Lady Margery's Intrigue

by Beaton, M. C.

  “I shall go back to mother,” threatened Desdemona, as the earl’s shaking hands began to turn over gem after gem.

  “Bad cess to you, girl,” said the earl, relishing his newfound armor of indifference. “Go find someone else.”

  Desdemona half ran from the shop, her eyes blurred with angry tears. He would pay and pay dearly for those insults. But as she stormed along the street, she began to think that it would be very difficult to revenge herself on a husband who held the purse strings.

  “Hey, what’s that? Beauty in distress, eh!”

  Desdemona blinked the angry tears from her eyes and found herself looking into the mottled face of Colonel Andrew Chapman, a gambling crony of her husband.

  “Oh, Andy,” she burst out. “Jimmy is so horrid. He’s going to divorce me!”

  “Nonsense!” said the colonel. “Marriage spat, that’s all.”

  “It’s not a spat,” wailed Desdemona, while her eyes neatly totaled up the cost of the colonel’s expensive clothes to the last penny. “I—I shall run away with the first gentleman I meet—”

  “Why! That’s me!” exclaimed the colonel.

  “The first gentleman who can take care of poor little Dessie properly,” said Desdemona, casting a look up at the colonel from under her long lashes.

  The colonel looked down at the beautiful face and exquisite form and his heart began to hammer like a drum. “Gawd, harrumph, ma’am. Should think any gentleman would be proud to… I declare, look at that fan in Asprey’s. Cunning, ain’t it? Little diamonds on the sticks, see. Just the sort of trifle a pretty gel like you should have, what!”

  “Oh, I couldn’t. I mean, I oughtn’t,” said Desdemona, nonetheless taking a little step towards the shop. “What would Jimmy say?”

  “Don’t matter anymore what Jimmy says,” said the colonel, grandly offering his arm. “Just a little token of my esteem… the first, I hope, of many little tokens.”

  Desdemona gave him a blinding smile. “You have a wonderful way with words, my dear Colonel. A wonderful way with words…”

  Toby Sanderson was tooling his curricle in the park at the fashionable hour. Lord Brenton was perched up beside him.

  “There’s Margery and Charles,” said Archie. “Pull over and we’ll join ’em.”

  Toby looked over to where the marquess’s curricle was parked under the trees. The marquess and Margery were leaning down to talk to Amelia and Freddie. Four radiant faces on a perfect spring day. Margery said something and the marquess laughed and turned to kiss her on the cheek.

  “They don’t need us,” said Toby sadly. “In fact, nobody does. We’re just a pair of sour old bachelors.”

  He wheeled his team round and headed for the park gates.

  “It’s all your fault,” said Archie. “You never listen to me. Didn’t you see that pretty little Penelope Featherington at Almack’s t’other Wednesday? The way she looked at you…”

  “Miss Featherington is a very correct young lady,” said Toby stiffly.

  “Pooh!” said Archie rudely. “They all look like that on the outside, but get ’em between the sheets and they’re all the same. Why, I could tell you a thing or two. I could—”

  But whatever Archie could tell was destined never to be heard, by Toby at least.

  Toby suddenly rammed his brother in the ribs with a beefy elbow and Archie somersaulted out of the curricle and landed heavily on the grass.

  Toby whipped up his horses and bowled through the park gates at a smart pace. Quite suddenly, London looked like a jolly place again. He had not seen his old friends at the Four Horse Club for some time.

  He would leave the petticoats alone and perhaps one day—just perhaps—he might land as lucky as Charles, Marquess of Edgecombe.