Lady Margery's Intrigues

by Marion Chesney

  At last he came to a decision. He would find Lady Margery's address and pay a call. The marquess was well aware of his attraction for the opposite sex. If Lady Margery hoped to trick one of his friends into marriage, then she would have the Marquess of Edgecombe to reckon with. He would make her fall in love with himself. And that would teach the designing minx a well-deserved lesson.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Must you do that?” said the marquess crossly.

  He was sitting patiently in Beau Brummell's drawing room, waiting for the leader of London fashion to finish his toilette. It was not the extensive barbering that so annoyed the marquess but the fact that George Brummell, not content with Robinson's meticulous shaving, was carefully going over his face with a pair of tweezers to make sure that every single hair was gone.

  “My face is my fortune,” remarked the Beau, unmoved. “Also my mannerisms, my dress, and my ability to stare duchesses out of countenance. You, dear Charles, are not normally a devotee of my levees. I can see from the martial glint in your cold blue eye that you are excessively put out. What is the cause?”

  “Lady Margery Quennell. You promised to reduce her to an unfashionable wreck and instead all London is buzzing with the news that the great Brummell took her to supper and seemed to be enchanted with her company.”

  “I was,” said the Beau, tying his cravat in the tròne d'amour, a very well starched style, with one single horizontal dent in the middle; color, yeux de fille en extase. “She is not an adventuress, Charles, for I know the breed well. She told me she collects originals."

  “That's a damned insulting way to refer to my friends."

  The Beau cocked a quizzical eyebrow at him. “Take a damper, Charles. It is not like you to take the opinions of any lady so seriously. I shall not cut her, you know. She has great charm.”

  “Then I shall deal with her myself,” said the marquess, striding from the room and leaving his friend to stare after him in amazement.

  It was easy for the marquess to find that Lady Margery was resident in Berkeley Square. An aged butler ushered him into the drawing room and departed to inform Lady Margery of his visit.

  The marquess looked round the small but tastefully furnished drawing room and wondered why Lady Margery had not taken up residence in her father's great barracks of a place in Grosvenor Square. It would be a more suitable background for her if she meant to cut a dash.

  Perhaps Lady Margery did not like the new countess. After some reflection, the marquess decided that no one he knew much liked the new countess, who was often pointed out as an example that an old family line did not necessarily mean good breeding.

  He turned, as the door behind him opened, and got to his feet.

  His shrewd eyes immediately recognized the old Lady Margery under the chic new Lady Margery's fashionable exterior. He made her a magnificent bow.

  It was really quite a transformation, decided the marquess. The new hair style showed the perfect shape of her small head. The simple sprigged-muslin dress had been cleverly designed in the flowing Empire lines, more suited to a tall beauty. It gave Lady Margery all the charm of a pocket Venus. Her face seemed to have come to life, he decided. It positively sparkled with determination. Lady Margery had found some purpose in life and he believed he knew exactly what it was.

  For her part, Lady Margery felt her heart begin to hammer. Dressed in a coat of the finest blue superfine and with a pair of buckskins molded to his athletic thighs, the marquess was much more handsome and disturbing than she remembered. The feminine thickness of his eyelashes only served to accentuate the strong masculinity of his face. He exuded a disquieting aura of arrogance and virility.

  She pulled herself together. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your call, my lord?”

  “To the beauty of your looks and the exquisite lines of your form,” replied the marquess, with a look which hovered on the edge of insolence.

  “I did not think you would talk such fustian,” said Margery roundly.

  “I forgot,” replied the marquess, all mock contrition, “you are not practiced in the art of flirtation.”

  “I am learning quickly,” said Margery dryly.

  “So I gather,” he drawled. “Three of my friends have fallen victim to your charms, and all in one single day. Four. I forgot about Mr. Brummell. You seem to be a very busy young lady. First you bump into Swanley, then you collapse on Toby, and voila! by nightfall, Freddie Jamieson is swooning over you and Mr. Brummell says you ‘have great charm.'”

  “Did he?” said Margery, momentarily diverted. “Mr. Brummell said that? You must excuse my delight. I am not yet in the way of receiving compliments, you see.”

  “Oh, you are bound to receive lots more if you continue to be so busy about the streets of London.”

  “My lord!”

  The marquess silently cursed. After all, he had not come here with the intention of making her furious.

  He took her unwilling hand in his and gazed into her eyes. “You see, I am jealous,” he said simply.

  Lady Margery tried to withdraw her hand. She had left the door punctiliously open, but the servants seemed to have disappeared and there was no sign of Lady Amelia. The house was very quiet. The French clock on the mantel gave an apologetic sigh and then timidly chimed out the hours, and a dancing couple on its ornate top creakily whirred as they bowed and curtsied and danced, forever treading out the measure of the hours.

  “You are funning, sir,” said Margery with a breathless laugh and withdrawing her hand with a jerk, only to find it immediately reclaimed. The marquess bent his tawny head and, turning her hand over, placed a light kiss on her wrist.

  Margery felt very young and unsophisticated. She should tap him lightly with her fan and laugh; she should turn her head away and blush. Instead, she looked up at him with her lips slightly parted and her eyes wide and questioning.

  Slowly he grasped her by her elbows and lifted her up against his chest and bent his head and kissed her. She stayed rigid in his arms until his lips grew harder and warmer and more demanding. She felt a sudden violent fire coursing through her body, and her lips opened under his while the London morning and the faint sounds of a party of strolling entertainers on the street outside whirled and died away, leaving nothing but a world of passion and dark, dark night.

  The marquess abruptly put her from him. His breathing was ragged and he felt like a fool. “You are a witch. A damned witch, Lady Margery. But you shall not add my scalp to your belt.”

  “I am not collecting scalps,” shouted Lady Margery, blushing and furious.

  “Oh, no? What about Toby and Freddie and Perry?”

  “Are you asking me if my intentions are honorable? Well, my lord, for your information, they are. I mean to find a husband.”

  “There is a name for ladies like you,” sneered the marquess. “Do you intend to kiss all your suitors like that?”

  “No,” replied Margery with sudden and infuriating calm. “I thank you for the experience, my lord. The next time I shall be prepared to cope with unwelcome attentions.”

  “It is well known that your father's pockets are to let,” said the marquess. “Does this explain your sudden passion for matrimony?"

  “My lord Marquess,” said Margery coldly. “If you are going to sneer at and despise every lady who comes to London for a season with the intention of getting married, then you may as well go out and insult every debutante in town.”

  “The Honorable Toby Sanderson,” came Chuffley's voice from the door.

  Toby strode in and then stopped in his tracks at the sight of the marquess. “Stealing a march on us, Edgecombe, eh?” he asked, not very pleasantly.

  “I simply came to pay my respects.”

  “Don't let me keep you,” said Toby cheerfully, holding the door open.

  The marquess hesitated. For the first time in his well-bred life he was aware of having behaved badly.

  It went against the grain, but it had to be done. He turn
ed and swept Lady Margery a low bow. “My deepest apologies, ma'am.”

  Margery looked into his blue eyes suspiciously, but there was no trace of mockery there. And after all, she had let him kiss her.

  “Your apology is accepted, my lord,” she said, inclining her head in a chilly nod in answer to his bow.

  The marquess took his leave, and Toby Sanderson experienced the exquisite pangs of jealousy for the first time.

  “Better be careful of Charles,” he warned, with his rather bulbous pale green eyes popping from their sockets. “Got a bit of a reputation with the ladies.”

  “The Marquess of Edgecombe was all of the most gentlemanly,” replied Margery, and then wondered why she had rushed to his defense.

  “Heh! Just as well. Call him out, I would, if he were anyone else.”

  Margery reluctantly remembered her role as the future Mrs. Sanderson. “Oh, fie, for shame, sir,” she said. “The poor marquess having to duel with such a formidable opponent!”

  “Well, well, well,” said Toby. “Enough of this warring talk. I wondered if you would care to take a turn in the park with me, ma'am?”

  Margery found to her horror that the last thing she wanted to do was to spend a sunny morning simpering and flirting with this country squire. But Chelmswood must be saved at all costs.

  She demurely lowered her eyes. “I would be delighted, sir."

  “Mr. Freddie Jamieson,” said Chuffley.

  “Hallo, Toby,” exclaimed Freddie. “What are you doing here? Brought your fan back, Lady Margery. Wondered if you would care to drive with me?”

  “She's promised to me,” snarled Toby.

  Freddie looked mildly amazed at his friend's belligerent tone. “Don't matter, then,” he said cheerfully. “I'll take Lady Margery driving another day.”

  Lady Margery bit her lip. In her plan of campaign she had certainly thought it would be a good idea to play one off against the other. But she had never envisaged them being in her drawing room at the same time. All it needed was ...

  “Viscount Swanley,” said Chuffley.

  The three friends glared at each other.

  Lady Margery retreated to the fireplace and studied her three possible husbands.

  Viscount Swanley was undoubtedly the best looking, in his bottle-green coat of Bath superfine and his biscuit-colored pantaloons molded to a shapely pair of legs. He wore his hair in the fashionable Brutus crop. But his face was dreamy and irresolute and he was already looking dismayed at the wrath of his two friends.

  Freddie Jamieson was tall and thin, with dark brown hair carefully curled and pomaded. Although he was only in his late twenties, an early life of dissipation had blurred his once handsome features, slackened his mouth, and placed large pouches under his eyes.

  Toby Sanderson was broad, squat, and muscular, with an angry red face which belied his normal good humor. He did not aspire to the heights of dandyism, favouring a drab coat and buckskins laced above a pair of Hessians. A Belcher scarf knotted carelessly at his throat took the place of a cravat, and he had innumerable whipcords tucked into his buttonhole.

  Lady Margery made up her mind. Let them fight it out among themselves.

  “I am going to change into my carriage dress, gentlemen,” she said. “You may decide among you who is going to escort me.”

  An awkward silence fell on the room after she had left. She had looked unhappy and slightly shaken, which had the effect of making her seem rather the drab Lady Margery of before.

  Viscount Peregrine Swanley cleared his throat nervously.

  “I s-say,” he stammered, “I met Edgecombe at the corner of the street. Told him I was going to call on Lady Margery and be started to laugh. I asked him what was so funny and he said he thought the new sport would be more to my way of thinking.”

  The angry fire slowly died out of his friends’ faces. “What new sport?” asked Toby curiously.

  “Oh, it's famous,” said the viscount. “You have never heard the like. You run along a street and ring all the doorbells.”

  “What's so sporting about that?”

  “You have to move so fast that no one catches you. Edgecombe said that Dan Whittingham did one side of Albemarle Street in five minutes flat. Butlers and porters popping out all over the place, but he was like quicksilver. Not one of ‘em saw him!”

  Freddie Jamieson took a deep breath. “Wager you I could do it in under five.”

  “Whittingham's faster than you,” said Toby.

  “But he ain't got my length of leg,” said Freddie proudly

  “In better trim, though,” said Toby. “I'll tell you what I'll do—I'll lay you a monkey you can't beat Whittingham's time.”

  “Done!” said Freddie.

  Viscount Swanley had become quite flushed with excitement. This was even more exciting than when they had all bet on the cricket match between the ladies of Surrey and Hampshire.

  “And I'll time you, Freddie,” he cried, waving a gold repeater in the air.

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” cried Toby.

  They all bunched together in a concerted rush for the doorway and then stopped before the impassive figure of Chuffley.

  “Gentlemen,” said the butler. “Lady Margery is still abovestairs. Are you leaving now?”

  All three gave him a hunted look. Did not the man know that Venus herself would be incapable of coming between them and a sporting bet?

  “Give her ladyship our compliments,” said Toby hurriedly. “Pressing appointment, don't you know."

  “Pressing appointment. Very,” chorused the others.

  “Do hurry up,” urged Freddie, with the gambling light burning in his eyes. “We'd better go to White's first and enter the bet in the book.”

  When the street door had crashed behind them, Chuffley stood scratching his head in dismay.

  Lady Margery came down the stairs once more in her pretty new image. She was wearing a grey and white gaberdine dress and a fetching little straw hat with a white veil.

  “Gone!” she exclaimed, staring at her butler. “Gone! Where?”

  “The gentlemen remembered a pressing sporting engagement, my lady,” said Chuffley. “They ... er ... have gone to ring all the doorbells and knock all the knockers in Albemarle Street.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “The idea, I gather, my lady, is to knock or ring at the door and then run away before one is caught.”

  “But that is a schoolboy prank.”

  “No doubt, my lady. But you see, the gentlemen will bet on very strange things, such as which of two geese will cross the road first or which of two flies will climb to the top of the windowpane first. There was even a walking-backwards race to Brighton.”

  Margery sat down suddenly on the stairs. “But I don't understand. One minute they were glaring at each other and each determined to take me for a drive...”

  Chuffley gave an apologetic cough. “I happened to overhear Lord Peregrine—Viscount Swanley—explain that the Marquess of Edgecombe had mentioned the idea. The marquess met Lord Peregrine when his lordship was on his way here.”

  “Just mentioned it, did he?” said Margery with a martial glint in her eye. “I shall not give up my campaign because of the Marquess of Edgecombe.”

  “I believe a great number of the ton are to attend Mrs. Herbert-Smythe's breakfast,” murmured Chuffley.

  “And you think they will be there. I have an invitation. The battle re-commences this afternoon,” said Lady Margery, removing her hat.

  * * * *

  The marquess sat in his study in Albemarle Street. He heard door knockers banging and bells ringing all along the length of the street outside, and smiled to himself.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The marquess, strolling in the grounds of Mrs. Herbert-Smythe's mansion in Richmond, was at a loss to understand his three friends.

  They had hailed him exuberantly enough, chattering on about their door-knocking triumph, and Freddie was flushed with victory over
having cut nineteen seconds off the Whittingham record. But one by one they had fallen silent and moody.

  The marquess suddenly saw the voluptuous figure of Lady Camberwell crossing one of the lawns and hastened to her side to indulge in a little mild flirtation. His friends watched him go with envious eyes.

  “It's all right for him,” said Freddie, breaking the silence. “He's a Nonpareil, drives to an inch, good man in a bout of fisticuffs, but he's at ease with the ladies as well. He smiles at them ... so ... and they fall at his feet. It ain't any fun at these ton parties if you ain't got a lady to smile at.”

  The others looked at him in astonishment at his perception. They had been wondering why they usually felt left out and at a loss.

  “Well, let's do something about it,” said Toby heartily. “There's the Misses Bentley sitting over there by that rose bush. Dashed pretty gels, both of them. Come along, lads!”

  The three strolled self-consciously towards the Bentley twins, who were identically fair and identically foolish.

  “Servant,” said Toby, bowing low, and suddenly conscious of his wilting shirt-points. “Pretty as a picture, heh!”

  Both girls unrolled their fans, cast down their eyes, and blushed. Their names were Rose and Beth respectively, but everyone found it hard to tell the difference between them.

  “Oh, Mr. Sanderson,” giggled Rose, looking up at him.

  Much emboldened, Toby and his friends felt that the nonsense of preliminary compliments was well over and plunged into an account of their morning's adventures. The Bentley girls’ smiles grew thinner and thinner until the smiles disappeared altogether like letters being dropped in the postal box.

  “Should have seen the Worcesters’ Sambo's face,” roared Freddie, remembering the black servant's bewilderment.

  “Egad!” roared Toby, affectionately thumping his friend between the shoulder blades. “And damme, wasn't old Burtwell's butler hopping mad!”

  Viscount Swanley let out a high neigh of laughter as he relived the morning's triumphs as well. “And d'ye remember old Burtwell himself shouting up and down the street, ‘Curst sons of whores, wait till I catch ye—I'll cut your guts to ribbons!'”