The Hourglass

by Barbara Metzger

  “Being run through by a jealous husband on the eve of battle? No mother wants to hear that. Lie.”

  “You are telling me to lie? You, who believes honor is everything?”

  “Kindness is something, too.”

  She nodded. “I will ask if I might call on her tomorrow.”

  It was Ardeth’s mm to cluck his tongue. “She is, what, a dowager baroness? When are you going to realize your place in this world? You are a countess, Lady Ardeth. If you wish to visit, you do. Otherwise, you ask her to call on you.”

  “That would be rude and arrogant.”

  “But effective. How can she berate you in your own home, with your new husband at your side? That would be ruder still.”

  “I thank you for the offer to stand beside me, but this is my duty. There is no need for both of us to suffer the lady’s rancor.”

  He smiled, but without humor. “Do you really think I would let some nasty old beldam upset you?”

  Heavens, with that look he might turn the woman into a pillar of salt, or have her be struck by lightning. “I have to handle this on my own.”

  “No, you truly do not. You are married now.”

  She was married before, and managed everything from finding rooms to fending off inebriated young officers who thought she was Elgin’s sister and thus fair game.

  Genie compromised. She sent her former mother-in-law a note inviting the older woman for tea tomorrow, if it was convenient, or to name a time for Genie to call on her if not. She was half hoping Lady Cormack would not reply at all.

  Or that her personal prestidigitator could make the baroness disappear altogether.

  Chapter 8

  Lady Cormack arrived promptly that afternoon. She arrived so promptly that Genie was not ready. She directed her maid to tell the footman to ask the butler to show her mother-in-law into the best parlor. That was how things were done in the great houses of Mayfair, instead of yelling down the stairwell, which would have been easier but quite common. The toplofty butler would have been shocked.

  Genie was being rude anyway, she knew, keeping the woman waiting, but there was no help for it. She had been sick to her stomach, and still had butterflies after Ardeth’s merry waltz. Then she wanted to dress perfectly, not like the frightened girl in a hand-me-down gown at her wedding.

  She wore black. All of her new clothes were in dark colors. At least no one could say she was dressing like a fast woman, no matter how fast her remarriage had occurred. She wore her pearls as her only ornament other than the gold wedding band, with her braided hair tucked neatly under a black lace cap, except for a few red-gold strands allowed to curl down her shoulder. The gown itself was stylish without being dashing. The high waist concealed enough; the neckline revealed enough. She wore a black lace fichu at the low collar, again for propriety, and a fringed black shawl, because the short puffed sleeves left her feeling too undressed, too vulnerable to criticism, no matter their modishness.

  Genie might have worn black, but Lady Cormack wore Black. From head to toe, fingertip to fat fingertip, she was a wide, walking coal heap with lumps to match. Her gown was high-necked and long-sleeved. Her gloves were black lace; her necklace was black jet beads. The only items not black on the woman were her hair, an improbable blond for her age, and her flabby cheeks, probably rosy from her weight and her wait. When Genie arrived, she had been eating bonbons, while inspecting the furnishings of the room and fuming.

  She had grown a great deal stouter since the ill-fated wedding, and her face was more lined, with most of the lines pointing downward from constant frowning. On her head she wore a large black ruched bonnet trimmed in black ribbon streamers and black lace, with a knot of feathers at one side. Black feathers, they were. Shiny black feathers.

  “Cawk!”

  Just as Lady Cormack was about to greet Genie with a blustering scold, preliminary to the blistering one she had in mind, Olive swooped down from the drapery rod, shrieking.

  “Mine,” the bird cawed as he attacked the bonnet. “Mine!”

  Genie did not know whether the crow was claiming the feathers or defending his territory from what he perceived as another crow.

  “No,” Genie shouted over the din, for Lady Cormack was screaming as loudly as the bird, flapping her hands in the air while Olive kept flapping his wings.

  “Stop!” Genie shouted again. Neither one listened to her. Olive kept pecking at the bonnet, pulling out feathers—along with lace and ribbons and a few blond hairs with gray-brown roots. As furiously as the woman waved her arms, batting at the bird, Olive kept diving and shrilling in dismay.

  “Mine!”

  Maybe Olive thought Lady Cormack had killed one of his friends.

  “No! The feathers are not yours! And stop yelling.” The last was directed to the crow and Lady Cormack and whoever else was listening, like the maid she could hear screaming in the outer hallway. The maid was the only one whose shouts might have done any good by fetching help.

  Genie did not want to hurt the earl’s pet by swatting him away, but neither did she want her mother-in-law slashed by that clacking bill or raked by the grasping talons or snatched bald. So she whipped off her shawl and tried to throw it over Olive. She missed and tipped over a vase that was likely worth enough to found another orphanage. She stepped over the broken bits, water, and flowers, and tried again. This time she smashed a dish of comfits to the floor. Her final try managed to knock the bonnet off Lady Cormack’s head. The shawl stayed wrapped around the woman’s face; the hat sailed across the room, Olive in hawklike pursuit.

  The bird swooped on the bonnet, cawing victory through a beak full of feathers. Then Genie’s words finally penetrated his gamy gremlin brain, for the crow cocked his head and looked at her. “Not mine?”

  “No. Not even close. You have all yours. And these never came from one of your brethren. Look.” She picked up a feather from the floor—where Lady Cormack was now thrashing, trapped in the shawl. “See? The stem is white. These were pigeon feathers or ducks’. They were dyed.”

  “Dead?”

  “Of course they were dead, but dyed black.”

  “Ar’s?”

  “No, not ours, either.”

  Olive turned his head from side to side to see from both eyes. “Ar lady?”

  “No, not mine, either. And that should be my lady, not our lady. My lady.”

  Olive bobbed his head. “Mine.”

  “Silly bird, were you protecting me?”

  Olive cooed softly. He might be admitting his error, or he might be choking on a bit of lace. Lady Cormack was choking on her own anger, sputtering and swatting at the shawl, trying to heave her hefty self off the floor. She slapped Genie’s hand away when she came to offer assistance.

  “That abominable creature is yours?” she wheezed.

  Genie hated to claim the wretch, but she said, “It is ours, yes.”

  “Ar’s,” Olive said. “Alive.”

  “That’s his name. Olive.”

  The maid from the hall finally had the courage to come in now that the shouting had stopped. She looked around and started weeping. She’d be the one to have to clean up the mess.

  The housekeeper rushed in, saw a baroness on her back, a bird on a bonnet, a blubbering maid in the corner—and her mistress battling laughter. She promptly resigned. This was not what she was accustomed to.

  The stately butler wheeled in the tea cart. He noted the shards of priceless pottery, the pieces of candy, the flower petals, and a peeress, all on the floor. Then he looked at his scandal-prone mistress, curled his lip, and wheeled the tea cart out again. His resignation would also be tendered before dinner. At least Genie could hire her own people now.

  When Marie came in to see what the commotion was about, Genie said, “Take this upstairs and repair it.” She tried to hand over Lady Cormack’s bonnet.

  “Why? It is ugly.”

  Lady Cormack gasped. So did Genie. Olive was too busy eating one of the bonbons to notice.r />
  “Just do it!”

  Lady Cormack started beating her fists and her feet on the floor. “I have never seen such a ramshackle household. I have never seen such unruly servants.” Her voice trailed away as she said, “I have never seen…”

  Genie’s thoughts finished the sentence: Such a handsome, dignified, extraordinary gentleman.

  Lord Ardeth had entered the parlor. He looked at Genie first to make certain she was unharmed, then whispered something to the maid, who jumped up and ran out. Before Genie could ask what he’d said—What if he threatened to grow warts on her nose? The story would be all over London by dinnertime—Ardeth raised Lady Cormack from the floor. Impossibly, he lifted her as if she were as light as one of the ruined feathers, and gently deposited her on the sofa. Implausibly, he’d kicked the broken china and fallen sweets under a chair at the same time. Then he bowed, with a cavalier’s flourish.

  “Welcome to my home, my lady. Coryn Ardsley, Earl of Ardeth, at your service. I apologize for any inconvenience. Perhaps some sherry?”

  Her mouth was hanging open. “Well, I never.”

  “I seldom do myself, but the occasion seems to merit something stronger than tea. Do you not agree, madam?”

  Genie was already pouring a decanter of brandy out into waiting glasses on a side table. To the devil with sherry, she thought, or tea. Ardeth took two glasses from her and handed one to Lady Cormack, again in a courtly manner that kept her speechless. He took a sip of his, gracefully sidestepped the puddle on the floor, and used his free hand to open the window. Then he sent a dangerous, dagger look at the crow.

  “No wine?”

  “No whining, no cawing, no making excuses. Go, or else.”

  For all his lack of sense, Olive knew enough to fly as fast as he could. Genie thought she heard a loud “Whew” as the crow headed for the rooftop, then his name.

  Fortified, Lady Cormack recalled her outrage and reclaimed her tongue. “What was that abomination, and why was it in a gentleman’s home?”

  Ardeth said, “It is a spawn of Hell, sent to bedevil me.”

  “Poppycock,” Lady Cormack said with a snort.

  So much for the truth. Ardeth glanced at Genie over the top of his glass and shrugged. She wanted to handle the situation herself, his look seemed to be saying. So she could handle it.

  “It is a rare bird,” Genie said. “A very rare talking bird that Lord Ardeth brought back from… from the Indies.”

  “It didn’t look like any parrot I’ve ever heard tell of.”

  “Oh, Olive is much rarer than that.”

  The baroness looked at the earl. “And he don’t look tanned.”

  Genie replied, “They traveled by way of the Orient.”

  Since Lady Cormack had no idea that the Indies and the Orient were at opposite ends of the earth, she dropped that line of questioning. “They say he’s rich as Croesus. Is it true?”

  Ardeth merely bowed again. Genie refused to answer such an impertinent query.

  “And that’s why you married him without even waiting for my boy to be cold in the ground.”

  “That was not why,” both Genie and Ardeth answered at once.

  The maid came in at that moment, pushing the tea cart. She curtsied to the earl, smiled at Genie, and offered Lady Cormack a platter of small sandwiches, pastries, and biscuits before leaving the room.

  While her mother-in-law was making her selection—several selections—Genie whispered to Ardeth, “What did you say to her?”

  “Merely that I’d mention her name to that new footman if she behaved.”

  Genie was relieved, until he added with a wink, as if he was reading her mind again, “Or else I’ll make her a love potion.”

  With a watercress sandwich in one hand, a lemon tart in the other, and half a slice of poppy seed cake in her mouth, Lady Cormack was ready to go on the attack. “My poor little lamb. How could you shame our family name that way? And him.”

  Genie tried to stay calm and not lose her temper. After all, the woman had suffered a loss, even if she seemed to care more about her social standing than about her son. “I had no choice but to accept his lordship’s generous offer. Please understand, I had no way to live, no funds, nowhere to go.” When Lady Cormack simply crammed another bite of poppy seed cake into her mouth, Genie asked, “Would you have taken me in?”

  Lady Cormack must have swallowed a seed wrong. She coughed.

  “You never replied when I wrote you from Portugal, in desperation.”

  Now the dowager was turning purple. Genie handed Ardeth a cup of tea to bring her.

  After a gulp and a demand for more sugar, which did not sweeten her tongue, Lady Cormack said, “You abandoned him, shameless adventuress that you are! Why should I consider you part of my family?”

  Genie was shaking her head. “You know that is not the case. After we returned from the posting to Canada, Elgin abandoned me in Portugal when the first peace was declared. I wrote to you several times when he went alone to Vienna for the Peace Congress. If I had not found a position with a wealthy Portuguese family, teaching English to their sons and drawing to their daughters, I would have starved. You did not answer. For four years of our marriage, you did not once write.”

  Ardeth was looking furious. “You never said the dastard did that.”

  “There was no need to bring out all the skeletons from the closet.”

  No, Ardeth thought, skeletons did not like being disturbed.

  “He was your husband,” Lady Cormack insisted. “It was his right to leave you where you would be safe, instead of carrying you off to some heathenish country.”

  “Was it his right to go on to Brussels without me, still claiming to be a bachelor?”

  Steam was coming from the tea, and from Ardeth, Genie swore. She quickly added, “One of the army wives who had befriended me sent a message that they were all going to the Netherlands. My employers graciously arranged for me to follow. I had no way of knowing Bonaparte was going to raise his army again and confront the allies there. I simply wanted Elgin to acknowledge our marriage, to make provision for me. He promised to, after the battle, but he never did.”

  Ardeth was up and pacing, reminding Genie of a hungry black panther she’d seen once at the Royal Menagerie. “I am sorry for his death,” she told Elgin’s mother, “and sorry I had no time to pay respect to his memory. But I had no choice. No one offered to help me except Lord Ardeth. Thank heaven for him.”

  She might thank Hell, instead. The earl had had enough. “Her rightful protectors had deserted Mrs. Macklin: her husband, her family, and you, it appears.” He glared at Lady Cormack, who tried to shrink in her chair. “It was my duty as a gentleman to see your daughter-in-law to safety. Marriage was the easiest and quickest way.”

  “They say she is with child.” The baroness tried to squint at the front of Genie’s gown. “With my grandchild.”

  Genie said nothing.

  “If you had told me that, Imogene, I would have sent funds. The barony needs a second heir. The boy your sister birthed is sick and puny. They doubt he’ll live to succeed, and she is lax in producing another.”

  “I am sorry. About the boy’s health, that is. I never knew any of that. My sister and I are not in communication. She returned my pleas for assistance unopened.”

  Lady Cormack ignored the fact that she had actually read the letters—sniveling rubbish, she’d considered Genie’s difficulties, no more than the hoyden deserved—then ignored them. She was none too fond of her other daughter-in-law, either, and sorely aggravated by the heir’s infirmity. She, herself, had produced two healthy sons for her late husband, and now she was about to see it all go for naught. “Bad lungs, the physicians say. There have never been weak lungs in the Macklin family or my own,” she insisted, blaming Genie and her sister for the boy’s lack of vigor. “Roger should have married the Duke of Eldert’s gal. Good breeding there, her sister has five boys already.”

  She held her teacup out
for more, then pointed to the brandy decanter, for more of that, too. “So another boy would be welcome. I could raise him up fit for the barony.”

  Genie was desperate. She could not let this fat female claim her child. “He—if it is indeed a boy—is not your grandson,” she blurted without thinking.

  Lord Ardeth casually held his fob watch up, as though he had somewhere better to go. “I claim the boy as mine.”

  Lady Cormack gasped. So did Genie. The dowager spoke first. “Ha. The child cannot be yours. They say you appeared after the battle, just days before your wedding.”

  Before Genie could say she’d meant that she would never give up the child, not that it was fathered by another, Ardeth said, “ ‘Sooth, I was always around.”

  Lady Cormack struggled to her feet, trailing crumbs. She pointed one sausage-shaped finger at Genie and shouted, “You were unfaithful to my son, you Jezebel! How dare you ask for money! How dare you show your face in polite society! I will tell everyone of your whoring with this… this interloper. No one knows his people, or where he got his gold. Dealing with the Devil, I’d wager.”

  “You’d win,” Ardeth murmured. Louder, he said, “Here is an even surer bet: If you speak thusly of my wife, then I shall tell everyone of your son’s death.”

  “No,” Genie cried. “We agreed.”

  Lady Cormack sank back onto the sofa, needing another sip of the fortified tea. “What calumny is this, trying to ruin my son’s reputation as a hero?”

  “As you’d ruin my lady wife’s as a gentlewoman.” Somehow it was important for Ardeth to see Genie accepted, or all of his sacrifice—his freedom, his blood heir—would be in vain. He had sworn to make her life better, and his own future depended on his keeping his vows. No matter what happened to him, he needed her to carry on his plans when he was gone. Without society’s nod, she would stay in the house or stay isolated at Ardsley Keep, her light dimmed by humiliation. Not Genie, not his wife. “She is above reproach.”

  “She is below decency! Your precious countess trapped my poor boy into indiscretion. Or did she tell you some taradiddle about that, too?”