Fair Fatality Read online

  Jevon had not ceased to speak even when his sister’s attention wandered, and was going on in a manner that made Lady Easterling wonder if his exertions in Oxford Street had resulted in a delirium of the brain. What tumble was this that he bewailed? From what heights did he claim abrupt, painful descent? And what had Beau Brummell and Lord Byron to do with anything?

  “Now she won’t even speak to me,” muttered Mr. Rutherford, into a handkerchief that was much too delicate for use by a gentleman, “I vow I’m at my wits’ end.”

  “Poor Jevon!” His sister kindly patted his arm. “You are regularly under the hatches, are you not? There is no need to be thrown into such a pucker. Sara has been cross as crabs before. She’ll come about and you will be bosom-bows again!”

  That he wished to be a great deal more than bosom-bows with Miss Valentine, Mr. Rutherford did not deem it prudent to confide. His sister had a prodigious loose way of talking — as, now that Jevon thought of it, did another member of Lady Blackwood’s household. “I understand,” he said with disapproval, “that Thomas let the cat out of the bag.”

  “Thomas?” Briefly, Lady Easterling looked blank. “Oh, the butler! I have meant to speak to you about that, Jevon, because if Sara is on the downward path to perdition it is all your fault. Until you took her out into the garden, she had never shown the slightest inclination toward that sort of thing.” Here Mr. Rutherford interrupted to explain that he had not taken Miss Valentine into the garden but had merely found her there, and again sneezed.

  “Oh, yes!” retorted Lady Easterling scathingly. “Next you will try and tell me it was a cinder. Moonshine, Jevon! The odds are against anyone getting that many cinders in her eye! No, you must face up to your responsibilities. You are to blame that Sara has set out upon the primrose path.”

  The primrose path? His Sara? What poppycock was this? Jevon expressed a blunt opinion that his sister’s head was filled with windmills.

  “Windmills!” Lady Easterling was exceedingly indignant. “Of all the unhandsome things to say! I ain’t the one who’s nattering on about Byron and Brummell and tumbling down hills — whatever that may mean! No, and I ain’t the one either that’s led poor Sara astray. Jupiter, Jevon, you should have known better! In some instances ignorance is bliss! But you had to go and kiss Sara and make her curious, which was very bad of you — although I’ll warrant Arthur and Sir Phineas like it well enough.”

  Had he not lost his sense of the ridiculous, Jevon might have taken his sister’s statements with the liberal seasoning of salt that they deserved. Gentlemen in whom Cupid’s darts have lodged, however, are not noted for a large appreciation of the absurd. “Were you a man,” he said, in dangerous tones, “I would demand satisfaction for that insult.”

  “Insult!” Lady Easterling’s pretty cheeks turned pink with suppressed outrage. “Tell you what, Jevon — it’s you as has windmills in your head! Didn’t I see Sara in the garden with Arthur? I hope I may know an embrace when I see one, no matter how much people try to put me off the scent with all this talk of cinders. And isn’t Sir Phineas sticking as close as a court plaster to Sara?” She sighed. “Which I must confess is my fault, because I let it slip that Sara had been kissing both you and Arthur. I’ll admit I am very surprised in Sir Phineas. I wouldn’t have thought him the sort of gentleman to dangle after a lady hoping to be kissed — not that Sara acts as if she wishes to kiss him, mind! Still, I’ll warrant he hopes that she will!”

  Had not Mr. Rutherford already been seated, these horrid revelations would have brought him to his knees. He was appalled to discover that his own lack of self-control had not such disastrous results. For wishing to kiss Sara, Jevon could not fairly fault either Arthur Kingscote or Sir Phineas Fairfax; Jevon himself wished the same thing a great of the time. Nor could he fault his Sara for her sudden enthusiasm for kissing, which was undeniably a very pleasant pastime. Still, despite his great good humor and his large tolerance for the foibles of his fellow man, and despite his own vast experience of kissing, which rendered disapproval even more unfair, Mr. Rutherford did disapprove, and violently. If his Sara had developed a penchant for kissing, who was better qualified to humor her than himself? Yet she would not speak to him, apparently preferred the indulgences of her employer’s plump and elderly man of business, and a mincing court-card.

  “Have I put you in a tweak?” inquired Lady Easterling, when her brother uttered a sound very like a growl. “Nobody is forcing Sara to do what she don’t want, except for Georgiana, and Georgiana always has!” She frowned. “Do you know, there’s something mighty queer about Georgiana these days; she acts like she knows something the rest of us don’t. Gives me a very nasty turn, she does! Furthermore, Georgiana ain’t said a word about Sir Phineas dangling after Sara, but tells her to go and enjoy herself. Not that I should enjoy myself in Bullock’s Liverpool Museum, which is where he took her on the day when it rained —” Her eyes widened. “Jupiter! Do you think Georgiana means Sara to marry Sir Phineas? He is quite old! Myself, I’ll wager it’s Arthur Sara is hankering after, not that Georgiana would allow it, because she means Arthur for me. Jevon, what was that you said!”

  What Mr. Rutherford had voiced, almost beneath his breath, was a fervent wish that Arthur Kingscote, Lady Blackwood and Sir Phineas Fairfax might all be summarily dispatched to the infernal regions by way of a handcart. No obliging imp appearing to perform this service, he dropped his head into his hands and tried desperately to think.

  Astonished that her blasé brother should exhibit himself thus in the pathetics, Jaisy stared at him. “What have I said to put you in a fit of the blue-devils?” she inquired solicitously. “Are you blaming yourself for Sara’s queer starts? Well, I can’t say you shouldn’t; it is all your fault — but if you hadn’t kissed her, someone else eventually would have, because she is very pretty, and the outcome would have been the same. Since someone was eventually bound to have kissed Sara, you are doubtless the properest person for the task. I remember very well that she once had a tendre. But just because you kiss a lady don’t mean you have to develop a dog-in-the-manger attitude about her, as you of all people should know!”

  “Sara,” reproved Mr. Rutherford, “is not just any lady!”

  Lady Easterling’s blue eyes opened wide as saucers. “Zounds! You fancy Sara yourself!”

  This declaration, delivered in tones of frank bewilderment, caused Mr. Rutherford to wince. “Pray moderate your voice!” he hissed, with a quick glance at his aunt.

  “It is midsummer moon with you!” crowed Jaisy, though in softer tones. “No wonder you are hipped! Well, there is no use in asking me to help you, because I have decided Sara must have Arthur, if only Georgiana can be persuaded to agree to it, and she very well might since I mean to have Carlin, which will leave poor Arthur unclaimed! I am very sorry for you, Jevon, but Sara must be allowed to have her choice.”

  “Yes.” Looking grim as the dread reaper, Mr. Rutherford rose. He did not give utterance to his determination that Miss Valentine’s choice should fall on him, a decision influenced, if need be, by coercion or witchery. Abruptly, he departed his aunt’s box, and the theater as well, and retired to his lodgings in the Albany, there to engage in prolonged cogitation over a steaming punch bowl.

  Feeling rather hipped herself. Lady Easterling gazed around the theater, which was crammed to its elegant rafters with spectators eager to witness A New Way to Pay Old Debts, featuring the popular Mrs. Glover and the astounding Mr. Kean. For her own part, Jaisy harbored scant appreciation of that latter genius, an ugly little man with a voice harsh as a hackney coachman’s. An opinion of the play itself, she was hardly entitled to put forth, since she had watched scarcely a moment of the entertainment.

  She was not even thinking of her brother’s sad fix. Instead she was pondering Lord Carlin, as often she did, and wondering how she was to bring him up to scratch, Jaisy hoped she might turn the trick before much more time elapsed. For so volatile a lady to long sustain the stultif
ying mantle of prim propriety was a very wearing task. Yet Carlin seemed to like her missishness; it was only since she’d made herself into a dreary pattern-card of respectability that he’d started coming round. Therefore she must sustain her detested rôle, at least until the knot was tied. That she might be better suited by a gentleman less starched-up never occurred to Lady Easterling. Carlin might not adore her à la falie, or be willing to expire at her feet; he might not even be the slightest bit sympathique; but Jaisy intended to have him all the same.

  As Lady Easterling thus racked her fertile little brain, the curtain descended at the close of the five-act piece, and one of the actors stepped forward to inform the spectators of the next evening’s fare. Then he bowed and retired through one of the doors which always stood open on the stage. It was the signal for much scuffling of feet and animated talk, and a reordering of the occupants of the boxes, for the ton took advantage of the interval to gossip and visit and stare. An evening’s performance in a London theater seldom lasted less than five hours, and consisted of two or three works. Still to come was the closing farce. But there was Carlin, paying his respects to Georgiana, who didn’t look especially gratified. Quickly, Jaisy erased the contemplative expression from her face and contrived to look woebegone.

  “Lady Easterling.” Lord Carlin’s voice expressed concern. “You seem to be in the mopes. Perhaps I might be of assistance.”

  Certainly he might, if he would only pop the question! “Would that you could,” sighed Jaisy. “But I fear no one can help me, sir.”

  “What’s this? High flights!” soothed Kit, as he drew up a chair. “It cannot be so bad as all that. Would you care to tell me about it? In my experience two heads are better than one.”

  Such a generous outlay of sympathy was not what Lady Easterling had expected when she embarked upon this particular shenanigan, and she was pleased beyond description to have uncovered Carlin’s Achilles’ heel. As a perfect gentleman, he would respond with innate chivalry to a damsel in distress. Therefore, Jaisy would become immediately distressed. She masked her elation with a sorrowful moue. “If only I dared!”

  “My dear Lady Easterling, I promise you may trust me!” Kit’s pleasant features were unquestionably sincere. “Should you choose to confide in me, I will not breathe a word of it to any other living soul. I do not care to see you so out of spirits. Perhaps you have been trying a little too hard to do what is proper. There was nothing seriously at fault in the way you were, if I may presume to say so. I fear you took my, er, chance remarks too much to heart, for I am the highest of sticklers, and others are less nice in their notions.” He heard his own words and winced. “I mean, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. And I suspect you are not listening to me.”

  Nor had she been, but puzzling over how best to direct Cupid’s arrow to his lordship’s exposed soft spot. “Like any neck-or-nothing rider, I have taken a rattling toss or two,” she confided, “but never did I think anyone would beat me at the post! Especially I did not think that my own brother —”

  “Ah!” interrupted Lord Carlin. “You need say no more, Lady Easterling: I know all. I have even remonstrated with him on the subject, but he will not hear a word against her, and seems unaware of the consequences of so grave a mésalliance. I should not speak of such things to you, I know, but you are already aware of the creature’s existence — and that Jevon permitted you to be so is most reprehensible! Which is beside the point. But I had thought you favored the match.”

  Jaisy, who had introduced her brother into the conversation so that he might serve the function of a red herring, stared blankly at her companion. “What match?” said she.

  Lord Carlin looked a trifle arch. “You need not try and act as if you do not know what I’m talking about!” he reproved. “We talked about this once before, if you will recall. I refer to your brother and that unsuitable female — what was her name? Sara! Pray do not insult my intelligence with a further display of innocence.”

  “Sara!” Lady Easterling’s first impulse was to inform Lord Carlin that he was positively paper-skulled, but recollection of her recent conversation with Jevon gave her pause. “But Sara fancies Arthur!” she protested faintly. “Or at least I think she does!”

  “Thank God for that!” Kit responded piously, then added: “Who the deuce is this Arthur?”

  Gloomily, Jaisy gestured toward the other occupants of the box. “That is Arthur. And my aunt intends him for me.”

  Lady Blackwood meant to marry off her niece to a man who was openly dangling after a pretty little opera dancer? A man of nature so passionate that he had stolen a march on Jevon Rutherford? Though arranged marriages were the way of the world, Lord Carlin thought Lady Easterling’s position very sad, and so he said.

  “An opera dancer?” echoed Jaisy, in outraged tones that made Lord Carlin cringe and caused Lady Blackwood’s elbow to connect sharply with Arthur Kingscote’s ribs. “What rubbishing thing is this, Carlin?”

  “Don’t play off your airs with me!” retorted his lordship, whose patience was fast running out. “You know as much about it as I, because you told me the wench’s name.”

  Lady Easterling’s lovely eyes were opened so wide they threatened to momentarily pop right out other head. “I did?”

  “You did.” The provocations offered him by this skitter-witted female were almost more than flesh and blood could stand. Lord Carlin crossed his arms upon his chest and willed them to remain thusly placed, lest he succumb to the temptation to clench his fingers around Jaisy’s slender neck. “You told me her name is Sara. At the time I marveled that you could speak so calmly of the fact that your brother means to marry an opera dancer from this very theater.”

  “Jupiter!” Jaisy teetered on the thin edge between revelation and bewilderment. “I see it now! Sara ain’t an opera dancer, Carlin; she’s my aunt’s companion. And Jevon told me but moments past that he fancies her, but she fancies Arthur, not that Georgiana would approve.”

  “Your brother fancies a great many females, it would seem.” Lord Carlin’s manner was chill. “He has intimated to me several times that he means to marry his opera dancer, whatever her name may be.”

  “Marry,” echoed Lady Easterling despondently; she had just realized what the most ominous consequence of that ill-judged marriage must be. So starched-up a gentleman as Carlin would never ally himself with a lady whose brother was leg-shackled to a female of whom the best that could be said was that she was a great deal less than she should be. “If Jevon means to marry that — that creature, then he must have meant to offer my poor Sara a slip on the shoulder, and I cannot think highly of Jevon’s priorities! Indeed, I don’t think much of Jevon himself — unless you was hamming me, sir?” She shot Carlin a suspicious glance. He shook his head.

  She sighed. “I thought not. Dashed if I ever thought Jevon would act so beggarly. He must not be allowed to go through with it. Somehow we must contrive to spike his guns.”

  Almost, Lord Carlin took exception to Lady Easterling’s assumption that he would render her assistance; then he decided that her endeavors on the behalf of her brother might divert her from further attempts to make herself into a pattern-card of respectability, and thereby relieve him of the need to persuade her to abandon her efforts. In all fairness, dancing attendance on her ladyship had not been so onerous a task as he had anticipated. Jaisy was never predictable, despite the prim and proper airs she’d lately adopted. She was an interesting conversationalist, despite the colorful quality of her language, and could tell many amusing anecdotes about all manner of diverse pursuits, not least the hunting field. Lord Carlin was fond of following the hounds himself, and thought there were few sights finer than a field of fox hunters in fall chase. Once he had overcome his initial distaste at discussing such matters with a female, he had found it pleasant enough to compare notes with Lady Easterling about the goodly show of foxes they had respectively seen. One thing Jaisy didn’t lack for was courage, Kit decided. Few fema
les, upon receipt of the alarming intelligence that a beloved brother was about to contract a ruinous mésalliance, could remain sufficiently calm and levelheaded to plan what was to be done to prevent it. Personally, Kit thought her efforts would be useless.

  Nonetheless, let her try her best to scotch the affair; as a gentleman, he would render her what assistance he could. In such outlandish situations, action was always preferable to its opposite.

  That Lord Carlin had never previously become involved in an outlandish situation, and consequently was very ill-prepared to judiciously determine what should and should not be done, did not occur to him. Nor did he pause to wonder whether his conclusions about whom Jevon Rutherford wished to marry were correct. What was it Lady Easterling’s late husband had said about easily getting over rough ground? The Season was almost over, no one of importance remained in London after July. Lord Carlin would lend Lady Easterling whatever assistance she required — and then retire to the country and his ancestral estates, from which he would not budge an inch until Lady Easterling bestowed her hand and heart elsewhere.

  There were numerous flaws in Lord Carlin’s logic, chief among them his blithe assumption that Lady Easterling would allow him to escape her net so easily. Nor did he pause to consider whether, freed of the lady’s whims and stratagems, his existence might not grow depressingly dull. Above all, he failed to take sufficient note of another of the late Lord Easterling’s adages, that concerning the folly of wagering against unknown steeds. Had he been available for comment on the subject, Lord Easterling would have readily agreed that his harum-scarum widow was a very dark horse indeed.