Maggie MacKeever (2 page)

Mignon, who had been idly imagining their guest’s
petite amie,
a damsel doubtless frail and tiny and exquisitely fashioned, was intrigued by his obvious lack of ease. It did not appear a sensation with which he was familiar, or one for which he cared. “I am here on a matter of some delicacy,” he said coolly. “I would prefer that we speak privately.”

“Privately?” repeated Lady Bligh. “Ah, you refer to my niece! You may find that Miss Montague will prove of no small service to you.”

Mignon had no desire whatsoever to be of service to a man who so strongly resembled the carved satyr masks of the chair in which he sat. Seeking to mask the resentment that the Viscount’s attitude had aroused, she rose from her chair. “I’m sure I can find something to occupy me elsewhere.”

“Poppycock!” said Dulcie. “Sit down, my dear, and overlook our guest’s boorish manner. The gentleman has a great deal on his mind.” Her eyes flicked from Mignon’s startled face to Ivor’s darkening countenance. “Proceed, if you will. We are wasting time.”

Already regretting the impulse that had brought him there, the Viscount regarded his hands. “I have come in behalf of a friend of yours, Lady Bligh, one whom you have not seen in a number of years, and who is now in serious difficulties.” He paused, wondering how he might best proceed. The Baroness offered him no assistance, but contemplated the portrait of her spouse. “In short, Lady Bligh,” Ivor went on, “your friend is presently lodged in the Newgate Prison prior to her appearance at the bar of the Old Bailey.”

“Ah,” murmured Dulcie. “The freedom of the written word. One who dares come out in support of the Luddite rioters and their machine smashing, and then compounds her offense by traducing Prinny, is not likely to long escape meditation in a prison cell.”

The Viscount’s brow was furrowed. “May I ask how you knew of that?”

“You may not,” retorted Dulcie. Mignon stifled an impulse to applaud.

The Baroness picked up a newspaper from the stack beside her chair. “The London
Apocalypse,
most radical of the city’s news sheets, and Leda’s
tour de force.
How I knew of her arrest is not important; it is a matter of far more curiosity that a gentleman of your vast superiority would consort with a female whose pen works untiringly for the laboring classes, especially those small farmers who are being displaced by the Enclosure Acts.”

“Consort?” repeated the Viscount. “Leda is more than two decades older than I. Almost, I believe, your own age.” Dulcie’s fine eyes narrowed and he smiled. “I made her acquaintance recently and quite by accident; and while I do not agree with Leda’s political extremism, I am fascinated by her eccentricity. She spoke to me of you during the Arbuthnot matter. Hence my awareness of your friendship.”

Lady Bligh rose and paced the floor with considerable grace. The orange cat, left in sole possession of the chair, looked warily at the blue parrot before settling himself more comfortably.

“You wish me to use my influence on Leda’s behalf,” said Dulcie. “Why? Leda is merely following in the footsteps of her fellow journalists. Leigh Hunt went the same route a couple of years past, receiving a £500 fine and a sentence of two years’ imprisonment in Surrey Gaol. He called Prinny ‘a corpulent Adonis,’ as I recall.”

“This is a somewhat different case.” The Viscount followed Dulcie’s movements with his eyes. “I would apply to my uncle in Leda’s behalf, but he is a very sick man.”

“Nor,” said the Baroness dryly, as she moved toward the marble mantelpiece, “would he approve of your concern. This is hardly Leda’s first sojourn within Newgate’s bleak walls. She indulged in a piece of satire against the House of Lords some years back and was subjected to a three-month imprisonment.”

The Viscount also rose, treating Mignon to a rare view of a superb masculine physique. She hastily averted her gaze to the volume of verse she’d been reading earlier. “Leda is an elderly lady,” Ivor said, his voice hard, “and hardly of a constitution to happily suffer prison life. I had hoped your friendship might prompt you to act in her behalf, but I see I misjudged you. Forgive me for disturbing your no doubt important pursuits.”

“You sound like your uncle.” The Baroness paused to sneeze again. Lady Bligh and the unfortunate Leda might have been much of an age, but Dulcie looked so far from elderly that she could have been Lord Jeffries’ peer.

“And,” added Lady Bligh, when she had caught her breath, “a more pompous windbag than Lord Calvert I have yet to meet.” She appeared not to notice that the Viscount drew himself up indignantly in his uncle’s defense. “I haven’t said I wouldn’t help you, young man, although your concern is misplaced. You would do much better to leave Leda where she is.”

 Ivor looked as if he strongly wished himself elsewhere, as indeed he did, having come to consider Bligh House as little better than a house of curiosities with the Baroness the prize exhibit. “I cannot imagine what you’re thinking.”

“Naturally you cannot, and fortunate it is.” Lady Bligh contemplated a chess set carved in jasper. “So I am to go to Prinny and ask his forgiveness on Leda’s behalf? A pity that our Regent is as ridiculous as he is thin-skinned, or it wouldn’t matter a whit Leda has informed the world that he enjoys his vices and leaves politics to his ministers; that he entertains shapely tightrope dancers in his private rooms at Carlton House while leaving Lord Castlereagh to represent England at the Congress of Vienna.” Mignon, no peruser of newspaper accounts, gasped. Jeffries glanced in her direction, and she once more buried her nose in her book.

Dulcie ran her fingers through her orchid-colored curls, rather to their detriment. “Or do you prefer that I apply to Lord Warwick, who acts as Prinny’s emissary in such matters, and who is a thoroughly detestable man? He cherishes a violent antipathy to my husband, considering Bat a despoiler of innocent English womanhood.”

“And is he?” queried the Viscount, intrigued despite himself.

Lady Bligh laughed huskily, but her amusement quickly fled. “I ask you once more to reconsider,” she said, as she moved from the fireplace to stand beside Mignon’s chair. “And leave Leda where she is. I shall secure her release if you are set on it, but only because if I do not you will simply find someone else.”

“Precisely,” said Ivor.

“Very well. The consequences are on your head. You will remember that I warned you.”

“I assure you, I will forget not the smallest detail of this encounter, Lady Bligh.” The Viscount studied the young woman bent so assiduously over her book. “I trust your niece is as discreet as you say. I do not care to have my association with Leda made public knowledge.”

Mignon raised her eyes and in them was an annoyed expression that caused him to arch one sandy brow. Dulcie’s hand dropped to her niece’s shoulder, and squeezed. “You may trust Mignon,” she said calmly. “That is something else you may have reason to recall.”

Ivor suspected if he remained much longer in the presence of this exasperating woman he would forget his upbringing and say something unforgivably rude. “I will take my leave of you, then.” He made an exit as graceful as it was abrupt.

Mignon rubbed her bruised shoulder. What had Dulcie been afraid she’d say? “The toad didn’t even thank you.”

“Young Jessop will have ample opportunity to express his gratitude.” Again Dulcie wore that odd little frown. “We will be seeing a great deal more of him.”

“We will?” Mignon was studiously nonchalant. Lady Bligh regarded her niece, and her mouth twisted into a little smile.

“Rhymed tales of corsairs and exotic slave girls and lovesick Eastern princes,” murmured the Baroness. “I think you will find, my dear, that Wordsworth reads much better when not held upside down.”

Mignon tossed aside the book. For no good reason that she could think of, she rose to inspect herself in the silvered looking glass that was topped by an eagle motif. Staring back at her was a very ordinary damsel, taller than average, with bright red hair and freckles, whose only claim to beauty was a pair of large sea-green eyes. In the mirror, she watched as the parrot leaned forward and applied his sharp beak to a particularly tempting patch of orange fur. The cat shrieked and leaped straight into the air.

The Baroness rapped her knuckles sharply against Bluebeard’s beak, and then cradled the tomcat, which looked as though he’d like to make a meal of his tormentor. “Poor Casanova. As for that, poor Leda, too. The dashing Viscount would save us a great deal of trouble if he’d only listened to me.”

Mignon made no reply. She was guilt-stricken by the realization that she hadn’t spared a single thought to her lost love for over an hour.

Dulcie deposited herself and her bristling burden once more in the carved chair. “You do not mean to cooperate either, I see.”

Mignon abandoned the looking glass, her spirits further oppressed by its familiar message that she would never be other than plain. “Cooperate in what manner?” she asked bluntly. “It is good of you to have me here, and I am grateful, but I think I should be informed if you mean to involve me in some scheme.”

Lady Bligh was as devious as she was lovely, and not given to explanations. Imitating his mistress perfectly, Bluebeard sneezed.

Chapter 2

The Chief Magistrate of Bow Street sat at a scarred desk in the small and stuffy office that had originally been tenanted by Colonel Thomas de Veil, magistrate for Westminster and Middlesex, who had been both corrupt and energetic, and who had hounded criminals with a vigor that quite astounded them. There had been many occupants of the shabby Bow Street quarters since then, among them the Fieldings and Sampson Wright and Sir Richard Ford; but Sir John could not see that the conditions they battled had noticeably improved.

He inspected his visitor. She wore a purple velvet gown and a hooded cape of purple-blue taffeta lined with rose. “What brings you here, Dulcie?”

Lady Bligh widened her bright dark eyes. “Why, you do, my dear. Since you won’t do the pretty and call on me, I have come to you.” She paused to sneeze. “Bat is off jaunting about the Continent, surveying dead horses and shattered homes and the crippled remnants of Napoleon’s
Grande Armée.
He will then proceed to Vienna, where the Allied Sovereigns and ministers have assembled to rearrange the map of Europe according to their various ambitions. What gaiety that sad city shall see! Vienna is thronged with crowned heads and ambassadors and ministers, all engaged with hunting and shooting, drives and promenades and vast dinners, evening assemblies and balls and
petits soupers,
plays and operas.” She threw back the hood of her cape. “To tell truth, John, I cannot envision Bat promenading in the Prater and watching the Danube passing idly by.”

Nor could the Chief Magistrate, who had no high opinion of the fifth Baron Bligh, considering him an unconscionable rake as well as the untrustworthiest of men. Had Sir John been fortunate enough to win Dulcie’s hand in marriage,
he
would not spend the greater portion of the year away from her side. He glanced once more at Lady Bligh, who at that moment, and despite her orchid curls, appeared the most demure creature in existence, and repressed a smile. It was perhaps fortunate that Fate had not thus favored him. Life with Dulcie would doubtless have resulted in his early demise from an apoplexy.

“Tsk, John!” reproved the Baroness. “How uncharitable you are. At last report, Bat was administering the last rites to a dying British soldier whom he found in a church at Champagne. But I have not come to talk of that.” Dulcie settled herself more comfortably on her hard wooden chair.

The Chief Magistrate rubbed his forehead, which was deeply lined. Bow Street was exceptionally busy just then, due not only to the robberies but also to a complicated case of fraud in which a certain Member of Parliament was implicated. But he could no more refuse Dulcie than he could hold back the tide. “What is it, then?”

“I shan’t tell you,” retorted his heartless tormentor, “until you have offered me some tea. It is no wonder that you are sulky as a bear. Your entire existence is dedicated to dispensing justice. What of pleasure and amusement, pray? Dear John, if you keep up at this pace you will be old before your time.”

If Lady Bligh was up to further shenanigans, as appeared very likely, Sir John thought he would turn her over his knee. He had not yet forgotten the cursed Arbuthnot business, when her ladyship’s damnable meddling had brought her into grave danger and had him fretting his guts to fiddle-strings. He put down his pen and rose to call down the hallway for her ladyship’s tea.

“Much better,” said Lady Bligh, in a tone that made the Chief Magistrate temporarily forget both crime and miscreants. “I flatter myself that I am precisely the diversion that you need.”

A gangling underling appeared with the refreshments. “You,” Sir John retorted, when they were once more alone, “are a cursed nuisance, Dulcie.” His expression belied his words, for his weary face wore a smile.

“Am I not?” The Baroness balanced her teacup in one hand as with the other she sought ineffectually to repair an unpinned orchid curl. Sir John struggled with a wish to take that heavy hair in his hands and to bury his face in its perfume. Lady Bligh winked at him. “You are also a great deal too intuitive,” he said.

“Poppycock!” Dulcie abandoned her efforts with the curl and searched in her reticule for her handkerchief. “You might recall that my intuition has in the past been of no small service to you.”

Sir John wisely skirted this topic. Lady Bligh’s assistance in the Arbuthnot matter, a combination of shrewd conjecture and feminine illogic and what could only be divine revelation, had nearly driven him into a fever of the brain.

“Play off your cajolery elsewhere, Dulcie,” he said gruffly. “Tell me why you are here.”

Lady Bligh surveyed him speculatively over the frivolous square of lace, and briskly blew her nose. “First we shall engage in a little polite conversation. It is an art in which you are sadly deficient.”

“Oh?” Sir John lifted his heavy brows.