Maggie MacKeever (8 page)

In an increasingly dour frame of mind, the duke retired to Raggett’s, there to go down heavily; and then to his own home on the Royal Crescent, where he indulged in a vituperative exchange with his cousin Binnie. Since that lady was so preoccupied with her own melancholy reflections as to let him think he’d won, it was in a slightly more cheerful humor that His Grace sallied forth to join his Regent in a dinner party at the Pavilion.

Edwina Childe might approve a scheme of interior decoration that incorporated such fanciful details as peach-blossom ceilings and walls decorated with mandarins and yellow draperies fluted to resemble the tents of the Chinese; the duke did not. Nor did he appreciate china fishermen that stood in alcoves, with lanterns as their catch; or tall pagodas of porcelain; or lamps shaped like tulips. He did not express his disapproval to the Regent, whose feelings had already been wounded by the on-dits circulating about him, tales of drunken feasts and gay girls in secret passages of the Pavilion itself, stories that he played the callous tyrant in his family life; but he did vent his annoyance, in most explicit terms, to Mr. Dennison.

That gentleman awarded his friend an amused glance. “You say that every time you come here, Sandor. In view of your opinion of the place, I wonder you don’t simply stay away.”

This reasonable observation did not endear Mr. Dennison to the duke, but, since Mark was his oldest friend, Sandor offered no rebuke. Instead he contemplated in a sardonic manner the painted and carved dragons that hung from silvered ceilings, crawled down pillars, darted from overmantels. And then they were drawn into a political discussion with the Duke of York, who could not distinguish in his mind the difference between a Tory and a Whig, and who consequently argued both sides of an issue at the same time.

Mark, a wary eye on the darkening countenance of the duke, took the first opportunity to extricate his friend from this confusing conversation and lead him into a corridor. “What the deuce is eating you tonight, Sandor? More than a dislike for Prinny’s Oriental style of decoration, I think.”

His Grace gazed down the passage, which was fashioned of painted glass, decorated with flowers and insects, fruit and birds, and illuminated from the outside, the effect being that the unwary visitor abruptly found himself in a Chinese garden. Chinese gardens, decided the duke, were among the numerous things that did not suit his taste. Then he gazed upon his friend. “Rather I should ask you that,” he retorted. “I’m only cursed ill tempered; you’re looking fagged to death.”

Due to his long acquaintance with the duke, Mark was aware that this impertinent remark was in the nature of an apology. He smiled. “It’s nothing to signify.”

Once Sandor’s interest was aroused, it was not so easily deflected. “Miss Prunes and Prisms, I conjecture. It has me in quite a puzzle why you should be so smitten with so contumacious a female. She’s turned you down again? Consider that you have had yet another hairsbreadth escape!”

Demonstrably the duke was in a temper; he did not often venture so very far beyond the bounds of common courtesy. So Mark dared observe. He also stated his own curiosity as to what had prompted his old friend’s descent from rudeness to outright affront. Since Mark’s own sense of ill-usage had grown apace with each word, he then expressed extreme displeasure that the duke should have dared imply that the lovely Miss Baskerville was an old-cattish antidote, and issued an invitation to meet with pistols at dawn.

Sandor could not explain the source of his discontent, being unaware of it, and he had no desire to rise from his bed so early to engage in a duel with his oldest friend. He let the challenge pass. “What maggot have you taken into your head?” he inquired, not unkindly. “I didn’t say Sibyl was bracket-faced;
you
did. I only said she was a hornet.”

Mark was not assuaged. He was seriously angry with the duke for abusing his cousin. He said so, heatedly. He also said that Miss Baskerville was first-rate, the very woman calculated to suit his taste.

His Grace took leave to wonder, privately, what caused Mark to think that, in his long-standing feud with his cousin, it was he who offered the greatest abuse. As he recalled it, Binnie had had his head for washing far more often than he’d had hers.

Obviously it was midsummer moon with Mark. Romance again! thought the duke, with profound distaste. A cursed nuisance was this love, which turned the most amiable men touchy and difficult and prone to romantical high flights.

“I know my cousin is lovely,” he said, with an effort at restoring the peace. “You don’t have to tell me that.” He was then inspired by an innate impatience to undo his good efforts. “A pity her personality isn’t as pleasing as her person! If you recall, I told you she’d send you to the rightabout.”

So Sandor had. Since he had also told his friend that by rejection he would be blessed, Mark had not especially appreciated the advice. “This dislike in which you have taken Miss Baskerville,” he uttered wrathfully, “is unspeakably odious. She is—”

“Lay all these bristles!” snapped the duke. “I believe I may know even better than yourself what my cousin is and is not. For the record, it is not Sibyl I dislike, but her manners. If you want her, you may have her, with my blessing! Moreover, you would be doing me the greatest of favors if you would sweep her off her feet and out of my house! Shall I forbid her to marry you? Because you may be certain that if I did, she would!”

Briefly, Mark contemplated this ignoble manipulation of his beloved’s habit of running counter to the wishes of her cousin the duke. Reluctantly, he pushed temptation aside. “I congratulate you, Mark,” said His Grace, who had been observing his friend’s expressive features sardonically. “You are ever honorable.”

If hostilities were not to be resumed, Mr. Dennison decided, the subject of his beloved had best be set aside. “You are not without honor yourself. Witness the example of Miss Mannering.”

Sandor quirked an arrogant golden brow. “It is ever your habit to attribute to others a nobility of character that only you possess. Acquit yourself of the notion that my interest in Miss Mannering is at all honorable.”

“No?” inquired Mark, as the gentlemen proceeded back along the passage to the supper rooms. “You lust after her fortune, I suppose.”

“Dear Mark,” murmured the duke, as his pained gaze rested upon great panels of lacquer, red and black and gold, before which sat gilded and silvered sofas with dragon motifs. “You know me so well.”

Further conversation was nigh impossible, due to the very loud music provided by the regent’s German band in an adjoining room. The effect was deafening to all but the prince, whose habit it was, when inspired by an infectious rhythm, to add to it himself by beating out a little percussion on the dinner gong. Mark, at least, was almost grateful for the din. With the oldest of his friends, he was sadly out of charity.

Still, he would have liked to ask the duke about the infatuation Binnie claimed to have nourished long ago, and which seemed to have had so adverse an effect. Sandor doubtless knew the whole of it; it was precisely the sort of thing he
would
know. No sense of human kindness, no sympathy for the frailties of his fellow beings, prompted the duke’s keen attention to such details; but an inbred hankering after power. Sandor was a puppet-master. Lesser beings could but dance to his deft hands on the strings.

Stolidly, Mr. Dennison worked his way through patés and curries, soufflés and such. Again he questioned why the duke had taken on the guardianship of Miss Mannering. Sandor’s claim that he coveted her wealth, Mark dismissed out of hand—and then he paused. For a gentleman who disliked to put himself out on behalf of anyone, the duke had evinced a startling eagerness to take on additional responsibility. Miss Mannering was wealthy; Neal’s inheritance was considerable; Binnie’s dowry, as Mark could not help but know, was very handsome. Yet Sandor would not allow Binnie to touch her money, despite his stated conviction that she would never wed; and Neal he kept on a very small allowance. Moreover, the duke had been suffering heavy losses at the gambling tables of late.

Could
Sandor be dipping into the funds entrusted to his care? Was that the reason he had taken on the responsibility of Miss Mannering? The Duke of Knowles was a rich man, one whose fortune was legendary on the Stock Exchange—but other wealthy men had come face-to-face with ruin over the board of green cloth. Mark tried to convince himself that, even faced with disaster, the duke would not be so dastardly as to play ducks and drakes with monies not his own. He tried, and failed. Sandor was totally without conscience. To feather his nest at someone else’s expense would not be out of character.

Unaware that his oldest friend was, along with supper, dissecting his own person, the duke was accounting for a large quantity of wine. All the world was at the Pavilion this night, and there was not half enough room for them. The room was warm, the wind instruments that predominated in the regent’s German band abominably shrill, the evening one of the stupidest possible. As soon as he could, Sandor approached his host, explained that he must journey homeward to arrange for the comfort of a houseguest, and once more took to his heels.

Since he had given as the reason for his departure the arrival of Miss Mannering, and since he could think of no other destination any more interesting, His Grace directed his footsteps toward the Royal Crescent. Those footsteps were none too steady; perhaps due to the heated atmosphere of the Regent’s crowded apartments, the wine had taken an unusual effect. In short, the duke was a trifle bosky. It was a lowering reflection for a three-bottle man and Corinthian; a perfectly wretched ending to a perfectly wretched day.

Unsteady though his footsteps were, they led him unerringly toward the Royal Crescent, through his own front door, up the staircase. Voices issued from the first floor drawing room. He followed them.

First of the occupants of that elegant chamber to fall under his cold blue gaze was no less than the lady customarily known to His Grace as Miss Prunes and Prisms. As if by some sixth sense made aware of his presence, Binnie cast him a quick look compounded of merriment and an odd dread. The duke, in whom unaccustomed inebriation had induced a maudlin turn of mood, was put strongly in mind of a long-past day when he and his cousin had existed on terms of much greater amiability. Briefly, his cold expression softened. “Oh, Binnie,” he said.

Miss Baskerville was very well accustomed to the queer fancies taken by gentlemen in their cups; though she had never before seen the duke in such a lamentable condition, she had quite frequently been called upon to deal with a brother who was three parts disguised. “Sandor,” she murmured, laughter in her voice, “let me make you known to Miss Mannering.”

Sandor would much rather have pursued the source of Sibyl’s amusement. With immeasurable dignity, he raised his quizzing-glass.

Before him, at a small mahogany table laden with a dinner tray, sat a young lady with freckles and flaming red hair. She was distinctly grubby; she was consuming her food with much more enthusiasm than was seemly; she was staring at him in a positively vulgar way. Furthermore, her feet were bare.

A noise, which sounded suspiciously like stifled laughter, caused the duke’s attention to stray to the other occupants of his drawing room. He took leave to wonder why Lieutenant Baskerville was clinging for dear life to a singularly ugly hound.

“Because Neal doesn’t wish Caliban to knock you down!” offered Miss Baskerville, who was inspired by the duke’s deplorable condition to unprecedented amiability. “Caliban is very strong and he is capable of quite remarkable displays of exuberance. Sandor, you have not made your bow to Miss Mannering.”

Once more His Grace gazed upon that young lady. In turn, she regarded him. “The devil!” she said cheerfully. “I don’t expect it! The gentleman is foxed, you see.”

“Foxed, am I?” the duke inquired wrathfully. Then he fell silent. It had occurred to him that he could hardly rip up at so very young a damsel, and in the very moment of her arrival, for stating what was no more than the truth.

Miss Baskerville was uncharacteristically quiet, and he glanced at her. Had Binnie come to a belated recognition of the folly of her conduct as concerned himself, to regret her countless harsh and hasty words? Was she tolerantly disposed to gentlemen in the throes of intoxication? He would not have expected it of her.

Nor should he have.
“Touch
é
!”
murmured Miss Prunes and Prisms, ironically.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Mercy on us!” wailed Edwina, on the following morn. “I nearly swooned from the shock! A giddy manner, flippant wit! If Miss Mannering means to go on in the way she has begun, the consequences will be incalculable!” She frowned at Binnie, who was peering with a look of great concentration into her coffee cup. “Has the cat got your tongue, Sibyl? I am telling you I understand perfectly why Miss Mannering’s father made so feeble an effort to get her back! The thought of what she next may say or do has me in agonies. I vow I am absolutely sick with dread!”

Binnie, who had passed a restless night, due to an attack of what she sternly called indigestion—even while admitting to herself that it was the brief moment of accord with her cousin the duke which had left her afflicted with something like a sickness of the heart—raised shadowed eyes to Edwina’s sulky face. “You are very hard on the child. She must have been exhausted by her round of talk and travel, and relieved at the discovery she was not to be abandoned, as she surely feared. We must make allowances.”

“God bless my soul! Allowances, for an impertinent, pushing, chit!” Edwina stared at her cousin, who wore a morning dress of white French lawn. “Sibyl, you are looking burnt to the socket. If you are weary now, when the girl has just arrived, you will have recourse to nervous medicines and laudanum before you have her half-ready to be seen!”

This blunt remark, suggesting as it did that Miss Delilah Mannering was to be her sole responsibility, caused Binnie to lower her gaze once more to her coffee cup. Briefly, on the previous evening, she had rejoiced in the knowledge that Sandor had at last overstepped himself. Now, and speedily, it was coming clear to her that the duke had meant to present her a dilemma—either pull off a major miracle or admit that she could not.  He thought she would cry craven.  Clearly, Sandor had maggots in his head.