“Miss Cathcart. You said you wanted to throttle her.”
“I just wanted to twist her ankle properly for her.”
Owain wrote on a clean page. “You want me to send a note to say you will call on Miss Cathcart’s father? I’m not even sure they’re still in town.”
“Probably few of them are. Oh, ’struth.”
He snapped his left hand and Brak slithered hesitantly out from under the bed, teeth still bared as if ready for the kill, but eyes anxious. The poor hound couldn’t help it. He’d been born with a deformity of the mouth that made him look fearsome. Unfortunately, he was an abject coward, and even now was hesitating, sniffing the air for trouble.
“It’s all right, Brak,” Sax said. “Come on.”
The dog shook his massive bulk and walked over to sit nobly by Sax, as if he’d never known a moment’s fear in his life. He and the parrot eyed one another, companionable rivals for the attention of their adored owner. Owain wondered if Sax ever felt strain at satisfying their demands, and the demands of all the other loving charity cases around him.
Sax stroked the dog’s head. “Most people will be at their country estates for Christmas. Why the devil was I born at this time of year? I can’t see how the dragon could have planned it, but it’s typical. Anyway, there must be better than Miss Cathcart. She giggles. All the time. Start listing names, Owain. Would-be-countesses in the Home Counties. If I have to, I’ll ride out into the country to settle it.”
“I know you feel strongly about your given word, but—”
“I will not break it.”
Owain shook his head. He suspected that this time the Dowager Duchess of Daingerfield had won a round. Sax wouldn’t find a bride in a day, or not one he wanted. He’d have to either marry poorly or admit to the duchess that he could not keep his word.
He’d never do that.
So, he was about to make a disastrous marriage.
Owain began to take the situation seriously. “Lady Mary Derby,” he said, writing the name down. “Lady Caroline Northern. Lady Frances Holmes, Lady Georgina Pitt-Stanley. . . .”
A few pages later, his scrabbling memory could only come up with, “Miss Witherton?”
“Plague take it, Owain, she’s forty if she’s a day.”
“Age doesn’t matter if you just want to keep your word and thwart your grandmother. You like her company.”
“If I’m going to do this, I’ll have one who can at least produce a brat or two.” Nims took off the cloth, and Sax rose. “I know my duty. Go over them again.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake!” But Owain flipped back the pages and read through his list. At the end, he closed the book. “Well?”
Sax was leaning against a wall, arms folded, parrot and dog in attendance like some strange heraldic collection. “The dragon should have called my dear uncle Grendel.”
When Owain looked blank, Sax said, “Because then she’d be Grendel’s mother. The monster from Beowulf.” He shook his head. “You need to broaden your mind. And I need to marry.”
He flinched at the same time as Knox shrieked, “Marry not! Wedlock is a padlock!”
Still he added, “Tomorrow.”
The servants were all still hovering, pretending they had things to do.
“Let’s test Knox’s tolerance.” Sax seized Babs around the waist, swung her beneath the mistletoe, and kissed her heartily.
The bird flew to a safer perch on the bed, but didn’t scream one of his warnings. Instead, he said hopefully, “Wanna nut.”
“Good idea, Knox.” Babs reached beneath Sax’s banjan.
With a laugh, he slapped her hand away. “Now, now. Let’s not push the poor bird too far. Anyway, you’re reformed.”
Babs winked. “That just means I don’t charge for it anymore, milord.”
“The deuce! No wonder my menservants seem half asleep most of the time.”
“Go on with you. It also means I can be right particular.” She casually pushed Sax down onto the bed and strolled away, broad hips swaying, to stand close to Nims.
The place really was a madhouse, but Sax never seemed to care. In fact, he had created it with his careless kindness and indulgence, and his total indifference to privacy. He said servants always knew your business anyway, and that they could be useful because they knew everyone else’s business, too.
Owain didn’t think even the most well-informed servants could be of much help in this.
He tucked away his notebook and, with little hope, decided to try reason. “Sax, perhaps this time you should just let the old besom score a hit. She’ll gloat a bit, but at least you won’t be shackled for life to a woman you dislike.”
Sax swung off the bed, leaving Knox there to play with the crumpled letter. Careless of the crowded room, he dropped the banjan, and pulled on the drawers and shirt Nims held out. “You didn’t read the whole letter, did you?”
“Of course not.”
“You’re my secretary, Owain. Reading my letters is permissible.”
“Not your personal ones.”
“You should break this bad habit of propriety. If you’d read the whole thing, you’d know there was a second part to my promise. I was to be shackled for life by my twenty-fifth birthday, or I was to allow my grandmother to choose the leg-iron.”
Owain snatched the letter from Knox’s inquisitive beak. After a quick read through, he said, “What a damned fool promise to make!”
Sax was tucking in his shirt. “Oh, quite. But I gave my word and I will keep it. I will not, however, let my grandmother choose my”—he turned deliberately toward the bed—“bride.”
“A bride is a bridle!”
“Quite. Therefore, I will choose my own bridle, and by tomorrow.”
Owain paced the room himself. “It can’t be done, Sax! Even if you decide on one of these young women, she won’t consent to do it in such a scrambling way.”
“You think not?”
Owain halted. “I suppose some of them would. But imagine the talk.”
“To the devil with the talk.”
“Then imagine putting the matter to the young lady and her family.”
“That,” Sax admitted, “is not a pleasant prospect. But it is immensely preferable to putting myself in the dragon’s claws. The only question is, which lady receives this dubious honor?” He turned suddenly to the grinning audience of servants. “Well? I’m sure you have opinions.”
“Aye, milord,” said Monkey. “Choose the one wot brings the most money.”
“Such a pragmatist. Do you plan to choose the woman with the most money?”
“I would if I could find one, milord, even if she ’ad a crooked back and warts.”
Susie, who definitely lacked those features, kicked him in the shin. He cursed and hopped, but he was grinning at the same time.
“But, I don’t need money.”
“What do you need, then, milord?” asked Susie.
“An excellent question.” He sat again so Nims could arrange his cravat. Brak contentedly flopped over his stockinged feet. “Good health. Good teeth. Moderation in her habits—I have no desire to end up trying to curb a wastrel wife.”
“Trouble and strife! Trouble and strife!”
“Let’s pray you’re wrong, Knox. And I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to this. Discretion,” Sax continued. “I don’t care for the idea of fighting duels over her either. So,” he said, turning slightly toward Owain, “which one fits?”
“God knows. You’ve surely been in a better position than I to check their teeth.”
“Devil a bit. I’ve been avoiding intimacy with hopeful young leeches like the plague. But you can cross off Lady Frances and Lady Georgina, and Miss Stewkesly, too. I’ve heard rumors about all of them suggesting discretion isn’t part of their character.”
Owain dutifully crossed off three names. “Perhaps I should just put the rest into a hat and you can pick one.” Hastily, he said, “No—”
But Sax
was already saying, “Why not?”
Owain cursed his hasty tongue.
Susie spoke up. “Beggin’ your pardon, milord . . .”
Both Owain and Sax looked at her in surprise, not because she’d spoken—in this household the servants seemed to feel at liberty to say whatever they pleased—but because she sounded nervous about it.
“Yes?”
The plump maid tangled her fingers in her apron. “Beggin’ your pardon, milord, but if you really don’t care who you m—”—she rolled her eye at the bird—“go to the altar with. . . .”
“I didn’t quite say that.”
“But . . .”
Sax smiled at her quite gently. “If this is a proposal, Susie, the answer is no. You wouldn’t like it.”
She went bright red and giggled. “Go on with you! As if I would. And anyway . . .” She flashed a coy look at Monkey, who turned as red as she. “Be that as it may,” she continued rather stiffly, “I just thought you might better choose a young lady who has need of a husband.”
His cravat arranged to perfection, Sax stood, easing his feet out from under the dog. “Bring a cuckoo into the nest? On no account.”
“No, milord. Of course not! But a young lady who’s fallen on hard times, like. You wouldn’t have to beg her, then, would you? She’d be the one who’d be grateful.”
“A very neat point.”
Seeing his friend’s interest, Owain wasn’t sure whether to interfere or not. His position was a complex one—part friend, part administrator, but one of his unwritten tasks was to stop Sax following impulse into disaster.
Sax seemed in control of his intelligence, however. “I gather you have someone in mind, Susie.”
“Yes, milord.”
“A lady?”
“Yes, milord. At least, her father was a gentleman scholar.”
Nims held out an embroidered waistcoat and Sax put his arms into it. “Certainly sounds promising. How has she come to be in straitened circumstances?”
“Her parents died, milord. Suddenly, a few months back. Turned out there wasn’t much money. So there’s poor Miss Gillingham with her brothers and sisters to take care of, and no money to speak of.”
“A heart-wrenching tale. How do you come to know about it?” Nims was fastening the silver buttons and Knox had flown to perch on Sax’s outstretched hand.
“My sister was maid there, milord. She stayed on for a while without wages, she felt so sorry for them, but in the end she had to take another post. But I’m not saying you should . . . form a union with this Miss Gillingham. I really don’t know much about her. Just that there must be many others like her. Glad to go to the altar, even in a hurry, and grateful for the chance.”
Knox on his hand, Sax made a contemplative circuit of the room. “She’d not expect false protestations of love,” he said to Owain. “She wouldn’t need to be sweet-talked into it. She’d be less likely to be extravagant or flighty. . . .”
“She could be ugly as sin.”
Sax looked at Susie.
“My sister never mentioned her looks, milord.”
“Where is your sister?”
“Out of town. Her family’s gone to their Shropshire estate for the season.”
After a moment, Sax put the parrot on his shoulder and turned to Owain, hand held out. “Coin.”
Not at all happy with the situation, Owain dug out a florin and tossed it over.
Sax snared it out of the air. “Heads, it’s Miss Gillingham. Tails, it’s whichever of those other names I pull out of a hat.”
Before Owain could protest, the coin spun glittering through the air to be caught and slapped down on the back of Sax’s hand. “Heads!” he said, and flicked the two-shilling piece over to Susie. “Go and inform Miss Gillingham of the pleasures in store for her.”
“Me?” Susie squeaked.
“You. And to sweeten the pot, if she goes through with it tomorrow, I’ll give you and Monk enough to set up your own place.”
The two servants shared a dazed look. “Really, milord?” asked the footman.
“Word of a Torrance.” Sax turned to Owain. “Get me a special license—”
“But . . .”
Sax swung back to Susie. “She is of age?”
“Turned twenty-one near a year back.”
“On the shelf,” Owain pointed out, more uneasy about this by the moment.
“I don’t give a fig. Susie, what’s her first name?”
“I don’t know, milord.”
“Find out when you get her agreement. Owain, start on the special license. Susie, on your way and talk her into it. And look sharp. There’s bound to be a bushel of paperwork to do. Where does she live?”
“Mallett Street, milord. Down south of St. James’ Park. But—”
“Respectable but modest. How very auspicious.” Deftly shifting Knox from hand to hand, he put his arms into the dark blue jacket Nims was patiently holding. “Find out her parish—we’ll need that for the license, too, I think—and tell her the ceremony will take place there tomorrow morning at eleven.”
“But, milord—”
Owain definitely felt it was time to take a hand. “Sax, wouldn’t it be fair to give the lady a chance to meet you before she makes up her mind? And then you’ll have a chance to meet her.”
“If I buy a pig in a poke, I don’t see why she shouldn’t. Neither of us has time to make a rational matter out of it. It’s in the hands of fate.”
“This isn’t a suitable matter for coin-tossing! It’s for life, you know.”
“Just makes the gamble more interesting.”
“What are you going to do if she refuses?”
Sax put his hands on his hips and surveyed his household. “Let’s establish the rules of the game. If Miss Gillingham refuses today, I’ll pick one of those fashionable hopefuls out of the hat and do my best to persuade her. If she agrees, then backs out at the last minute, I’ll grovel to the duchess and accept my fate. If Miss Gillingham comes up to scratch, I’ll bind myself to her in holy wedlock however she turns out to be.”
Knox flapped to the bed to pace a warning. “ Wedlock’s a padlock! Wedlock’s a padlock.”
“It’s supposed to be, Knox. Bound for life, for better or worse. You’re going to have to get used to it, just as I am.” He took the parrot in his hand and stroked it, looking around with his charming smile, the one that could and did break hearts.
“You are all witnesses. Let fate decide!”
Chapter 3
Meg ignored the repeated rapping on the front door and went on patching the sole of Rachel’s shoe with a scrap of leather. It could be Sir Arthur come back a day early, and if it wasn’t, it would be a neighbor to whom they owed money. One of the most painful things about her situation was that most of her creditors were from local businesses, people she’d known all her life.
They had a right to speak with her. They had a right to fair payment for their services, too, but she’d sold everything they could do without. The house had been rented furnished, so she couldn’t sell her parents’ bed, or the scarce-used parlor chairs.
In Christian charity, most of their creditors seemed to be leaving them alone for the season, but once Twelfth Night passed, she knew they’d be back. It hardly mattered because before then—tomorrow in fact—she’d have to face Sir Arthur.
For the first days after wishing on the stone, she’d answered the door eagerly, expecting someone or something in answer her prayer. A distant relative come to offer them all a home. A local benefactor wanting to give them an annuity so they could struggle on. Instead, she’d been battered and bruised by the pleas and anger of people who were suffering because she could not pay her family’s debts.
The knocker fell silent, and she relaxed a little, stabbing the big needle through the leather. She feared the shoe would be terribly uncomfortable, but at least it wouldn’t let in rain. Then her hands fell hopelessly still. What did it matter? She’d have to beg assistance of the
parish, and no matter what help they provided, it would doubtless include footwear of some kind.
She really had pinned her hopes on the stone, especially after the draining effect it had had on her. How could it have been for nothing? Now, however, panic ate at her.
Tomorrow Sir Arthur would return for his answer and—
A sharp knock on the kitchen door made her jerk in her seat. Swiveling, she saw that the impudent caller had come around to the back and was peering in the kitchen window.
Well, really!
Then the nose squashed against the grimy glass, and she saw a black patch over one eye! Gracious.
The person rapped at the glass. “Miss Gillingham?”
The grotesque face made Meg even more tempted to hide away, but she’d been caught. Praying it wasn’t some bully sent to try to force money out of her, Meg cautiously opened the door.
It was no bully, but it was also no one she knew.
The plump young woman wore a respectable cloak and gown, with a black straw bonnet on her brown curls. The effect was marred by that startling black patch. Poor creature. If she was seeking charity, however, she’d certainly come to the wrong place.
The woman smiled brightly. “There you are!”
Meg stepped back, unaccustomed these days to bright smiles or enthusiasm. “Can I help you?”
“Are you Miss Gillingham?”
“Yes.”
The young woman dropped a curtsy. “Then could I have a word with you, miss? I’m Susie Kegworth. My sister Mary used to work for you.”
Ah. Meg saw a resemblance to the family’s former maid, and remembered hearing some story of an eye injury some years ago that had ruined her sister’s looks, and her chances of good employment.
Oh dear. Even though she couldn’t help, she could be polite. “Come in, please. How is Mary?”
“Doing fine, miss. Very happy in her situation.”
As Meg led the way to the table and indicated a chair there, she began to take mild pleasure in the unexpected visit. It had been a long time since she’d sat down to chat with a guest. What a shame the only tea leaves were days old and overused.
Jo Beverley Page 3
