Free Maggie MacKeever by Sweet Vixen Page A

famine point, the export of British manufactures and colonial produce has fallen by nearly a third. It seems that only Wellington thwarts the Neighboring Monster’s schemes.” Shyly, she smiled. “Do you know, at times I almost admire the Corsican? Look at the havoc he has wrought!”
    If Giles thought it odd that a lowly and impoverished gentlewoman-companion should be so well-informed, or handle a horse with such skill, or converse with one so exalted in station as himself with such lack of self-consciousness, he gave no sign. Instead, he made a polite reply, and while she was still wrapped in thought, guided her into the leafy glades of Hyde Park. “And how,” he asked smoothly, as she glanced in puzzlement at the countless well-dressed ladies and gentlemen who congregated there, “do you find our city? I trust that, in my home, you have been made comfortable.”
    “Very.” Tess, aware that the duke had for some quixotic reason of his own exerted himself greatly in her behalf, awarded him a quizzical glance. “I would like to ask you a question, if I may, though you will think it verges on impertinence.”
    “Ask away,” Giles said cheerfully, his thoughts well-hidden. Had Tess been a mind reader, she would have been very much amazed. “What do you wish to know?”
    Tess looked at him again, wondering how she might tactfully proceed. There was no doubt that the Duke of Bellamy was a very personable man, flawless in both appearance and manner; there was equally little doubt that he could, if he chose, be formidable indeed. Again she wondered just why he was exerting himself to please her. “It concerns Mirian,” she replied hesitantly. “Clio’s mother. You must know we were told nothing of her association with your family, or of the years she spent in your house.”
    The duke said nothing, merely waited patiently. Tess, who had spent a profitable half-hour quizzing his jovial housekeeper, grew uncomfortable. “I know,” she added, even more hesitantly, “that you and Mirian were close friends. Can’t you tell me something of her youth, and what caused the estrangement?”
    “You have been gossiping with the servants.” The duke’s voice was devoid of either censure or wrath, and as effective as a slap in the face. “Perhaps you would do better to address your inquiries to them. I daresay you have already learned that my cousin and I were unofficially betrothed. As to why Mirian fled from my house, I cannot say. She did not see fit to inform me.”
    That tone had cowed many a peer; Tess only looked thoughtful. “Oh,” said she. “It must have been devilish unpleasant for you, poor boy! You were both very young.”
    The duke might be deuced high in the instep, but he also possessed a lively sense of the ridiculous, and it amused him greatly to be thus consoled. “You are an odd female!” he remarked bluntly. “An enigma, in fact. Why should you concern yourself with Mirian? Clio does not appear to harbor any particular interest in her mother’s past.”
    Tess was not so uncharitable as to comment that Clio harbored scant interest in anything but herself, particularly to a gentleman who might make that volatile miss an ideal husband. “Clio,” she murmured, “is not of an inquiring nature. I was devoted to Mirian.”
    “Ah, yes.” The duke was at his most bland. “I was forgetting that you, as Clio’s companion, must have answered to Mirian. She was kind to you, I suppose, and you were grateful; it was always her way. You cannot judge by that, you know! I believe that even the most vicious of criminals have been kind to dogs.”
    Stung, Tess opened her mouth to protest, then closed it on the words. There was little explanation she could make without revealing the truth of her relationship with Mirian, and the depth of her deception. For the first time, Tess wondered if this masquerade hadn’t been a trifle ill-advised. It was not only Clio who had inherited the Lansbury impulsiveness;