued colouring, though similar, lacked vibrancy in comparison.

Lady Mary made the introductions. "Aunt Harriet, you already know Miss Sinclair, I collect."

Maddie curtsied as Lady Bessborough acknowledged the greeting with a friendly smile.

"Catherine, Lady Rutherston, may I present Miss Maddie Sinclair? Maddie, this is my dearest friend. We make up the Classics branch of the Bluestocking Brigade, along with my mother and sisters, of course. Oh, will you excuse me. I think it's time to begin."