Lady in the Stray

by Maggie MacKeever

  “If ever I encounter Valérie—” Vashti broke off to sneeze.

  “Yes, I know, you will deal with her most severely; I’m tempted to throttle the wench myself! At all events, I knew about the missing memorandum, and so I assumed—”

  “—that the memorandum was what I also sought! And you threatened me, and tried to buy me off!”

  “To no avail.” Yves gazed about the bedchamber. “Sweet Vashti, I shall be eternally grateful that you did not sell me this hideous old house.”

  Vashti did not want his lordship’s gratitude. “You went to great lengths to recover your odious memorandum, sir.”

  “So I did. I even kissed you several times.” Yves’s glance, as it swung to Vashti, was notably more appreciative. “And the cream of the jest is that I need not have!”

  Wistfully, Vashti recalled those kisses, which had been of such tantamount importance to her. To Yves, obviously, they had not signified a whit. “Certainly, you needn’t have. Even those ladies who liked your kisses couldn’t have told you what they didn’t know.”

  “And you did not like my kisses, Vashti?” His lordship was looking contemplative. Vashti averted her eyes. “Odd, I would have thought otherwise. That will teach me to have a high opinion of myself! But I was telling you about the memorandum. You see, it was never here.”

  Vashti was caught between the desire to inform his lordship that his kisses had left her thoroughly unmoved, and the wish to reassure him on that score. So severe was her conflict that it was a moment before his words penetrated her brain. She glanced up, puzzled. “The memorandum was never—” Yves had moved much closer while she stared at the counterpane. “What—”

  Lord Stirling cupped her face in his hands. “I’m going to prove to you that you do like my kisses!” he said.

  No little time later, Calliope grew sufficiently intrigued to emerge from beneath the bed. Never had the cat heard such curious sounds as emerged from therein, low murmurs and heavy breathing and a great deal of thrashing about. The cat stalked about the perimeters of the huge tent bed, tail atwitch. Enlightenment proving elusive, the cat crouched, and pounced upon the nearest swaying drapery.

  “Devil take it!” swore his lordship, and sat abruptly upright.

  “What—?” Lest Edouard present some further menace, Vashti feared to look. When Yves continued to curse and the bed continued to shake, she screwed up her courage. Clearly Yves was in mortal danger. She could not, for want of resolution, allow him to go down, unaided, to defeat. Not that there was much she could do to vanquish so determined a foe, but she must make the effort nonetheless.

  But when Vashti cautiously opened her eyes, it was not to see Yves and Edouard locked in life-or-death combat. Instead, his lordship was making strenuous efforts to dislodge the extremely angry feline that clung to his shoulders. “Oh, heaven! Calliope! Come down from there, you wretched cat!” Calliope proving unreceptive to this reasonable command, Vashti flung a pillow at her pet. Calliope withdrew to a corner of the bed, there to nonchalantly bathe, first casting her mistress a reproachful glance.

  Torn between vexation and amusement, Vashti gazed upon his lordship. “I’m so sorry, Yves!”

  “You don’t want for protectors.” Lord Stirling shrugged out of his evening coat, which was not improved by cat hair and claw rents. “Charlot asked me my intentions toward you not an hour past. Have I been plaguing you to death?”

  “Did Charlot say so? You have, rather.” Vashti sank back among her pillows, assured his lordship had received no mortal wound. “Charlot is little better! He thought it would be exciting to be hanged. What did you mean when you said the memorandum had never been here?”

  Yves flung aside his abused jacket, settled down amid the pillows beside Vashti. “Just that,” he said as he drew her close. “Circumstances have prevented me rendering you a fuller explanation previously, which I regret.”

  Should she protest his lordship’s presumptuous manner? wondered Vashti, as he settled her comfortably against his chest. Protest would further delay his promised explanation, which of course must be her first consideration. Had she not already suffered vast inconvenience on the behalf of that misbegotten memorandum? For the sake of enlightenment, Vashti would swallow his lordship’s high-handedness with a good grace.

  Thus Vashti was privileged to hear how the memorandum had been misplaced by a government official who had stopped by Mountjoy House en route to his destination, and how Lord Stirling had been drawn into the affair by his godpapa. “Edouard was correct in thinking the memorandum important,” Yves admitted. “It was so important that the gentleman who lost it has been barricaded within his bedchamber, pleading illness, for several weeks. Bonaparte would have been delighted to discover the names of our top agents, I make no doubt.”

  “And so Edouard would have had his open-armed welcome,” Vashti murmured. It was very pleasant to snuggle up to a gentleman like this, and also appallingly improper. There was more of Valérie in Vashti that she’d hitherto suspected. “Edouard invited me to accompany him to France, before he decided he would rather break my neck. As it turns out, he also invited Minette.”

  Lord Stirling overlooked this digression. “Recently, however, my godpapa’s friend arose from his supposed sickbed to pay a visit to his ladybird. That the gentleman has a ladybird has no little bearing on our tale. He also has a wife.”

  “Tsk!” interjected Vashti. “Is this the way it’s done, sir, among the ton? I do not think I would like—”

  “I hardly expect you to, my little puritan! But first let me finish this account before I get to that.” Vashti was heard to voice no further protest. “I also neglected to inform you that when our careless gentleman went through his pockets looking for the memorandum, he found a billet doux to his ladybird. Finding it affected him almost as severely as the loss of the memorandum, because he was not usually so careless as that. Indeed, he was almost certain he had dispatched a loyal footman to deliver the love letter by hand. However, in the crush of difficulties that beset him, the billet doux quite slipped his mind—until he got to feeling very lonely, and decided to steal away and inform his ladybird what had kept him from her side. At which point—”

  “Don’t tell me!” begged Vashti. “I don’t think I could bear it! Do you mean that all this time—”

  “She thought it was a queer sort of letter to receive from her lover, but being a good sort of girl, she’s kept it for him all the time.” Yves sounded resigned. “In my opinion, the lady deserves some reward from the country whose bacon she has saved! But I daresay our careless gentleman has expressed gratitude enough. At any rate, the memorandum has arrived at its proper destination, and several reputations have been saved.”

  Thought of her own reputation caused Vashti to remove herself from his lordship’s chest, and to sit up. He turned his head to smile at her. “And what of Edouard?” she asked.

  “Let others deal with Edouard.” Lord Stirling reached out and caught her hand. “We have more important matters to discuss. My intentions toward you, for one! Yes, my darling, I know I shouldn’t be closeted here with you, but I have given strict instructions that we’re not to be disturbed, and moreover, the door is locked.”

  Vashti could not meet his gaze. Instead, she watched Calliope, who was sitting on Yves’s discarded evening coat and kneading it vigorously. “What are your intentions, then?” she asked gruffly. “You have already made it very clear that you consider me a lady of equivocal character—”

  “Little zany!” interjected his lordship, not unkindly. “No one could help remarking the difference between you and what’s-her-name, but we have already settled that. It occurs to me that I’ve been so busy trying to determine who you are that I’ve told you precious little about myself.” He proceeded to do so at great length, enumerating properties and holdings, and concluding with the mention of a ceremony to be performed at St. George’s, Hanover Square.

  “Gracious!” responded Vashti, stunned.

>   “Am I making a rare mull of it?” his lordship inquired. “I’ve never proposed to a lady before. I know I have treated you abominably, Vashti—but I have also loved you from that first moment in the library, when I plucked you off the chair. And I do not think you are indifferent to me, not that I mean to puff myself up!”

  “Indifferent, no.” Vashti continued to gaze upon Calliope, her cheeks pink. “I confess I liked it excessively myself. But Yves, you cannot marry a girl out of a gaming house. Think what people will say.”

  “I have never concerned myself with prattle-bags.” Yves shoved aside Calliope, who had grown bored with his discarded coat and was wishful of sharpening her claws on his boot. “You are rather more than a damsel from a gaming hell, my darling; you are the daughter of the very aristocratic Comte Defontaine. And you will discover that it is the way of the world to concentrate on that latter fact. Rather, it is you who should consider if you wish to wed a rogue.”

  “A rogue? You must not speak so of yourself.” Now Vashti did look at him, so indignantly that Yves laughed. “How dare you laugh at me, you wretch?”

  “I have taken you by surprise. You will wish time to consider my proposal.” Secretly, Yves was disappointed that it should be so. “Very well, I will not press you. But neither will I—”

  “No,” Vashti said baldly.

  “No?” echoed Yves. “I see. I will—”

  “I mean,” interrupted Vashti, “no, I need no more time. I wish very much to marry you, Yves!”

  “Do you, by God?” inquired his lordship as he pressed Vashti with almost savage violence against his breast. What might well have next transpired is a matter of highly indelicate speculation, in light of Lord Stirling’s orders that they should not be interrupted, and that shockingly locked door—but the participants were interrupted by the loud report of a gun fired close at hand.

  Startled, Calliope yowled and leapt straight up into the air, and came down, claws extended, on his lordship’s calf. Lord Stirling also yowled, and knocked the cat right off the bed, in the process banging his elbow sharply against a bedpost. He subsided amid the pillows, grasping his injured arm and cursing mightily.

  Did Vashti comfort him, as befitted her role as prospective wife, take him in her arms and soothe the hurt away? She did not. Instead, she stared at the bedpost. The impact of Lord Stirling’s elbow had caused a section of the wood to swing away, revealing a cavity. Gingerly, she reached in, retrieved a sheet of paper, unfolded it even as Yves swore.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Even as Vashti retrieved a paper from the post of her Cousin Marmaduke’s tent bed, a scene of considerable chaos was being enacted on the singularly-carved staircase. At the bottom of the steps, in the gracefully vaulted entrance hall, was a muddle of entangled bodies that included most of the members of Charlot’s menagerie, as well as Charlot himself. At the very bottom of the heap was Edouard. Standing over them, looking very determined, was Delphine. She held Edouard’s pistol. It was aimed straight at Edouard,

  “Point that damned thing in another direction!” Delphine’s quarry found it unnerving to have a pistol pointed at his brains. “This is a fuss over trifles! There has been no harm done, save to myself.”

  “No harm?” indignantly echoed Charlot, from his perch atop Edouard’s chest. “After you bashed my sister over the head?”

  “It was a mistake!” Edouard was trying very hard to sound sincere, an undertaking greatly hampered by the wildlife slithering and scampering and hopping about his person. “I would never done such a thing had not this old—er, this person assaulted me!”

  “Blood and ‘ouns!” interjected Delphine, looking very ghoulish. “The next shot I fire won’t be into the air, jackanapes! It’s jail for you, my laddie. You’ll dangle in the sheriffs picture frame!”

  “You deserved to be assaulted!” For emphasis, Charlot bounced on Edouard’s chest. “Keeping Vashti standing about in a damp towel, and forcing Minette to become betrothed to you, when neither of them wished to do any such thing.”

  “Errg!” responded Edouard, not to Charlot but the rat that perched atop his nose. Also disposed about Edouard’s bruised person were Python, coiled around his neck, Greensleeves and the turtle. Mohammed snoozed across the villain’s knees.

  Edouard having been temporarily subdued, Charlot turned his attention to the old woman. “I say, are you a ghost?” he inquired.

  Delphine cackled and flourished her pistol. “Stab me!” she replied rhetorically. “This has become a madhouse!”

  With this comment, no few of the spectators agreed. The commotion on the staircase had drawn a large number of curious individuals from the gaming rooms, among them an ashen-faced Orphanstrange. One of that number now essayed the staircase in response to the knocking that had persisted for several moments at the front door. Into the entrance hallway strode two newcomers, a tall gentleman, a veiled lady and an older woman whose disapproving countenance Charlot knew all too well. “Jupiter! Aunt Adder!” he said, unhappily.

  It was indeed Charlot’s unbeloved aunt, a plump and dumpy woman whose fastidious nostrils quivered as she surveyed the jumble of bodies at the foot of the carved staircase. “Disgusting!” she adjudged. “I knew I should not have permitted you and your sister to leave Brighton. Mark my words, I said, ’twould be a most improper thing! And as usual, I was correct. Where is your sister, boy? I have a great deal to say to her.”

  Charlot was mulish. “I shan’t tell you, Aunt! You will only rail at her, and Vashti has had a great deal to bear already, what with Lord Stirling plaguing her, and Edouard knocking her about!”

  Keenly, Aunt Adder felt this rudeness. “Impertinent!” she gasped.

  At this point, Edouard interrupted to remark that he had not only been knocked about, but also sat upon and shot at; and asked if he might please get up. “No!” retorted Charlot with another bounce. “If we let you up, you’d only start acting dastardly again, and we are all very tired of it.”

  “Mon dieu!” exclaimed Minette from the top of the stair case. “Observe, mon cher. Charlot has captured Edouard!”

  As requested, Lionel observed. Arm in arm, they descended the staircase. Trailing after them were two legal-looking gentlemen.

  “Mr. Appleby! Mr. Thorpe!” Charlot stared. “What are you doing here?”

  “Gambling!” responded the amiable Mr. Appleby with a broad grin. Mr. Thorpe’s dour expression indicated that he wanted no part of so very disorderly a scene. “Thought we’d have a look about for the”—Mr. Appleby noticed the fascinated audience— “the whatsis, but Lionel tells us it ain’t here. By Jove, what a lark this has been! Is that the Frenchy you’re sitting on, halfling? If so, you may leave him safely to us.”

  Somewhat reluctantly, Charlot rose from Edouard’s inert person, and bade his menagerie do likewise. Muttering very darkly about proper legal channels and precedents, Mr. Thorpe bent down, grasped Edouard’s collar and hauled him erect.

  “What is going on here?” Aunt Adder inquired.

  “I didn’t really capture Edouard,” explained Charlot to Minette. “It was—” He was interrupted by a commotion at the top of the stair. Vashti had appeared there, Lord Stirling at her elbow. “Vashti! I told you it isn’t proper to go about in your dressing gown!”

  Vashti did not look up from the paper that she held. “Don’t fuss so, Charlot! Lord Stirling and I are going to be married.”

  “Married?” Minette clapped her plump little hands. “And so am I! Edouard has done us both a favor, eh? The vipère!”

  “That’s all well and good,” interjected Charlot, “though I think someone might have asked me. I am the head of the family. But you’re hardly going to marry all these other gentlemen who are gawking at you, Vashti!”

  “Other gentlemen?” Vashti glanced up from the paper to find herself the cynosure of all eyes. She flushed. Then she noted the newcomers, standing apart from the others. “Aunt Adder,” Vashti said without enthusiasm, and then: “Graciou
s God! Papa!” She flew down the staircase and flung herself at the tall gentleman. “Papa, you are safe!”

  The comte accepted this homage as his just due. “Oui, Vashti, it is your papa; and I beg you will cease to crumple my coat!”

  An interested murmur rippled through the onlookers as all heads turned toward the Comte Defontaine. Charlot climbed up several steps to obtain a better view. The comte looked like he should be dressed in satins and brocades, with jewels blazing at finger and knee, instead of unexceptionable trousers and jacket and a caped greatcoat. His thin, aristocratic face was deeply seamed, his white hair drawn back in a queue.

  Aunt Adder sniffed. “What a touching scene.”

  “Ain’t it, by Jove?” Mr. Appleby moved to answer another summons at the front door. Into the hallway strolled a corpulent gentleman with untidy waistcoat, bristling brows and rosy cheeks. “Hallo, Yves!” said the newcomer to his godson, who was ironically observing Vashti’s reunion with her papa. “I decided to see for myself what has caused your overwhelming fascination with Mountjoy House.” With the eye of a connoisseur, he contemplated Vashti.

  That young lady sneezed, to the further detriment of her parent’s coat. “I am sorry to make such a fuss, Papa; I have been very worried about you! You must meet Yves, and Charlot.” She turned to make the necessary introductions. Her gaze alit on Delphine, who still held the pistol trained on Edouard. “The ghost!”

  Minette made a moue. “La vache! I must explain. She is not—”

  “She’s the one who captured Edouard!” Charlot handsomely admitted. “I was just in his way when he tried to run down the stairs.”

  “We must be eternally grateful to you, ma’am!” Vashti said emotionally. “If not for you—”

  Aunt Adder had been ruminating upon a previous remark. “Gambling!” she now uttered. “Surely my ears fail me! This cannot be a gaming house?”