Maggie MacKeever (32 page)

Mark’s expression was answer enough. “Merciful heavens!” cried Binnie, and subsided onto Sandor’s shoulder once again.

Miss Mannering, observing the proceedings with interest, put forth an opinion that perhaps all the excitement had turned Mr. Dennison’s brain. The duke was the highest of sticklers, after all, and the highest of sticklers was not likely to act the rogue toward his own cousin, who additionally hadn’t the slightest appearance of a lady preoccupied with sin. Not that appearances could be trusted, but in this case Miss Mannering was prepared to wager her reputation that her benefactress was of unblemished character. For Mr. Dennison to hint otherwise, she added sternly, was dashed unchivalrous.

Mr. Dennison, highly incensed at receiving a lecture from this source, responded ungallantly that Miss Mannering had no reputation to wager. Upon hearing this, Lieutenant Baskerville stated an intention to murder Mr. Dennison. And in the midst of all this brouhaha, which so fascinated Jem that he quite forgot the vinaigrette, Edwina fainted dead away.

It was the duke who put an end to the contretemps, in his inimitably bad-tempered way. “Silence!” he roared. Instantly, he was obeyed. Briefly, he looked down at Miss Baskerville, whose face was hidden against his chest. “Are you laughing or crying?” he inquired.

“Oh!” Binnie, flushed and disheveled and absolutely magnificent, sat up. “Laughing, of course! You recall my unbecoming levity!”

“I do.” Sandor regarded his cousin with an expression that caused her giggles abruptly to cease, due not to dread of his anger but to a curious shortness of breath. Then he looked at Mr. Dennison and Miss Choice-Pickerell with a singular lack of appreciation, and informed them that Toby was not, as so uncharitably alleged, the result of a liaison between himself and his cousin, but of a liaison between himself and someone else. The identity of that other lady he did not choose to reveal. Nor did he intend to endure further slurs upon his moral character which, though hardly in a pristine state, was no worse than that of any other gentleman, and rather better than some. And then he made very clear to Miss Choice-Pickerell and Mr. Dennison the dire repercussions to themselves if a word of their uncharitable allegations were to be breathed to anyone else. Having inspired them both with a very healthy terror, he demanded that they immediately depart.

To say that Mr. Dennison turned craven at the intimation that, were he to displease the duke, Lieutenant Baskerville would be allowed to carve out his gizzard, as the duke had asserted with the greatest gravity, would be to malign Mr. Dennison. However, Mark was only too eager to remove himself from a situation that was distasteful in the extreme. Solicitously, he escorted Cressida homeward, during which journey they exchanged a great many barbed comments on the perverse nature of the Baskervilles, and professed a mutual relief at having escaped entanglement with so profligate a family.

“And now,” said the duke, as he rose, deposited Toby in Edwina’s lap, and pulled Binnie to her feet. “Where were we when you so ungraciously shot me?”

“God bless my soul!” muttered Edwina. Having wrenched her vinaigrette away from Jem, who was currently engaged in an unwilling game of catch-as-catch-can with Caliban, and having inhaled deeply and repeatedly of it, she was much more herself. Why Binnie should have shot Sandor, if Sandor hadn’t ruined her, which it now seemed Sandor had not, Edwina couldn’t conceive. Curious, she regarded Toby. Toby, sensing another potential conquest, gurgled and beamed. What mattered a by-blow? Edwina decided abruptly. Any number of people had them! Gentlemen were expected to sow their wild oats—look at the royal family!

“I didn’t
mean
to shoot you!” protested Binnie, concerned that Sandor might think the mishap deliberate. “I may have bid you go and be damned, but I didn’t mean to see to it myself! I mean, I didn’t mean it at all! Sandor, how
dare
you laugh at me?”

Sandor grasped his cousin’s arms and drew her to him. “My darling,” he said, with great gravity, “if you wished it, I would go to the devil for you.”

“Sandor!” Binnie stared entranced into his ill-tempered and diabolically handsome face. “I assure you I
don’t
wish such a thing!” And then she said no more. Sandor, so wise in the illogical ways of women as to understand precisely what manner of action would please his cousin best, had crushed her with almost savage violence against his breast.

With great contentment, Delilah surveyed this ardent embrace. Several times she had wondered if she could bring the thing off; but now she had the satisfaction of knowing she’d played her cards excellently well. Unless she missed her guess, Miss Choice-Pickerell had already decided to set her cap at Mr. Dennison. “So there!” she said aloud, to the enraptured Neal. “I’ll stake my corset-cover that we’ll
all
be happy as grigs!”

EPILOGUE

As matters evolved, Miss Mannering’s corset-cover was to remain in her possession. Miss Choice-Pickerell achieved her ambition of being married in St. George’s, Hanover Square; and though in later years she and Mr. Dennison grew to disapprove of everything but each other, they did so in perfect harmony. Though a similar accolade could not be accorded the fair Phaedra and her colonel, they did manage to resolve their domestic difficulties, or so it must be assumed: Phaedra, after her debacle with Lord Knowles, was never seen to pay marked attention to any other gentleman; and it was noted by the colonel’s subalterns that his tolerance had grown. Lord Knowles settled in matrimony with Miss Prunes and Prisms, and, despite her tendency to laugh at him, achieved the utmost felicity; Toby, whose muteness was pronounced incurable by the doctors, grew up into a young man of such colossal charm that he had no need of speech. Edwina Childe, freed of the anxiety attendant upon living in a household where everyone was at loggerheads, abandoned her dieting and achieved a remarkable girth; Caliban, too, grew plump on a regime of tasty tidbits snatched from diverse sources, and sired a large and unlovely progeny.

As for the tinker’s lass herself, Miss Mannering formed her connection with the gentleman whom she considered most eligible, and shared with him an adoration undiminished by time. Over their definitely ramshackle household ruled the faithful Jem, who in return for his loyal services was elevated to the status of butler, and who despite his exalted standing was never less than eager to join his employers in a lark. Larks there were in plenty: the decorum befitting to a lady of breeding Delilah never achieved. But whatever adverse comments might have been made about Lieutenant Baskerville’s dashing lady—and such comments were occasionally made, thought not by Mr. and Mrs. Dennison, whose pointed silence on the subject was generally considered queer—no one was ever heard to deny Delilah’s frequently voiced assertion that she was a damned knowing one indeed.

Copyright  1980 by Maggie MacKeever

Originally published by Fawcett Coventry (0449500292)

Electronically published in 2006 by Belgrave House

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.