Cupid's Dart

by Maggie MacKeever

  Sarah-Louise hoped the trees that crowded into Peregrine's carriage would leave room for her and Lump. "Very well, sir. You may take us home. I daresay you will know how to find my aunt's house."

  Certainly, Peregrine could have found his way to Lady Denham's house, did he intend to go there, which he did not. Gallantly, he assisted Miss Inchquist into his curricle, and wedged her less-than-eager canine companion in after her, and behind them closed the door.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Mr. Sutton was indeed furthering his acquaintance with Lady Georgiana, although not in the manner Miss Inchquist had hoped. Georgie returned home with Andrew's medicine to find her little household turned upon its ear. Tibble met her in the hallway. His wig had by this time slid to the back of his head. "There's the right devil to pay, Miss Georgie!" he announced, and pointed a trembling finger toward the drawing room.

  Georgie could not think what to make of this cryptic remark. She pulled off her bonnet and hurried into her drawing room, where she found Carlisle Sutton pacing the chamber like a caged beast, and Andrew stretched out on the sofa with a cloth over his face.

  Suspecting the worst, Georgie dropped her bonnet and the medicine, and hurried to his side. "Andrew!" she cried. "What has happened to him, Mr. Sutton? Has the doctor been sent for?"

  Carlisle Sutton scowled at the lady whom he had once admired, and who was now revealed as having played the concave-suit. "The devil with the doctor. I should call in the magistrates instead."

  Why should Carlisle Sutton be threatening to call the magistrates when it was Magnus Eliot whom Andrew had attempted to rob? Georgie felt her brother's brow, which was surprisingly cool. When she lifted the damp cloth from his face, Andrew grimaced. "He saw Marigold."

  "Damned right I saw her." Mr. Sutton looked around the room. "And I don't see her now. Where has the little baggage gone?"

  Andrew reclaimed the damp cloth, and draped it across his brow. "How should I know? She flew out of here as if the hounds of hell was in pursuit."

  Marigold might well have preferred the hounds of hell to Carlisle Sutton. Georgie would herself. She turned to face her irate visitor. "So you have found us out. Truly, it was not my intention to deceive you, Mr. Sutton. When we first met, I had no idea of your connexion with my friend. And by the time I realized it—" Helplessly, Georgie shrugged. "There was little I could do except hope matters would somehow resolve themselves."

  Matters would resolve themselves. Carlisle would see to that. "Spare me another of your Canterbury stories! And tell me where you have the Norwood Emerald hid."

  Scant wonder Andrew was playing possum. Georgie wished she might do so herself. "I do not recall that I ever told you a bouncer," she protested. "As for the ah, emerald, I have never seen the horrid thing. Nor do I wish to! Is there anything else you wish to ask me before you take your leave?"

  Carlisle had no intention of departing before he got what he had come for, although in this particular moment he could not have said precisely what that was. In demonstration of his intention, he sat down in a striped chair. "I am staying right here until you tell me where you've hid Miss Macclesfield."

  "Miss Macclesfield?" Georgie echoed blankly, for she had never heard Marigold's stage name. "I do not think I know a Miss Macclesfield, sir."

  Mr. Sutton could sit still no longer. He leapt to his feet. "As you never saw that wretched dog? Just how the devil did you steal him out of that tack room?"

  "I have stolen nothing and no one!" Georgie was losing patience with her ill-mannered guest. Reminded of her pet, because she wished he might bite her visitor, she looked around the drawing room. "Where is Lump?"

  "Run off," said Andrew, from beneath his shroud. "Like Miss Inchquist and Marigold."

  That Marigold had run off didn't surprise Georgie. Or Lump. "What has Miss Inchquist to do with anything? I thought it was a Miss Macclesfield— Heavens! Do you mean Marigold? Miss Macclesfield, I mean, not Miss Inchquist."

  So well did Lady Georgiana play the ingénue that perhaps she should go upon the stage. But Miss Macclesfield had not been Carlisle's only reason for returning to this house. "Sarah-Louise has not come back here?" he said, frowning. "Or that blasted dog?"

  In the doorway, Tibble cleared his throat. Beside him stood a short and portly gentleman clad in a somber fashion and wearing a tremendous scowl. "Beg pardon," Tibble said. "Mister— What did you tell me was your name?"

  "Inchquist! Quentin Inchquist!" Quentin pushed the butler aside. "I heard what you people was saying. What's this about my girl? I must tell you that I know Sarah-Louise has been sneaking off to meet that twiddlepoop, abetted by the residents of this house."

  This was Sarah-Louise's papa? No wonder the girl was so timorous. "I have just returned home myself and know nothing of this matter," murmured Georgie. "Someone else will have to explain."

  "Seven hundred men fell at Cuidad Rodrigo," volunteered Andrew, from beneath his damp cloth. "At Badajoz, nearly five thousand died. One regiment lay dead in their ranks as they had stood. Fuentes, Almeida, Albura. Combra." His voice trailed off.

  Georgie was fairly certain that her brother was shamming it. "Now see what you have done!" she said, and sat down beside him on the couch.

  Mr. Inchquist was not easily bamboozled. He stepped closer to the sofa. "Is this the military gentleman my sister was talking about?"

  Heaven only knew what Lady Denham had said. "Perhaps we should introduce ourselves," Georgie suggested, and did so. "Over there by the fireplace is Mr. Carlisle Sutton. No doubt Lady Denham also mentioned him to you."

  Quentin was briefly distracted from the Hallidays. He scowled at Carlisle Sutton instead. Damned if the fellow didn't look like a barbarian, with that long hair and dark skin. "I hear you have a partiality for my girl. Don't mind telling you that I am not yet convinced that you'll do!" he said.

  Was there no end to Lady Denham's conniving? Carlisle cast a somewhat spiteful glance at the Hallidays. "Witness me crushed. Anyway, from all that I can see, your daughter is in the process of developing a marked preference for someone else."

  "Aye, and don't I know it!" Quentin ran a hand through his thinning hair. "A mincing Jack-a-dandy whose pockets are to let. Sarah-Louise is a considerable heiress. That blasted fortune hunter was why I packed her off to Brighton. Now I find out he followed her here." He moved closer to the sofa. "You must know Teasdale, Lady Georgiana. Amice said your brother brought him to her house."

  No wonder Andrew was hiding beneath his handkerchief. Georgie entertained some very uncharitable thoughts. "I don't believe I was ever properly introduced to the gentleman. Are you certain that he is interested only in your daughter's fortune, sir?"

  Mr. Inchquist was damned certain. "Teasdale was in Queer Street when this business first began. By now the gull-gropers will also have got their talons fast in him." He turned to Carlisle Sutton. "Thought I heard you say you brought Sarah-Louise here. Where is she, then?" He looked back at Georgie. "Have you got her hidden away somewhere? What the devil is going on?"

  Georgie couldn't answer that question. "Mr. Inchquist, I truly wish I knew."

  Carlisle could not stand still. He began to pace the floor. "I did bring Sarah-Louise here, and then I lost her. The last I saw she was chasing that wretched hound."

  The last Andrew had seen of Carlisle Sutton, Lump had been chasing him. Curiosity prompted Andrew to peer out from beneath his damp cloth. "How did you get away from Lump?"

  Mr. Sutton's expression was sheepish, his person disheveled. "I climbed a tree," he confessed.

  Mr. Inchquist was interested in none of this. He looked as though his temper might explode. Andrew forestalled the outburst by saying, "It was Sarah-Louise who introduced Teasdale to me. She begged me to help them. It wouldn't have been gentlemanly in me to refuse. Beside, she said Lady Denham was a Gorgon, which she is, and I'd no reason to doubt that Teasdale wasn't also everything she claimed. Until I met him, that is, and then I just thought he was a poetical rasher
-of-wind."

  Georgie didn't like her brother's pallor. She dampened the cloth and placed it again upon his brow. "Please, gentlemen. You must see that my brother is ill. It was perhaps remiss in him to go along with your daughter's charade, Mr. Inchquist, but I'm sure he meant it for the best."

  Andrew wasn't sure how he had meant it, but it was clear that he'd been paper-skulled. Now that he realized Miss Inchquist was an heiress, and that her poet was on the dangle for a fortune, a great many things were explained. Peregrine Teasdale was hardly the first young man to attempt to marry a rich heiress. Andrew should probably have been hanging out for one himself. But only the most beggarly of louts would take advantage of an innocent like Miss Inchquist.

  "Most extraordinary!" said Mr. Inchquist, in tones that were almost admiring. "Never did I think my girl would have the brass to pull such a sly trick."

  "Ahem!" Tibble appeared again in the doorway. Behind him hovered a slender, bespectacled young man. "Mr. Brown," announced Tibble, then glanced at the visitor. "Did I get it right?"

  "Right as a trivet!" said the newcomer, comfortingly, then stepped into the room. "Pardon my intrusion, but I have come in search of—" His gaze fell upon Carlisle, and he blanched. "Mr. Sutton, sir!" he gasped.

  Carlisle knew perfectly well why his uncle's man of business had come here, and it hadn't been in search of him. "You tracked the Jezebel to this house."

  Mr. Brown, thought Georgie, looked as though he wished to sink right through the floor. She could sympathize with the young man. "I was going to tell you," said Mr. Brown. "Truly I was, sir."

  "Right!" retorted Carlisle. "After you told her. Why is it that every man who meets that little vixen loses all common sense?" The exception, of course, being himself. "I arrived at the same conclusion before you, Mr. Brown, but the chicken appears to have flown the coop."

  Janie appeared in the doorway, and elbowed Tibble aside. She carried a cup of restorative apple tea sweetened with honey and liberally laced with brandy, courtesy of Agatha, who thought that Andrew might need reviving, and also wished a clearer account than Tibble could deliver of what the deuce was going on.

  Conversation halted as Janie walked across the room. "Thank you," Georgie said, as she took the cup. Janie turned to leave in the same moment as Mr. Brown removed his spectacles to polish the fogged lens. Janie saw a pleasant-faced young man who looked as though he would never keep a damsel on the dangle, or whisper the same sweet nothings in her ear as he did a number of other young women, unlike a certain footman that she knew. In his turn, Mr. Brown saw a brown-haired, snub-nosed angel with—due to his myopia—a halo around her head. "Cor!" said Janie. Mr. Brown swallowed hard.

  Because he had a damp cloth across his eyes, Andrew alone remained unaware that, smack in the middle of the drawing room, Cupid had let his arrow fly. Andrew was in a quandary, because he had made it possible for Miss Inchquist's poet to come calling, and could not now abandon her to her fate. "Never mind Marigold. She can take care of herself," he said, and then realized the absurdity of his remark. "Marigold can take care of herself better than Miss Inchquist, at any rate. Have none of you thought that Sarah-Louise is out there in the streets somewhere, alone unless she has found Lump? Somewhere out there also is Mr. Teasdale, who you say is a fortune hunter, and unless I very much mistake the matter, because Sutton here wouldn't do such a cravenly thing—I think!—Teasdale has been pressing Sarah-Louise to elope."

  Reaction to this announcement varied. Mr. Sutton and Mr. Inchquist looked at one another, then hurried together out the door. Mr. Brown and Janie tarried longer, exchanging such mundane information as their names. Andrew cursed because his injured leg would not allow him to join the rescue mission. Georgie stared at the cup that she held, and drank the brew straight down.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Lord Warwick returned from a bracing horseback ride along Brighton's white cliffs to be informed by his butler that a visitor awaited him in the peach salon. Because the butler was even-more-than-usually impassive, Garth concluded that his visitor was not quite the thing. Curious, he divested himself of top hat and gloves and riding crop, and proceeded down the hallway.

  The peach salon was called so for very good reason; that color predominated in wall hangings, furnishings, and rugs. It was not a color that flattered the sole occupant of the chamber, who was pacing about in so energetic a manner that, if not interrupted, she might well wear a pathway around the perimeters of the room. Lord Warwick moved quickly toward her. "Georgie," he said, in some surprise.

  Lady Georgiana paused in her perambulations. "Don't dare mention my reputation! Or remonstrate with me for coming here. I already know that I must come under the gravest censure for visiting the quarters of any gentleman, let alone one to whose name a disagreeable stigma is attached, and that my conduct must give rise to just the sort of scandal-broth which must be abhorred." Lord Warwick had reached her side, and she looked up at him. "Have I got it right? I wished you to know that I am perfectly conversant with the civilities."

  Georgie was still determined to quarrel with him, it seemed. So much so that she risked her reputation by coming to his quarters. "I might have said," Garth admitted, "something of the sort."

  "Excellent!" Georgie pushed her tangled hair out of her face. "Then I have saved you working yourself into a fidget by saying it first."

  Lady Georgiana was disheveled, flushed, her blond curls all a-blowze. Garth thought she had never looked lovelier. "My dear, what is it?" he said gently. "Is your brother worse?"

  At this kindness, Georgie blinked back tears. "No, not Andrew, but everybody else. You told me once that I should come to you if I was in trouble, Garth. Well, I am in trouble. Unless you can help me, we shall be truly in the suds. Things are in such a muddle that I do not know where to begin."

  Garth disliked to see Georgie so pulled-about. He took her hands in his. "You have decided to go back on your word."

  Georgie wrinkled her pretty nose. "I wish you would not phrase it in quite that manner. Anyway, I do not see that I have a choice. If anyone can straighten out this tangle, it is you."

  Lord Warwick smiled at her. "I appreciate your vote of confidence, I think. Do go on, my dear."

  Here was the telling moment. Georgie screwed up her courage. "No," she said.

  "No?" Garth echoed, startled.

  "No," Georgie repeated, firmly. "I wish that you would kiss me first. We are not at odds at the moment, and I wish to savor the sensation, because I fear that we soon shall be again."

  Georgie was acting most unlike herself. Was that brandy Garth smelled on her breath? "Georgie, have you been drinking?" he inquired.

  Now that Lord Warwick mentioned it, Georgie did feel a little odd. "I didn't mean to, but I may have done. Agatha made a tisane for Andrew, and I swallowed it instead. Please, Garth, I do wish that you would kiss me—but only providing that afterward you do not run away."

  "Run away?" Lord Warwick caught Georgie by her shoulders. "Is that what you think, that I have run away from you?"

  Georgie fought back tears. It was the fault of Agatha's potion that she was grown so weepy, she told herself. "You kiss me, then you say you shouldn't, and then you play least-in-sight. After the last time you kissed me, you went out of town."

  Georgie looked altogether adorable, with her reddened nose and tear-filled eyes and wildly tangled hair. Lord Warwick told himself it would be unwise to smile. "My dear," he murmured, "what do you think brought me to Brighton in the first place?"

  Georgie blinked. "I do not know. I thought perhaps it was because Prinny was in Brighton. Or that it had something to do with Catherine."

  "Nothing of the sort." Garth rested his hand against her cheek. "Prinny's presence was an influence, but I had learned that you were here. I would have gotten up the courage to call on you, Georgie, had we not first collided on the beach."

  Georgie was speechless. Or almost. "Me?" she whispered. "Oh, Garth!" And then, because she looked so ador
able, and because he was so very tired of being honourable, and because both were so overwhelmed by their mutual admissions, an interval of kissing ensued. When that interval concluded, Lord Warwick was seated on a peach-colored sofa, with Georgie on his lap. "Before we forget ourselves altogether," he murmured, "I think you should tell me about this coil you wish me to untangle."

  Georgie sighed, and removed herself from Lord Warwick's lap, lest in reaction to the tale she was about to tell him, he dump her on the floor. "Did you know that Carlisle Sutton was acquainted with Catherine?" she asked. "He was asking me a great many questions about you, and her. I had the impression that he knew Catherine fairly well."

  Carlisle Sutton and Catherine? Garth was intrigued. Not as intrigued as he was jealous of Georgie's own association with the man, which was unworthy of him, because Garth did not imagine that Georgie had sat on Carlisle Sutton's lap. "Continue," he said.

  "Mr. Sutton has found out that we sheltered Marigold, and is very angry." Georgie resumed her pacing around the room. "He also offered her a slip on the shoulder, and so she is very angry with him. Lump is lost, and Miss Inchquist, and Andrew has hurt his leg—" She burst into tears.

  Garth could not bear to see Georgie cry. As a result, she found herself back in his lap. "You said Catherine developed a partiality for another gentleman? Could it have been Carlisle Sutton?" she asked, when she was done sniffling.

  "Doubtful," retorted Garth, as he mopped her face with his handkerchief. "A man like Sutton would not have danced long to Catherine's tune. Tell me something, Georgia, just who are you embroidering those damned slippers for?"

  Slippers? Whether due to Lord Warwick's proximity, or Agatha's potion, Georgie couldn't think. "Oh! Andrew, of course."

  There was one burning question answered. "And why are you estranged from your family?" Garth inquired.