Somerville Farce (8 page)

Willie ran one hand distractedly through his
blond locks. “Harry ain’t crazy, you lump. He’s too smart to be
crazy. Don’t talk stupid.”

Andy spread his hands in disgust. “Me? Talk
stupid? Hey, you’re the one what brought it up in the first place.
Wasn’t me that started spouting off about any brother of mine going
around spinning windmills in his head. Remember that, Willie.”

“You don’t have a brother, Andy,” Willie
pointed out reasonably. “You’re an only child, with no hope of
siblings. Your father says it’s the single reason he can still face
the dawn each morning. I’ve heard him say so a hundred times—maybe
a thousand times.”

Andy toppled back onto the couch, clutching
his chest, his feet jabbing high into the air. “Oh, foul, foul!
You’ve wounded me to the quick. Poor Papa! Poor Mama! Poor little
Andy!” He sat up, stone-faced, to glower at Willie. “I am the
veriest beast, a viper at the bosom, a heartless, thankless child.
I ought to be horsewhipped.”

“Oh, shut up,” Willie said without rancor,
gnawing at the side of his right thumb. “I have to think. It’s just
not normal. Harry isn’t shouting. Harry isn’t screaming. Harry,
Lord help us, is whistling.” He looked at his friend. “Why is Harry
going about the place whistling, hmmm? Answer me that if you can,
viper.”

One answer popped so readily into Andy’s
head that he couldn’t believe Willie had not thought of it. “He
rose earlier than we did this morning and has already seen the
beautiful sisters Somerville? They are lovely little darlings, you
know, Willie, even if I ain’t much in the petticoat line m’self.
And he gets to choose the one he likes best. Whistling? I’m
surprised Good Old Harry ain’t dancing a jig.”

Willie frowned, shaking his head. “That’s
too easy, Andy,” he pointed out, talking even as he continued to
worry at his thumb. “You have to remember the Stourbridge woman and
her threats. Harry can’t be taking that situation very
lightly.”

Andy nodded his agreement, for Willie’s
words rang true. Harry wasn’t the sort to take kindly to blackmail.
There had to be another reason for the whistle they had heard as
the duke walked by them in the hallway. “Maybe he’s planning to
murder her,” he said at last, unable to think of anything less
bloodthirsty.

“Murder her!” Willie exclaimed, nearly
jamming his thumb down his throat as he leapt to his feet. “My God,
Andy, we’ve got to stop him!” He turned to run toward the
doorway.

“Or maybe he isn’t,” Andy added quietly,
causing Willie to stop in his tracks and sigh in relief. “Maybe he
only intends to ship her off somewhere in the dead of night. Out of
the way, without being put out of the way, if you know what I
mean.”

Willie nodded. “Yes—yes, that would work. He
could drug her wine at dinner, truss her up while she sleeps, and
have her placed aboard a ship heading to India—or maybe America. I
know I wouldn’t mind seeing her gone. I think she would have used
that pistol, given half a chance.”

Andy began pacing the floor, the bit between
his teeth now. “Yes, and with Miss Stourbridge out of the way, the
field would be clear to do what he willed with Eugenie and Helena
in order to revenge himself on their father.”

He turned to grin at his friend. “Why, you
know what, Willie—we’re right back where we started. You get to
save your brother, I get to stay here until my parents return, and
Harry gets to ravish a maiden—or both maidens, depending on his
pleasure.” He spread his arms wide. “All in all, Willie, I’d say my
plan is working out very well. Very well, indeed!”

Willie took immediate exception to Andrew’s
last statement. “Your plan?
Your
plan! Now that everything’s
all solved, you’re back—ready to take the credit. Isn’t that just
like you! And why wasn’t it your plan when we were first trying to
explain it to Harry? Answer me that, Mr. Brilliance!”

“I’ll answer you that, Mr. Dullard!” Andy
retorted hotly, pushing up his sleeves in preparation for doing
battle. “It’s my plan because you never had a single idea in your
whole life worth so much as twopence. That’s why it’s my plan!”

“Oh, is that right?”

“Yes—that’s right!”

Just when it appeared that the two friends
were about to come to fisticuffs in the middle of the morning-room
carpet, another, saner voice entered the conversation. “I thought
so. I could hear the two of you bellowing out in the hall. Go
ahead, boys, feel free to pummel each other into jellies. But I
warn you, I’ve already sent a footman for a large bucket of cold
water.”

The cold water had only been mentioned, but
its metaphorical application was enough to effectively douse the
sparks rising from the boys’ latest confrontation and, as usual,
unite them as one against their common enemy, authority.

“We weren’t fighting, Harry,” Willie
explained hastily, relaxing his fingers from the fists they had
been clutched into moments earlier. “Fighting? Whatever would give
you that idea? It was no such thing. We were just showing each
other how Gentleman Jackson used to defend himself in the ring. We
heard all about it in London, in a coffeehouse at the bottom of
Bond Street. Didn’t we, Andy?”

Andy nodded vigorously. “Cross-and-jostle
work, the fella we met called it, isn’t that right, Willie, my good
friend? Yes, that was it—prime cross-and-jostle work.” He turned to
look unblinkingly into the duke’s eyes. “It was ever so
interesting, your grace—ever so interesting.”

Harry just shook his head. “I don’t know why
lightning hasn’t struck you down years ago, you miserable
scapegrace—and you too, William—for the whopping lies you
tell.”

He held out a hand to stop his brother,
whose mouth had opened, from saying anything further. “I don’t want
to hear it, William. Trust me in this, for I am not speaking idly.
What I do want is for you both to sit down and listen to me for a
change. I’ve already requested that Miss Stourbridge and her
charges remain in the west wing resting until tomorrow—keeping them
out of the way. That leaves us this evening to deal with Aunt
Amelia, who should arrive at Glyndevaron in time for dinner.”

Willie grimaced at the mention of the
woman’s name. “Oh, Lord! I had forgotten about dotty old Queen
Amelia. Do you think she’ll cut up stiff?”

Harry pulled a face. “Cut up stiff, William?
Our dearest Aunt Amelia? Just because she has, thanks to her
dearest nephew, William, become part of the back end of a kidnap
plot and likely to be sent to rot in jail, her good name dragged
through the mud, her freedom gone, her courtesy role as chatelaine
of Glyndevaron snatched from her grasp? Or—happy thought!—we might
be able to keep it all quiet after all, and she will merely be cast
in the role of abbess to a duo of unwilling mistresses. No, I don’t
think Aunt Amelia will mind at all. I shouldn’t trouble my head if
I were you, William. Why, I imagine she’ll succumb to an apoplexy
long before I can tell her the half of it.”

While Andy prudently took two steps
backward, away from the duke, Willie collapsed into a nearby chair,
buried his head in his hands, and moaned pathetically. “She won’t
cock up her toes, Harry. That would be too easy. Oh, I think I’m
going to be sick. Just what we don’t need—Aunt Amelia running about
willy-nilly, crying ‘Off with their heads!’ ”

“Yes, she might do that too.” Harry smiled,
knowing he had at last succeeded in capturing his brother’s
attention. “But don’t worry, boys,” he added bracingly. “I may have
thought of a plan to get us all out of this mess.”

Willie hopped up as if he had springs hidden
in his Hessians, his confidence in Harry shining in his eyes just
as if he hadn’t a few moments earlier been contemplating the
terrible thought that his beloved brother had somehow lost a few
slates off his intellectual roof.

“I knew it! I knew it! The minute I heard
you whistling, I knew it! See that, Andy—I told you Good Old Harry
wouldn’t let us down. He has a plan!” A moment later he sobered,
and turned to look at his brother. “What is your plan, Harry? You
aren’t going to make either of us marry the twins, are you? Andy
and I... well, we hadn’t either of us planned on settling down
anytime just yet. No, of course not. You wouldn’t do that to me.
Oh, Harry—I love you, brother mine, truly I do!”

Harry took up the chair his brother had just
vacated, crossing his long legs at the ankle as he inspected the
nails of one hand. “If you’ve quite run down, William, perhaps
you’ll let me get on with my explanation.”

He waited, hiding a smile, as his brother
took a deep breath and settled himself, sitting at attention beside
Andy on the edge of the settee.

“Thank you, children. I would be comforted
by your obedient expressions if only I had not witnessed much the
same set to your countenances last summer—precisely three seconds
prior to the moment you told me a passing Gypsy had sold you a
failure-proof formula to turn goat’s milk into gold. Now, here’s
the plan...”

T
rixy was so angry
she could barely see straight. How dare he? How dare the man
challenge her in this way? Didn’t he know that he was opening
himself up to ridicule? Didn’t he care? Was he so bent on revenging
himself on her that he would go to these lengths to spike her
guns?

“Of course he knows, the blackguard!” she
told herself, looking down at the handkerchief she had shredded in
her perturbation, then tossing it onto the bed. “Why else do you
think he did it? It was too demeaning to his manhood to have been
bested by a mere woman. If anyone is going to make a fool of the
Duke of Glynde, he is determined it be himself. When will I ever
learn?”

What bothered Trixy most was that she had
not seen it coming. She had answered the late-afternoon summons to
the duke’s study ready to argue her case, prepared to refute any
exceptions Glynde might have thought up to challenge her plans for
him. Her hands had been steady, her chin held high. She was, she
had convinced herself after a near-sleepless night, ready for any
further objections he might care to throw at her.

What she hadn’t been prepared for had been
his offer.

“I have decided, Miss Stourbridge—Trixy—that
we shall all remove to my London mansion within two weeks, to
prepare for the Season,” Glynde had announced glibly just as she
was taking her seat across the desk from him.

“Prepare for the Season? All of us? Me?” she
had heard herself blurt, knowing she was allowing him to see that
he had caught her off-balance.

Glynde had steepled his fingers in front of
his face. “Exactly. My brother and his thatchgallows friend, Andrew
Carlisle, have done you and the Misses Somerville a grave
injustice, and I, as the head of the family, mean to set things
right. It is the only honorable thing to do.”

Trixy had been immediately convinced she
could smell a rat. A Season for the girls had been her dream, but
there was something wrong. She was sure of it. “Go on,” she had
urged quietly, peering at him intently as he hid his expression
behind his hands. “But, please, Harry, don’t hide behind your
‘honor.’ What would be in this for you?”

Glynde had smiled then—and Trixy had longed
to reach across the desk and slap him. “You’re too quick for me,
Trixy,” he had answered, relegating her, by way of using her
Christian name, to the ranks of young Lord William and his friend
Andy. “I will not play coy and tell you I have forgotten that the
twins are the offspring of Myles Somerville, my sworn enemy. But
think on it a moment, Trixy. What better revenge could I have than
to very publicly pop the girls off, with Somerville not standing to
make a penny on their marriages? From what I have heard while in
London, I should think I would have then successfully stripped the
man of the last of his assets.”

“But think of the talk, Harry,” Trixy had
been stung into pointing out, not wishing to be a part of the
scheme. “You’ll be a laughingstock, sponsoring Eugenie and Helena.
It’s no secret that you loathe their father. To the world, it would
look as if he had bested yet another Duke of Glynde.”

“Possibly,” the duke had admitted, “but I
will know differently, which is enough for me. I would much rather
the world thought I was a dupe than to have them believe I had
contrived the heinous kidnapping of two innocent young
females.”

“And me,” she had felt forced to add.

Harry’s left eyebrow, she remembered, had
risen at her words. “I said young females, Trixy. The innocent I
leave to your conscience, considering that it was you who thought
up the notion of blackmailing me for your silence.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know
it.”

“No, I suppose it wasn’t,” Glynde had said,
rising to signal that the interview was over. “As for you, Trixy, I
shall expect you to go on as you have, chaperoning the girls—along
with my aunt, Lady Amelia Fauntleroy, of course, who shall act as
my hostess. At the end of the Season... well, I imagine you should
be able to find adequate employment somewhere in London before the
wages I’ve paid you to care for the girls runs out—if you cannot
succeed in snagging yourself some eager widower looking for a
mother for his runny-nosed children while you are squiring the
girls about. I will give you a wage, as I wouldn’t wish to be
considered totally heartless, but that is all I will give you.”