Free Maggie MacKeever by The Misses Millikin Page B

trembling, and she looked so damned bereft...
    Gervaise regained sufficient poise to make an elegant leg and extend an arm. “You grievously wounded me, Miss Millikin; there’s nothing for it but that you must atone. Perhaps if you will accompany me on a stroll around the room, I might recover my spirits. We will proceed at a gentle pace, due to my decrepitude.”
    “You are in a very teasing mood, I think, because you must know you’re not that old.” Incapable of resisting flirtation with any gentleman who came in her way, Lily placed her fingertips on the duke’s arm and smiled up at him. “We are having a comfortable prose together, sir, are we not?”
    Gervaise returned that smile, ruefully. How the world would laugh to know that England’s most elusive, most determined bachelor had been dealt a fatal blow by a beautiful pea-goose.
     

Chapter Seven
     
    Morning had come. The watchmen who every half-hour throughout the night had informed the populace of the condition of the weather and the streets had been replaced by the dustman with bells and chant, the porter-house boy in search of the pewter pots which had been sent out with supper the previous evening, the milkman; the clatter of the night coaches had given way to morning carts. Chimney-sweeps with their brushes, crossing-boys with their brooms, emerged sleepy-eyed from their hovels; hawkers appeared with their wares, which ranged from hot buns to old clothes. Soon the air would be sweet with diverse horns and bells, the clatter of horses’ hooves and wagon wheels on the cobblestones, the cries of broadsheet vendors, ballad-singers, lavender girls and muffin-men.
    Of this restless panorama, the inhabitants of Chalmers House were mostly unaware. Rosemary lay still abed, reluctant to arise and embark upon a day that would doubtless present her yet further problems; Fennel too remained secluded, dreaming of rosy cheeks and cherry lips; Lily, who had arisen, studied her attitudes in her looking-glass. Lily had decided that Lord Kingscote was the perfect candidate for the hand of her sister Angelica. Now it remained only to subtly intimate to the interested parties that they were excellently matched, and then to determine how best to kindle Lord Chalmers’s ardor for Rosemary. Meanwhile, Lord Chalmers breakfasted in solitary splendor, as was his habit; and Angelica—well, Angelica was not there.
    Haze had settled on the city, a combination of fen-fog and smutty chimney-smoke, the sickly stench of rotting drains and horse dung. Angelica inhaled the polluted air, happily enough. From the overheated and strained atmosphere of Chalmers House, she had been glad to escape.
    Angelica’s various responsibilities were weighing on her heavily. She had hoped to receive word from her elder brother, Valerian, before now; she had hoped Valerian would evolve a means by which Rosemary might be extricated entirely from her difficulties. Angelica could only conclude that so trivial a matter as Rosemary’s imminent disgrace had slipped Valerian’s mind.
    At least, with Angelica’s earnings from Sir Randall, Rosemary’s creditors could be held temporarily at bay. Typically, Rosemary had not asked how Angelica had come by those funds, had accepted the money and Angelica’s stern admonition to spend it wisely, with a very poor grace. Angelica sighed, and in her abstraction only narrowly escaped collision with a brewer’s dray drawn by draught-horses as large as Sir Randall’s buffalo. Perhaps she should not have scolded Rosemary, but it was difficult to think of her sister as a woman grown, especially since she did not conduct herself as befit an adult. Still, there was some excuse for Rosemary’s sulkiness. Why did a man so wealthy as Chalmers keep his wife short of funds?
    There was no ready answer, and Angelica pushed the question aside. She wondered if Sir Randall would be able to keep this proposed rendezvous, or if his plans would be thwarted by the mysterious