“Dark skin?” Pierre pressed him.
Ursley shook his head. “Dark hair, light skin.” He held out his hand at shoulder level. “And—and short.”
“Pretty?” Pierre asked, unearthing his enameled snuffbox and offering some of his personal sort to everyone save Ursley.
The smaller man frowned, trying to decide if Catherine was pretty. She was presentable enough when she kept her mouth shut, he supposed. “Pretty,” he answered, nervously clearing his throat. “Look—if I could view, I mean, if I could just see her—”
Pierre shut the snuffbox with a loud snap that instantly had Ursley thinking of the trapdoor falling open beneath the gibbet. “That’s impossible, sir.” He took hold of Ursley at the elbow. “Not that I don’t believe you, you understand. Our Caroline Addams is most certainly your Catherine Halliford.”
“So—so what’s the problem?”
“Perhaps you should sit down,” Pierre suggested, his voice tinged with sympathy. “I fear I have some bad news.”
Well, it was about time! Suppressing a relieved smile, Ursley allowed himself to be led to a chair, looking over his shoulder at Pierre as that man walked round to stand behind him, almost as if guarding him. “Bad news? Your advertisement said she had lost her memory. Don’t tell me it’s even worse than that? You—you aren’t going to tell me that she’s dead, are you?”
And that, as Patrick was to tell Victoria later, was when the bottom fell out of Ursley Terwilliger-Merrydell’s dreams of wealth.
“Dead? My good gracious, no. I shan’t tell you anything of the kind, Mr. Terwilliger,” Pierre assured him, laying one hand heavily on his shoulder as Ursley made to rise.
“She—she’s not?” Ursley squeaked, twisting in the chair to look up at Pierre.
“No, she’s not. She’s in amazingly good health, as a matter of fact,” Pierre assured him. “I will, however, tell you that your Miss Halliford is also the most fickle of women, and not worthy of your obvious devotion.”
“Oh, don’t dress it up in fine linen, my son,” André broke in. “It won’t make it any easier for the poor fellow in the long run.”
Ursley’s head whipped around to look at the older Standish. “It—it won’t?”
“No,” Pierre said, sighing. “It won’t. I’m sorry to be the bearer of such sad tidings, Mr. Terwilliger, but your Miss Catherine Halliford eloped last night with my valet, Duvall. They will be well on their way to Gretna Green by now, I imagine. I shall miss him, for he did have the most wonderful way with a cravat.”
Ursley Merrydell, looking as if he had been poleaxed, slumped in his chair as if all his bones had turned to mush. Patrick turned on his heel to head for the drinks table, fearing his expression would give the game away. Pierre was in top form this morning; he had to hand it to the man, especially as this was an impromptu performance. Patrick almost pitied Ursley, for even such a dolt as he must know now that the game was up.
Patrick had been half correct in his assessment. Ursley was a beaten man—yet he was also wiser. He looked over to where André Standish was lounging against the mantelpiece, and could read his fate in that man’s dark eyes.
He didn’t have to see Pierre Standish’s face, for he could feel that man’s heavy hand on his shoulder. He wondered randomly where they had put his mother, and how many of them it had taken to subdue her, and he wondered when Catherine Halliford would enter the room, very much alive, to point an accusing finger and confront him with the full gravity of his intended crime.
All in all, it was the most profound bit of wondering to which Ursley had ever subjected his brainbox in his lifetime, and he was beginning to feel the dull throb of a headache approaching behind his eyes.
He made another, albeit halfhearted, attempt to rise. “Yes, well, these things will happen, I guess. I’ll go now, I think,” he mumbled, then felt a renewed surge of hope as Pierre removed his hand, allowing him to get to his feet.
“You do that,” Pierre purred, smiling at him in a way that made Ursley feel the man could have killed him without so much as blinking an eye. “I think you should go very far away, please, Mr. Merrydell, and never, ever return. Your mother will not follow you, if that news cheers you, as she’ll be otherwise occupied for quite some time. Do they still have the women beat hemp at Bridewell, Father, do you suppose?”
Patrick whirled in astonishment. Was that compassion he heard in Pierre’s voice? “You’re letting him go?” he asked, incredulous. They had done all this, only to let the man go? “You’ve got to be kidding!”
But André, walking across the room to lay an arm across his son’s shoulders, only smiled and said proudly, “Please, dearest Patrick, don’t sound so amazed. My son is a very human sort. It becomes him, don’t you think?”
EPILOGUE
LONDON WAS ANXIOUS for the start of the fall Little Season, with stragglers daily arriving back in the city from their house parties or hunting parties or periods of judicious retrenching after spending a poor spring season at the gaming tables.
If there was a little added fillip to the buzz of gossip that was once more making its rounds through the haut ton, it could be traced to the presence of André Standish in their midst after an absence of more than six years. Previously one of the darlings of the ton, it was already as if he had never been gone. No evening was complete without him, no hostess a success unless he graced her party.
Yet even more exciting, although at the same time depressing, at least to the eligible young ladies and hopeful mamas in their midst, was the appearance of Pierre Standish, his smiling bride on his arm. The town had been set on its collective ear with the news of the marriage of the unfathomable Pierre to his gorgeous young heiress, and everywhere they went necks craned so that people could observe the couple as they strolled through drawing rooms or went gracefully down the dance.
The Earl and Countess of Wickford were also in town, even though the dear countess was increasing, a fact that could be overlooked, as they were hosting André Standish at their mansion. As a matter of fact, as a show of support to the young countess, more than a few matrons were now sporting spectacles whether they needed them or nay.
Indeed, it was showing all the signs of being an extraordinarily festive Little Season.
André, out for a stroll in the park, his oddly endearing blond page skipping three paces behind him, couldn’t have agreed with Society more. As he walked in the cool afternoon sunshine, his walking stick idly twirling between his agile fingers, he called over his shoulder without turning around: “Master Holloway, I implore you, although I appreciate your happiness at being once more in London, try not to whistle like that. You’re unnerving the horses as they pass by.”
“Yer gots it, Whitey, right an’ right!” Jeremy Holloway responded gaily, with his usual disregard for André’s consequence. He smoothed his hands down the front of his new jacket, wondering if they would be stopping at the guv’nor’s house for dinner so that he could show this latest mass of beauty to Frenchie. He’d be that proud, Frenchie would, for the two of them had become bosom chums since they had helped to rout the Merrydells. It also helped the fledgling friendship considerably that they no longer resided beneath the same roof.
Jeremy looked down the path, his eyes brightening. “’Ey, Whitey, ain’t that the guv’nor an’ ’is missus comin’ up on that rattle an’ prad?”
André looked ahead, to see his son and his daughter-in-law approaching in a shiny midnight-black high-perch phaeton, Catherine handling the spirited greys between the shafts with an ease that marked the true whipster. He stopped on the path and planted his walking stick, waiting for them to draw up alongside.
“Good day to you, Father,” Pierre called, tipping his hat. “I see you have gotten your Good Deed yet another new suit of clothes. You’ll spoil him, you know.”
“Master Holloway is completely unspoilable,” André responded carelessly. “Besides, as I recall, he was to be your Good Deed. Catherine was mine, until you us
urped her.” He winked up at her, for she already had been informed as to the whole of the events that had led to Pierre’s willingness to accept her and Jeremy as his responsibilities.
Putting her arm through her husband’s, Catherine looked into his eyes and drawled cheekily, “Jeremy may be uncorruptible but I, on the other hand, simply adore being indulged. What do you have to say to that, my dearest husband?”
With a look so soft and loving in his dark eyes, a melting look that would have astonished anyone who had ever faced the not-yet-reformed Pierre Claghorn Standish across a green felt table or a dewy green dueling ground, he responded quietly, “I say I have every intention of indulging you shamelessly all the days of our lives.”
And then, shocking and titillating the passersby, he leaned down quite deliberately and kissed his wife square on the lips.
André smiled, whether in memory of his own love or in celebration of his son’s happiness only he knew. With a tip of his hat to the oblivious pair, he resumed his walk, calling over his shoulder, “Master Holloway! A whistle if you will—and damn the horses!”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8176-3
THE ANONYMOUS MISS ADDAMS
Copyright © 1989 by Kathie Seidick.
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