Fair Fatality Read online

  “Hang it!” ejaculated Arthur, and glared at the ashen Sara. “Now see what you’ve done!”

  “What I have done?” echoed Miss Valentine, and sneezed. What had she ever done but what was expected or demanded of her, by Georgiana and Jaisy, Jevon and now Arthur himself? She had tried her very best to please all concerned, and to what end? The dowager duchess’s venomous demeanor indicated that Sara would be turned out into the streets to starve, as all along she had known would come to pass. Her rainy day had burst upon her and she had not a shilling saved with which to purchase an umbrella. Miss Valentine reacted as must any meek and self-effacing a female in so untenable a position, served up such unpalatable fare. She burst into tears.

  Twenty-two

  * * *

  When the summons came, Sir Phineas was at Tattersall’s, grand mart of everything concerned with equestrian recreations, the sports of the field and the business of the Turf.

  How the dowager duchess had known where to find him, Sir Phineas had left off wondering many years past. He supposed she had agents watching him, even as she had instructed him to watch Miss Valentine. Reluctantly, he moved away from the circular counter where he had lounged, forgetting for several moments at a time that he was not and never would be sufficiently plump in the pocket to pay one hundred guineas for a thoroughbred. Casting a last wistful glance at the fireplace, over which hung a painting of the great racehorse Elipse, Sir Phineas followed the footman out into the street. Tattersall’s stood at Hyde Park Corner, no great distance from Queen Anne Street. The hour was still early; the noon bells had not yet rung. Sir Phineas wondered what had prompted Georgiana’s terse and peremptory summons.

  Tension hung over Blackwood House like fog over the city of London, and within the morning room was its source. But to tarry longer would only bring down the dowager’s wrath upon his head. Sir Phineas pressed his knuckles to his belly, which had begun to flutter alarmingly.

  Within the morning room, all at first appeared relatively serene. Lady Blackwood was enthroned in her carved eagle-headed chair, Confucious seated in her lap. Both gazed in a pettish manner upon the dowager’s butler, who stood before them. Thomas looked, thought Sir Phineas, as if he were willing his knees to cease to shake. His stomach quivered all the more violently, in sympathy.

  “Phineas!” The dowager’s gaze was dagger-sharp. “I am quite out of charity with you! I did not instruct you to enjoy yourself with my companion — or perhaps she cozened you also with her artful ways!”

  “Artful? Miss Valentine?” Much as Sir Phineas dreaded to bring down Georgiana’s wrath, there were limits to what flesh and blood could endure. “Poppycock!”

  “Poppycock to you, Phineas!” Lady Blackwood’s smile was grim. “We have been quite properly taken in. Not that I would have been, had people been so frank with me as they are instructed to be, you among them!”

  “I?” In response to a gesture from the dowager. Sir Phineas collapsed upon the tapestried confidante. “Forgive me, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Forgive you, Phineas? Not likely! At the cost of being redundant, I must state once again that I am prodigious displeased about this cursed business.” The dowager tapped her fingers irritably upon the chair arm.

  “What business is that, Georgiana?” Sir Phineas inquired cautiously.

  “Don’t try and hoodwink me, Phineas!” Lady Blackwood replied sharply. “My silly twit of a companion has done an excellent job of blotting her copybook. It exceeds belief that I should have so misjudged the creature — fancy, I thought her a well-brought-up young female!”

  “You are speaking of Miss Valentine?” Recalling certain accusations made by Lady Easterling in the presence of both the butler and himself, Sir Phineas glanced at Thomas. The butler looked as if he wished the floor to open up and swallow him. Sir Phineas experienced a familiar sinking sensation in his own midriff. “Surely you are too severe.”

  “Am I, then?” Georgiana shifted in her chair. “No sooner was my back turned than the ninnyhammer put her foot wrong! Sullied her reputation, in short! You look skeptical, Phineas. I had thought you a person of sound judgment.”

  “It is not my judgment,” responded Sir Phineas unwisely, “that is in question here. I wish you would explain to me why you think Miss Valentine has, er, fallen into licentious ways.”

  This not unreasonable request brought a flush to the dowager’s cheek and a gleam to her spiteful eye. “Aha!” she crowed. “I said no such thing, not being such a pea-goose as to think Miss Sara Ninnyhammer is no better than one of the wicked, even if I’d discover her in any number of squalid intrigues with vain silly court-cards! I’m not the member of this household who is preoccupied with sin.” She shot an unfriendly glance at Thomas. “Mayhap I am the only member of the household who is not! Never have I heard such fustian! Well you may look embarrassed, Phineas. You should know by now that eventually I learn of every word spoken in my household. Your failure to inform me of my companion’s outrageous conduct is not something I shall soon forgive.”

  Not only Sara Valentine was in the basket; Sir Phineas foresaw that he would soon share her uncomfortable perch. He could not regret his fall from grace, even if with the loss of Lady Blackwood’s good will he lost also his largest source of income. After a lifetime of obeying Georgiana’s strident requests, there was allure in solitude. “I am not aware that Miss Valentine engaged in havey-cavey conduct,” he responded, with more boldness than was his wont. “Perhaps if you would begin at the beginning, I might make some sense of this.”

  “Or devise some explanation of your own disloyal conduct!” The dowager’s smile was not kind. “As you will! You are aware that I took Sara in after her father’s death, when it evolved that her father had been singularly unprepared for his departure from this life — a lack of foresight that Sara shares! I am not unaware that she squanders the extremely generous wage I pay her on bonnets! As I am not unaware that Thomas here caught her kissing my nephew in the garden and said not a word of it to anyone but Jaisy.”

  “‘Twas Master Jason, my lady!” protested Thomas, his plump features corpse-white. “He said if I told he’d flay me within an inch of my life!”

  “You should have heeded Jevon’s words!” she snapped. “Or if you had to break your promise, you should have told anyone but my prattle-box of a niece. Now the entire household knows of the business, and I am very tempted to flay you beyond that fatal inch!”

  Poor Thomas looked so terrified that Sir Phineas thought it his Christian duty to intervene. Too, he was curious. “You don’t mind that Miss Valentine — and your nephew — er?” said he.

  “Er?” mocked lady Blackwood. “Phineas, you are a milksop! I am only surprised that Jevon didn’t kiss the silly twit sooner, because he is a tremendous flirt and something of a rogue. Lud, Phineas, you look so shocked! Had Jaisy not learned of it — and through Jaisy, the whole staff — I would have been tempted to overlook the incident.”

  Here — as Sir Phineas digested the dowager’s novel viewpoint, to wit that the only true indiscretion was to make one’s indiscretions public — Thomas felt compelled to comment. “It wasn’t just Master Jevon, my lady — as Sir Phineas can confirm. Today wasn’t the first time Miss Valentine was caught out with Master Arthur. I’m sure that no one of us is wishful of condemning her unfairly, my lady, but there’s no ignoring the evidence.”

  “No, there is not,” Georgiana repeated, and gestured irritably. “Do go away. And have Miss Silly Twit brought to me.” With more haste than was seemly, Thomas quit the room, tottered past the zealous maidservants and down the stairway, to take refuge at last in his pantry, where amid the plate and china which would be used at this day’s supper he soothed his shattered nerves with an entire bottle of her ladyship’s excellent claret. Doubtless the old harridan would eventually discover his transgression, and take appropriate redress; but Thomas was in immediate need of revival, and would not be deterred by thought of future travai
l. Setting aside the empty bottle, he brushed the back of his hand across his mouth, then leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the table, and promptly fell asleep.

  Meanwhile, due to her companion’s failure to comply with her imperious summons, the dowager duchess fumed. In the course of her bad temper, Sir Phineas was treated to a great many comments about vipers nourished in one’s bosom, and the sharpness of serpents’ teeth. After surprising Arthur Kingscote embracing Sara, Lady Blackwood had banished both miscreants to their respective chambers, Sir Phineas learned, and had then held a number of enlightening interviews with various members of her domestic staff, roundly denouncing each one of them in turn. “Everyone knew about this imbroglio but me!” she raged, and abruptly rose, inadvertently dumping Confucious onto the floor. The dog howled. “Oh, do hush, you wretched beast!” she snapped, and crossed the room to tug savagely on the bell pull that hung by the fireplace. A terrified maidservant immediately appeared in the doorway. “Where is Thomas?” inquired the dowager. “Never mind! Bring Sara to me, immediately!”

  The maidservant — Moffet — bobbed an awkward curtsey. “Yes, mum! At once, mum!” she mumbled, and disappeared.

  Ill-temper somewhat assuaged by this evidence of the awe she inspired, the dowager turned to Sir Phineas, her arms crossed beneath her bosom, which was displayed to very undowagerlike advantage by the extreme décolletage of her puce satin gown. Once more Sir Phineas’s butterflies awoke. “Perhaps you have misinterpreted the evidence,” he offered quickly, before Georgiana could dwell further upon his failure to do his duty. “I should not say so, but Arthur Kingscote is not the sort of young gentleman to appeal to a woman of Miss Valentine’s refined preferences.”

  “Women of refined preferences don’t go trysting in my garden in plain view of everyone in the house!” Lady Blackwood replied brutally. “In point of fact, they don’t tryst at all, being uniformly namby-pamby and mealy-mouthed. It was different in our day, was it not, Phineas? For all that, this is no longer our day. Sara had behaved in an unconscionably foolish manner, and must pay the consequence.”

  Could it be that the dowager would be lenient with the errant Sara? wondered Sir Phineas, with sudden hope. Or had he just imagined that he glimpsed a faint trace of some basic humanity in her dark sharp eye? Perhaps it was not too late to try and pour oil on troubled waters. “Consider, Georgiana: how can you be certain that Miss Valentine is not a victim of circumstance? Your nephew is a flirt, as you yourself have said. Miss Valentine can hardly have any real interest in him, or he in her, because they barely spoke when they met by accident the other day.”

  In the dowager’s dark eyes could be currently seen no warmth, and the implacable expression on her ravaged features denied the slightest possibility that compassion had ever even briefly lingered there. “What other day, Phineas?” she inquired.

  “Georgiana, you are unfair to Miss Valentine! It was a chance meeting, I swear. We were caught by the rain in Oxford Street and ducked for shelter into the Pantheon Bazaar. Jevon was there before us, engaged in conversation with —” Dare he omit that detail? One glance at the dowager’s virulent features assured him he dared not. “With a certain little opera dancer from Drury Lane. He was buying her a bonnet. So far is Miss Valentine from being embarked on the primrose path that she no sooner grasped the situation than she immediately departed the premises.”

  “You fascinate me, Phineas,” said the dowager. “The silly twit ran out into the rain and thereby got a drenching and caught a head cold. It serves her right. And what did Jevon do?”

  It occurred to Sir Phineas that, in attempting to smooth over the misunderstanding between Lady Blackwood and Miss Valentine, he was presenting Mr. Rutherford in a most unfavorable light. Sir Phineas bore Mr. Rutherford no malice, and it was not his intention to alienate the dowager duchess from her heir. “Mr. Rutherford behaved very commendably!” he immediately explained. “He followed us out. So offended was Miss Valentine that she refused to hear his apology, and I fear we left him standing in the middle of the street. In the pouring rain.” Sir Phineas frowned. “I had not realized before, but the whole episode was very odd. Although I cannot censure Miss Valentine for not wishing to remain in the same room as a gentleman’s, er, chère amie.”

  “Lud, Phineas, but you’re a green-head!” observed Lady Blackwood, almost charitably. “You fancy the chit yourself, I’ll warrant. More fool you!”

  Georgiana was watching him, assessingly, he thought. “I have the highest regard for Miss Valentine, but I am more than twice her age. Were I twelve years younger, or even ten — but I am not! And I am very set in my ways.”

  “Green-head!” Lady Blackwood repeated. “I was not talking about Sara. Or about marriage! Now that you have explained away the silly twit’s misconduct with Jevon, perhaps you will try and sweep her misconduct with Arthur under the rug also. Ah, but here is Sara herself — and it took you long enough, my girl! Sir Phineas has been kind enough to inform me that you and my nephew are not on speaking terms. Therefore, whatever passed between you in my garden is supposed to not signify. Have you anything to add in your own defense?”

  How pale she looked, thought Sir Phineas sadly; how woeful and withdrawn. “No, ma’am. It was all a misunderstanding.”

  “Humph.” The dowager walked slowly toward Miss Valentine. “I conjecture next you’ll try to tell me this fuss over Arthur is a misunderstanding also.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Though she kept her eyes discreetly lowered, Sara resolutely stood her ground. “It wasn’t Arthur’s fault.”

  Georgiana snorted derisively, then reached out long supple fingers and grasped Sara’s chin. Sara winced. “Cinders, I understand!” snapped the dowager. “Look at me, girl! How dare you try and set my plans at naught?”

  Unflinching, Miss Valentine looked up into her employer’s malicious countenance. “I did not mean to do so!” she protested. “I could not help myself!”

  “Paugh!” observed Lady Blackwood. “You want resolution, miss! Well, there’s an end to it. I suppose I should be grateful no more harm was done.”

  “Oh!” gasped Sara tearfully. “You are very kind!”

  “Balderdash! I’m nothing of the sort.” Preparing to substantiate her claim, the dowager released Sara’s chin. “The coachman can be ready in twenty minutes; I’ll give you two hours. What I won’t give you is a character, since from all accounts you have one.”

  “But,” gasped Miss Valentine, as ashen as Thomas had been a scant half-hour past, “you said no harm had been done.”

  “No, save to your reputation, which is what makes it unthinkable that you should remain here.” Patently unconcerned with Sara’s distress, Lady Blackwood once more tugged the bell pull. “If I allowed you to remain, I would next learn you had allowed the footmen to remove cinders from your eyes — or Thomas! Cinders! Don’t bother to show me a sad face, my girl; I don’t think you’re — what did my bird-witted niece call it? Fallen into licentious ways! All the same, I cannot appear to condone your misconduct, else all my staff will think they may similarly misbehave — and all London hear of it. The sad fact is that though it’s the thing for a young gentleman to sow his wild oats, it’s not the thing for a female to do likewise. Therefore, you must leave. I will not give you a reference, because to do so would be to give you leave to misbehave in some other household. Nor will it avail you to apply to my niece for succor. Jaisy will soon discover that she too must knuckle down. That is all. Attend to your packing. The carriage will be waiting to convey you to your destination two hours hence — and if you have not made ready for your departure at that time, I vow I will turn you out into the street!”

  Miss Valentine’s lips had parted as if she meant to speak out in her own defense; now she pressed them tightly together, executed a perfect curtsey and turned toward the door. In so doing, she almost stumbled over Confucious, who during the course of his long, cross lifetime had seen many servants come and go, and who consequently recogni
zed the signs of impending departure. Confucious was not feeling kindly disposed toward the dowager duchess, who had so unceremoniously dumped him on the floor; and at any rate, his loyalty was centered wholly in his stomach. On arthritic legs he trailed after Miss Valentine, the sole person in Blackwood House who could be trusted to remember that elderly gentlemen of crotchety disposition need to be regularly fed.

  After Miss Valentine had exited — in the process narrowly avoiding collision with the maidservants clustered in the hallway and eavesdropping at the door — Sir Phineas heaved himself upright. Always he had wished he might do something to ease Miss Valentine’s stony path. Now he wished so more than ever. “You are a cruel woman, Georgiana!” he said.

  “Green-head!” For the third time. Lady Blackwood maligned her man of business. She seated herself again in the carved chair, her own face reminiscent of those savage beaked heads. “I should have let her remain, so Arthur could further compromise her, or Jevon break her silly heart? Oh, yes, Sara has a tendre for my nephew; she always has had! You’ll see, Phineas: all three of them will come to thank me for this day’s work.”

  Always Sir Phineas had wished to assist Sara: and now he thought he saw a way in which he might. Georgiana would be furious, he knew, would take her business elsewhere — but there were times in a man’s life when choices had to be made. Bucolic solitude was no great price to pay for an easy conscience. But he must remain expressionless, lest Georgiana guess his intention. And he must leave at once, if his purpose was to be achieved.

  “I hope you may be correct, Georgiana!” he said grimly, and strode out of the room, once more interrupting the maidservants in their favorite position, with ears pressed against the door. No sooner did Sir Phineas pass by than they resumed their listening posts. Now Moffet exchanged with her fellow eavesdropper a look of mutual astonishment. Strange sounds issued through the morning-room door, as if the imperious Dowager Duchess of Blackwood had succumbed to whoops.