Maggie MacKeever (7 page)

Crump was fast reaching the end of his patience. “You might cease pitching me gammon. Else I’ll see
you
in gaol.”

“Gaol!” shrieked Willie. “Witness me atremble with the palpitations in my heart! Alas, it is the curse of the journalist to suffer punishment for the expression of his views. Consider the great John Walter who founded the
Times. He
went to Newgate for criticizing the Duke of York and while there had his sentence increased because, while incarcerated, he further censored the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Clarence, and the Duke of York again. I shall bear my punishment manfully if only I may write my column behind bars.”

“Devil take you, make an end!” snapped Leda, and Willie paused mid-spate. She turned to Crump. “Out with it. Why are you here?”

“Leda, Leda!” Willie crooked an admonishing forefinger. “This is Mr. Crump’s opportunity to learn more of the newspaper world. Would you deny him? Think what benefit a knowledge of journalism might be to him in the fulfillment of his duties.” His eyes gleamed. “And think what benefit Mr. Crump might prove to us, being as it were on the inside! We might, with his assistance, publish detailed accounts of atrocious crimes before our competitors even knew they had occurred.”

“An excellent notion,” mused Leda. “What say you, Crump?”

The Runner reached into his coat pocket. “I say that I hold a warrant for your apprehension, Leda Langtry, on the charge of murdering Lord Warwick. You must consider yourself in custody.”

Willie screwed a tarnished monocle into one eye socket and regarded Crump. “I thought, old fellow, that you looked damned familiar! Now I remember that it was you who took Leda into custody before. I had on that occasion prudently taken refuge in the printing room but glimpsed you nonetheless. We will soon consider you quite one of the family.”

“Warwick’s murder?” Leda looked stunned. “You must be mad.”

“Tell that to the Chief Magistrate.” Crump drew forth a pair of handcuffs, which closed with a snap and a spring. “The evidence against you is so overwhelming that the jury probably won’t even retire.”

“This is beyond infamous!” Willie stared at the cuffs. “Do you mean to lead poor Leda shackled through the streets? For shame, Mr. Crump!”

Crump fastened the cuffs around Leda’s wrists. “Interfering with the law is a serious offense, and I’m not unaware that you’ve been treating me to a rare mare’s nest. To what purpose, I might ask myself? Can it be you’re in this thing up to your own neck?”

Willie clutched his throat, the picture of dismay. “And to think I had thought I liked you, Mr. Crump!”

Leda gazed upon her shackled wrists. “So the jury won’t go out? You seem very sure of yourself.”

Crump was not to be goaded into mention of Lord Warwick’s valet, who professed himself willing to swear to Leda’s guilt in the witness box. “That I am.”

“Despair not, Leda!” Willie darted about the room. “We shall make it a
cause célèbre.
The world will rise up in arms to protest that Leda Langtry has been confined to Newgate, there to mingle with thieves and murderers and the like, and will clamor for your release. Meanwhile you’ll take notes as the scoundrels practice their dying speeches and smuggle those notes to me. We’ll have their last words in print before the wretches ever mount the scaffold.”

“It’s more likely you’ll be there yourself, my lad,” growled Crump, as he guided Leda toward the door. “Because I mean to look most particularly into your activities!”

“Mine!” Willie looked like a startled hare. “You are quite mistaken in me, Mr. Crump, but it is a very amiable fault for you to overvalue me so.” He glanced at Leda. “Have no fear! I’ll see you don’t hang, dear one, even if you
did
dispatch Warwick to his final rest, which I doubt. Your innocence must be apparent to any right-thinking man.”

“Right-thinking!” sputtered Crump, who with the reluctant Leda in tow had barely reached the doorway. “You think it
right
that you should interfere with the apprehension of a murderer?” Willie’s smile, a gesture of singular sweetness, only intensified the Runner’s wrath.

Having reduced the Runner to near-apoplectic silence, Willie turned to Leda. “I’ll notify our solicitor of this development. He’ll know what to do. Do you wish me to send word to anyone else?” His voice was a wicked, sly whisper. “The Viscount, perhaps?”

Leda roused abruptly from her introspection. “Yes, tell Ivor. And you may also tell him to inform Lady Bligh.” She jingled her handcuffs and scowled at Crump. “Why are you dawdling, man? If I must go to Newgate, then let us proceed.”

“The poor Viscount,” Willie murmured, “will be
quite
enraged. I fear, Mr. Crump, that this day’s proceedings will earn you a number of enemies.”

Crump clapped his hat upon his head, not trusting himself to reply. Even the thought of the substantial reward offered by the government for capture of a murderer could not reconcile him to thought of another set-to with Lady Bligh.

Chapter 7

“You are positive, Culpepper?” asked Dulcie. “Although I don’t know why I should doubt you when I anticipated as much.”

“Nor do I, my lady.” Culpepper’s expression was as severe as her mistress’s. “You’ll be dragged off to Newgate next, and then think what the Baron will say.”

“Culpepper, Culpepper!” The Baroness adjusted her cashmere shawl, embroidered in gold and silks of all colors, ten ells long and worth a thousand pounds. “You will give Mignon the impression that you are a stick-in-the-mud! And all because I insisted that you treat yourself to beefsteak and oyster sauce and a rendezvous with your adoring night watchman.”

The abigail vouchsafed no reply, but shuddered eloquently. It seemed odd to Mignon that Dulcie’s gaunt and sour-faced dresser should have a beau but love was said to be blind, and in this instance must also be both undiscriminating and fearless.

“Is there anything else?” asked Culpepper, for Lady Bligh had fallen into a reverie. Culpepper was a confirmed spinster, but such was her devotion to her mistress that she would even encourage the watchman who was besotted with her, to serve Dulcie’s ends.

Culpepper only hoped that she wouldn’t be requested to marry the whiskey-swilling fool.

The Baroness sneezed and, handkerchief in hand, waved her abigail away. Culpepper hovered in the doorway, concerned. Dulcie regarded her, and then smiled. “Thank you, she said gently. “You are a great comfort to me.” Culpepper snorted and took her leave.

Mignon, watching from a comfortable plump chair, puzzled over the exchange. She studied Dulcie, whose hair was now lime green. The Baroness wore a cream muslin gown with elbow sleeves and an open center over an exquisite slip and countless strands of pearls. She looked as fetching, if not as innocent, as a mere girl.

“Ah, to be truly young again!” said Lady Bligh, so aptly that Mignon started. “Alas, I am not, my dear. The frailties of age have crept into these weary bones. Now I find myself no longer capable of the things I wish to do.”

Had Mignon been longer acquainted with Lady Bligh, she might have derived no small amusement from this pathetic speech, but Mignon was a girl with a great deal of compassion, and the thought of her aunt so stricken with years filled her with remorse. “Dulcie!” she cried, and hurried across the room. “Are you unwell? Pray tell me what I can do to help you.”

“Dear Mignon. It is good of you to offer, child. But you are much too young to bother with an old wretch like me.” The Baroness drew her shawl more closely around her, as if against the chill. “You should be attending balls and routs, gaily breaking hearts without thought for tomorrow, not running errands for an ancient crone. I would not think of spoiling your pleasure, child.”

Mignon sank to her knees by the couch and took her aunt’s hand. “I didn’t come to Town in search of pleasure, as I think you know. Only tell me what I may do to help you, Dulcie. I’m yours to command.”

The Baroness opened her eyes and smiled. Mignon wondered if she had imagined the mischievous twinkle that danced in those dark eyes before the lids drooped again. “Dear,
dear
child!” whispered Lady Bligh. “You are so kind.”

Thus it was that when Viscount Jeffries called again at Bligh House, he found that the Baron’s incomparable Drawing Room had become the setting for a touching tableau. The Baroness was posed artistically on a blue striped couch with an orange cat slumbering at her feet. Her niece knelt beside her, looking worried indeed.

“What’s this?” inquired Ivor of Lady Bligh’s butler, who stood at his side. “Is your mistress ill?”

“Maybe, and maybe not.” A muscle twitched at the corner of Gibbon’s mouth. “I wouldn’t venture to say.”

“Gibbon! Give Viscount Jeffries his snuffbox,” said the Baroness, without opening her eyes. To Ivor’s astonishment the butler extended his hand, on which reposed that exquisite porcelain-inlaid piece, then backed out of the room. “Nor,” called Lady Bligh after him, “will you pick the pockets of this particular caller again. Jessop, do come in.”

Already convinced that this errand was a waste of his time, Ivor stepped into the room. “Close the door,” said Dulcie. “Not that I imagine it will do much good.”

Mignon sank down on a stool and regarded their visitor. He might be handsome as Apollo with the sunlight glinting off his red-gold curls, and possess a figure that needed aid from neither buckram nor corseting; he might be elegant and wild and the acknowledged heir to a peerage and a long rent roll; but she could find nothing to admire in him. Or so she sternly told herself.

Ivor had been briefly distracted from his mission by the grandeur of his surroundings, awesome even to one who had been born sucking the proverbial silver spoon. He was especially impressed by the marble fireplace that was so huge a man might stand in it upright or, if he were so inclined, sit in the antique iron grate. In front of the fireplace, a massive gold fire screen framed a plate of glass so transparent that it was scarcely distinguishable from air. A splendid place to toast one’s toes in wintertime, thought Ivor, and smiled at his own whimsy. He turned then, and encountered Mignon’s stare.

The Baroness swung her feet to the ground and sat upright. “Come, Jessop, and sit down. We have much to do in a very short time.”

Somewhat taken aback, Ivor crossed the stone floor. Being both wealthy and personable, and consequently long pursued by marriageable damsels and their hopeful mamas, the Viscount was not accustomed to young ladies who regarded him as if he were the devil incarnate, particularly unprepossessing young ladies with freckles and bright red hair. Mignon, following his thoughts with fair accuracy, frowned even more dreadfully.

“Wrinkles, my child!” said Lady Bligh, and smartly pinched her niece. “As for you, Jessop, I sympathize with your feelings, and confess that my own spirits are of a somewhat melancholy cast. But it will not do to sit back and lament poor Leda’s fate. She is a creature of wit and influence, after all, and could if she chose be courted by the great for her company.” The Baroness sneezed. “A pity that she does
not
choose! Leda sees and hears much that does not make its way to the printed page.”

“You know then,” Ivor inquired cautiously, trying to make sense of this speech, “that Leda has again been taken into custody?”

“I do,” Dulcie retorted, and Mignon stared. So
that
was the information that Culpepper had brought! “In connection,” the Baroness added, “with Warwick’s murder. I told her to avoid him but of course she didn’t listen. If ever a man was ripe for murder it was Warwick, and Leda makes a perfect scapegoat.”

Lord Jeffries frowned, an act that made him look very young and vulnerable. Mignon quickly dropped her eyes to her hands and reminded herself that she was mourning the lover who’d been so cruelly torn from her arms. “I tend to agree with you,” he said. “I cannot see Leda provoked to murder. If only we knew the details.”

“We will.” The Baroness smoothed her startling green curls. “You may trust me for that.”

“I think I must,” replied the Viscount ruefully. “Never have I felt so helpless. Even my uncle, who might have been induced to come to Leda’s aid, though not without strenuous protest, is unapproachable,” His mouth twisted wryly. “Percy is suffering from a severe case of the gout, brought on by the consumption of a turkey stuffed with chestnuts.”

“Percy,” Lady Bligh said absently, “is an ass.”

“I don’t suppose,” ventured the Viscount, “that you’d care to tell me how you learned of Leda’s arrest? I don’t believe the matter is generally known.”

“It will be,” the Baroness prophesied. “Mignon, pray fetch our visitor some claret.”

Reluctantly, Mignon rose to obey. So confusing and unwelcome were the emotions roused in her by sight of Viscount Jeffries that she would have preferred to empty the decanter’s contents over his damnably handsome head. Their hands touched as he took the glass from her. Mignon flushed and turned quickly away, mightily resenting the amusement in his eyes.

Ivor dropped his gaze to his claret glass. “Perhaps you have wondered at my concern with Leda’s predicament.”

“Explanations are unnecessary,” Lady Bligh interrupted. “Indeed, I beg that you refrain.”

Ivor looked inquiringly at his hostess, who was frowning at the closed door. “But I must. It is important that you know.”

“I don’t suppose,” sighed Dulcie, “that you’d take my word for it that I already
do
know?”

“How could you?” inquired Ivor gently, and set down his glass on a table inlaid with brass. “When you have no idea of what I mean to say?”

Lady Bligh pulled the orange cat onto her lap, where it purred gustily. “You will not wish to make Mignon privy to your secrets. You would do much better to postpone your confessions until another day.”

Ivor glanced at that young lady, who paused in her restless pacing of the room—an exercise that revealed to the discerning observer a pleasing grace and an even more pleasing physique—to stare indignantly at her aunt.

“If I could help it I would not tell, but it must come out.” As Ivor searched for words, he surveyed his gleaming boots. “As you may know, my family traces its line back to Osbert, Duke of Calvert, who founded the Abbey, of Coventry, married the famous Lady Godiva, and died in 1087.” Lady Bligh tapped her fingers on her knee and he speeded up his tale. “Succeeding generations were raised with a strong sense of duty and family—too much so, I sometimes think—and my uncle Percy must be the highest stickler of them all. My father, on the other hand, was something of a loose screw, or so I’m led to understand. When my parents were divorced, Percy insisted my mother resume use of her maiden name.”