Free Maggie MacKeever by Lady Bliss Page B

emotions from the fact that Jynx had not withdrawn from his embrace. He did not attribute this to his personal charm, but to Jynx’s patent abstraction. “Where did you go?” he inquired, rather harshly.
    A plague, thought Jynx, upon Adorée Bliss and company! Not only had she been drawn into a wretched situation, but now she found herself under the disagreeable necessity of spinning Shannon a tall tale. “I’m to be married, if you will recall,” she muttered, and hid her guilty face against his neck. “It is an event which involves the selection of bride clothes.”
    Lord Roxbury was utterly astounded that Miss Lennox should move of her own volition closer in his embrace; all the same, he was not so astounded that he did not recognize a clanker when he heard one, a perspicacity he had highly developed during his long acquaintance with Miss Lennox, who would prevaricate mightily in an effort to avoid tiresome unpleasantness. “With Percy in tow?” he said in bemused tones. “Doing it too brown, Jynx! And don’t bother to tell me Percy wasn’t with you, because the pair of you were seen.”
    “But Percy was invaluable, Shannon!” protested Miss Lennox, thinking rapidly, and wondering frantically just where she and Percy had been observed. “We met quite by accident, and he was most enthused. And you must admit that he has a nice eye for color.”
    “Color? Certainly! Green waistcoats with yellow stripes! I suppose I may expect you to appear in Hanover Square dressed as a clown—if, indeed, you do appear; and with your Aunt Eulalia making every effort in the opposite direction, I’m not certain of that.” Nor was Shannon certain, in light of the companionable way in which Jynx had snuggled up against him, that he would not ruin his own chances by some audacious measure. “I don’t suppose, poppet, that you’d care to bypass all the bother and elope to Gretna Green?”
    It was a proposal more attractive than the viscount realized; a young lady embarked upon an elopement could hardly be expected to undertake various expedients and shifts on behalf of other people; but it unfortunately put Jynx in mind of another damsel who had professed a desire to flee. “We can’t do that and you know it,” she replied. “It would cause no end of fuss.” But further diversion was called for, lest Shannon pursue the topic of her shopping expedition; Shannon was aware of her dislike of such pursuits, and equally aware of Percy’s deficiencies in matters of sartorial elegance. “You met Percy at Eton, did you not?”
    Viscount Roxbury was indeed distracted, not by Jynx’s words but by the fact that, seeking a more comfortable position, she’d thrown her arm across his chest. With difficulty he removed his mind from the tantalizing prospect of getting himself an heir. “Yes,” he replied, absently. “Percy was in his first year there when I was in my last. Why?”
    Jynx shrugged, an act that—in light of both her ample proportions and her close proximity—very nearly dealt the death blow to Shannon’s restraint. “I cannot but think,” she remarked obliquely, “that many of these school friendships turn in later years to a positive liability! Percy’s all to pieces again. He says he hasn’t a feather to fly with. You know the family, Shannon. Why is poor Percy treated so shabbily?”
    “He’s not.” Lord Roxbury dared run an idle finger along the line of her cheek and jaw. “His mother dotes on him, which is half of Percy’s trouble; the other is his cousin Dominic, who compensates by insisting on strict discipline. It’s ridiculous, but I cannot blame them. Percy is about as capable of looking after himself as a newborn chick.”
    Jynx wasn’t particularly happy to have her own opinion confirmed. “Shannon?” she inquired. “What happens when one can’t pay one’s debts? If one is truly done up and there’s no help for it?”
    “Then one flees to the Continent.” Lord Roxbury found it