Lady in the Stray

by Maggie MacKeever

  “Why can it not?” inquired Minette, intrigued. “It is a private establishment, you understand.” Mr. Thorpe was heard to murmur beneath his breath about illegal faro banks.

  Aunt Adder turned on Vashti. “I knew I could not trust you to have a proper way of thinking, you wretched girl! Try as I did to impose a check upon your spirits, you engaged in the gravest folly and indecorum as soon as you were out of my sight! My patience is exhausted! I—”

  “Faith, but it’s a gabble-grinder!” Delphine turned the pistol on Aunt Adder. “Perhaps I should shoot her!”

  “I would be grateful if you did,” remarked Lord Stirling. “It would save me the trouble—and subsequently languishing in jail.”

  All eyes were briefly on Delphine as she pondered giving way to temptation, and the consequence. The old woman was looking especially fine this evening, in a gown of clear lawn with back-lacing bodice and long rose-colored sashes, and a hat profuse with ribbons and feathers atop her powdered hair. “A pox on the lot of you!” muttered Delphine, and lowered the gun.

  “Delphine is not a ghost.” Minette was determined to make a clean breast of all her sins. “We merely let you think so because she refuses to leave Mountjoy House. She is an indigent connection of Marmaduke.”

  “Flibbertigibbet!” Delphine curtsied to the assembled company. “How d’ye do?”

  Lionel stared at the old woman. “You! When mention was made of a ghost, I didn’t realize—I thought after Marmaduke’s death, you’d gone elsewhere.”

  “Bright as a penny, ain’t you?” inquired Delphine.

  “Do not blame yourself, mon cher!” Minette favored the old woman with a hostile glance. “A reasonable person would have removed herself. Besides, you only met her once.”

  Vashti’s attention was on more important matters. She clutched at her father’s coat. “Papa, do say I may marry Yves!”

  Looking pained, the comte disengaged himself. “It would be churlish of me to refuse my consent, daughter, since Stirling was instrumental in our removal from France—and barely in time! The conduct of the French government has obliged your Farmer George to recall his ambassador from Paris. Next we will hear that war has been declared. Travel under such circumstances is très difficile.”

  Though Vashti was hugely interested in how her papa had spent the years since their last meeting and would query him at length about his adventures at some later date, she was during this moment seized by a dreadful premonition. “We?” she echoed, awarding the veiled lady a searching glance.

  The stranger wore a short coat of many colors over a light gown of very dashing cut, and a large straw hat trimmed with innumerable flowers. “Oui, chérie!” With fine dramatic timing, the lady threw back her veil. So marked was the resemblance between the newcomer and Vashti that the onlookers gasped.

  The lady smiled at Yves. “Bonjour, mon ami.”

  “I am not your ami,” Lord Stirling responded coolly. “In point of fact, Valérie, I would like to throttle you. What the devil was the idea of making mischief with Vashti’s name?”

  Valérie’s amber eyes twinkled. “You liked my mischief well enough at the time, as I recall it, mon—Yves! Time changes all, eh? C’est la vie.”

  Vashti recovered sufficiently from shock to glower at Valérie. “What are you doing here? I had thought you happily settled with your general in France.”

  “How unimaginative you are, chérie! Often I have remarked it.” Valérie sighed. “As for my generals, they are a great deal too occupied with military affairs these days, which is very dreary.” She turned her attention on Richard, the only person in the immediate vicinity to regard her with anything close to appreciation. “The females of my family are very amenable to romance. If we are loved, we thrive. If not, we languish. It is a sad thing to languish, m’sieur.”

  Richard had been studying these two young women who looked so much alike. Seen together, there were marked differences between them. Valérie was older, more sophisticated, more worldly. She was also much more to his taste. “And you, mademoiselle,” he murmured, “are perhaps more susceptible to romance than most.”

  “Oui. I admit it. But I had not expected to find an Englishman so sympathique.” Valérie twinkled. “Perhaps I will not find life in this country so dreary as I had expected, eh?”

  Richard patted the dainty hand that she’d placed upon his arm. “I shall endeavor to insure that you do not.”

  Vashti broke into this exchange of pleasantries. “You cause me countless difficulties, and then shrug them off? Valérie, I could murder you!”

  “Someone should,” Charlot remarked severely. “Thanks to Valérie, everyone thought Vashti was a straw damsel and I was a by-blow!”

  “A—” Aunt Adder had recourse to her smelling salts.

  Valérie laughed. “Because of my little game? How droll! Instead of having my head for washing, you should thank me for helping your sister to catch Santander on her hook. Sometime you must tell me how you accomplished it, Vashti. I anticipate a very entertaining tale! As for him and me—” She shrugged. “I would change it if I could, but I cannot, so you must try not to mind it, because it was a very long time ago.”

  Sternly, Vashti gazed upon the personification of the countless ways in which a family escutcheon could be besmirched. Valérie’s saving grace was her ability to disarm. “If you ever so much as look at Yves—”

  Valérie was wounded. “Naturellement, I must look at Santander if he is to become one of the family, but I will not look at him that way. I am not without loyalty, je t’ assure! I would not think of such a thing. Tat any rate, there is little reason to cast out lures to a gentleman who is running mad over another female, n’est-çe pas?” She dimpled at Richard, who responded with his singularly sweet smile. “Moreover, I have other fish to fry!”

  Lest Valérie commence to fry those fish in public, Aunt Adder was compelled to speak. “A gaming house!” she repeated incredulously. “Marmaduke was queer in the head!”

  “That reminds me,” said Vashti. “Cousin Marmaduke must have meant to leave Mountjoy House to you, Valérie, and you may have it with my blessing! Although you would be well served if I didn’t let you have it, since the whole misunderstanding was result of your usurping my name.”

  “Comment ça?” Valérie looked appraisingly about, at the vaulted ceiling, the staircase carved with monkeys and apes and dogs. “That would be very poor-spirited of you, cousine. So you give me a gaming hell. Among all the things I have done pour m’amuser has not been to run a gaming hell.” She glanced at the comte. “It will serve nicely, do you not think, Etienne?”

  The comte roused from the deep abstraction into which he had sunk. “Merveilleux.”

  Aunt Adder drew in a sharp breath. “You cannot be serious! You don’t mean—”

  The comte looked down on her from his considerable height. “Adelaide, you are a dead bore. One finds oneself doing all manner of odd things when one’s pockets are to let.”

  “Oui,” said Valérie, with feeling. “One contrives.”

  “That is what I always say!” cried Minette, distracted from the conversation of Messrs. Appleby and Thorpe regarding the fate of the unhappy Edouard.

  “No more you don’t!” said Lionel, firmly. “From now on you may leave the contriving to me.”

  “Mon cher, I shall adore to!” Minette’s long lashes fluttered. “First, you may tell me what we are to do with Edouard.”

  In the response to this question, Edouard himself had considerable interest. He had no reason to think his captors would be lenient. If only he could make a break for freedom—but that opportunity was past praying for, what with Delphine pointing his own pistol at him, and Thorpe shaking him periodically like a terrier with a rat.

  But then Dame Fortune chose to be capricious, as is sometimes her wont. The instrument of Edouard’s salvation was Calliope, descending the carved stair. Calliope was feeling almost as sorely imposed upon as Edouard, although she had not the
disadvantage of a sorely aching head. Nonetheless, the cat was in search of diversion. When she saw the ribbons and lace of Delphine’s hat swaying just beneath the stair rail, Calliope pounced.

  A great mêlée ensued, with all the gentlemen rushing to offer assistance and in the process tripping over various members of Charlot’s menagerie, most notably Mohammed, engaged in darting gaily through the forest of feet. Aunt Adder shrieked, Valérie laughed, Messrs. Appleby and Thorpe stared in astonishment—and Edouard took advantage of the general lack of vigilance to flee. The comte regarded the scene with regal indifference until the moment when Vashti sought to save her pet from imminent extinction by swatting Delphine’s pistol-gripping hand with a piece of rumpled paper. His daughter had been very absorbed in that piece of paper when first she descended the stair, the comte recalled. He strolled forward and plucked it from her hand.

  “I had quite forgot!” Vashti wrestled Calliope way from the murderously-inclined Delphine. “We found Cousin Marmaduke’s treasure—at least, I think we did! Rather, Yves found it when he knocked his elbow against the post of Marmaduke’s bed. There was a secret cavity.”

  “Marmaduke’s bed?” Valérie murmured wickedly.

  “I am glad to discover Santander has not changed all out of recognition.” Yves’s godpapa laughed.

  “Marmaduke’s treasure!” cried Charlot from the staircase, where he’d been sitting and marveling at the antics of the grown-ups. “Jupiter!”

  “I fear there is little cause for excitement, Charlot.” Vashti relaxed somewhat, now that Delphine had been relieved of the pistol by an ashen Orphanstrange. “Had Papa ever told me what Marmaduke’s treasure was—”

  “Steaming port.” The comte read aloud from the paper which he held. “Roasted lemon—” He folded the paper and carefully tucked it away.

  “But what is this treasure?” cried Valérie.

  Vashti transferred the snarling Calliope to Lord Stirling’s arms. “Merely a recipe for punch.”

  “Punch!” Charlot was indignant. “I say, Papa, that’s very bad!”

  “No, mon fils, it is very good.” retorted the comte. “The best punch I have ever drunk. Marmaduke’s secret recipe, fair play—” He snapped his fingers. “Our fortunes are made.”

  Delphine, deprived of her quarry, glanced around for an object on which to vent her spleen. Thorpe looked a picture, holding an empty jacket dangling in mid-air. “Plague on’t!” she uttered. “The cockerel has fled the coop.”

  “So he has,” agreed Minette, “if by the cockerel you mean Edouard. Me, I am just as glad of it. He is my only kinsman, and even if he is canaille, I have decided I do not wish to see him hanged.”

  A general babble of conversation broke out at this point, and not much of it had to do with the villainous Edouard. Between Lord Stirling and Vashti, Minette and Lionel, congratulations were given and exchanged. Lord Stirling’s godpapa resumed his flirtation with Valérie. Messrs. Appleby and Thorpe, and a great many of the other gamblers, repaired above stairs to the gaming rooms, all the excitement having whetted their thirst. The comte engaged in a discussion of the ins and outs of gaming-house operation with Orphanstrange and Delphine, both of whom he trusted would continue to grace the establishment.

  Aunt Adder, incensed beyond tolerance by the indignities that she had suffered during the past half hour, drew a deep breath. “Etienne, I do not presume to judge your conduct,” she said, somewhat untruthfully, “but even you must realize that a boy of Charlot’s tender years cannot benefit from the vicissitudes he will witness in a gaming hell!”

  “Moonshine!” Charlot uttered rudely. “I have been living in a gaming hell, and am not a penny the worse for it!”

  “Are you not?” Aunt Adder’s cheeks were mottled with rage. “We shall discuss that once you are returned to Brighton, my boy!”

  “I won’t go back to Brighton!” Charlot’s own cheeks were pink. He clutched at Mohammed. “Vashti, say I needn’t!”

  “It is not for your sister to say!” Aunt Adder was triumphant. “Your father must have the final word in such matters, and I am certain he will agree with me.”

  “I don’t know why you should be certain,” the comte remarked. “I do not recall that I have agreed with you once in all my life, Adelaide. Tout de même, I do believe that in this instance—”

  Lord Stirling looked at Vashti, and at Charlot, both of whom were regarding him pleadingly. Then he glanced at the cat that was purring in his arms. The days of his carefree bachelor existence were clearly at an end.

  “What the devil!” said his lordship recklessly. “Charlot will reside with his sister and myself—unless you’d mind, bantling?”

  “Mind? I should think not!” Charlot thought Edouard could have been no happier to escape. “I didn’t truly think you’d hit Vashti over the head, sir!”

  “Hit—” Aunt Adder’s entire face was suffused with deep, dull red. “This is the outside of enough! I wash my hands of you all, I vow!”

  “Capital!” cried the unrepentant Charlot, and gave his hound an exuberant hug. “Then we shall all be suited to a cow’s thumb!”

  And so they were, with the possible exception of Edouard, from whom no more was ever heard.

  Copyright © 1982 by Maggie MacKeever

  Originally published by Fawcett Coventry (0449502759)

  Electronically published in 2007 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

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  This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.