Maggie MacKeever (15 page)

Murder, then, was out; Delilah had no wish to distress her kindly and long-suffering benefactress. She eyed a selection of stockings, cotton and angora and silk, black and white and fashionable pink. “I own I don’t immediately see how it is to be done, but I mean to think
very
particularly about it. Dear Binnie, do trust me!”

Oddly, Binnie did. She had no doubt that the enterprising and unscrupulous Miss Mannering could, if she put her clever mind to it, devise a means by which to throw a rub in Cressida’s way. Binnie had less faith, however, in Delilah’s ability to do so without landing them in briars. But what mattered a little discomfort if by it a beloved brother was spared a lifetime of bitter discontent? Binnie steeled herself.

Wise she was to do so. So concerned was Binnie with Neal’s difficulties that she’d forgotten Delilah’s encounter with the raggle-taggle gypsy, precisely as Delilah had intended she should. Miss Mannering did not think the spirits other benefactress would be elevated by the revelation that a certain ambitious tinker intended blackmail.

CHAPTER TWELVE

On the subject of blackmail, the Duke of Knowles was not long kept in ignorance. That afternoon found him not plunging deep at Raggett’s, nor strolling along the Steine, nor attending a grand military review. Though a pleasing lack of solemnity marked reviews conducted under Prinny’s auspices, the duke was in no humor to appreciate such larks as a regiment of donkeys, mounted by beaux and belles, led by a gentleman of great bulk whose large and brightly gleaming spurs hung level with the hoofs of his steed. The duke was barricaded in his study, having given his staff explicit warning that he was not to be interrupted on pain of death.

The duke’s study was in effect a library, a rectangular room designed not only for displaying books, but for entertaining as well. At each end an apse was fronted by a screen of Corinthian columns. The ceiling was shallowly barrel-vaulted and decorated with low relief stucco and painted oval panels. The rosewood and mahogany furnishings incorporated a great deal of brass inlay, lines and stars and clover leaves, as well as brass paw feet.

The duke sat at a writing table of slender proportions. A tambour shutter had been pushed back to reveal pigeonholes and drawers which rose and fell on a spring fitting. It was obvious from the duke’s appearance—his golden hair was wildly disheveled, as if he’d run impatient fingers through it any number of times; his posture slouched—that he was engaged in intensive cerebral activity.

It was not, alas, accomplishing him much, unless it could be considered an accomplishment to work oneself into a fever of the brain. Sandor could see no way out of the dilemma presented him by the fair Phaedra. The situation was galling. Sandor was unaccustomed to dancing to some other piper’s tune. And what the devil did Phaedra think to accomplish? She could not keep him on tenterhooks indefinitely. Or so Sandor hoped. He had a vision of himself ancient and infirm, still acting the cicisbeo, while Phaedra still dangled that piece of withheld information like a carrot in front of his nose.

Blasted Brighton! he thought bitterly, as he slammed down the tambour shutter. That he only barely missed smashing his own fingers did not improve his mood. Brighton, where the sea-waters were beneficial to asthma and cancer and consumption, deafness and rheumatism and ruptures, madness and impotence. Would that he had stayed in London, where if he was to go to the devil, it was at least with his own hands on the reins.

Came a tapping at the door. The duke cursed. Said the butler, quaking in his shoes: “Beg pardon, m’lord, but there is a person wishing to speak to you, and he refuses to leave.”

The duke took leave to wonder why the retainers whom he employed at so generous a wage, and to whom he was the soul of benevolence, were incapable of turning away undesirable parties from his doorstep. The butler trembled; His Grace’s words thundered like the crack of doom. He closed his eyes and awaited the inevitable which, judging by His Grace’s temper, would be either decapitation or dismemberment.

A silence fell. Of too nervous a temperament to blindly await his fate, the butler cautiously opened one eye. To his relief, the duke was looking a trifle more amiable. He announced that he would see this unknown caller. Reprieved, the butler fled.

It was not compassion for his underlings that had prompted Sandor’s change of mind—had he ever been taxed with mistreatment of his servants, he would have responded that they were paid to put up with his whims, and beside he had never yet actually mishandled any one of them—but a suspicion that the person of whom the butler had spoken with such grave distaste might be able to shed some light on Phaedra’s little mystery. This suspicion was confirmed when the visitor strolled into the room. Unkempt, obviously a man without the least pretension to gentility—but handsome for all that. None knew better than the duke that Phaedra had a predilection for handsome men.

Johann—for the visitor was he—in his turn, saw the most tremendous swell. A gentry cove in truth, as Athalia had said, for none but the richest of men could live in this best possible of styles. An excellent notion it was to persuade this modern-day Midas to part with some of his blunt. Johann seated himself in a chair with saber legs and scroll back.

The duke was not impressed by this studied nonchalance. “Pray tell me the object of this intrusion!” he uttered impatiently.

So His Grace was of a choleric temper? “I knew as soon as I cast my winkers over you, cully,” Johann approved, “that you was a right-thinking one! ‘Twill be a rare pleasure to do business with such a knaggy cove.”

Business? This sounded ominous. “I do not see,” Sandor said coolly, “what business I could possibly have with someone like yourself.”

On his high ropes was he? Johann would bring him down off them soon enough. First he chuckled. Then he launched into an explanation which, since it was couched in such phrases as ‘wrap it up in clean linen’ and ‘get my dabbers onto some rhino,’ offered the duke scant enlightenment. Quite properly, the duke had no desire to see his dirty linen laundered in public; of course this unwelcome visitor would wish recompense for keeping his trap shut. But about what? Surely the man didn’t think Sandor a pigeon for his plucking? If so, he was mistaken. Sandor didn’t care a straw if Phaedra’s indiscretions were published to the world.

“Phaedra?” echoed Johann, when the duke made known this sentiment. “Damned if I haven’t been taken in! Because the wench gave me an altogether different name!”

“She would, wouldn’t she?” inquired the duke, who was rapidly growing bored. “You see you have been misled. It is Phaedra you should speak to. Here, I will give you her direction!”

Johann did not intend to be out-jockeyed by any rum swell. “Nay, that won’t wash! I know good and well that the lass—by whatever name you call her!—is in this very house.”

The brief euphoria attendant upon serving his ladylove an ill turn abruptly deserted Sandor. He was a man of keen intelligence, when inspired to utilize it: therefore, the revelation that this uncouth caller could only be Miss Mannering’s tinker. He raised his quizzing-glass. Miss Mannering had come within aim’s ace of marrying this vagabond? And the vagabond had come within aim’s ace of getting his very dirty hands on the Mannering fortune? “Good God!” he said.

Johann did not appreciate being studied as if he were some rare specimen of insect life. In a belligerent manner, he announced that it was time they got down to brass tacks. Johann was a busy man and he had other fish to fry. In a nutshell, Johann expected to be very well reimbursed for keeping to himself information of a nature that would put Miss Mannering beyond the pale. Johann might not be one of the nobs, but he was wide-awake enough to know that no lass who hobnobbed with tinkers would be looked upon as eligible to rub shoulders with the Quality. He would even go further, Johann promised: were the duke to fail and buy his silence, he would put it about that Miss Mannering had lived a debauched life.

“Be damned to your impudence!” uttered the duke, irritably. “You’ll find no easy pickings here, man. Be off with you!”

Johann had not expected immediate capitulation, not from what must be the highest bred man in England; he considered the duke’s annoyance a very proper sentiment. He also considered that the duke had not thought the matter through to its logical outcome. No young lady could benefit from the rumor that she persevered in loose morality. To this end, he gave a gentle hint. The duke heard him out with a countenance of dreadfully gathering rage. “Ill warrant,” Johann concluded cheerfully, “you wouldn’t like that above half. As they say, guv’nor, play and pay.”

But Johann had underestimated his prey, as he discovered when the duke’s hands fastened themselves on his shirt-collar and heaved him upright. “I’d as soon see you quietened first!” growled His Grace. “Defend yourself, fool!”

Johann made haste to do so. He was no stranger to the noble art of self-defense, though he played by very different rules than the swells, bring an adherent of those ignoble tactics known inexplicably to the initiates of such sport as ‘not playing the game.’

Sandor was not dismayed. He displayed to good advantage, as might be expected of one whose usual sparring partner was no less than the noted pugilist, Gentleman Jackson. The men feinted and parried, sweated and swore. It soon became clear to the unhappy Johann that his antagonist was well up to the mark, with an extremely handy bunch of fives. Even clearer was the fact that, unless he accomplished some very low blow, it would be bellows to mend with him.

The door swung open; frozen on the threshold, Binnie stared. She had been drawn by the sounds of struggle, but never had she expected to enter Sandor’s study and discover that he and a distinctly shifty-looking stranger had come to cuffs. “Pea-goose!” snapped the duke. “Close the door!”

Hastily, Binnie did so. If she had been shocked by this vulgar display, the servants would be aghast. She set herself to watch the fisticuffs with no small curiosity, such spectacles not generally coming in her way.

It was over soon enough—too soon, in fact, to suit Binnie, who had discovered in herself a positive bloodthirst—or, to be precise, a strong desire to see Sandor get his claret drawn. That pleasure was denied her. The duke planted Johann a facer—tipped the tinker a doubler, dew his cork. Binnie gazed dispassionately upon the fallen man, and pointed out that he was bleeding all over the Wilton carpet. Then she inquired, should the duke not mind her asking, just who this stranger was.

“The tinker!” Sandor was delighted to have stricken Miss Prunes and Prisms all aheap, as obviously he had; she looked positively stunned. “Come to try and indulge in a bit of blackmail. He threatened to blacken Miss Mannering’s reputation unless I bought his silence.”

Reflecting that Miss Mannering was quite capable of blackening her own reputation without assistance, Binnie sat down abruptly in the sabre-legged, scroll-backed chair. “Gracious!” she uttered faintly. “What will you do, Sandor?”

The duke shrugged. “Nothing. He’s had a sharp enough lesson. We’ll hear no more from him.”

Binnie doubted strongly that an individual so resourceful as Johann appeared to be would so speedily turn tail, but she knew the futility of arguing with her cousin the duke. Thoughtfully she regarded him. “Sandor! You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing.” Gingerly, he touched his lip. Johann had not gone down to defeat without getting in a few of his own blows. “Don’t fuss, Sibyl.”

Binnie had no intention of so doing, and certainly not over a gentleman so high-handed and short-tempered as her cousin the duke. Apparently he was very fond of Delilah. It was not at all like Sandor to rush so nobly to a young lady’s defense. Binnie regarded the unconscious Johann rather gloomily.

As did the duke, though Binnie did not know it, similarly regard her. The duke’s little family, he decided, was acting very queer. Edwina was continually dropping hints so subtle that he hadn’t the faintest notion what she was jawing about; Neal was in the sullens; Binnie avoided him like the plague. Only Miss Mannering was behaving with the least degree of normalcy, and that was no circumstance for which to render up praise, since Miss Mannering was normally a wayward chit.

Still, the girl was no problem of his, and he had no objection if she played off countless tricks. After all, he had intended that she serve as an apple of discord. Sandor yanked at the bellpull. The butler appeared. The duke requested, indifferently, that the recumbent body of his visitor be dumped in the street.

Silently, Binnie watched the removal of Johann. Then she contemplated her cousin. “I hope you may not find yourself with the devil to pay over this business.”

His Grace paid scant heed to this wish for his well-being, which had been delivered in what he could only think a tone of patent insincerity. He applied a handkerchief to his battered mouth. “Rather, you hope I
do.
Sorry as I am to disappoint you, Sibyl, I think that I shall not.”

“Odious creature! You cannot deny yourself any opportunity to try and put me in the wrong. Here, let me help you.  You are making a sorry botch of that.”

With little grace, His Grace submitted to the ministrations of Miss Prunes and Prisms. Binnie withdrew a handkerchief from her sleeve, poured brandy on it, then applied it to his cut lip. Sandor winced. She smiled. “Before you accuse me of unwonted cruelty, I will point out that the tinker was hardly a model of cleanliness. I shouldn’t wish you to expire of some dread disease.”

 Sandor grasped her wrist. “You surprise me. I should have thought you wanted that very thing.”

His sudden action so unnerved Binnie that she dropped the handkerchief. “Release me, Sandor.”

But the duke was not an obliging sort of gentleman. “Not until you tell me what has caused you to look burned to the socket. Is Delilah plaguing you? Shall I send the chit away?”

Binnie considered this offer only further proof of Sandor’s basic villainy; he would not seriously consider banishing a damsel at whom he’d made a dead set. “Don’t be ridiculous!” She glared at the strong fingers that encircled her wrist. “I am very fond of Delilah. And don’t be trying to provoke me, Sandor, by calling me an antidote!”