Maggie MacKeever (11 page)

She had no time just then to worry about the further misadventures of her addle-pated family. Callously abandoning them, she donned a pelisse, crammed a bonnet on her head, and hurriedly summoned a hackney-coach. Sir Randall had sent her directly home from the cemetery, saying that he would deal with Durward. There had been no further word, though Angelica had half-expected to receive a strong intimation that her services were no longer desired. Durward had no authority to dismiss her, but his master did. Perplexed and anxious about her employer, Angelica pondered the puzzle of Sir Randall’s son, a man of such infinite littleness of soul as to set spies on his own father. Despicable, in short! Without setting eyes on him, Angelica had conceived for Sir Randall’s offspring a large dislike.

Her head throbbed, her mouth was dry, she felt distinctly queasy from the swaying of the coach. Angelica swallowed, painfully. If Sir Randall’s unhappy situation and Rosemary’s predicament were not bad enough, Lily and Fennel had had their heads together over the breakfast table. Secrets! thought Angelica, with distaste. Angelica hadn’t time to fret over that matter either, though she strongly suspected that she should; her destination had been reached. She climbed down from the coach, paid off the driver, and walked slowly to Sir Randall’s front door.

Not Williams opened that portal, but Durward. Angelica surveyed his pinched and smirking countenance, and suffered a sharp apprehensiveness. She was right to do so. “Master Simon wishes a word with you, miss!” said Durward, with triumph that he made no effort to conceal. “If you will accompany me?”

Angelica had no choice but to follow, and little more hope that she was not to be summarily dismissed. So be it, then! Angelica had a few words of her own to import to Durward’s master. Grimly she stalked into the study. Behind her, Durward closed the door.

A gentleman was there before her, apparently deep in contemplation of the overflowing bookshelves. He was tall and muscular, clad fashionably if carelessly in a dark brown frockcoat, sage-green kerseymere waistcoat, buff unmentionables and gleaming Hessian boots. Angelica was in no mood to appreciate broad shoulders, a narrow waist, or a well-shaped calf. Deliberately, she cleared her throat. The gentleman turned around.

His hair was auburn, worn long; luxurious side-whiskers extended downward toward his chin. Eyes of an unusual clear shade of green gazed rather derisively out of a face that was a fascinating combination of crags and hollows and planes. He looked every bit his age, which was forty; and there was no doubt that he had lived each year of his adult life to the fullest, for on his harsh features dissipation had left its unmistakable stamp. In summation, Angelica beheld a sardonically elegant, diabolically seductive rake-hell. She blinked, as if to clear her vision. “You don’t look at all like your father,” she said.

“And you,” responded the gentleman, “don’t look like Haymarket-ware! Come, tell me what rig you’re running. I can’t allow it, more’s the pity, even though you’re a taking little thing. Still, I’ll wager that a small gift—shall we say fifty pounds?—will make you heart-whole again.” He extended a folded banknote. In so doing he noted that the object of his strictures had dropped her head into her hands.

Simon Brisbane, as Angelica had deduced, enjoyed a remarkable career with the gentle sex. Behind that staggering success lay a single simple secret: Simon liked women. All women. Even a bit of fluff so misguided as to try and set herself up as his elderly father’s companion. In fact, so fond was Simon of the frail and the fair that he disliked to see even its humblest member weep. Therefore he crossed the room, put an arm around the frail one’s shaking shoulders, and drew her comfortably against his chest. She must not take it so to heart, he soothed, that he had queered her game; he apologized for bringing her to a standstill; he promised that she would come about again. Sir Randall was beyond the age of fancying pretty lady-birds, moreover; May and December would not suit.

Angelica’s reactions to these kind assurances, to say nothing of her reaction to being clasped against an unfraternal masculine chest for the first time in her life, were very complex. Above all, she found her position very comfortable— so much so that she made no immediate effort to inform the gentleman who so tenderly cradled her that she had been stricken by laughter, not tears.

“There!” said Simon, who was not so enamored of the ladies as to harbor improper intentions toward every specimen who came his way, and who therefore was quite composed enough to realize that this lady’s shoulders no longer shook. “I did not mean to be harsh, but thought it best we lay our cards on the table. Though I admit to a certain puzzlement as to why you should think my father was hankering after a fancy-piece!” As he spoke, he set the fancy-piece away from him, the better to study her face.

It was a very pretty face, he decided, with those rosy cheeks and bright blue eyes. But the eyes were dry and the mouth quivering—he frowned and warned her very strongly against trying to play off tricks.

“Oh, no!” wailed Angelica, at the end of her self-control. “You are mistaken, sir: I have no wish to set up as your father’s, er—”

“Light o’ love!” supplied Simon, and grasped her arm. “My good girl, you’re all about in the head if you think he’ll marry you. Even my father isn’t so eccentric as to marry his fancy piece—at least I don’t think he is, though he did bring you home.”

“He
didn’t
bring me home!” Having already laughed herself into stitches, Angelica clutched her aching sides. “I was recommended for the post—it was all above-board.”

“You were recommended?” echoed Simon, and grasped her other arm. “Good God! By whom?” In the grip of yet another fit of mirth, Angelica was unable to reply.

This was not the first occasion on which a female had been rendered speechless in the presence of Simon Brisbane; indeed, such occasions had come about so frequently over the past many years that Simon had evolved a remedy. A simple solution, this consisted of embracing the afflicted lady so ardently that she either recovered her senses or lost them altogether, both of which eventualities led to the same final resolution, to wit yet another notch on Simon’s gun-belt.

To give credit where it is due, Simon did not keep track of the ladies who favored him—and lest too much credit is given him, it must be added that keeping track of his conquests would have left Simon no time for further such pursuits. He was an incurable and impenitent rake; he enjoyed his life immensely; and there was not a one of Simon’s conquests that did not similarly enjoy him.

As did Angelica, subjected to an ardent embrace, the likes of which she had never dreamed. “Gracious!” she uttered, when allowed to draw breath. The gentleman paid little heed to this observation. He kissed her once again.

“Simon!” came an indignant voice from the doorway. “Unhand Miss Smith this instant! Is no female safe from your degradations? My dear, do sit down!”

Angelica was pleased to do so, in the chair pushed forward by Sir Randall; her knees were feeling weak. “You must not blame him!” she said to Sir Randall, who was glowering in a malevolent manner upon his offspring. “He has taken the oddest notion that I am, er, Haymarket-ware—due to Durward, I conjecture! I cannot begin to imagine what that odious little monster of ill-nature has said!” Here Simon quirked an interrogative brow. “Yes, I mean Durward! How would
you
like to have the creature’s Friday-face forever peering over your shoulder, and know that he will be forever pitching tales about everything you do and say? I’ll wager you wouldn’t put up with it for a minute!”

“Miss Smith!” Sir Randall patted her hand and looked very, very anxious. “You are overwrought!”

Had she not a right to be overwrought? Had she not been verbally then physically assaulted by a hardened rakeshame? In justice, Angelica admitted to herself that she had minded neither all that much; both had been most enlightening experiences of a nature not likely to again be encountered by an ugly duckling. It then occurred to Angelica that by speaking so frankly to Durward’s employer she was hardly advancing her own case. “Sir!” she added pacifically.

Simon leaned against the desk and folded his arms across his chest. “You’d win your wager; I
wouldn’t
put up with it. Furthermore, Durward is a gabble-grinder, and I don’t like him much myself; but my father forces me to these distasteful expedients and shifts.” Sir Randall muttered; Angelica patted his hand; Simon watched sardonically. “I’ll even grant you that Durward is a curst poor judge of character. He said you were a straw damsel bent on worming your way into my father’s affections with the intention of feathering your nest.”

“Utter rubbish!” uttered Sir Randall, as he approached the brandy decanter that stood on a bookshelf. “The man’s a dashed loose-screw.”

“Perhaps.” Simon raised the gold-handled quizzing-glass that hung on a ribbon round his neck and subjected the alleged straw damsel to a thorough scrutiny. The pelisse of deep blue velvet was shabby, the matching bonnet definitely askew; both were outdated, though of excellent material and cut. A gentlewoman, fallen on hard times? It was very curious.

Angelica, who was very well acquainted with her mirrored image, knew exactly how she must look: a lady no longer in her first youth, plainly dressed and probably untidy, due to the haste with which she’d left Chalmers House and the thoroughness with which she’d been embraced. Her fingers itched to straighten her bonnet, twitch out her skirts, smooth back her hair. Naturally she did none of these things. Alas, she could not similarly restrain the blood that stained her cheeks.

Simon let fall the quizzing-glass, intrigued. Not without basis was he known in certain circles as a nonesuch. Whether the female who currently regarded him in so thoughtful a manner was a privy to said circles, the
entrée
to which was determined not by birth but by recklessness of temperament and disregard of consequence, was a matter of great interest to Simon. “I begin to think,” he remarked, “that Durward erred, perhaps due to a lack of familiarity with females of an adventurous nature.”

“A familiarity,” said Sir Randall irritably, from his position at the bookshelf, where he was making astounding inroads into the brandy, “which you do not similarly lack. I must warn you that my son is a great favorite with the females, Miss Smith. Doubtless he’ll be throwing the hatchet at
you
next!”

“Unfair, Papa!” Simon removed himself from the desk and tweaked the decanter out of his father’s hand. “I had no intention of making your little friend an object of my gallantries—but only because you would not like it, mind!”

Here Sir Randall’s little friend giggled outright and expressed herself totally impervious to flattery. “Surely not?” Simon inquired of her, with interest. “Women adore to hear their praises sung. But then, you are a queer sort of female, aren’t you? A well brought-up lady should have at least exhibited horror at the suggestion that she might be mistaken for a fancy-piece, and at the most have cut up very stiff!” Having delivered this provocation, he waited curiously to see what she would say.

It was not at all what he had expected. “How absurd! Of course you would think the worst of me, because you are used to associate with females of that sort.” Sir Randall made a choking noise and Angelica eyed him in bewilderment. “Have I said something I should not? But it was you who brought up straw damsels and Haymarket-ware, sir. I know that it is improper of me to mention such things, but I merely meant to demonstrate that I understand perfectly how it is that you thought I was, er, less than I should be.” She paused, to find both Sir Randall and his son staring at her. “Am I mistaken, sir? Are you
not
a rakeshame?”

Simon inclined his head. “Guilty, ma’am, as judged.”

“Piffle!” retorted Angelica. “I don’t see why you should feel the least bit guilty about it. I think it must be very pleasant to do precisely what one wants.”

“It is.” Simon had not achieved his legendary career by ignoring such tantalizing remarks. “I should be pleased to show you!”

“Oh, is this how the game is played?” inquired Angelica, bright-eyed. “How fascinating. Clearly one must be always on one’s toes. But there is no point in trying to put me to the blush.”

“No?” said Simon, very thoughtfully. “I believe I must beg to differ—”

“Simon!” said Sir Randall, horrified at this suggestion that his shameless son meant to get up a flirtation beneath his very nose. “Remember to whom you speak!”

“I would find it a great deal easier to do so,” retorted Simon, no whit discomposed, “if I
knew
to whom I spoke! Explanations would seem to be in order, Miss—er?”

“Mil—” began Angelica. “Smith!” interrupted Sir Randall. “Ah!” murmured Simon, ironically. “How could so memorable a name have slipped my mind? I understand you have been engaged to assist my father in compiling his memoirs, Miss Smith.”

Angelica glanced at Sir Randall, who obviously wished himself elsewhere, a sentiment with which she sympathized wholeheartedly. Since her tongue had already displayed an appalling tendency toward indiscretion in Simon Brisbane’s presence, she would confine herself to monosyllables. “Yes.”

Simon was long familiar with his effect on females; again his lips twitched. “How came that about, Miss Smith? What prompted my father to suddenly turn bookish?”

Once more Angelica eyed Sir Randall, who was halfway toward the door. “You must ask your father that, sir.”

“Not sir, but Simon!” he responded. “After all, you are become quite one of the family. And how would you have me address you?”

Definitely a profligate, mused Angelica, who despite her ugly-duckling status was not immune to his devastating charm, and who was not about to let that charm turn her head. “You may address me,” she replied serenely, “as Miss Smith.”

“Hornet!” remarked the gentleman, appreciatively. Sir Randall, who had achieved the window, announced that there was an altercation underway in the garden between the llama and the shawl goat, and fled. “Tell me, Miss Smith, if you please: how comes it about that a gently bred female like yourself is reduced to earning your own keep?”