Free Maggie MacKeever by Lady Sweetbriar Page A

Lord Sweetbriar’s continued strictures had not fallen on barren soil. Had her father become betrothed to Nikki entirely of his own volition? Sir Avery did not seem the sort of gentleman to fall victim to an adventuress. Yet Rolf claimed for his stepmama almost magical powers of persuasion. And undoubtedly Rolf’s own mental processes had been grievously interfered with. Upon realizing the extent of her intended presumption, Miss Clough almost wavered; but having come this far, she could not retreat. With a little sigh, Clytie set out in search of her sire.
    Through the entrance hall, Miss Clough passed, threading her way between stuffed elephants and polar bears, oriental idols and marble busts; up the broad staircase with its gaily decorated walls and ceiling. The bacchanalian revels enacted thereupon put her inexplicably in mind of the provoking Marmaduke Thorne.
    Sir Avery was not upon the landing, hobnobbing with the stuffed giraffes, or engaged in contemplation of the saloon’s preserved vulture’s head. Nor was he discovered in the Department of Manuscripts, the Department of Printed Works, the Department of Natural and Artificial Productions. Clytie did not begrudge her explorations. She enjoyed the Museum, and paused to enjoy such rarities as a stuffed cyclops pig, and a Roman tomb three feet long and eighteen inches deep, which appeared along the way.
    At last Miss Clough ran her father to earth, in the Reading Room, a handsome corner chamber with three large windows and several portraits on the wall. Two long tables covered with green cloth extended across the room from north to south, one on each side; and the Superintendent’s table faced a marble fireplace in the south wall. Seated at one of the green-cloth-covered tables, bent over a collection of state papers that dated from Tudor times, was Sir Avery.
    Miss Clough cleared her throat. “Clytie,” her father said, with some surprise. “What brings you here?”
    “I wished to speak with you, Papa.” Since Miss Clough had expected no exuberant welcome from her parent, she was not distressed. “It is a matter of some urgency.”
    “Very well.” With a gesture to the hovering attendant, Sir Avery rose and led his daughter into the corridor. “Now, tell me what was so urgent that it could not wait until next we met.”
    Somewhat wryly, Miss Clough observed her sire, whose abstracted expression suggested that his thoughts still dwelt upon ancient affairs of state, the dust of which liberally adorned his fingers and his chin. “I daresay it might have waited,” allowed Clytie, as she withdrew a handkerchief from her reticule, “had I a notion of when we would next meet. Do not bother to point out that we meet daily across the breakfast cups, Papa! That can hardly constitute an opportunity for conversation, since I am forbidden to speak.”
    “Poor puss.” Looking rueful, Sir Avery suffered his daughter to remedy the damage done his chin. “I fear I am a dreadful failure as a parent.”
    “Pooh!” Clytie tucked away her handkerchief. “You are the best of all parents. In truth, I do not wish to talk to you over the breakfast cups, because I know that upon arising you are always sulky as a bear. But that is about the only time we are alone, Papa, so when I wish especially to speak to you, I must seek you out. And I do especially wish to speak to you. It concerns—” Her courage failed her. “A matter of the heart.”
    “A matter of the heart?” Sir Avery’s preoccupied expression vanished. Shrewdly he assessed his daughter’s ankle-length dress of cambric muslin adorned with a band of tambour work at the hem, her spencer of lilac sarcenet and the white chip hat tied round its crown with a bow of lilac satin ribbon. “Child, are you old enough for that sort of thing? I conclude you must be, though I’m damned if I know where the time has passed. So you wish to leave me? Who’s the lucky fellow? I trust he won’t glower at you of a