Free Maggie MacKeever by The Baroness of Bow Street Page A

every secret in the world.”
    “That’s the resemblance I couldn’t pinpoint!” Mignon felt the Viscount’s gaze and flushed. “You have your mother’s eyes.”
    “Heaven grant me patience!” Dulcie turned on Ivor. “Enough confidences for one day, I beg. You are a noted pugilist, young man. In atonement for going against my wishes, you will demonstrate for me various of those noble methods of self-defense.”
    The Viscount could find no good excuse not to do so. Thus it came about that when Mr. Crump was ushered into Baron Bligh’s Drawing Room, he witnessed the Baroness, green hair tumbling down her back, deliver to Viscount Jeffries a decided facer, which resulted in an ignoble bloodied nose.
    “Bravo, Dulcie!” Mignon clapped her hands. Crump and Gibbon stared.
    “Another visitor. How lovely!” Lady Bligh  led her victim to a chair and pressing her handkerchief to his face. “Gibbon, pray fetch some ice. You witness my latest interest, Crump. I vow I shall enter the ring. Why are you standing there staring, man? Do sit down!”
    Stark mad in white muslin, decided Crump, and sank into a chair. “I’m afraid this isn’t a social call, Baroness.”
    “No?” Dulcie perched on the edge of the sofa. “Do you wish me to help you solve another little mystery? I shall be delighted, of course! What will you have me do?”
    “No mystery.” Cautiously, Crump eyed the huge orange cat. “We have Leda Langtry in custody already, and she’ll hear the Condemned Sermon preached at Newgate.”
    “Oh!” Dulcie gasped feebly, as Gibbon reentered the room. “I believe I feel a spasm coming on.”
    Gibbon thrust the ice at Mignon, and then stalked across the room to tower over the Runner. “Bridle your tongue! Or I’ll tell Sir John myself that you’ve been plaguing the Baroness!”
    “Oh, no, you won’t, laddie!” retorted Crump, who was after all no stranger to Lady Bligh’s queer flights. Enthralled, Mignon applied the ice to the back of Ivor’s neck with a force that made him wince. “Have you forgotten,” the Runner added, “Sir John’s pocket watch? If he so much as sets eyes on you again, Sir John is likely to clap you in gaol.”
    “It might be worth it,” Gibbon retorted, “to toss you out the front door.”
    “My butler,” explained the Baroness, to the room at large, “was once a Runner himself, but his natural proclivities toward petty theft ended what might have been a remarkable career. You may go, Gibbon. See that we are not disturbed.”
    Crump wondered, apropos of disturbances, if he should mention that his arrival had startled an extremely homely female who was eavesdropping outside the Drawing Room door, but a baleful hiss from the orange cat sent the thought scurrying from his mind. He gazed about the room, overwhelming in its opulence, and his eye alit on the huge blue parrot. “Bloody landlubber,” remarked Bluebeard conversationally.
    “Let me make you known to my companions, Crump,” murmured Dulcie, in somewhat stronger tones. “The somewhat battered gentleman is Viscount Jeffries, and his ministering angel is my niece, Miss Montague.” Flushing, Mignon snatched her hand from the Viscount’s neck. He caught it in his own before she could move away.
    “Considering that it was your aunt,” he murmured around the bloody handkerchief, “who so maltreated me, don’t you think you might at least offer me your sympathy?” Mignon only scowled. “What an unfriendly girl you are,” he added quietly. “Do you dislike me so much? If so, I am sorry for it.”
    Mignon looked at the firm fingers that grasped her wrist and experienced an odd feeling along her spine. A thrill of pure terror, she told herself; the Viscount was obviously a cold-hearted sensual blackguard. Nonetheless, such was Mignon’s nature that she could only reply honestly. “You are mistaken,” she said, raising her eyes. “I don’t dislike you.”
    Crump paid very little attention to the two of