Maggie MacKeever (31 page)

“Well, yes, I think I might be,” said the duke, a trifle apologetically. Since he was feeling a trifle bemused by this sudden confrontation with his offspring, he did not immediately realize that the existence of that offspring might cause a certain lady a very justifiable offense. Warily, he eyed Binnie.

With that same unreadable expression, she returned his regard. A suspenseful silence descended. “I never claimed,” the duke remarked, “to be a saint.”

“Nor a monk,” responded Miss Baskerville, ironically. “Does this mean we have to give Toby back, Sandor?”

“I don’t see why.” Curious as to why his cousin had not flown into alt upon being presented with evidence of the extent to which he had been in the petticoat line, Sandor approached her cautiously. “Phaedra doesn’t want him, and she’ll dare not make a fuss lest her husband find out.”

“But how did she keep it from him?” Binnie achieved, with great effort, a semblance of impartial interest. In point of fact, and for any number of reasons, Binnie longed to scratch the fair Phaedra’s eyes out.

As a result of Binnie’s eminently practical outlook, which he feared sprang from indifference toward his peccadilloes and therefore himself, Sandor was tempted to shake her until her teeth rattled in her head. “I neither know nor care. Binnie, there are matters we must discuss.”

“Indeed there are!” snapped Neal who, due to his discovery that he was beloved of Miss Mannering, and his further discovery that Miss Mannering felt herself grievously abused by his avowed intention to behave honorably, was not in the most cheerful of moods. “Such as how you dared accuse my sister of being a prime article of virtue!
You,
a paragon of profligacy!”

“Neal, do hush!” Miss Mannering pinched him. “If Binnie has forgiven him, so must you.”

Of that, the duke was not convinced.
“
Have
you forgiven me?” he inquired of Binnie.

Binnie, stricken with a sudden burning desire to be pressed with almost savage violence against his lordship’s breast, sighed. “I really
could
be a prime article of virtue,” said she.

Sandor was far too wise to argue. “Of course you could!” he responded promptly. “Demure immorality in satin and lace, quite at the top of the trees! And so you shall be, if you wish. But I am a selfish man, my darling, and I would much rather you married me!”

Miss Baskerville stared at her cousin the duke, who was very much begrimed as a result of his misadventures, and who additionally was looking as awkwardly hopeful as the greenest sprig, and strove for a sense of decorum. She failed. “Oh, Sandor, I cannot help it! You are so absurd!” She burst into laughter.

That Binnie should again greet his ardent declarations with merriment did not amuse His Grace; but this time he would not by that amusement be deterred. Sibyl was going to marry him, willing or no. Recalling his intention of throttling his cousin into compliance if necessary, he grasped her shoulders and shook her ungently. Binnie raised her hands to either push him away or draw him closer, he was not sure which. Nor did he find out. She still clutched his pistol. Sandor was deafened by the discharge.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The gunshot was heard throughout the surrounding countryside. It caused no particular consternation to the locals, who were through long experience inured to the goings-on of the gentry; but it caused great consternation to Edwina Childe and her entourage. “Angels defend us!” gasped Edwina. “She
has
murdered him. And who can blame her, poor girl? But all the same—” Words failed her. Silently, Jem proffered the vinaigrette. With trembling fingers, Edwina grasped her smelling salts. Deeply, she inhaled.

Jem was not happy to be part of this expedition, which in addition to Edwina included Miss Choice-Pickerell and Mr. Dennison, both of whom had burst into the nursery upon hearing Edwina’s hysterical outburst, which had resounded throughout the whole house; and who had thereupon been gifted with a jumbled account that consisted largely of broad hints that the Duke of Knowles had led his cousin Sibyl into the deepest depravity, as a result of which both Sibyl and her brother wished to murder him. Nor could Edwina fault their bloodthirst—if any man ever deserved to be murdered, that man was the duke—but she could not help thinking of the scandal. Nor could Miss Choice-Pickerell or Mr. Dennison, since with the potential murderers their own names were unfortunately linked. At Mr. Dennison’s strongly worded suggestion, they had set out to try and avert the disaster.

But it seemed they were too late, which was not surprising, since Edwina was so overcome by the depravity of her cousins that she frequently came over faint, and had to stop and uncap her vinaigrette and rest. Now they were only a few meters from the camp, could see Johann’s wagon in the distance. Abandoning both his charges and his dignity, Jem ran.

The sight that greeted him upon his breathless arrival at the camp stopped Jem dead in his tracks. Lieutenant Baskerville and Miss Mannering and Miss Mannering’s hound were huddled by a fallen figure, beside which crouched Miss Baskerville. For some queer reason, Sibyl had hitched up her skirts and was tearing frantically at her petticoats. Of Johann there was no sign. (In brief explanation it must be stated that Johann had taken to his heels at sound of the gunshot, never to be seen again in Brighton or its environs. During the remainder of his long career, which was far from exemplary, he never again tried his hand at kidnapping, though he was fond of recounting the tale, with suitable embellishments, of the day when he’d held no less than a duke in his power. Nor did Johann’s path again cross that of Athalia, who set herself up in a very old profession with the proceeds of the sale of Delilah’s mother’s wedding ring.)

Everyone was talking at once, save Sibyl, who appeared overcome by grief. “Don’t make a piece of work of it!” abjured Neal, irritably. “You’ve only nicked his ear, worse luck!”

“Do hush!” remarked Miss Mannering. “I don’t know why you should be in a fit of the blue devils, Neal! It is
my
heartstrings that are cracked! Don’t cry, Binnie. The duke is perfectly all right. Were he
not
perfectly all right, he would not be cursing you so dreadfully!”

Decidedly, the duke was cursing, though his imprecations were directed not at the tearful Miss Baskerville, but at Caliban, who was taking advantage of the duke’s supine position to thoroughly wash his face. “Fiend seize you!” bellowed the duke. “Get away from me! No, not you, Binnie! This accursed hound!”

“Of all the unjust things to say!” uttered Miss Mannering. “Caliban is only trying to help you, sir. There, you’ve hurt his feelings. Never mind, Caliban;
I
appreciate you!” To this assurance the hound responded by sitting back on his haunches. While so doing, he espied the dumbfounded Jem. With a welcoming bark, Caliban raced off to greet his friend.

Thus rid of the main impediment to his recovery, Sandor achieved a sitting position. He removed from Binnie’s hand the strip of petticoat with which she had been dabbling futilely at his face, being too blinded by tears to properly see, and applied it to his wounded ear. Binnie sobbed. Sandor, who had been about to read his cousin a thunderous lecture on the use and abuse of firearms, abruptly changed his mind. “There, there!” he said soothingly, and drew her comfortably against his chest. “That pistol has a hair trigger. My darling, it is no great calamity.”

Binnie was not so easily consoled. Aghast that she had almost killed her cousin, and at the most untimely of moments, for he had offered her marriage and she had not only laughed but nearly murdered him, she burst into renewed tears. Sandor patted her, rather helplessly. Toby, ever a compassionate youngster, was inspired by the duke’s dilemma to abandon the mysterious and complex game he’d been playing with some pebbles to climb into the duke’s lap. The duke eyed his son, rather quizzically.

Jem, meanwhile, endeavored to fend off Caliban’s exuberant greeting. “Why, it’s Jem!” Delilah announced. “Have you come to our rescue? It’s very good of you, even if you are too late!” And then her voice faded as around the side of the wagon came Edwina and Cressida and Mark. “Oh, bloody hell!” said she.

“God bless my soul! He
isn’t
dead!” ejaculated Edwina, staring at her cousin. “Sandor! Binnie! How
could
you?”

“How could we what?” inquired the duke, rather absently. The duke was finding it surprisingly pleasant to clasp in one arm a tearful lady and in the other his own offspring. Mute, was the lad? Sandor thought he’d see what the doctors had to say about that. No son of his was going to labor under a handicap. “My darling, do stop this sniveling! You’re worrying the brat.”

Of course Binnie did not wish to do that. She raised her head from Sandor’s shoulder to gaze mistily upon Toby. Toby smiled. She kissed him.

“I never!” gasped Miss Choice-Pickerell, who had herself been temporarily deprived of speech by so perverted a scene. “This is a pretty thing! And to think, Miss Baskerville, that you accused
me
of being scheming and heartless!”

For this failure, no one expressed regret. “Did you?” inquired the duke of Miss Baskerville.

“I did.” Binnie awarded an unappreciative glance to Miss Choice-Pickerell. “I also said she was insipid and humdrum, prosy and mealy-mouthed, and that her conversation was flat as a street pavement. Moreover, I don’t regret a word of it!”

“That’s my girl!” said the duke. “Incidentally, Miss Choice-Pickerell, I have decided that I don’t care for this betrothal of yours. Neal won’t do for you. I withdraw my consent.”

“Well!” gasped Miss Choice-Pickerell.

For a young man abruptly released from an unpleasant fate, Neal exhibited scant relief. “That won’t wash,” he said bitterly. “But thank you, Sandor, all the same! Cressida’s already made it clear that if I don’t marry her she’ll spread stories that you found Delilah living in a tinkers’ camp. And she
would!”

“Neal!” Delilah’s freckled face was alight. “You do love me!”

“Confound it, puss!” retorted the lieutenant. “What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you? I think I’ve loved you ever since that first minute.”

“When I was calling Johann a nodcock?” inquired Miss Mannering, with burning curiosity. “It just goes to show that one can suffer Cupid’s sting in the most unexpected situations! Because that is precisely when I fell in love with you. But I wish you’d told me sooner, Neal, because I daresay I should’ve contrived somehow that Miss Choice-Pickerell shouldn’t hold you to blackmail!”

“Well!” cried Miss Choice-Pickerell again. “As if I would behave in so vulgar a manner! I am shocked by your allegations, Neal! Your conduct verges on the unspeakable!”

The duke broke into these protestations of innocence. “Miss Choice-Pickerell,” he said, in a very dangerous voice, “would not care for the consequences did she dare try and slander my family.”

Neal was by this simple sentence remarkably enthused. “Does that mean I don’t have to marry her?”

“Yes.” Sandor had grown noticeably bored with this exchange, being anxious to continue with his own pursuits, which had at a most untimely moment been interrupted by a gunshot. “I never meant you
should
marry her. In truth, I always wondered why you wanted to get leg-shackled to a pattern card of respectability!”

Neal wondered likewise, having during this exchange grown so in charity with Sandor that he quite forgot that once his overriding ambition had been to remove himself from under Sandor’s thumb. Blissfully he regarded Miss Mannering, who was enacting rosy-cheeked ecstasy.

Before she could be given her
congeé,
the presentation of which appeared imminent, Miss Choice-Pickerell erupted into outraged speech. Rigid with indignation, she expressed a firm determination to be freed from a betrothal that had been a ghastly mistake. For some time, she asserted, she had felt that her prospective alliance with the lieutenant would be unsuitable; she had been, she claimed, grievously misled in his character. He was frivolous and frippery and odiously hot-at-hand; he did not on any subject feel as he should; she was sadly disappointed in him. A young lady with her strong sense of propriety, declared Miss Choice-Pickerell, could not be expected to ally herself with a family who were so lacking in awareness of the amenities as to conduct themselves in a manner that was positively debased.

“Debased?” echoed Edwina, from the wagon steps. With newly acquired expertise, Jem wielded the vinaigrette. So vigorously did he do so that Edwina sneezed.

“Debased!” asserted Mark, grimly. Miss Choice-Pickerell’s nobly delivered denunciation speech had recalled to Mark his own considerable chagrin. He had been led a merry dance up the garden path by a lady who was clearly no better than one of the wicked. Had not Sandor so accused her himself? Obviously Sandor should know! But before he raked Miss Baskerville over the coals for her infamy, he required a confirmation of fact. “Sandor, is that child yours?”

The duke regarded Toby, currently engaged in pulling the gilt buttons off his dark dress coat, with paternal pride. “I imagine so!” he said cheerfully. Miss Mannering, at this point, interjected an opinion that Toby was as like to the duke as two peas in a pod. Thereby roused from his fascinated contemplation of Miss Mannering’s freckled face, Lieutenant Baskerville asked her to marry him. Without the slightest hesitation, Miss Mannering agreed.

“That tears it!” uttered Mark. “You
are
a Monster of Depravity! Both of you are! While I was paying your cousin very proper court,
you
were paying her attentions that were much too pointed! And while I am not surprised at your philandering, I am shocked to my soul that you should have engaged your own cousin in a squalid little debauch. It surpasses everything!”

With these accusations, Binnie aroused from her stupor— which was attendant upon her speculations as to whether the duke had seriously meant his proposal of marriage, and conjectures about how she might persuade him to repeat the offer, so that she could valiantly refrain from laughing at him. “Gracious God!” she said. “You think that Sandor and I have, er, persevered in loose morality? That Toby is—”