Maggie MacKeever (6 page)

If she had good sense, reflected Julie, she would never have got caught swiping silver teaspoons, and thus wound up in Newgate, and come to the attention of Cap’n Jack. Lady Georgiana hadn’t waited for an answer, but continued to think out loud. “You won’t have a dowry, so you can’t expect to wed. And no one with your looks could hope to be hired on as a governess. Plus, you are too young. I’m not certain you are not too young to serve as my com
panion, but perhaps you may amuse me. Very well!  I will expect you to provide me with company and conversation, help me entertain guests, and frequently accompany me to social events. In return, you will receive board and lodging and an allowance. My son will have arranged all that.”

Julie opened her mouth to explain that Lord Ashcroft had done no such thing, but Lady Georgiana had already forged ahead. “I suppose you have been seldom in society. We shall change that, providing that you know how to conduct yourself without putting me to the blush. You will see the Czar — he is considered very handsome! — and the King of Prussia and brave Marshal Blücher. They will not deign to notice you, but you may admire them from afar.” She embarked upon a frivolous, gossipy sort of conversation concerning the most illustrious members of the
ton
. Julie, who didn’t wish that anyone should admire her, and hadn’t the slightest interest in whether Princess Charlotte did or did not marry the Prince of Orange, decided that Lady Georgiana was as feather-headed as her son.

Lady Georgiana frowned. “You are positively Friday-faced. I do not care to have dismal countenances about me, for I am sensitive to that sort of thing. I must insist that you be cheerful at all times, Miss Wynne.”

‘Pecky’, the viscount had called his mama, and she did indeed resemble a bad-tempered chicken. “Yes, my lady,” Julie murmured.

“Lud, I see that you may soon ‘my lady’ me to death!  You may have the privilege of addressing me as Georgiana when we are alone. And I shall call you—
what was it? Judith? Jennifer? Ah, yes, Julie. What an ordinary name. Do you play the organ, Julie? The harp? Perhaps, sing?”

Julie did none of those things and so she explained, adding for good measure that neither could she paint with watercolors, nor sew a straight seam. “Then how are you to entertain me?” Lady Georgiana inquired.

Julie, well rehearsed for this question, allowed that she played a fair hand of cards.

“Excellent!  You may refresh yourself, and shortly we will have some tea and a hand of piquet.” Lady Georgiana rang for a servant to take Julie to her room.

Not the stiff-rumped footman answered the summons, but a cheerful snub-nosed maid. “Here you are, miss,” she said, as she opened the door of a bedroom on the second floor. “Shall I unpack for you?”

Most certainly, she should not. Julie didn’t want anyone else’s nose turned up at her ‘dreadful’ gowns, which the dealer in used clothing had sworn were straight off the back of a duke’s daughter fallen on hard times. She sent the servant away, closed the door and leaned against it, and let out a great breath.

She had done it. She’d passed the first test, without shaking her finger or clenching her fist or propping her hands on her hips.

Julie wandered around the room, marveling that she was to have so much space to itself. There was a dressing table decorated with festoons of flowers, and an oval looking-glass; a deep wardrobe in which her meager belongings would be drowned; a corner washstand; a tallboy four feet wide and six feet high, the top drawers far above her head.

The bed had a canopy. Julie wondered if anyone had ever died as result of a canopy’s collapse.

Rose’s battered portmanteau looked as out of place as Julie felt. She paused by the window, looking down into the garden, wondering what Rose was doing at that moment, wishing that she could discuss the afternoon’s events with her friend.

Was this what it felt like to be homesick? Julie had never had a real home. She walked over to the bed and poked the mattress.  Pritchett had said when they first met that she would sleep alone with a warming pan in her bed. Julie heaved the portmanteau onto the coverlet and began to unpack.

Beneath her personal belongings lay the queer-looking statue. Julie sat down on the mattress, wished she might ask the statue’s owner what the ugly thing meant.

He would have made a pretty pirate. A dashing highwayman. She wondered if he ever thought of her, the way she thought of him.

It wasn’t likely. Julie flopped over on her back. Maybe it would be for the best if the canopy did cave in and crush her in her sleep.

Chapter Five

The great thing is to know when to speak and when to keep quiet.
— Seneca the Younger

Lord Dorset was privileged — or not, in his opinion — to be present at the grand entertainment hosted by his Regent for the Allied Sovereigns at Carlton House, the once-modest two-story mansion that Prinny had, at monumental expense to the nation’s unappreciative taxpayers, transformed into a palace worthy of an oriental potentate. The visitors marveled at the Entrance Hall with its porphyry columns and cornices adored by Etruscan griffins; the Throne Room with its canopy of helmets and ostrich plumes, walls curved with painted mandarins and fluted yellow draperies, peach-blossom ceilings and canopies of tassels and bells. Carlton House was pronounced — by the guests, not the unhappy taxpayers — not only the finest house in England, but the rival of Versailles and St. Cloud. Ned pronounced it damned hot.

“Be grateful you weren’t at dinner,” retorted Lord Saxe, to whom this complaint had been voiced. Kane was in an uncivil mood. The only member of the dinner party able to communicate in all three of the languages represented, the Grand Duchess had made not the slightest effort to ease any of the conversation. Kane had been strongly tempted to bash her over the head with a gold serving plate.

Thought of head-bashing brought him back to the current conversation. “You weren’t able to learn anything more about the artifact?”

Ned had not. Discrete inquiries had uncovered no information about either the missing statue or his thief.

Sandoval was dead. Ned had seen the body. Why this renewed interest in the statue? Did someone wish to step into the brigand’s boots?

The crowd inched forward. The men advanced a step further along the circular double staircase. “Campbell reports that Napoleon vows to from now on live like a justice of the peace,” said Kane. Colonel Sir Neil Campbell, one of Ned’s fellow Peninsular War veterans, had been made British Commissioner on the island of Elba and was consequently experiencing the monotony of exile. “Call me a pessimist, but I think it unlikely the Emperor is occupied with nothing but his island, his house and cows and mules. Castlereagh believes Elba too small to contain the Emperor’s ambition, and dangerously near the French coast.” Skillfully, Kane edged away from a female bent on plucking at the sleeve of his dark blue evening coat. “He also thinks the Czar must be half mad.
Pulteney’s has erected a temporary structure where ladies are
admitted by ticket to witness him arrive and depart from his hotel chamber. Instead of being annoyed by the intrusion, Alexander smiles and bows and shakes their hands.” Ned contemplated giant
bronzes of Chronos with his clock and Atlas bearing a map of Europe on his back, and reflected that lunacy was not confined to
Russian royalty. He glimpsed their host, sporting a scarlet coat lavishly ornamented with gold lace. Prinny was speaking with a slender and very animated lady. Ned nudged Kane, who pulled a wry face.

While Kane went off to curb the Grand Duchess’s mischief-making tendencies, Ned made his cautious way toward the Conservatory. London’s dark streets might hold few terrors for a man who had spied his way through the Peninsular War, most often in disguise
, though being caught out of uniform behind enemy lines would have seen him immediately shot as an enemy agent or hanged; but the drawing rooms of the
ton
was terrain treacherous as he had ever traversed.

The Conservatory was not so much an adjunct to a palace but a miniature cathedral, its nave and aisles formed by clusters of carved pillars, with stained glass windows and a fan-vaulted ceiling. At the west end, a low wide Gothic door led out to the gardens. Nearby, as he had anticipated, Hannah was holding court.

The dowager glimpsed him, and frowned. Ned made his way to her side.
Hannah looked him over, but found nothing to criticize in his
appearance, and therefore merely grimaced. For his part, Ned thought she resembled a crow dressed up in black sarcenet and crape.

“I’ve a bone to pick with you,” said Hannah, briskly dispensing with civilities. “You had best give your sister over to me before she is wholly ruined. A young woman who speaks Latin!  What were
you thinking to allow that? Moreover, it is unsuitable for her to reside in a bachelor household.”

Had Hannah gotten to know him and disliked him, Ned might not have minded, but she hadn’t bothered to get to know him first. “Clea has been residing in a bachelor household since she was nine years old. She has for all practical purposes been managing that same household for almost as long. It was never ‘unsuitable’ before.”

Hannah sniffed. “It’s always been unsuitable, but then no one cared. Now, however, you are the earl. Matters have changed.”

With that, Ned couldn’t argue. If he weren’t an earl, he wouldn’t be wandering around Carlton House, staring at old china vases and imperial dragons while his cousin shouted incivilities in
his ear. Hannah hadn’t shown the slightest interest in Ned’s sister before he succeeded to the title. Now she wanted to drag Clea off and teach her how to properly hold a teacup. That Clea wanted the same thing was beyond his comprehension, but it seemed she did.

Hannah gave Ned’s arm a sharp pinch. “You have an obligation to the family. Think of your sister, if you won’t think of me. Consider what would become of Clea if you was to suddenly become deceased.”

Ned had no intention of suddenly becoming deceased, but the previous earl probably hadn’t either, unless it was to escape his tiresome parent. “I’m hardly the last of the line. The title is in no danger of dying out.”

“The title came to you!” snapped Hannah. “Heaven only knows where it might end up next. I’ll see to your sister’s come-out on one condition:
you
shall
speedily choose a companion for life.”

The suggestion became no less appalling with repetition. Still, Hannah had a point. With the title had come properties, and with properties tenants. Countless other people were depending on Ned to do as he should.

Hannah clamped her hand vise-like on his arm. “At least you may begin to survey the field.” Without giving Ned an opportunity to retreat, she steered him around the room, introducing him to one young lady and another, in between explaining their pedigrees.

The first damsel glanced away in pretty confusion. The second favored Ned with a giggle and a smile. What did one talk about with young ladies so ignorant of the world? He and Bianca had done little talking. Not that Bianca had been an innocent.

And not that Bianca would have made a proper earl’s wife. “They’re barely out of the schoolroom,” protested Ned.

Hannah awarded him an impatient glance. “You’ll want a young wife. So you may mold her to your taste.”

Ned thought of the young women in London’s countless brothels and the men who had molded them and wondered, where’s the difference? Nonetheless,
he smiled and nodded and said everything kind and civil to Hannah’s countless candidates, who were all very proper, and very boring also. He clenched his jaw to stifle a yawn.

“Don’t look so forbidding!” scolded Hannah, then hissed out a breath as the person she liked least in all the world stepped into her path. The flibbertigibbet was fitted out for the occasion in a froth of heliotrope satin and white crape, trimmed with lace and knotted beading and gossamer net, a Grecian scarf around her shoulders, and blue satin slippers on her feet. Her hair was arranged in ringlets and knots. Draped about her person was a profusion of pearls.

Said Hannah, not quite beneath her breath: “Mutton dressed as lamb.” Added Ned, quickly: “Lady Georgiana. You take my breath away.”

“You are too kind, Lord Dorset.” Fluttering skillfully darkened lashes, Lady Georgiana tapped Ned’s arm with her carved ivory fan. “Hello,
Hannah. I am surprised to see you here. Oh, but your poor William was acquainted with the Regent, was he not? A pity you couldn’t join us at dinner. Prinny had in front of him at the table a basin of water with a temple in it, from which a stream meandered the entire length — two hundred feet, my dears, if an inch! — bordered with moss and aquatic flowers, spanned by four fantastic bridges, and filled with frolicking silver and gold fish.”

“I hear the Regent hung his portrait set in brilliants around Marshall Blücher’s neck.” Hannah sounded as if she might have had a frolicking fish stuck in her throat. “Blücher knelt at his feet.”

Lady Georgiana gently fanned herself. “I vow dear Prinny changes the furniture so often one can scarcely find
time to catch a glimpse of each new arrangement before he has replaced it with another. The present state of things is unusually fine. Have you noticed the chandelier in the Crimson Drawing Room?”

Hannah bared her teeth. “I’ve noticed that you have a new companion. What happened? Did you wear the last one out?”

Ned had been so enjoying the hostilities — Georgiana and Hannah were bitter rivals, Georgiana holding the advantage because she was a lady by birth and Hannah merely by marriage, as result of which Hannah was determined to topple Georgiana from her throne — that he had scarce paid attention to anything else.
Now he looked around. Georgiana had indeed acquired a new attendant, a small slender creature clad in a pale yellow gown that
didn’t suit her bright gold hair. The girl was staring at a luster of glass and ormolu that resembled a shower of diamonds, the bauble
probably costing between two and three thousand pounds. The expression on her face put Ned in mind of soldiers in the midst of battle, shocked immobile by carnage and cannon fire.