Free Maggie MacKeever by Strange Bedfellows

intruder, she let out her breath. Briefly she allowed herself to contemplate the baron, to admire his golden hair and godlike countenance, his crisp high shirt collar and flawless cravat, smoothly fitting blue cloth coat, snug fawn-colored pantaloons, gleaming hessian boots. “Fergus!” she breathed. “You came!”
    Lady Amabel’s appreciation of her good fortune, however belated, did much to console Lord Parrington for any previous neglect. “Hullo, Mab!” he said. “After your urgent letter, how could I stay away? In point of fact, I arrived yesterday.”
    “And you did not immediately come to see me?” Mab wore an enchanting pout. Then she recalled Eleanor’s remark that Henrietta had been entertaining callers in the solar. “Oh! You did! And I was not here to greet you. How ungrateful you must have thought me—but I promise I was not!”
    “I know you are not.” Lord Parrington’s presence in the solar at so very early an hour is readily explained: his parent also habitually rose late. “I don’t think your manners lack polish. Neither will Mama, I’m sure, when she comes to realize you were engaged in consoling Lady March.” He arched a brow. “What a mystery this is! Mama styles it the celebrated scandal of the disappearing Lord March.”
    Fergus’s mama was a gorgon, Mab unkindly thought. “Your mama is also come to town?” she asked, as she sat down upon an embroidered chair.
    “Naturally.” Lord Parrington looked startled at the question. “She would not have liked to be left behind. I daresay it was due to the rigors of the journey that she was miffed by your seeming inattention—which is a thing no one could fairly blame in you, since Lady March was prostrate. Leave Mama to me! She will eventually come about.”
    Were Lady March prostrate, Mab reflected, it was not for the reasons envisioned by Lord Parrington; and were the baron’s mama to become reconciled, ever, Mab would feast upon her tattered fan. That latter item she turned over in her hands. “If one may inquire?” Fergus delicately inserted. “Mab, why have you dust on your skirts and cobwebs in your hair?”
    “Dust?” Lady Amabel glanced at her guilty skirts and brushed hastily at her dark curls. “I was in the attics—Nell has taken a notion to investigate them, and I felt obliged to humor her! She is under a dreadful strain, poor thing!” Her latter statement was all too true, Mab mused. She narrowed her eyes, the better to observe Lord Parrington, who had withdrawn to the oriel window. “I don’t suppose you know what happens to thieves?”
    “Thieves?” Mab’s abrupt switch of topic caused the baron to blink. I’m happy to say I do not. Is that the dire event you hinted at in your letter? Have you been robbed, Mab? What a shocking thing.”
    Several things during this conversation with the object of her maidenly affections were to Mab coming clear. Fergus was not quite the cavalier imagination had painted him. This discovery was not surprising, since Mab knew the baron little better than many another modern damsel had known her prospective husband, lack of close acquaintance being in that day no good reason not to wed.
    “Robbed?” she said vaguely. “Not a bit of it! I can’t think where you took such a singularly foolish notion. Perhaps, Fergus, you might know something about how things are done at Bow Street?” She observed his indignant expression. “I should have known that you would not! I expect you number no magistrates among your acquaintance, either. A pity! I would have liked to ask—but never mind that!”
    Perhaps his mama had not been wholly mistaken, decided Fergus, in her claim that Amabel’s behavior merited reproof. From the nature of her queries, one might easily conclude that Mab was engaged in mischief of some sort. “You owe me an explanation,” Lord Parrington said with grave propriety.
    Lady Amabel eyed her caller’s manly countenance, which was looking very solemn, and