Maggie MacKeever (28 page)

Chapter Twenty-two

Miss Lennox, after passing a blissfully restful night in her very own goosefeather bed, donned a pale green muslin frock, which fastened behind with hooks of flattened copper, and made her way to the dining room. So restored was she by a good night’s sleep that she felt she could deal successfully with any dragon that appeared in her pathway.

And appear a dragon did, if not precisely in her path; Eulalia Wimple was already seated at the semicircular dining table. Eulalia may not have breathed fire—though Miss Lennox had a distinct notion that wisps of smoke hovered in the far comer of the room—but there was an unmistakable hint of brimstone about her this morning, and she made no effort to hide her fangs. From the moment of Jynx’s appearance, Eulalia was off on a venomous discussion of her niece’s myriad sins.

In her usual stolid manner, Jynx embarked upon her meal. That she made no effort to defend herself—in truth, seemed not even to hear her aunt’s strictures—increased Eulalia’s rage. Miss Lennox was a graceless, thankless chit, Eulalia made known; respectable young ladies did not disgrace themselves and their families by making public scenes, or steal away from their homes in clandestine manners, or indulge in vulgar behavior that gave rise to just the sort of scandal-broth that must be most abhorred. Eulalia’s spirits, she announced, were utterly sunk by Miss Lennox’s misdeeds. Miss Lennox, Eulalia was convinced, had by her actions placed herself beyond the pale of society. And then, with a certain grim satisfaction, she elaborated upon the sort of thing that Miss Lennox had once been privileged to enjoy and now, due to her folly, would no more. She rhapsodized about breakfast parties and masked balls and musicales; elegant suppers catered by Gunter’s, the famed confectioner; water parties in carpeted boats with bands playing under delicately colored awnings. Still, Miss Lennox failed to react in a manner befitting one so recently ruined. Eulalia watched with disapproval as her niece nibbled daintily at a sausage. “You unnatural girl! You’ve frittered away your chances! Have you nothing to say for yourself?”

“I don’t think it is as bad as all that.” Jynx turned her attention to her chocolate cup. “If Shannon has forgiven me— and I him!—the rest of the world can hardly do less.”

“Shannon!” Eulalia had not been witness to her niece’s return to Lennox Square, and thus had not previously been gifted with this highly unwelcome intelligence.
“Forgiven?
How
could
you, Jessamyn?”

“As it turned out,” replied Miss Lennox, with a reminiscent smile, “quite easily. Shannon goes this morning to an archbishop of his acquaintance, so that we may have the marriage performed immediately, without the usual posting of the banns.”

These happy tidings filled Eulalia with woe. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure,” she uttered hollowly. “Already I can imagine the torments you will suffer when the details of your divorce are published in the
Times.”
Behind his copy of this morning’s edition of that newspaper, Sir Malcolm was heard to snort. Jynx simply continued to smile.

Eulalia did not care for the quality of that grin, which hinted at some highly gratifying knowledge that she was not fortunate enough to possess. “And I’d like to know, miss, just where you went when you ran away! It wasn’t Cornwall; that much we do know.”

Sir Malcolm emerged from behind his newspaper to grant his sister-in-law the look he gave any servant who’d made a rude remark. “You have,” he said irritably, “an irrepressible nosiness!
I
am acquainted with the whole story, and that is enough.” He eyed his daughter. “Damned if I thought you’d turn out to be such a mettlesome filly!”

Since Jynx wasn’t certain if this was indicative of praise or displeasure, she remained silent. Eulalia was less prudent;

she expressed a firm intention of getting to the bottom of what she considered an extremely hugger-mugger affair.

“I don’t know what business it is of yours if my daughter chose to take refuge with—With friends!” Sir Malcolm retorted unfairly. “I’m sure I don’t blame her for it! When I think of your eternal moralizing, I’m tempted to do something of the sort myself.”

“Well!” Eulalia’s bosom swelled with indignation. “How unspeakably odious!”

“Then
don’t
speak of it! If Jynx created a scandal, you are a great deal to blame.” Having with this Parthian shot silenced Eulalia, and caused her to turn a queer shade of mottled purple, he regarded Jynx. “See anything queer while you were there?”

“Queer?” Jynx crumbled a biscuit. “Not unless you consider——”

“Hah!” uttered Sir Malcolm. “Drinking hard and plunging deep, I hear.”

“I’m sure I don’t know
how,”
commented Jynx. “I understand his accounts to be of the most despondent cast, though he always seems to have money readily at hand. Nor do I understand
that,
since drunk or sober he has not the least appearance of being a clever man.” Eulalia was prompted at this point to inquire, in fading tones, under what circumstances her sheltered niece had encountered an inebriated gentleman.

“I’ve encountered any number of them!” replied Jynx, with some surprise. “Shannon was foxed on the night of the ball, and papa——”

“Never mind that!” Sir Malcolm interrupted. “Back to the subject of——”

“Yes,” said Jynx. “I think this conversation would go on a great deal more easily, Papa, if we referred to them as Madame X and Monsieur Y.” Sir Malcolm expressed admiration of this brilliant notion, and she regarded him with the hint of a frown. “I thought you’d be angry with me for having gone to her.”

Sir Malcolm toyed with his fork and steadfastly studied his plate. “You could have done worse. She has a good heart, when all’s said. I suppose the worst that can be attributed to her is that she’s so strongly under her—Monsieur Y’s influence.” Aware of his daughter’s keen, and amused, attention, Sir Malcolm flushed. “Anyway, I’ve gone to her myself! And if Shannon don’t mind, I don’t see why I should kick up a fuss.”

“I rather thought,” Miss Lennox said blandly, “that you were not unacquainted with Madame X.”

“Every gentleman in London,” replied Sir Malcolm, in self-defense, “has at some point been acquainted with Madame X!”

Eulalia, who had followed this extremely odd conversation with increasing bewilderment, expressed a desire to learn the identities of Madame X and Monsieur Y. She did not think it proper, despite her niece’s comments on the subject, that Jessamyn should be familiar with inebriated gentlemen.

“Oh, do hush, Eulalia. I daresay that Jynx wasn’t
familiar
with him.” He lifted his eyes from his plate to his daughter. “Were you, Jynx?”

“Well,” murmured Jynx, who didn’t like to lie. “I didn’t
wish to
be! But Monsieur Y wanted to be familiar with my pocketbook, so it was very difficult. You must not mind, you know! That was why Madame X, er, blew the gaff on me.”

“I cannot think,” said Sir Malcolm, while his sister-in-law voiced her opinion of vulgar expressions from the lips of well-brought-up young women, “that you have benefited from your association with the lady!”

Jynx eyed her most unnatural parent, and grinned. “Ill warrant that
you
did, Papa! A charming addle-brain, isn’t she? I perfectly understand why Shannon—but I will not speak of that.”

“I should hope not!” Sir Malcolm looked to be on the edge of an apoplexy. “Jynx, you aren’t supposed to know about such things.”

“Then people should not tell me about them!” Miss Lennox cast a shrewd glance at her puzzled aunt. “None of this would have come about if certain individuals had not wished to make trouble, and therefore talked too much. Still, I do not regret it, because if they had kept silent I would not have become closely acquainted with Madame X, and I should have hated to miss that.” Sir Malcolm was heard to splutter. “Oh, climb down off your high horse, Papa! I came to no grief.”

“Not but you’ve set the cat among the pigeons, the cat being Bow Street. Or I did, on your behalf.” Recalling his promise to refrain from chastising his surprisingly wayward daughter, Sir Malcolm took a deep breath. “The Runners couldn’t trace you, but they did trace some other very interesting things, and the upshot is that matters draw very fast to a crisis. They found a trail, you see, and though it wasn’t yours, it led them straight to—Well! That place.”

With a sinking sensation, Jynx recalled Innis’s broad hints. “Am I to conclude that you refer to Monsieur Y’s unexplained resources?”

“I am,” Sir Malcolm replied obliquely, “being plagued by a rash of thefts. The Runners are very poorly paid, and must eke out their existence by the rewards paid for the recovery of stolen things.”

Carefully, Jynx set down her chocolate cup. “And the Runners are very skillful at following suspects without being seen. Papa, are you certain?”

“No,” said Sir Malcolm, in most unjudicial tones. “Thank God! Still, Monsieur Y has very extravagant tastes, and Madame X has lived like a duck being hunted by a spaniel for years.”

“Of course she has! One has to cut one’s garment to fit one’s cloth, and Madame X wields the most awkward pair of scissors I’ve ever seen. Papa, you cannot possibly suspect her! You must know she wouldn’t be involved in such a thing—at least, not willingly. After all, you once wished——”

“I know,” Sir Malcolm interrupted sternly, “that she’s a pea-goose! I also know that I’ve a job of work to do.”

“
What a damnable dilemma!” Jynx said, gloomily.

“The cursedest dilemma possible!” amended Sir Malcolm, ignoring Eulalia’s request for enlightenment on various obscure points. “The ultimate discomfort of both is merely a matter of time.”

Jynx was not deceived by her father’s choice of words: discomfort, for those convicted of theft, was of a degree that encompassed imprisonment, or transportation, or being hanged, “what is to become of Madame X? She is surely innocent.”

“Is she? There’s no telling what length Monsieur Y may have drawn her into.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Papa. “You must have
some
concern for the lady’s future!”

“There isn’t much future in having one’s neck stretched!” Sir Malcolm eyed his daughter who, on this blunt comment, had turned pale. “Which is why I want you to drop a word of warning where it will do the most good. Perhaps the threat of recrimination may put an end to this cursed work.”

In a somber manner, Jynx studied her newly restored betrothal ring. Lord Roxbury had promised to do what he could for Percy and Cristin and Adorée; and she had promised in turn to leave the matter to him. She had not exactly sworn to go no more to Blissington House, but she knew perfectly well that Shannon assumed she would not go next or nigh it again. Now, however, her father asked the exact opposite of her. Jynx began to greatly sympathize with Lady Bliss’s dream of a peaceful cottage in the country.

“You keep your head in a crisis,” remarked the unpaternal Sir Malcolm, “or I wouldn’t ask it. Tread warily, all the same, lest you want to suffer the indignity of being brought to court as a witness.”‘

Jynx wondered if her father would be equally generous if he knew that proof of Innis Ashley’s villainy reposed in his own dining room, in the shape of his daughter’s betrothal ring. Evidently Lady Bliss’s confession had been highly expurgated. “I don’t imagine you’d want to deal with it yourself, Papa?”

“I?” Sir Malcolm looked stern. “May I remind you, miss, that I am a man of law?”

And a lazy one, thought Jynx. She sighed.

“I cannot like this!” announced Eulalia. “It definitely sounds not to be the thing.”

“You,”
Sir Malcolm said wrathfully, “do not like a great number of things, including my future son-in-law! I am perfectly aware of what your curst meddling did there, Eulalia, and I think very poorly of it.
Very
poorly! So poorly that if you just once more try to stir coals, I’ll see you in the street!”

This altogether displeasing notion caused Eulalia to choke on several sentences. She could not, alas, doubt Sir Malcolm’s sincerity. Feebly, she sought to exonerate herself.

It did not serve; neither Sir Malcolm nor his daughter paid her the least heed. “Papa,” said Jynx, as she juggled the jam pot, “I’ve a question for you. If a man is heir to a large fortune, but has not reached the necessary age to receive it, can his family prevent him from doing so?”

“Why,” he inquired judiciously, “should they want to?”

The jam pot had lacked a lid. Jynx licked her sticky fingers. “Because,” she said indistinctly, “the family doesn’t like the lady of his choice. It’s a great piece of nonsense, and fraught with misunderstandings, and it seems the only way he may have her is if they flee to Gretna Green. But she will not do so, because she fears he’d be cut off without a farthing, and she doesn’t wish to be responsible.”

“Good-hearted girl,” approved Sir Malcolm. “It would depend on whether the estate’s entailed. If it
is
entailed on him, then his family can’t do a thing. Outside of raising a dreadful uproar.”

“Now that,” mused Miss Lennox, “is most interesting. I shall have to ascertain——”

“Elopements!” shrieked Eulalia, who assumed Jynx had been speaking of herself. “Hasn’t this family seen enough scandal? I thought you said Lord Roxbury had gone after a special license! And what is all this about an entail?”

“Heavens!” Jynx looked startled. “Not, Shannon, Aunt Eulalia, but Percy!”

Sir Malcolm labored under none of his sister-in-law’s misapprehensions, having been presented by Lady Bliss with at least that part of the tale. He deemed it time the conversation was turned into less dangerous channels but was prevented from doing so by a commotion in the hallway.

A very distraught Lord Peverell appeared in the doorway. “Beg pardon!” he gasped. “Jynx, I must see you immediately! Beg that you will come with me to—to Astley’s!”

“Astley’s?” Miss Lennox echoed blankly. She could not imagine why Percy should wish her to accompany him to Astley’s Equestrian Exhibition at the Amphitheatre of Arts on the south side of the Thames. “Why?”

“A matter of life and death!” Percy rolled an anxious, speaking eye. ‘Tell you about it on the way!” Still Miss Lennox hesitated, and he hastened across the room and threw himself to his knees beside her chair. “That curst Hyde will be put off no longer!” he hissed. “Your presence is required.”