The Butler Did It (10 page)

Good God, Morgan realized, the minx was right. He'd be thought a fool, or pockets-to-let, or both. Damn the woman!

“You can't stay here,” he said once more, because he'd run out of new things to say.

Emma knew she had the advantage now and pressed on, knowing all she had left was one card.

But it was her trump card.

“You keep saying that, my lord. But where, oh where should we go after our stop in Fleet Street? Ah, wait a moment, I know. I suppose we could impose upon my mama's very good friend, and beg her to take us in.”

The chit was smiling. He hated smiling women; they were always just about to drop a very heavy brick on your foot, one way or another. “Your mother's friend? She has a name?”

This was it, her last bit of ammunition, and if it missed its mark she would be defenseless. “Sally,” Emma said, her grin widening. But this time she had him. She knew it. “My mama calls her Sally.”

Damn. A very heavy brick. “And those who are not Sally's bosom
beaux?
What do they call her?”

He already knew the answer, and didn't even blink when Emma trilled, “Lady Sally Jersey.”

Morgan dropped into the facing couch and let his chin fall into his cupped hands. “Silence,” he grumbled. “They call her Silence, you know, because the dratted woman never shuts up.”

“Dear lady. She has already deigned to visit us here, and asked after you, my lord, by the way. She also very kindly issued us vouchers to Almack's.” Emma soldiered on, seeing her advantage and doing her best to drive it home. “That would be this evening, my lord, as the fog has at last dissipated. The opening Session. Would you care to escort us, as you have doubtless not had time to procure your own? The voucher includes an escort, and my brother has previously stated his aversion to coming within a mile of the place. Mama is, however, very much looking forward to the evening. As am I. I have a new gown, you understand.”

Belatedly she shut her mouth, realizing she was in danger of becoming drunk with power.

Morgan almost gave in, gave up, accepted his fate. But then he looked at Emma, saw her smile, and hopped to his feet. “I don't care if you have five new gowns, madam, or if your mama regularly breaks bread with our new King.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, my grandmother—but, no,
I won't say it.” She wouldn't say it because she'd been listening to Fanny's fanciful tales all of her life, and had only believed half of them.

“I don't care if your grandmother will pine away, your mother will go into a sad decline, and your brother does back flips in his joy at not having to drag the lot of you to Almack's. You will
not
be leaving from here, and I will not be escorting you. You have one hour, madam, to get out of my house or suffer the consequences. Good day.”

“And what would those consequences be this time, my lord?” Emma called after him, because now he
really
had made her angry, attacking her family that way.

He didn't answer, because he didn't have an answer, damn it. But he'd think of one. Just as soon as he returned to the privacy of his rooms and punched something.

 

F
ANNY OPENED DOORS
in his lordship's dressing room and sniffed at the fresh linen smell. But there was nothing of interest behind any of those doors, or in any of those drawers, and she'd already inspected his lordship's jewelry cases, finding his selection to be limited but very fine.

She loved snooping. Not that she'd found anything of interest in Olive Norbert's rooms, but Sir Edgar's might be worth another visit if the man took the air again this afternoon.

Sipping from a glass she'd filled with wine she'd
poured from a decanter in the main chamber, Fanny returned there now and took up position in one of the wing chairs in front of the fireplace, the one with a clear view of the door to the hallway. Because her feet didn't quite touch the floor, she slid her bent legs up onto the cushion and tucked them under her gown, then sighed in real happiness.

She appreciated a fine chamber such as this. Spacious. Well-appointed. Lots of very good wood, and Chinese wallpapers lining the walls. Beany had a bedchamber very much like this one, in his mansion in Portland Place, as she recalled. Pity the man's idea of fun was to have her wear his Hessians and wield a riding crop. She'd had to give him up, finally, but by then she'd had Johnnie and, bless him, he'd been hung like a—

“…and make sure to count the silver before that Mrs. Norbert leaves,” Morgan said, opening the door, then closing it behind him. “A madhouse, that's what this is,” he told himself, heading for the drinks table. “I'm in Bedlam, with better furnishings.”

“Talk to yourself, do you? My Geoffrey used to do that, quite often. Then again, he may have been talking to me, but I gave up listening after the first five years. Never liked him better than when we were going our own way, seeking our own pleasures. My lord? Would you care to bring your drink over here?”

Morgan was staring at the old woman. “My God, they're everywhere,” he said, blinking.

“Don't just stand there, boy, sit, sit,” Fanny commanded, waving her arm at him. “Don't worry, I'm not here to seduce you.”

“There's a relief, madam,” Morgan said, regaining his composure—it was becoming more difficult, but he'd had five years of practice, so he was fairly confident he wouldn't kill anyone for full minutes yet.

He took up his glass and headed for the chair, inspecting Fanny as he came. Short, which was probably where Miss Clifford got her small size, quite thin, and still rather handsome. Once a beauty, he was sure of that, and her eyes were still a vivid blue, but although he could see that her beauty had faded, obviously the woman looked into a friendly mirror. She was actually batting her eyelashes at him.

“Mrs. Clifford the senior, I presume. How did you get in here?” he asked after downing half his wine. “Or has Thornley decided to exercise some sort of insurrection, and take over the mansion for himself and his…tenants?”

“Nothing so dramatic, I'm afraid, my lord. I was forced to employ my own initiative, so I followed your valet up from the kitchens, tapped him over the head with a handy vase, trussed him up, and threw him out the window.”

“Good,” Morgan said, finishing off his wine. He couldn't be starting to
enjoy
himself, could he? “With any luck, he didn't bounce.”

Fanny threw back her head and laughed, a most delightful, girlish laugh. “That's it, boy. Not easily ruffled, are you? Although I think you could be, seeing as how you're Harry's boy. Your mother didn't foist anyone else's brat off on him, either, for you're just like him, down to those truly magnificent blue eyes. Made me go weak in the knees, those eyes did, and I didn't go weak for many of them. I knew Mad Harry quite well. Quite well.”

Morgan, despite himself, was intrigued. He'd never heard of this woman, but she spoke well, dressed well, and she'd known his father. “You've spent a lot of time in London, Mrs. Clifford?”

“Ages ago, yes. He was several years my junior, but we traveled in many of the same circles. You weren't even a glimmer in your father's eye then. Ah, the world you missed, son. We were young, we were free, we
lived.
None of this daren't-show-an-ankle sort of silliness that's going on now.”

She leaned forward in her chair. “Do you know, I once rode up on the box with Johnnie Lade, before Letty got her claws in him. Paid the driver for an hour's use of the Mail Coach, and off we went. I threw my bonnet to some farmer standing on the side of the roadway, goggling at me, and let my hair fly free. I had black hair once,” she ended wistfully. “Masses of it.”

Morgan lifted one eyebrow but said nothing. He knew about Sir John Lade, and the man's wife, Lady Lade.
Crude, loud, but accepted everywhere, at least until their exploits became too much even for the more rough-and-tumble days of the last century. “Did he truly file down his front teeth so that he could whistle like a real coachie?”

“That was one of the talents it gave him,” Fanny said, and damn if the woman didn't wink at him—and damn if Morgan didn't feel his cheeks growing hot with embarrassment. This was Miss Clifford's “infirm” grandmother? “But that's neither here nor there, boy. Have you given us all our
congé?
”

“Your notice to quit the premises? I have, yes. Thornley is supervising the packing up of your belongings even as we speak,” Morgan said, putting up his guard, which he had lowered a fraction at the woman's outlandish bantering.

She held on to the arms of the chair as she stuck her legs out in front of her and looked at her own bare ankles, admired her own blue kid slippers like a well-pleased child. “We're not going, you know. Would you like to know why?”

“You have a receipt, you'd go to the gossip rags, your daughter-in-law is bosom chums with Sally Jersey. Yes, I know. But you're still going.”

Fanny shook her head, sadly, as if she actually might pity him, poor deluded fool that he was.

“Good ammunition, I'll grant you, as I gave it to her, but the girl was outgunned by your perversity, I'm sure.
Still, I'll give her credit for trying. But now it's my turn, so batten down the hatches, my lord.”

Morgan lifted his left eyebrow, amused in spite of himself. “You may fire when ready, madam.”

“Oh, I'm ready, son. Loaded, primed, and flint at the ready. You know, of course, that we're here to pop her off. Beautiful girl, you'll have to agree, even with her pitifully paltry dowry. Spirited, which she got from me. Good name, too. The Cliffords go back to the Conquest, which is more than many can say. Daphne, that's my featherwitted daughter-in-law, and I are quite set on gaining her a first-rate match, for the gel, of course, but a good marriage would feather our own nest in the long run, and the few feathers we have now are sadly in need of company. Are you on the lookout for a wife, by any chance? You'd do, you know.”

Morgan glared at her, his amusement gone, and said nothing. This was the frail old lady Emma Clifford had spoken of earlier? Ha! This woman was about as infirm as Alexander the Great in his prime.

“Yes, well, you don't have to answer now. We have the whole Season in front of us, don't we?”

“Not sharing this house, we don't,” Morgan told her, aware that he was beginning to sound, of all things, desperate.

Fanny ignored this. He might as well be talking to the wall. “Cliff, the idiot, is here to see how much trouble he can get himself into—we think he became a man the
other night, and about time, too. I'd begun to wonder about him, frankly. All that lace, and those red heels, you understand. In my time, the gentlemen wore satins with
élan,
but Cliff, for one, is too much the raw youth to carry it off.”

Morgan looked up at the ceiling. Maybe this was all a dream, a nightmare. He couldn't really be awake, and this outrageous old woman couldn't really be saying all these things to him.

She was still talking. “Discussing Mrs. Norbert is a waste of breath, as I'm sure you've already deduced, as you at least look bright, but she goes nowhere, so that's all right, and you won't budge her, not without a nasty fight. Sir Edgar? Something's going on there. I don't know what, not yet, but I'll find out. Still, he's old, and relatively harmless. Not at all like me.”

“You're not harmless?” Morgan asked, suppressing a grin in spite of himself. “I'm shocked, madam.”

“Ha! As my late husband might say, ain't you the card. Didn't protest that I'm not dead old, did you. But the thing is, I'm the one what's going to snare a good match for Emma. Would you like to know how?”

Morgan stood up. “Madam, I could not imagine any subject about which I would care less. You have fifty minutes before you are thrown out of my house.”

“I only need five,” Fanny said, unruffled. “Have you heard about Harriette Wilson, my lord, stuck out in the country the way you've been?”

Harriette Wilson? He'd heard. Oh, yes, he'd heard. One of his mother's friends had written to her last year, to say that the famed courtesan was threatening to pen her memoirs, naming names, ruining reputations, although an offer of money would conveniently erase her memory of the individuals who paid for that lapse. His mother's friend had been convinced the late marquis's name would come up somewhere between the covers. His mother had retired to her bed for two weeks, until he could convince her that no communications had arrived bearing Miss Wilson's demands.

“Go on,” he said, refilling his wineglass.

“You disappoint me, my lord. Do I really have to go explain this, as I would to a backward child? Oh, very well, if I must. Miss Wilson and her sister were common sorts even in their heyday, not at all upper drawer. But a lady of some quality—that would be me, son—who lets it be known to certain persons that she is anonymously penning
her
memoirs, also allowing it to be known that the application of a plea to not publish, followed by the promise of an introduction to grandsons, nephews, eligible, well-set-up young gentlemen in general, amends my memory quite nicely?”

“Blackmail? You're talking about blackmail.”

“An interesting idea, yes? In fact, the letters, complete with small hints meant to refresh faded memories, are already winging their way across Mayfair. I believe there must be a dozen breakfast tables that have suddenly gone
very quiet this morning. This should be a very busy place quite soon, my lord, with eager suitors underfoot.”

“I still don't see what any of this has to do with me.”

Except he did.

“Yes, you do. Would you like to know how your papa first came by the name Mad Harry?”

All right, so he could no longer pretend he didn't know what Mrs. Clifford had in mind. He knew a threat when he heard one. Wellington may have been rumored to have told Mrs. Wilson to “publish and be damned,” but Morgan would rather not go that route. He had his mother to consider.