Free Maggie MacKeever by The Tyburn Waltz Page A

did.”
    Came a cool breeze at Pritchett’s back.
    He exhaled. Dare the Cap’n, and be damned.
     

 
     
    Chapter Eight
     
    No one is able to flee from love or death. — Pubilius Syrus
     
     
    All was quiet within the library of ancient Wakely Court, save for the occasional rustle of a page and the snuffle of the dog, sneezing and snorting being among the beast’s myriad unpleasant traits. Clea was buried in Ovid, while Ned mulled over the recent dispatches from his friend, Colonel Sir Neil Campbell, whose exile on Elba was being enlivened by the hoards of British visitors flocking to view the Corsair holed up in his den, the passport office considering curiosity a sufficiently good reason for visiting the island, and Napoleon being not averse to conversation that not only relieved his tedium but also kept him abreast of events in mainland Europe. Cerberus lay on his back in a patch of sunlight, inviting a belly scratch, at which point the unwary scratcher would probably find his hand bit off.
    The room looked even shabbier in the daylight, and no less untidy. Ned noted that the drapery had been put back in place. He found it far less fetching at the window than when wrapped around his thief.
    The statue had not been similarly restored. Ned contemplated the empty spot on his desk where the thing had stood. Thanks to Hannah, he had precious little time to deal with stolen artifacts or light-fingered lasses or Portuguese bandidos. He’d thought himself done with the latter, and wasn’t certain he was not.
    Clea glanced up from her book. She was reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses today. Ned wondered what his sister meant to transform herself into. “You’re engaged with Hannah this afternoon?” he asked.
    “I am. We are interviewing singing teachers. You may join us if you wish.”
    “Thank you, but I would rather have my toenails pulled out.”
    Clea wrinkled her nose. “I wish I could say Hannah improves upon acquaintance, but she does not. She certainly has a bee under her bonnet about you marrying.”
    That she did. A whole swarm of bees. A veritable hive. Everywhere he went, there was Hannah, thrusting yet another marital prospect under his nose.
    Ned was up to his elbows in females. He might have enjoyed this surfeit of damsels in another circumstance, but these young ladies were uniformly dull.
    A frown marred Clea’s brow. “You won’t marry to suit her, will you? I am perfectly able to see what’s going on right beneath my nose. Hannah has told you she will oversee my come-out on the condition that you wed some properly blue-blooded milk-and- water miss, and so you are leading her a merry dance. Which is all well and good as long as you don’t trip and stumble smack into parson’s mousetrap.”
    Next he would have Clea trying to select his bride-to-be. “Don’t concern yourself, puss. Hannah can’t force me to do something I don’t wish.”
    “Stuff!  Of course she can. I don’t particularly wish to learn to sing, but Hannah insists.” Clea closed her book. “And so, like the sirens encountered by Odysseus, I shall lure sailors to their doom.”
    Ned leaned back in his chair and regarded his sister. Clea was wearing a simple muslin gown. On the chair beside her lay a green sarcenet pelisse and a straw hat bedecked with yellow flowers and a green ribbon. Her hair had been fashionably cropped and styled in the current mode to cluster in ringlets around her face.
    Already Hannah’s influence showed. Ned supposed he shouldn’t be regretful when it was what Clea wished. “I promise you,” he said, “that I shall allow myself to be nibbled to death by ducks before I marry where I don’t please.”
    Clea studied him in turn. “I’ve been thinking of P ortugal.”
    Bianca, she meant. “I haven’t,” said Ned, and it was almost true.
    Clea shook her head. She loved her brother dearly; and while she meant to make a career of breaking hearts herself, she didn’t wish a similar fate for him.