Maggie MacKeever (21 page)

Lily smiled to see her brother gazing around the room in an apprehensive manner, as if Angelica might suddenly spring from behind a chair. “Don’t fret! Angelica has gone to her room with a hot brick. Fennel, we must decide what is to be done about Phoebe. Despite what Rosemary has said, I think we should tell Angelica. She always knows what to do!”

“Oh, yes!” cried Rosemary. “She knows very well, it seems! Well enough to engage in clandestine meetings with an ineligible
parti
when she should have been helping me! That shows very clearly where we stand in Angelica’s priorities. There is no use in acquainting Angelica with our little puzzles. Better we solve them ourselves!”

Cautiously, Fennel eyed Rosemary. In his past association with this particular sister, he had never known her to solve anything—the Chalmers sapphires were an excellent case in point. Fennel’s apprehensive eye alit on those gems. Into that eye came a gleam. “By Jove, I’ve got it! You can pop the sapphires again, Rosemary!”

“No, I cannot!” snapped his unobliging sister. “Not after working myself into a fever of the brain to figure out how to redeem them. But don’t despair, Fennel; I have an even better notion! There is a Mr. Thwaite in Newgate Street who will help you—he is the most obliging man!”

Again came one of Fennel’s sporadic bursts of intuition: Rosemary had redeemed the Chalmers sapphires with the assistance of a moneylender. Fennel’s intuition, alas, failed him at that point. He thought it was an excellent notion to buy off Phoebe’s dragon of a mama with money procured from a curst cent-percent.

Chapter Seventeen

Angelica and Sir Randall were alone in the garden—alone, that is, except for the zebras and the panthers, the sheep and the ram, the buffalo and the llama and the East Indian shawl goat. In the absence of the irrepressible Simon, whose habit it was to entertain them both with such unsuitable topics as the preponderance of brothels around Piccadilly, examples being The Key in Chandos Street and the Archbishop’s Nunnery situated across Westminster Bridge hard by the Archepiscopal Palace and highly favored by the swells, the conversation was desultory.

“Miss Smith,” observed Sir Randall, in an irritable tone, “you are acting very out-of-sorts. Have you been teasing yourself with thoughts of your sisters’ problems? I wish that you would not; it makes you very bad company! Anyway, it can not be so desperately bad as all that.”

Sadly Angelica surveyed her employer, who was toying in an absent manner with a letter knife. She could hardly ask him if the shocking intimations made by Bimble and Mallet were fact; she could not trust that even Sir Randall would tell her the truth. In any event, it mattered little whether Bimble and Mallet were correct. Angelica knew enough of the world to realize that were information laid against Sir Randall his reputation would be ruined, even were the information a gross misrepresentation of reality. Angelica had no alternative but to apply to Simon, both for corroboration and financial assistance—but where was he? The resurrectionists had not impressed Angelica as being patient folk.

While his amanuensis thusly pondered. Sir Randall had launched into a soliloquy upon scarlet fever, progressing from the time of year most conducive to the sickness (late summer) through the symptoms (rigors and shivering and red scaly spots) to the efficacy of blisters and paregoric draughts. ‘“Animal food must not be taken,” he said, then paused. “Miss Smith, I do wish you would tell me what ails you!”

Tell Sir Randall that she feared him guilty of the worst of all crimes? Never! Nor would she reveal her speculation upon the missing Simon’s whereabouts, lest Sir Randall misinterpret her anxiety. “It is nothing of importance. Do not press me further, I beg.”

“Certainly not, if you do not wish it!” Sir Randall responded, rather stiffly. “Although it has me quite in a puzzle why you suddenly cannot bring yourself to trust me. I had thought we were friends. No, not another word, Miss Smith! I am very displeased with you and I wish you would go away.”

“But, Sir Randall!” cried Angelica, very close to tears. “I didn’t mean that I cannot trust you. Truly, I do!”

Sir Randall contemplated his paper knife, then with it gestured violently in the direction of his amanuensis. “Do I not pay your salary, Miss Smith? Have I given you leave to argue? We will continue our discussion some other time when you are less distracted and a great deal more composed. And now, good day!”

Angelica looked at the paper knife, and at her employer’s annoyed expression, and abruptly admitted defeat. She walked slowly toward the house, there to retrieve her bonnet and pelisse from the study. Sir Randall, whose ill-humor was resultant upon yet another interrogation conducted by his son on the subject of Miss Smith, gazed upon her retreating, lachrymose figure and irritably informed the llama that Miss Smith stood in grave need of remedies much stronger than syrup of poppies and a hot brick.

Unbeknownst to Sir Randall, Miss Smith was fated to endure just such stronger measures, though whether the result was beneficial remains to be seen. Sir Randall’s study was not empty. Standing near the bookshelves, in very near the same spot where she had originally glimpsed him, stood Simon Brisbane. “Oh!” gasped Angelica. “I have been wanting particularly to see you. You will know precisely what to do and I do not—indeed, my thoughts are not worth the purchase of a guinea, no matter how greatly I cudgel my brain!”

Was
this an adventuress? Simon asked himself again. He had delayed his decision in hope she would betray herself, but thus far she had not. Clearly more direct action was required. How was he to persuade her that she need not hold him at arm’s length? With a twinkle in his green eyes, Simon suggested that his next-intended conquest take a seat. “Now tell me,” he invited generously, “what has put you in a tweak!”

Ah, but he was a handsome devil, Angelica thought wistfully, with his athletic figure, his harsh and dissipated features, his diabolically irresistible charm. Then she took herself to task for this lack of concentration. Was she in her dotage that she should forget everything, even the possibility that Sir Randall might be dragged off to gaol, just because she received a smile from a hardened rakeshame?

Resolutely she averted her eyes from his face. “I think that the most dreadful moment came when Sir Randall brandished that paper knife in my direction and demanded that I go away. I had not believed it until then, had thought perhaps it was all no more than the result of an unlucky mischance.” Again she looked at Simon, this time with disapproval. “I could wish that you had told me the whole previously! Heaven knows I could easily have made a fatal misstep. Oh, do not look so taken aback; I have already told you the secret is safe.”

Simon, who had not the most distant guess why Miss Smith should be in the devil of a pucker, unless it was because Sir Randall had given her her
congée,
consequently interrupted her disclosures in a most uncomplimentary light. Clearly the tale-pitching Durward had been more astute than Simon had previously realized; it was Simon himself who had lacked perspicacity in doubting that Miss Smith could be a straw damsel bent on worming her way into his father’s heart. Had Miss Smith not been a designing female, as Durward had all along sworn she was, she would not now be mouthing dire comments about nonexistent secrets. It was not the first time she had done so, and that previous occasion had led Simon to inquire very particularly into his father’s recent activities. As a result of that inquiry Sir Randall was acquitted of misdeeds, and Miss Smith convicted of nourishing some very evil design. “Precisely what is it you want, Miss Smith?” Simon asked, without the least change in manner. Simon treated all females alike, duchess or adventuress, which since ladies like to be treated as if they aren’t, and lady-birds as if they are, suited them all fine.

Because his manner toward her had not changed, Angelica did not immediately perceive that she had been cast as the slyest thing in nature. “It is not what I
want,”
she responded frankly, “but what I must have. The thing simply cannot be accomplished without money. Oh, it is very dreadful, but I do not know where else to turn. But you are a man of substance—”

Even as she spoke, Simon had walked toward her. Now he reached out and took her hand and drew her to her feet. “Exactly so!” he said, wryly. “In short, I could set you up in very easy circumstances, such as must seem most desirous to a female with a consumptive parent who sews by candlelight to keep the wolf from the door. Let us begin as we mean to go on, my darling—without secrets! You tell me what’s in your mind, and I will oblige with anything you wish. I will even explain to you precisely what is an orgy.”

Angelica did not grasp Simon’s intent, thought in fact that his comments were deuced odd. “Naturally I should like to know,” she said, gazing doubtfully up at him, “oh, all sorts of things! But is this the moment for such stuff? Shouldn’t we deal with the matter of your father first—that is, if you do mean to oblige me?”

As Simon had previously suspected, he had made a grave omission in never dallying with a lady in the style of the mysterious Miss Smith. With an eye to making Miss Smith aware of that omission and his wish that it be speedily rectified, he placed his hands on her shoulders. “I shall try and never disoblige you!” he promised recklessly.

Somehow, decided Angelica, this conversation had gotten out of hand, as conversations with Simon tended frequently to do. More than once an innocent discussion of, for example, the strategies employed by Napoleon had deteriorated into, say, an expose of an elegant establishment in Berwick Street, wherein had been introduced various refinements witnessed by its owner while on tour of the more distinguished houses of pleasure existent in Paris. Because Simon was an abominably provoking creature who delighted in putting her to the blush, Angelica had learned to pay his more outrageous sallies very little heed. Currently he seemed in a very funning mood. Consequently Angelica requested that he cease trying to cut a wheedle because important matters were at stake.

And because Angelica had never displayed the strong sense of propriety cherished by any well-brought-up young woman as proof of her birthright, Simon had no reason to believe she was above his touch. His fingers tightened. “It makes me very melancholy to think that you would try and put the screws to me. It is very enterprising of you, but there is no need, my darling. Had I not liked you very well, I would not have made you the object of such persistent gallantry.”

“Gallantry?” echoed Angelica, dumbfounded. “What
are
you talking about?”

Simon was a man of great patience. For what purpose his darling played off her tricks he couldn’t assess, but he was willing to wait for enlightenment. Therefore he brushed back a curl that had fallen onto her cheek, and informed her that he didn’t mind if for some incomprehensible reason she sought to pretend ignorance of the fact that he had no sooner set eyes on her than he immediately began to pay her court, to bestow upon her delicate attentions that betokened absolute enrapturement—but she must not think she could beat him at the post.

“Humbug!” responded Angelica, rather weakly. Though a great many of Simon’s comments had been incomprehensible to her, she had gained the distinct impression that he was inviting her to persevere with him in loose morality. Since it was inconceivable that even so hardened a rakeshame as Simon Brisbane should escort any but a dazzling barque of frailty down the primrose path, and since Angelica did not fit that description in the least, she could only assume he spoke in jest. Ah, if only she were the sort of female who might carelessly engage in open intrigue, bid her exasperating family to the devil and embark upon a life of carefree dissipation without heed of consequence—but she was not, and thus would never know the bliss of misbehaving with a gentleman so lost to propriety as to encourage her in every sort of excess.

Meanwhile, and with considerable amusement, Simon looked down into Miss Smith’s bemused face. Since Simon had in all his life encountered not a single lady who could resist his devastating charm, and since Miss Smith had hitherto given little indication of being the exception to this universal susceptibility, he may perhaps be forgiven for presuming that she would accept the highly flattering alliance that he verged on offering her. Before he made that offer, however, he must have Miss Smith’s promise that toward Sir Randall she would harbor no more fell designs. With that intention, he gently hinted that once she came under his protection he would expect her to drop every other connection of every sort and kind.

Could the man seriously contemplate that Angelica would toss her hat over the windmill? It boggled her mind. With great effort, she regained the use of her tongue. “Now I think you
must
be trifling with me, sir!”

Obviously he had failed to make clear his intention, which was most unlike him, but an error that could be immediately remedied. “No, my little hornet, I am not!” Simon drew her into his arms and embraced her with a rough ardor that various other Misses Millikin would have thoroughly approved. Then he put her away from him. “Now I have trifled with you. What say you to that?”

To Angelica’s prior disabilities, her giddiness and palpitations and the oppressions on her chest, was now added a shortness of breath. Valerian had been correct in predicting that Simon Brisbane would interpret a freedom of speech as an invitation to take liberties, a piece of prescience that put Angelica thoroughly out of charity, not with Simon, but with her brother. “So
that
is how one trifles? How very enlightening! To say the truth, I liked it excessively—but you should not have done it, all the same. You seem to think—but I am not—at the cost of appearing prudish, I must ask that you cease to pester me!”

“Pester
you?” echoed Simon, in amazement. Simon was, after all, a gazetted rakehell, and not accustomed to hearing his polished advances spoken of in such crushing terms. “Come down off your high ropes, my girl! I have promised you may set yourself up in the latest mode, but this habit you have of trying to imitate your betters is damned tedious. Which brings to mind another matter—what the devil is your name? I can hardly address my
petite amie
as Miss Smith!”