Time's Fool

by Patricia Veryan

  Gwendolyn was very pale, but she managed to respond politely, then excused herself and left them.

  The two men looked at each other.

  Rossiter said, “Damn!”

  Limping along the hall, Gwendolyn’s mind was beginning to function again. The man Gideon was to meet was named Falcon. That must mean August Falcon. She felt cold with fear, but in another instant was raging. How unutterably silly gentlemen were! Here was Gideon, come home from the very jaws of death, and certainly aware of how much he was loved and needed. And instead of being grateful and behaving with some vestige of common sense, what must he do but at once challenge one of the most deadly duellists in all England! What a fool, that she had lovingly collected flowers, when she might better have cracked the vase over his idiotic head!

  There was no use appealing to him, of course. Or to Papa, or Newby. They were all afflicted by the same diseases: Masculinity. And that impregnable fortress against which tears, pleading, or common sense could not hope to prevail—the Code of Honour.

  * * *

  “’Elp! Murder!” Mr. Tummet dodged behind a gilded chair in the gracious entry hall of Falcon House, and flailed his tricorne at the snarling muzzle of the big black dog that strove to come at him.

  Two footmen ran up. One called, “Here, Apollo! Nice doggie!”

  The monster turned, showing an impressive expanse of bared teeth, and the footman jumped back.

  His companion said, “I’ll fetch Mr. Falcon. Just try not to upset him, mate.”

  “Upset ’im?” cried Tummet. “I’d like to—Get away you ’ound of ’ell!”

  Apparently annoyed by this appellation, Apollo charged in, barking so that the prisms rattled in the great central chandelier.

  Tummet resorted to his tricorne.

  So did Apollo.

  “Leggo, ’orrid ’ound,” demanded Tummet, hanging on and heaving. “Look what yer doing to me titfer-tat!”

  “What the devil…? Apollo! Back, sir! Back!”

  Mr. August Falcon stalked across the hall, and the dog gamboled to meet him, shaking Mr. Tummet’s tricorne, and growling with the air of a puppy who was only playing.

  Falcon appropriated the hat, and when the dog jumped up after it, he struck the animal lightly on the nose with the palm of his hand. “My apologies,” he said crisply, restoring the tricorne to its owner. “My dog is not allowed in this part of the house.”

  Tummet eyed the wreckage sadly. “Pity ’e don’t know it. I ’spect you think I should be grateful ’e only et me ’at, and not me leg bone, what ’e tried to digest last time I come ’ere.”

  Falcon shrugged. “One might think you would learn by experience and keep away.”

  “Brung a lady, I did, mate.”

  “I did—what?” rasped Falcon.

  “’Ow do I know what you did?”

  Falcon’s black brows met over the bridge of his nose. “Impudent dolt! You may call me—‘sir.’ Not—‘mate’!”

  “Ar,” said Tummet with his villainous grin. “’E don’t like it neither. Me employer. Cap’n Gideon Rossiter. I’m ’is valet. Sir. You going to buy me a new titfer-tat?”

  The dark blue eyes widened and irascibility gave way to wonderment. “Valet…? I do not believe—Yes, I do, by Jove. Is typical of Rossiter, be damned if it—What the devil is a titfer-tat?”

  “A ’at, mate. A dicer. Cor! You Quality coves don’t know yer own language! And what abaht the lady?”

  Falcon’s eyes had become somewhat glassy. Making a recover, he said, “My butler will pay for your—er, dicer. However, you have wasted your time, and shall have to take the lady home again. Miss Falcon was out late last night, and will not receive callers today.”

  “She ain’t come to see Miss Falcon. Come to see you, ma—er, sir. Which you’d know if you ’ad servants what was trained proper.”

  A footman approached, eyeing Apollo warily. “A lady has called to see you, sir.” He proffered a salver with a calling card on it, then jumped back as the dog looked at him.

  Still enthralled by Tummet, Falcon said, “Fool. You know the dog won’t hurt you.” He glanced at the card and his brows lifted. “A single lady?”

  “Miss Rossiter ’as got something of great import to discuss,” said Tummet. “I knows what it is, but it ain’t no use offering me bribes and rewards. I ain’t gonna say nothing ’bout it. ’Twixt you and ’er, it is.”

  This speech left the footman’s jaw dangling and his eyes wide with shock.

  His own eyes holding a rare twinkle, Falcon started off, the great dog at his heels. “Where have you put her?” he called over his shoulder.

  The footman gulped, “In—in the book room, sir.”

  Entering that well-appointed chamber, and sternly relegating Apollo to the desolation of the hall, Falcon expected to find Miss Rossiter perched nervously on the edge of a chair. Although she must be aware that it was most decidedly improper for a lady to call on a bachelor, this particular lady, however, was not perched on a chair, nor did she appear nervous. Small and with a look of fine-boned fragility, she stood before a bookcase, examining a volume which she replaced, turning to face him as he closed the door.

  He eyed her disinterestedly. There was nothing to distinguish her, aside from the fact that her frank and unmaidenly stare was disconcerting. Her unpowdered hair was a very light brown, drawn back from a rather thin face to fall in curls behind her head. She had Rossiter’s well-shaped sensitive mouth, and high forehead, but her eyes, which he thought fairly good, were blue rather than grey. ‘Dull,’ he thought, ‘and with neither looks nor charm.’ He drawled, “You wished to see me, ma’am?”

  Aware that she had been judged and found wanting, Gwendolyn smiled. “If we are to dispense with introductions, may I sit down?”

  He had been dealt a scold. Falcon’s mouth tightened. He said with cold hauteur, “My apologies. I am August Falcon.”

  “Oh, yes. I was in no doubt, you know. ’Tis just that one is supposed to be polite.”

  At this, he gave her a sharp look, but her expression was so innocent that he decided she was naive rather than sarcastic. He bowed her to a large armchair. “Pray be seated, ma’am.”

  Her limp surprised him. He looked away at once, but she had seen the startled glance, and asked easily, “Did you not know I am lame?”

  “No.” Again, she had put him offstride. Irritated, he said, “You apparently know more about me than I know about you, Miss Rossiter.”

  “Well, you’re famous, aren’t you. I mean, everyone talks about you. I was quite looking forward to making your acquaintance.”

  He thought, ‘Good God! She’s candid enough!’ and said with an unpleasant sneer, “I trust you are not disappointed, madam.”

  Gwendolyn scanned him thoughtfully.

  She should have shown him shyly lowered lashes, and a faint blush, and have wallowed in a tangle of apology and confusion. Her obviously judicial scrutiny was the outside of enough! After a good twenty seconds had dragged by, he enquired, “Would you wish that I turn my head?”

  Outside, Apollo gave vent to a long and ear-splitting howl. Waiting until it ceased, “Yes, if you please,” said Gwendolyn sunnily. “To the right.”

  Dumbfounded, he gawked at her guileless smile. “Now—’pon my soul, madam! You must have some presumably sensible reason for calling?”

  “Oh, dear. Have I been rude? I suppose I should have said I am not at all disappointed, and that you are just as handsome as I was told.” She blinked as his frown diminished. “Only I am not very good at making insincere remarks,” she added. “Any more than are you.”

  He looked at her as from a great height and murmured, “Indeed? Perhaps you will be so good as to explain my offense.”

  “There is none. The fact that you refrain from uttering foolish platitudes is not offensive to me.” Seldom at a loss for words, this left him looking so nonplussed that she appended kindly, “Usually, when people notice I am lame, they say they are sorry. You
did not.”

  Apollo was howling again. Irritated on two counts, Falcon snapped, “Why should I be sorry? I do not know you, and you do not seem thrown into the dismals by your affliction.”

  “Very honest. And, however well meant, spurious sympathy is so provoking and usually spoken more to impress one with the good nature of the speaker, than with a genuine interest and concern. As for my feelings—I should like not to be lame, of course. But I always have been so, and am accustomed to it. After all, ’twould be very much worse an I was suffering, as so many poor souls do. Only…”—briefly, her eyes were very sad—“I should like to have had children.” Looking up, smiling, she said, “Ah, I am boring you.”

  Straightening the ruffles at his wrist he answered crushingly, “I expect you will eventually tell me why you came.”

  Uncrushed, she said, “’Tis simply that I would be very grateful if you would please not fight my brother with pistols. Oh, I apprehend that ladies are not supposed to know about such things as duels. But I do know. And I do not want Gideon to be killed. He has only just come home.”

  “Jupiter, madam! This is most improper! And at all events,” Falcon raised his voice so as to be heard over the grieving hound, “Rossiter had choice of weapons. Not me.”

  “That should be ‘not I,’” she corrected kindly. “But if Gideon chose pistols, he is very silly, for they are horrid, deadly things, whereas—”

  Bored, he stood. “Be at ease, ma’am. Your brother chose swords.” His eyes glinted maliciously. “Which will avail him nothing.”

  “Oh dear! Are you very good?”

  He bowed. “Now, if that is all—”

  “Is not all! I don’t want him killed with a sword, either!”

  “Would you suggest we fight with feather dusters, Miss Rossiter?”

  “I would suggest you do not fight with anything! ’Tis a very silly custom to have prevailed into modern times, and typifies the male predilection for dramatic displays that solve nothing! You never see ladies behaving in such nonsensical fashion.”

  She was really incensed. Amused in spite of himself, he argued, “In point of fact, women have gone out! Only—”

  “Oh, fiddle! You split hairs, Mr. Falcon. And ’tis most difficult for me to talk to you with your dog howling like that. Can you not keep him quiet?”

  “Alas, I am a perpetual disappointment. Apollo wishes to come in. And since you are leaving—”

  “Then let him in,” she said, opening her eyes at him.

  He hesitated. He really shouldn’t, but this ill-mannered, opinionated chit deserved a lesson, and it would certainly get rid of her. “As you wish,” he murmured suavely, and went over to open the door.

  A black tornado raced into the room, pounced around his master twice causing the floors to shake, then saw Gwendolyn. The hair stood up across his shoulders. Growling menacingly, he crouched.

  “Behave,” said Gwendolyn sternly.

  Apollo did not intend to bite her badly. But she must be made to leave his house. With all his teeth in full view, he started for her.

  Falcon, who had watched with covert amusement, sprang, but missed, and Apollo lunged at the slender girl.

  Gwendolyn had kept her cane as inconspicuous as possible, but now she raised it and said one magical word. “Fetch!”

  Apollo’s ears went up and his hair went down. Tail wagging, he panted with eager expectation.

  “Hey!” cried Falcon.

  Gwendolyn was already tossing the cane. Apollo plunged after it, sending his advancing master reeling. A table crashed into the chair Falcon clutched at, and he sat on the floor hard and without elegance amid the wreckage of the Chinese vase that had gone down with the table.

  The cane retrieved, Apollo rushed back to offer it again, his tongue lolling happily.

  Gwendolyn looked at the momentarily speechless Falcon, and smiled. “He does love a game, doesn’t he?” she said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Gideon stood very erect in the centre of the withdrawing room and waited out the storm. Sir Mark had cut him off each time he attempted to speak, and now stamped up and down, raging, and flinging his arms about. Elegant in shades of gold, Newby leaned against a credenza, a faint smile on his lips as he toyed with a lady’s jewelled high-heeled slipper. Gideon tried to concentrate on the intriguing slipper, which looked vaguely familiar, but his father’s strident tones could not be shut out.

  “… a sad disappointment to a man when his son and heir is so insolent as to disregard his wishes! I warned you, and you cared not, but have in your sublime arrogance shamed me by agreeing to escort that baggage to the Glendenning Ball! Well—”

  “Your pardon, sir. I escort the Lady Naomi Lutonville who, whatever else, is not a baggage!”

  Gideon’s eyes were grey ice, and in his voice a note never before heard by Sir Mark, who stared, briefly taken aback.

  “Hoity-toity,” murmured Newby.

  “And I tell you, sir,” thundered Sir Mark, his face purpling, “that Naomi Lutonville is a baggage! With the instincts of a baggage, and a traitorous ingrate for a father! And I’ll not have you seen with her! You hear me?”

  It was probable that all the residents of Snow Hill could hear him this morning. It took every ounce of Gideon’s willpower to suppress his rising temper, but Sir Mark’s eyes had a hunted look, and the high colour of his drawn features attested to the state of his nerves. Therefore, he tightened his lips and evaded. “Pray tell me what it is you wish me to do, sir.”

  Newby gave an amused snort. “You know blasted well what my father wishes you to do. Go elsewhere tonight. And go alone.”

  Gideon eyed him coldly. “Very gentlemanly, ’pon my word.”

  “You should have returned her damned flowers at once,” snarled Sir Mark.

  “I attempted to do so.”

  Newby said with a flourish of the shoe, “But the great lady, out of her passion for you—and in despite your shabby treatment of her—implored you to be her escort!” He gave his mocking laugh. “And so buzzes the bee!”

  “Had my lady taken back her flowers,” replied Gideon, “all London would have said she was justified in rejecting a Rossiter. She knew that, and was sufficiently gracious to spare me humiliation, and hold to her given word.”

  Sir Mark scowled. “You give the chit more credit than do I. Even so, ’twill not serve. You will send around a note before lunch, claiming that you are ill.”

  “My regrets, sir. I cannot.”

  “Hell and damnation! Do you dare defy me in mine own—”

  “I have been warned not to escort her, sir.”

  The steely words cut through Sir Mark’s rage, and he echoed, staring, “Warned, you say?”

  “By whom?” asked Newby, with a bored look. “The Mandarin? I heard he is ill, so you’ve no immediate cause to fear being challenged by him, brother.”

  “Especially since we are already engaged to meet.”

  “You—what?” roared Sir Mark. “More notoriety? Why a’God’s name did he call you out?”

  “I chanced to half-strangle him because of certain remarks he made.”

  For once shaken from his affectation, Newby gasped, “You attacked—Falcon? You must have been properly wits to let! Or foxed!”

  Gideon shrugged. “I’ll own to having been a little provoked.”

  A gleam had crept into Sir Mark’s eyes. “When you first came home, you said you’d not known of my troubles until you disembarked. Who told you? Falcon?”

  “With neither tact nor diplomacy.”

  “Vraiment. He lacks either attribute. Then, he was the one warned you not to escort Lady Naomi?”

  Gideon hesitated, then drew a crumpled paper from his pocket. “This was delivered by a street urchin this morning, sir.”

  Sir Mark took it, and read aloud, “These to Captain Gideon Rossiter: London has not forgot how to deal with men of dishonour. If you wish to live to dwell with your father in Newgate, you will not force Lady Lutonville to
endure the shame of your escort. You will instead return what you stole. Be warned. Keep away from the Glendenning Ball.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Newby clicked his tongue. “Stealing? A harsh word, twin. Do tell us what you have purloined.”

  “I’ve not the remotest notion. I can only think that either something I bought in the Low Countries was of greater value than I believed, or that someone mistakes me for another.”

  Sir Mark said heavily, “Pah! ’Tis so much fustian, designed to cloud the real issue. But in the face of such threats a gentleman has no choice. Tell Wilson at what time you wish the carriage to be brought round, Gideon.”

  “Thank you, sir. But since you now keep just the one coach I’ll not deprive you of it. My man will hire a carriage.”

  Sir Mark nodded, and walked out. At the door, he turned back, a weariness in his eyes. “Have a care, boy. Likely some enemy seeks to avenge himself on me by striking at you.”

  Touched, Gideon said with a grin, “Never worry, sir. I survived the war. I fancy I’ll live through the peace.”

  Newby straightened as Sir Mark walked into the hall and out of earshot. “Clever of you,” he murmured, “to chance to stand in exactly the right place to catch the fair lady’s bouquet. Or was it contrived, perhaps? A way for you and she to—ah, frolic in some secluded ante room and outwit my poor dense dolt of a sire?”

  He recoiled abruptly, his sneer fading into consternation as Gideon turned his dark head. The eyes were narrowed, the mouth a thin line and there was a set to the jaw that Newby had for a time forgotten.

  “I strive to hold my temper with you,” said Gideon very softly, “because despite your spite and sniping, my father is fond of you. And because you are kind to Gwen.” His hand shot out and clamped about Newby’s wrist. “But I warn you, spread any more of your slander about me, or about Lady Lutonville, and I shall indulge my natural instincts and give you the thrashing you warrant.”

  “You do not know ’twas me.” Newby’s eyes were frightened. “Curse you, you are tearing my laces!” He swung up the slipper menacingly. “Stay back!”