Maggie MacKeever (6 page)

Height, medium; figure, neat enough if a trifle slender; features that, if not remarkable, could neither cause offense; hair and eyes of so very exotic a texture that they caused their owner embarrassment. The effect of the hair—which when loosened tumbled in riotous curls to her waist—Binnie could and did subdue. About the eyes she could do nothing, since her wish for self-effacement did not extend to burdening herself with quite unnecessary spectacles. There was nothing in this reflected image, surely, to spark admiration in the breast of any man.

What on earth possessed her, to be going on in this mawkish way? It was not her own few assets that Binnie had meant to contemplate; she grimaced at the mirror. If only the Mannering heiress turned out to be a beauty—well, she would shortly see.

CHAPTER FIVE

Several hours after his sister had gloomily gazed into her mirror and prayed that the Mannering heiress might turn out to be a nonpareil, Lieutenant Neal Baskerville was gazing upon that selfsame young lady. Beauty was not among the words that sprang into his mind.

The journey to the meeting-place named in Mistress Delilah’s highly colorful letter had not been a comfortable one. Already in unaccountably low spirits as result of his interview with his fiancée, Neal had found his cousin Edwina’s incessant chatter very difficult to bear. She was far from the most perspicacious of traveling companions, and even had she realized that the young lieutenant preferred to be left to uninterruptedly pursue his own morbid thoughts—to wit, that he was about to be leg-shackled to a female who was constitutionally incapable of sharing his point of view—she would have found it difficult to curb her garrulousness. Since Edwina did not realize, thought in fact that Neal’s glowering expression was prompted by Sandor’s disruption of his plans for the day, she attempted to offer consolation, and consequently was more than usually irritating.

Miss Choice-Pickerell, Edwina observed as Lieutenant Baskerville’s neat cabriolet bowled along Church Street, was the perfect solution to their difficulties. Cressida was, in Edwina’s opinion, a good biddable girl, and one who would be pleased to take under her newlywed wing, as well as into the residence she would share with her bridegroom, a sister and cousin-by-law who were admirably well equipped to show her how to go on in society. This point settled to her own satisfaction, if not to Neal’s, Edwina rattled on amiably about where that hypothetical residence should be.

Neal listened to her, silently. A kind young man, when it occurred to him to be, he could not disabuse his cousin of her extremely cockle-brained notion that Cressida would welcome the suggestion that she share her home with Edwina and Binnie. Nor did he imagine that Cressida would cherish hints about ladylike conduct. He could put his foot down, he supposed, and insist that she do both, but that notion did not endear itself to him. To say the truth, Neal had reached the point of wishing to dismiss all thought of matrimony. That he could not do so was brought home to him more strongly with each of Edwina’s words. She and Binnie were no happier under Sandor’s dominion than was Neal himself. That their lives should not be further blighted was dependent on him. There was no choice but marriage, even if by it he only changed jailers. Cressida’s father was a shrewd old gentleman; he was not likely to relinquish complete control of the purse strings.

All the same, as husband to the well-heeled Miss Choice-Pickerell, Neal would be a young man of considerable financial resource. If Cressida would not extend her hospitality, Neal imagined he could arrange that Edwina and Binnie set up housekeeping on their own, elsewhere. Nor did this solution recommend itself to him, and understandably: a young man of two-and-twenty could hardly be expected to anticipate with relish the responsibility of two separate households.

In this manner they progressed out of town, Edwina chattering gaily about the Regent’s Royal Pavilion, a residence she apparently thought Neal should emulate, complete with peach-blossom ceilings and walls decorated with mandarins and fluted yellow draperies meant to resemble the tents of the Chinese; while Neal in a cowardly manner contemplated taking French leave. In this manner also they progressed through the countryside; although Edwina, having exhausted the topic of interior decoration, switched to the broader subject of the Neighboring Monster, Napoleon. It was as she was discussing the Upstart’s character, especially in regard to his wife, Josephine, whom he had callously tossed aside when it became belatedly apparent that she could not produce an heir, an act of inhumanity that appeared to be inextricably entangled in Edwina’s mind with the emperor’s recent and disastrous defeat in Russia, that Neal espied the appointed inn.

It was a pleasant-looking place, if not the sort generally frequented by persons of Quality, a long, squat, whitewashed building with bright green shutters, crimson curtains in the lower windows, white hangings in the bedchambers above. A ruddy signpost perched up in a tree proclaimed the name of the establishment, its golden letters twinkling in the sun. Neal alit, led his horse to a trough filled with clear fresh water, the ground around it spread with fragrant hay. Sternly he instructed a rosy-cheeked urchin to care for his steed, and Edwina to remain in the cabriolet; and then set out in search of the innkeeper and a glass of ale.

Neal expected to encounter some little difficulty in tracking down the Mannering chit—indeed, he half-expected to discover he’d been sent on a wild-goose chase. It was, after all, almost a week beyond the time appointed in Delilah’s letter as most suitable for a rendezvous. As matters evolved, however, the expedition had not been in vain. Along with a glass of fine old ale, the genial innkeeper provided the information that a young girl had been haunting his property for several days. “If it’s the tinker’s lass you’re wanting, sir,” he added, with a doubtful glance at Neal’s well-bred figure in his superbly fashioned regimentals. “Myself I’m thinking some mistake’s been made.”

“Lord,
I
don’t want her!” Since Neal was polishing off his ale, he did not notice the innkeeper’s scandalized reaction. “Is she here now? I might as well have a look at the chit.”

It was not the innkeeper’s place to quarrel with the Quality, no matter how depraved their attitudes might seem. With a disapproving expression, he guided his visitor—and who would have guessed that so pleasant a countenance masked a wicked soul?—out a rear entrance. Extremely queer were the tastes of the
ton.
The innkeeper could imagine no less likely a candidate for a life of shame, as this young man certainly intended, if not on his own behalf then on the behalf of another equally sunk in vice, than the tinker’s lass.

With this sentiment, had Neal but known it, he would doubtless have agreed. His first glimpse of Miss Delilah Mannering was one that would haunt him, and not in a pleasant manner, for a very long time. She was perched upon a stile, her ragged skirts hitched up almost to her knees, clutching in one hand a half-eaten peach. A monstrously ugly dog was sprawled at her bare and very dirty feet. Oddly, and despite her shocking appearance, Neal didn’t for an instant doubt that this raggle-taggle creature was the young lady that he sought.

Her first words confirmed that impression, and for the second time that day inspired him with a strong impulse to show the entire of his acquaintance a clear pair of heels. France was out of the question, due to the ongoing hostilities, as was America. Perhaps Australia? ‘Twas said that there a man could easily disappear.

But a gentleman, however reluctant, could not desert a damsel in distress. That Delilah did not appear aware of her peril was quite beside the point, as was the fact that she was conducting her quarrel with every evidence of great gusto.

These hostilities were being exchanged with a man of middle age, wiry stature, swarthy, and furious countenance. Neal moved closer so that he might hear.

“Furthermore,” announced Miss Mannering, brandishing her peach, “I’ve been sneaking off for a whole week, so you are not nearly so clever as you think to have found me out! And I will
not
go back to the camp with you, because I am sick to death of listening to you talk like a nodcock!” The man muttered something beneath his breath.
“Yes,
a nodcock!” she insisted. “An addle-pate! And if you are thinking of laying violent hands on me again, Johann, you will regret it. Even if I
don’t
have with me a frying pan!”

Johann, it seemed, had exactly that intention: he roughly grasped her shoulder. “Caliban!” shrieked Miss Mannering. The hound yawned and wagged its tail.

Neal had no choice but to intervene. He touched the man’s shoulder. Cursing, Johann spun around. Setting to his task with all the strength and spirit of a prizefighter, Neal knocked him down.

“Well!” said Miss Mannering, setting her disheveled person to rights. “That was a very handy bunch of fives! I’m sure I’m very grateful to you for drawing Johann’s claret, because my case was growing desperate— not, of course, that I would have knuckled under but there’s no denying the devil had put me in a tweak—but who the devil
are
you, sir?”

On the verge of introducing himself, Neal recalled the innkeeper’s fascinated presence, and thought he had better not. Rustics were incurable gossips. It would benefit neither of them to have this day’s business noised around the countryside. “A friend,” he sad repressively. “Sent on your behalf by, er, a representative of the gentleman to whom your circumstances must be of the utmost import.”

“Ah!” Delilah beamed. “I had begun to despair of his interest, which was a very melancholy thought. Still, I would have somehow made a recover, even though I
was
in a sad fix. Have you come to take me away? It is very good of you to trouble yourself.”

The innkeeper, at this point, was prompted by his outraged conscience to try and prevent so very young a lass from gleefully embarking upon a depraved career. He begged her to reconsider; he reminded her that she had applied to him for the post of chambermaid. During this interval Johann recovered his senses, observed himself outnumbered, and slunk away.

“That is very kind,” responded Delilah, as Neal stared. “But you must see that this gentleman’s offer will suit me much better. With my fa—or this gentleman’s
friend—
I shall at least have money for common necessaries, and I shall probably manage to enjoy myself. Who knows, I may even be able to form an eligible connection, and I have decided that I should like that of all things, for then perfect blocks like Johann could not behave scaly to me.” She regarded Neal. “Well, sir, shall be depart?”

The innkeeper was utterly aghast at this proof of how very wrongheaded young women could be; and he was very much shocked that so very young a lady should be so deadened to virtue. He said so, most censoriously.

“What the deuce,” inquired Delilah, “has prompted you to fuss? Why should you find my longing for a comfortable existence—which isn’t at all surprising considering the extreme
discomfort
of my existence for the past five years—much too dreadful to contemplate?”

The innkeeper gaped at Delilah, who looked—especially in her current rumpled condition—a great deal younger than her age. “Five years!” he echoed, faintly.

Neal, at last made aware of the innkeeper’s misapprehensions, desperately strove to restrain an inclination to laugh out loud. He lost the struggle. Both the innkeeper and Delilah looked startled when he dissolved into mirth. Miss Mannering did not seem offended by so ungainly an exhibition, though the innkeeper patently considered it the ultimate demonstration of villainy.

“Come along, puss!” said Neal, when he had regained his breath. “My carriage is waiting. Have you anything that you wish to bring with you?”

Delilah anticipated battle. “Only Caliban,” she retorted, a martial gleam in her eye.

Neal regarded the dog, who on hearing his name mentioned had opened both eyes, and contemplated Sandor’s probable reaction to this misbegotten beast. Then he contemplated Sandor’s probable reaction to his newly acquired ward. “Very well!” he said, with the utmost good cheer.

Edwina had grown very weary of waiting in the cabriolet—so weary, in fact, that she uncharitably suspected her young cousin had ignobly taken advantage of an opportunity to indulge in the gentlemanly pastime known as shooting the cat. Therefore, it was with some relief that she espied a small procession making its way toward the cabriolet.

That relief was not long-lived. Neal looked so much unlike himself—that merry expression had not been glimpsed on Neal’s handsome features, now that Edwina considered it, for the past several weeks—that she thought he was in truth cast-away; but her attention was primarily for the ragamuffin who trailed along behind him, clutching to her by means of a rope a very hideous hound. Surely
this
could not be the Mannering heiress! “Merciful powers!” uttered Edwina weakly; and then, as Neal tenderly placed both the damsel and her dog in his cabriolet, “God bless my soul!” She noted that the innkeeper, who had followed along after, was staring at her as if she were the fiend incarnate. “What in the world—”

Neal sprang into the driver’s seat and took up the reins. They rattled out of the courtyard. “The poor man thinks you are an abbess,” he cheerfully explained. “Do not let it overset you, Edwina! Myself he considers a hardened profligate, and Miss Mannering a prime piece of Haymarket-ware.”

“Oh, was
that
it?” interrupted the heiress. “No wonder he was so sadly pulled-about. I must say, sir, that you tool the ribbons in prime style—you must be what they call a top sawyer with four in hand! Considering the way you also planted Johann a facer, I must conclude that you are a perfect all-around Trojan!”

It was evident to both her auditors that Miss Mannering promised to be a handful. “Baggage!” retorted Neal, appreciatively.

“Angels defend us!” gasped Edwina.

Delilah turned her attention from the driver of the cabriolet—who she considered as fine as the carriage itself, with its two great wheels and crimson upholstery, drawn by a powerful bay—to the beruffled and beplumed lady who was regarding her with abject dismay. “Don’t distress yourself!” she soothed. “ Johann had taken a marked fancy to me—or to the money that he thought I had. In retrospect I see that was a mistake, but at the time it was the best I could contrive. Anyway, he was desirous of fixing his interest, and I pretended to surmount my reluctance to him, because it was the only coin with which I could buy time. A wearing task it was, I assure you, to lure him into relaxing his vigilance—he had me locked up at one point, which might well have put period to all my plans!—and at the same time to keep him at arm’s length. But all’s well that ends well! This kind gentleman appeared just in the nick of time, and sent Johann to the roundabout.” Her little tale concluded, with what she adjudged the minimum of fuss, Delilah beamed upon Edwina, and proceeded to finish off the peach that she still clutched.