“And who the devil do you think you are, Montague, to claim my sister without my permission?” Harold demanded. “I will not see her naïveté taken advantage of!”
“Quite generous of you, I’m sure,” Mr. Montague answered with ominous affability. Without further warning, he forcibly twisted the viscount’s good arm behind his back in a move so swift, Jocelyn could not quite follow how he did it. “But I do not believe Miss Carrington has requested your aid.”
She admired the fierce gleam in her intended’s eyes as he defended her against dragons. Poor Harold was a reptile but scarcely a dragon. Still, she appreciated his effort.
Mr. Montague hauled Harold over to the window seat. “Miss Carrington, do you wish to have your brother view the settlements?”
She didn’t think anyone had ever asked for her opinion. Every person in the room watched her to see how the drama played out. Since Richard’s guardianship papers were secure with a solicitor, she had no more to fear from her bully of a brother. It would be lovely to have revenge for all his depredations, but probably not wise.
“Don’t let this cradle-robbing, money-hungry poltroon rob you of your inheritance!” Harold protested.
“Cradle-robbing?” Jocelyn tilted her head. “Just how old do you think I am, Harold? Or perhaps you think time stands still outside the city, so I must still be the age I was when you threw me out of my home?”
“I could not let my wife live in a house full of loose screws!” he protested. “You were barely out of the schoolroom then.”
She had been seventeen and prepared for her formal come-out. She’d been a young woman grieving her father’s death, but scarcely a schoolroom miss. And Antoinette was an actress who had lived with the worst sorts of people, those far less conventional than any Byrd-Carrington. Although it strained her practiced nonchalance, Jocelyn refrained from shouting, Balderdash!
Mr. Montague growled something irascible that made Harold blanch. Or perhaps her warrior jerked harder on the arm he was twisting. “As much as everyone is enjoying this spectacle, I’d prefer that you simply tell me what I should do about him.”
“I’d rather not consider the viscount at all,” Jocelyn said in what she hoped was a bored tone that did not reveal how much she despised her father’s heir. A lifetime spent hiding what she thought gave credibility to her act. “I trust hired solicitors more than I do him.”
“Jocelyn, that is ridiculous!” the viscount sputtered. “I should have been consulted about these proceedings. You have no idea what manner of disreputable scoundrel you are marrying. I must file my objections. Lady Belden, surely you—”
Before Harold could annoy the marchioness with his appeal, Mr. Montague marched him toward the door. Jocelyn did her best not to gape. Harold might be of medium height, but he was heavy. Even so, she wasn’t at all certain that under Mr. Montague’s encouragement Harold’s feet so much as touched the carpet.
Her betrothed flung the fuming viscount into the arms of a strong young footman, then shut the door and turned the key in the lock. Jocelyn waited for the audience to stand up, applaud, and cheer so she might do the same.
Lady Belden merely nodded and turned back to the solicitors. “Please return to your seats, gentlemen, and let us finish our business.”
Mr. Montague came to stand beside Jocelyn as if he had done no more than call for tea. Really, life lacked the climactic drama of a good play.
“I rather think I shall enjoy having a soldier for a husband,” she said thoughtfully, still stunned by the encounter. For years, she’d dreamed of flinging Harold off parapets, and Mr. Montague had nearly fulfilled her fantasy. “Could you drive him out at the point of a sword next time?”
“Blowhards and bullies are not worth the trouble,” her gallant knight said dismissively.
She’d accept this as a sign that Mr. Montague would protect her and hers, even after he learned of her deception. She would do her very best to make it up to him at the first opportunity.
It was time to stop fretting and move forward. “If you do not mind, I shall ask the solicitors to keep my dowry in my control until your father’s terms are met and we know the house is ours. Then we both will have what we need.”
He bowed. “You have made me a happy man, Miss Carrington.”
Blake paced the cluttered floor of his narrow rooms, rereading the settlements he’d finally agreed to sign, against his better judgment.
Although he and Miss Carrington were free to live in Carrington House, his father’s attorneys had insisted that the deed would not be signed over to him unless Blake was still alive in one year. Given the law’s reluctance to acknowledge that women had the ability to handle their own fortunes, that did not leave Miss Carrington’s side much room for negotiation.
Lady Belden’s attorneys had eventually quit arguing with his father’s over the control of Miss Carrington’s fortune. Instead, they had inserted a devilish clause preventing his spending any of his bride’s dowry for purposes that might lead to his wife losing her home.
He could legally fritter away her fortune on gambling, but he must have his wife’s permission to buy colors—since going to war might lead to his death, thus leading to the loss of Carrington House. His father’s stubbornness was the real problem here.
Should he annoy his bride into giving him permission? He had a far better chance of that than sweettalking her into it.
Now that the banns had been placed, he had no choice. Blake sighed and flung the papers to his desk.
A ferocious squawking interspersed with cries of “Roger the wench!” echoed from the stairwell, and Blake groaned. Since he’d encountered Miss Carrington, his well-ordered life had turned into a Punch and Judy show. Had her half brother been half a man, the viscount would be pounding on the door by now, demanding satisfaction for his earlier insult. Instead, Blake was cursed by birds.
The messenger carrying the box swore along with the parrot all the way up the narrow staircase. Blake let the man into his small rooms after verifying there were no stray andirons lying about.
The landlady had been bewildered over how her parlor piece had ended up on his landing, causing his tumultuous fall. Unless he wished to believe Carrington meant to kill him to prevent his sister’s marriage, Blake had to blame the andiron on his landlady’s absentmindedness.
He had no evidence that Ogilvie was stupid enough to murder him over a purloined parrot. And surely the nodcock had no notion of putting Blake out of the competition for Miss Carrington’s hand by crippling him for life. Although Blake twitched uncomfortably remembering Quent’s report of the conversation between Ogilvie and the viscount. The duke had apparently promised torture if the bird was lost.
“The earl says as how you’ll need to take the bird back,” the footman said, scowling at the shrieking package and handing over a note.
Blake searched his pockets, then among the litter of paper on his desk, until he found a coin to hand the man. It was scarce fair recompense for being cursed at during the journey from Sussex to London. “Have a tankard at the tavern on the corner and put it on my tab,” he told the messenger. “It’s the least I can do.”
The footman tapped his hat and departed, leaving Percy screeching, “All dicks on deck! Avast ye mateys, it’s mutiny.”
Blake unfolded Fitz’s note and read, Sorry, old chap. Abby just figured out what the song meant after Jeremy called his sister a cunny, not a bunny. Did you know the creature speaks French? Heard you’re owed congratulations. Marry her and let her send Percy to her brother posthaste.
Blake thought he ought to send the foul fowl to kingdom come, but he supposed the creature shouldn’t be shot for repeating what he’d been taught. Made one wonder about the old duke, though. The parrot had learned his colorful vocabulary somewhere. Or had Percy acquired the vulgarities in Carrington House? If so, Blake hoped it was after Jocelyn had departed.
He pried open the packing case and removed the cover protecting the parrot from chills. The
mangy African Grey squawked and grew silent. His beady black eyes regarded Blake with suspicion.
What had Miss Carrington said the creature ate? Preposterous things like fruit and greens. He rummaged around in a desk drawer until he found a box of sweetmeats that Agatha had sent for his birthday. Remembering the bird’s vicious beak, he dropped a sugared fruit into the cage and let Percy peck at the floor.
“Keep a civil tongue in your head and there’s more where that came from,” he promised. Not that he expected Percy to understand. He just believed in fair warning.
Clearing off his desk, he applied his mind to Jefferson’s thesis on the wheel code and the one example of the code he had at hand, while occasionally throwing Percy a crumb for his continued silence.
He had time. He could strategize how to woo and win a bride into buying his colors even if she feared it might ultimately cost her the home she wanted.
14
The next morning, Blake stopped at the library club to which Danecroft had introduced him. Like Blake, Fitz had few funds and an inquisitive mind, so sharing books made sense. Blake had heard there was a new treatise on Jefferson’s wheel and similar codes.
Engrossed in the plate showing an example of the wheel, he wasn’t aware of being approached until Bernard Ogilvie belched the stench of ale in his ear. “The duke says even if I can’t win the lady, I’m to get the parrot back,” Ogilvie said, his words slurring only slightly. “Since you are the lady’s betrothed, I have no choice but to demand that you make her return Percy.”
Blake wasn’t certain how an oaf like Ogilvie had found him here, or how he even knew a library club existed, but he supposed a duke’s nephew had sources at his disposal. The real question was what the devil the duke wanted with a blasphemous parrot.
He closed the section he was reading on cryptography and glared at Ogilvie. “Isn’t it a trifle early in the day to be foxed?” he asked coldly, not bothering to disguise his annoyance. If he was fortunate, the pest would take fright and fly away.
“He says I should challenge you and winner take all!” Ogilvie expounded belligerently. “I’m in line to a dukedom, and you are nobody. I can marry Miss Carrington and have the bird.”
“I suggest you talk to Miss Carrington before making any challenges,” Blake said. “I rather imagine she’d have a word or two to say about being thought a prize to be won, especially since you cannot provide the estate she has her heart set on.”
Ogilvie hiccupped. “She has an income. We could live anywhere.”
“She has a younger brother in need of an aviary. Be a man. Stand up and tell the duke that getting shot won’t solve your problems.”
“I demand satisfaction!” Bernie smacked his fist on the table so hard that the books jumped. The blow caused him to list to one side.
A footman ran up and caught him before he fell. “I will see him out, sir.” He bowed to Blake, then led the inebriated Ogilvie from the room.
The library’s other occupants stared briefly, then returned to their books, declining to interfere in what wasn’t their business. Perhaps in ducal circles challenges were tossed about for amusement, but here they were a mere annoyance, Blake mused, opening to the passage he’d been committing to memory.
With the information firmly in his head, he left the club, pondering who he could find to build a wheel cipher for him. Even if he could not get his hands on the French code key, he thought Wellesley could use the machine for his own reports.
The late September day had grown considerably cooler and damper since he’d been outside last. Blake stepped briskly into the breeze, bending and holding his hat to his head as he hurried toward Bond Street. Remembering Quentin’s admonition about Ogilvie and Carrington conspiring, he was already on the alert when he heard a shout. Quickly, he glanced up the street in the direction of the warning and saw an ale barrel tumbling directly toward him. And a damned puppy darting in front of it.
A brief image of Jocelyn’s horror was all it took to send him dashing into the path of a hundred-and-fifty-pound keg. Scooping the pup from the cobblestones, Blake almost escaped the barrel’s path, but he had to twist abruptly to prevent toppling under the wheels of a coach, and his lame leg brought him down.
The wooden keg cracked against his ankle, bounced off a mounting block, and shattered as it hit the corner of a mercantile. Ale spewed across pedestrians, coaches, horses, and Blake’s freshly pressed coat.
Grimacing at his ruined clothes and his newly crippled leg, holding the wriggling puppy safe in one arm, he pushed up on his elbow to scan the street from whence the runaway keg had come. The ale wagon had halted at the intersection, causing an immense traffic jam as the driver climbed down to run after his lost barrels. Nothing suspicious in that, except in considering his earlier contretemps with Ogilvie and yesterday’s fracas with Carrington. It was hard to pin an accident on no evidence.
The puppy licked his ale-splattered nose.
Cursing, Blake set the foolish animal down. A gash in his boot gave evidence of the damage the keg would have caused had it struck him broad on, as it might have had he not moved so swiftly.
He could have been killed.
Blake distinctly remembered the helpless horror he’d suffered as he’d watched his uncle wash away in a raging current. He had not known the two older Arbuthnot uncles who had died in battle, but the one death was sufficiently emblazoned on his memory.
If he was meant to die, he preferred that it be while performing a task more purposeful than rescuing a puppy. It would appear he might be safer on a battlefield than on the civilized streets of the city.
Someone in the crowd helped him to his feet. A few fellows recognized him, and before long, Blake was assisted back to his rooms, sopping with ale, his foot swollen inside his boot, and a happy puppy trailing at his heels.
He’d either damned well have to start believing Ogilvie was trying to kill him or that he really was cursed.
“It is such a sadness, yes? Your betrothed is wounded and cannot make his vows?”
Jocelyn nearly dropped the length of fabric she was examining at the sound of the snide nasal voice behind her. She considered whipping around and “accidentally” smashing Antoinette with the bolt of linen, but the old habit of caution died hard. She pinned a vacuous smile on her face, turned slightly, and nodded acknowledgment.
In bland tones, she replied, “Blake has only minor injuries. The wedding will go on as planned.” At least she hoped Blake’s injuries were minor. She’d spent these last days stewing because the blasted man wouldn’t let her visit him to find out. His friends had assured her he would be fine.
“Ah, that is excellent,” Antoinette replied. “Then you will move the poor boy and his birds back to Chelsea. It is a terrible place, Chelsea, but one must play the hand one is given. There is much to be admired in you, little sister.” Antoinette tapped her garish red parasol on Jocelyn’s shoulder while examining the shop crowded with wealthy ladies and clerks bustling around them.
Jocelyn noticed her sister-in-law’s gown was furbished in ruffles and frills a woman of her age and large bosom should never wear. It was also cut in an indecent manner for daytime, but that was the actress in her.
“You will allow us to come visit when you are settled in?” Antoinette asked.
Jocelyn nearly fell over in astonishment. “You don’t like Chelsea, me, or Richard. I can’t imagine why you would.” Although she recollected her sister-in-law cooing over the Greys on occasion, presumably to agitate Richard. Antoinette’s mean streak was more subtle than Harold’s.
Antoinette tilted her head in a birdlike manner. “When you are married, you will understand. Your clever husband-to-be, he talks to the birds?”
“There are no birds,” Jocelyn replied in irritation, setting down the bolt of linen and edging toward the door. “Ogilvie is all about in his head to think we have the duke’s parrot.” She escaped the shop, leaving her sister-in-law to frown after her.
What the
devil had that been about? Antoinette hadn’t even asked for money.
“Dear Blake has never been accident-prone,” Lady Montague said worriedly as she stretched a fabric sample across the bay window of the Chelsea house. A workman she’d hired was scrubbing the window on the outside. “I simply cannot fathom how the barrel came loose at just that moment, when he was the only person in its path.”
Jocelyn held up the other end of the muslin and did not comment. She’d had nearly a fortnight to ponder the incident without direct information from the main participant beyond his impolite notes concerning Percy’s diet.
Upon first hearing of Mr. Montague’s encounter with an ale barrel, she’d anxiously planned to visit him, until she’d remembered her betrothed did not like hovering. So she had patiently waited for him to send for her. She would have gone, too, especially after Antoinette’s odd inquiries at the dressmaker’s, but Blake’s brief missives had merely brushed off her concerns and queried Percy’s behavior.
Following the example he set of cool distance, Jocelyn had entertained him with solicitous replies, then had their marriage announcement framed and sent to his rooms—just in case he forgot.
“I hope he is healing well?” Jocelyn asked his mother now, hiding her anxiety.
“He is on the mend, all gruff and snarling and working on one of his infernal puzzles, but I have insisted that he not leave Lord Quentin’s house until his ankle heals. I am most grateful his friends are looking after him, but really, I wish he had chosen a special license so you could settle down in the countryside, where kegs do not tumble down the street.”
Jocelyn knew the folly of believing Blake would be content in the country, but she did not correct Lady Montague, who was paying to repair much of Carrington House simply to keep busy while she fretted over her son. Apparently the lady’s superstition about her son’s eminent demise extended to assuming marriage would end the curse.
The Devilish Montague Page 13
