Simply Scandalous Page 10

  "If!" He seized upon the insulting word. "If you have wronged me! Why, I ought to-!"

  He advanced on her, his eye gleaming, and involuntarily, she shrank back. He tore the basket of yarn from her hands and flung it with all his strength across the room. The crash that followed burst upon the ears like an enemy cannonade. Whirling around, he saw that the basket had smashed the glass of a large, handsome display cabinet. Its contents, which appeared to be nothing more than useless bits of china, were likewise ruined. Yarn dangled from the shelves, and the basket fell to the floor with a shuddering crash, pulling something large and brightly painted with it.

  Juliet gasped in horror, her eyes almost starting from her head.

  Swale had imagined the situation could be rectified by little more than the sum of thirty pounds, but now he saw it was more serious. Juliet's face went from crimson to ashen, and for several moments, she could not speak.

  "That was Cousin Wilfred's shepherdess collection," she finally gasped in disbelief. "He's very fond of those shepherdesses!"

  Swale groaned. His own father collected porcelain and was excessively attached to his china bits.

  "Cousin Wilfred," said Juliet with satisfaction, not to mention glee, "is going to murder you, Ginger!"

  The sound of an enemy cannonade cannot go unnoticed in a well-ordered house, and it was not long before Swale and Juliet were joined by other members of the household. Mrs. Cary's hysterical shrieks and Cynthia's tears convinced Swale he had destroyed the most treasured icons of the Vicar's collection. The Vicar himself confirmed this a few moments later.

  He had been strolling in his garden and practicing his sermon on Brotherly Love, when he heard the crash. It did not sound to him like an enemy cannonade. It sounded to him like a clap of thunder. Eyeing the innocent blue sky nervously, he headed for his shelter. There he was greeted by the lamentations of his wife. He feared the worst.

  "What is it, my dear?" he cried, rushing into the hall. "Is it one of the children?"

  Mrs. Cary was unable to speak. She could only shriek and point.

  Dr. Cary peered curiously into the little drawing room. He saw Juliet and his daughter, pale and roundeyed. He saw a big, strange man with hair like an unkempt fire. Stepping into the room, he saw the ruins of his collection. He gaped at it in utter disbelief. "No," he cried bleakly. "Not my Dresden shepherdess! Oh, my sweet Chlorinda!"

  Swale cleared his throat nervously. His temper had landed him in many a tight spot, but none so tight as this. Being banned from White's for breaking Stacy Calverstock's nose had been a pleasant experience next to this agony. The little, round clergyman with the spectacles obviously was broken with shock. The demise of his Chlorinda had affected him as profoundly as the sudden death of a child.

  "I beg your pardon, sir. I will gladly pay for the damage," Swale began contritely in a voice so diminished that Juliet was astonished. He seemed genuinely to understand the Vicar's anguish.

  Dr. Cary turned on him, his eyes glittering with unshed tears. "Who the devil are you, sir?" he demanded. "Is this your doing? So you will gladly pay for the damage, will you? By God! Do you think money will compensate me? This collection represents for me the work of a lifetime! Only the Duke of Auckland has a finer collection of china shepherdesses!"

  The name of Auckland had the effect of a powerful tonic on Mrs. Cary. "But, my dear," she interjected, "this is the Duke's son! It is Lord Swale himself, come to see Juliet."

  "The Duke of Auckland!" The Vicar's eyes glowed. "The Duke of Auckland!"

  "Yes," said Swale modestly. "He is my father. So you see, my dear fellow, I enter into your feelings on this tragic occasion. No one loves a porcelain shepherdess as much as his Grace of Auckland."

  "So much so," Dr. Cary said grimly, "that he sends you here to smash my Chlorinda! It is infamous, sir! I shall take steps, sir! Steps!" He made as though to pound his pulpit and seemed rather surprised to find he was not in church.

  All traces of contrition disappeared from Swale's face instantly. "What?" he growled. "You dare to accuse my father of ... of sending me about the place smashing Chlorindas? Say what you like about me, sir, but I defy you to speak ill of my father! "

  "I don't speak ill of him! " snapped the Reverend. "Indeed, now that my shepherdesses are smashed, I should send my compliments to his Grace-he now is undisputedly in possession of the finest collection of china shepherdesses in all England!"

  A less volatile man might have withstood this remark with the exercise of stringent self-control. He might have told himself that Dr. Cary's pain had temporarily driven him mad or some such thing. Swale made a fist instead, a big fist the size of a small ham. It was only Juliet's swift action that saved the Vicar from a very thorough flattening.

  "Indeed, it is all my fault, Cousin Wilfred! " she said quickly.

  "You, Juliet?"

  "Yes," she said nervously, unable to meet either his lordship's baleful glare or the Vicar's bewildered disappointment. "I'm afraid I playfully tossed my basket to his lordship, thinking he would catch it. But he did not," she concluded in almost a whisper.

  "You tossed your basket to him, Cousin Juliet?" Dr. Cary said incredulously.

  "Playfully, yes," said Juliet, looking down at her hands. She was not an accomplished liar, and her cheeks were pink with embarrassment.

  "Playfully," he repeated dully. "Playfully, yes. But what is his lordship doing here? If he has not come to ... to view my collection?" he added, choosing his words tactfully.

  "I told you, my dear," Mrs. Cary whispered, tugging at his arm. "His lordship has come to see Juliet. He has something particular to say to her."

  "He has something particular to say to her, does he?"

  "Yes, my dear," said Mrs. Cary with speaking looks.

  "Oh!" cried Dr. Cary, blushing like a girl as comprehension dawned. "Oh, I see! His lordship has something particular he wishes to say to Cousin Juliet, does he? And she playfully tossed her basket to him? Well, well! Let us put all this unpleasantness behind us, my lord," he said, thrusting out his hand.

  Swale shook it reluctantly. Somehow, he had liked the little fellow better when he was shouting.

  "Take her out into the shrubbery," the Vicar advised. "This room is not a fit place to-"

  He broke off, blushing again. "All this broken glass. Juliet, take his lordship into the shrubbery. And you must come to dinner, my lord! Come to dinner. I insist."

  Swale was ready to decline when it occurred to him how much Miss Wayborn must wish for him to decline also. That lady he would never willingly oblige. "You honor me, sir," he said instead. "I thank you." He faced Juliet's frown with one of his own.

  "This way to the shrubbery," she said curtly, laying her hand on his arm. "You great, priceless ass," she added under her breath.

  With self-control he had not known he possessed, he managed not to shake her hand from his arm until they reached the Vicar's garden.

  "I expect you would like to finish your tantrum by uprooting the rhododendrons," she remarked airily. "I wish you would not. If anything, Cousin Wilfred is fonder of them than he is of china shepherdesses."

  "I expect you think I ought to thank you," he retorted. "Rest assured, I don't care to be under your protection, and if it didn't mean exposing a lady for a liar, I would not hesitate to tell your cousin the truth!"

  She flushed. "So now I'm a lady, am I? I thought I was a harpy."

  He shrugged. "You know best what you are."

  Juliet folded her arms and faced him with a scowl. "If you think I did it to protect you, Ginger, you are mad as well as rude," she said. "I was only thinking of your poor father! "

  He glared back at her. "You like my father, do you? An old man in a powdered wig with scarcely a drop of red blood left in him? Hold him in high esteem, do you?"

  "Why shouldn't I? Don't you hold him in high esteem?"

  "Whether or not I hold my father in high esteem is none of your business," he informed her. "If you think the old foo
l is going to marry you, you are sadly deceived."

  She laughed shortly. "Is that why you're here, Ginger? You needn't have troubled yourself. Any alliance between the Aucklands and the Wayborns clearly is impossible."

  He drew in a smoldering breath. "You persist in your accusations against me?"

  She did not answer for a moment. The crow she had been forced to eat was sticking in her throat. "I expect, if you say you are innocent-"

  "I say nothing of the kind!" he responded antagonistically.

  "Very well!" she said impatiently. "I am satisfied that if you had wanted my brother's arm broken, you would have done it yourself. I don't doubt you are a thorough villain-you have a filthy temper-but no one could mistake you for a mastermind. I expect acting through proxies would but little satisfy your lust for violence. Indeed, I don't suppose it would ever occur to you. Yours is a simple mind, I collect."

  "Your compliments put me to the blush, madam," he said, grimacing.

  "Well," she said, shrugging her shoulders, "you need not come to dinner, you know. You are not really wanted, and we have nothing in the house but mutton."

  "But your cousin has been gracious enough to invite me, and seized by temporary madness, I have accepted," he said. "What a splendid relative you have in the Reverend Dr. Cary! First, he accuses me of sabotage; then he tries to toadeat me!"

  "Toadeat!" Her eyes blazed. "Why, you are a Barbary ape! No, I tell a lie-"

  "What? Another lie?" he taunted her.

  "A Barbary ape would have more brains," she told him. "Dr. Cary did not ask you to dinner out of any deference to your rank, you know."

  "What was it then? My polished manners? My stern good looks?"

  "You were stupid enough to tell Mrs. Gary you had something particular you wished to say to me," she very kindly explained. "They think you have come here to press your suit."

  "My valet does that," he said scornfully.

  "Not very well by the looks of you," she retorted. "In any case, you see how you will not be wanted for dinner. They will think I have refused you, that's all."

  "Ha!" he said, reddening. "You would like that, wouldn't you? You would like it spread about that you declined an offer of marriage from the Marquess of Swale!"

  "You must take your lumps, Ginger," she told him heartlessly. "If you are fool enough to come running after a girl because you have something particular you wish to say to her, well, hard cheese on you if people are misled! As it is, I'd say you were getting away with hardly any damage. Just imagine the spot you'd be in if I told the Reverend Dr. Cary that, whilst we were admiring his rhododendrons, I entertained ... and accepted ... Lord Swale's offer of marriage!"

  He stared at her, openmouthed. "Of all the mean tricks-! "

  "I daresay," she went on amiably, "if you were at all good-looking or gentleman-like, I might be tempted to use you so shamefully, for what girl would not like to be a Marchioness? But you, my dear Ginger, are a pill that cannot be gilded. If you were to get down on your knees and beg me to be your wife, I would not scruple to laugh in your face!"

  "Let us be clear about one thing, madam! I did not come here to ask you to marry me."

  "No," she said, smiling triumphantly. "You came here to ask me not to marry your father! Well, I will marry old Auckland if I wish to, and that is all I have to say about it." She turned abruptly on her heel and walked away, saying, "I will make your excuses to Cousin Wilfred. Good-bye, Ginger! Go back to London. There are many, many lovely things you can break in the British Museum, you know."

  Seething with unrequited rage, he walked rapidly back to the Tudor Rose. Not even Mrs. Sprigge's rabbit pies could soothe him. "Dust off the old dinner jacket, and look sharp about it!" he told Bowditch. "I am invited to dine at the Vicarage tonight."

  Bowditch beamed at his master. "I take it the conquest has been made, my lord?"

  "What conquest?"

  "I take it your lordship has succeeded in winning Miss Wayborn's affection?"

  "Oh, that conquest."

  "It must be going well if Miss Wayborn has invited your lordship to dine at the Vicarage," Bowditch pointed out, unable to fathom his master's black mood.

  "The bloody harpy cornered me in the shrubbery! " Swale swore violently as he ruined the neckcloth he was attempting to tie. "The shrubbery, Bowditch. You may imagine what I felt. Then she threatened to tell her cousin that I had asked her to marry me. She had the temerity to suggest it was my own fault for saying I had something particular I wished to say to her."

  Bowditch recoiled. "My lord! Do you mean to say you are engaged to Miss Wayborn?"

  "Don't be an ass, Bowditch!"

  "No, my lord."

  "I, engaged to the female plague? No, she declined to spring her trap on me."

  "That is very fortunate, my lord."

  "We are to understand," said Swale angrily, "that my person does not attract her sufficiently. My person, you understand, is repugnant to Miss Wayborn."

  "I see, sir."

  "Not even my rank is sufficient to tempt her, you collect. I am a pill that cannot be gilded. I am an orangutan. Incidently, you do not press my suits to Miss Wayborn's satisfaction. You must do better, Bowditch."

  Bowditch, who had never pressed his lordship's suits to anyone's satisfaction, started in surprise. "My lord?"

  "I won't have her sniping at me," said Swale. "I can't help my face, which she does not like, but I won't have her sniping at my clothes. They are expensive clothes, are they not? With a little care, Bowditch, I am convinced they might be made to look expensive."

  "Does your lordship mean to dine with Miss Wayborn after all?"

  "The Vicar invited me, and I accepted," Swale said piously. "It would be churlish of me to break the engagement."

  "I expect she has refused him," said Dr. Cary with a sigh. "If his lordship does not mean to dine with us, I expect she has refused him. Do you suppose we might ask her, my dear?"

  His wife, who was busily sorting shards of porcelain at his desk, was giving him but half her attention. "Ask who what, my dear?" she said absently.

  "Ask Juliet if she has refused the Marquess," said the Reverend.

  Mrs. Cary gasped. "You can't ask a young woman whether or not she has refused an offer of marriage, Dr. Cary. That is rather a personal matter."

  "I don't wish to ask her," he replied. "But if she has refused him-if there is no possibility of the marriageI should like to be compensated for the damages. Or we might throw Cynthia in his way. She's very pretty. She might tempt him. His Grace of Auckland has many livings in his gift, you know. There might be a bishopric for me yet, Mrs. Cary! I wish I were her father-I would make her marry him."

  This caught Mrs. Cary's attention. "But you are Cynthia's father, my dear."

  "Hm-m? Yes, I know I am Cynthia's father," he snapped. "I wish I were Juliet's. Then I could make her marry Lord Swale. What does she mean refusing an offer that she is a good fifty thousand pounds shy of deserving?"

  "Well, if she does not wish to marry him, my dear, it is only right that she should refuse him," Mrs. Cary said sensibly. "Even the most bashful girl must see it is her duty to be disobliging on such an occasion. I daresay it can be mended," she added hopefully.

  "Mended!" cried Dr. Cary, forgetting in his upheaval the fractured shepherdess his wife was sweeping into a box. "But what it would have meant to our Cynthia! That is what occupies my mind. Why, if her cousin were Marchioness of Swale, that would throw open the doors of the very best society there is."

  "And some of the very worst," she told him wisely. "Pray, do not trouble yourself about it, my dear. Put it out of your mind."

  "I fear that one day, Juliet will come to regret her stupidity," Dr. Cary said forebodingly. "One does not lightly spurn a nobleman of his lordship's rank and fortune. And such a disagreeable man he is, too. Full of bile, I think. He will make her miserable for refusing him. She would have done better to accept him, no matter how much she dislikes him."

 
"Better he make her miserable for refusing him than for accepting him," said Mrs. Cary. "It is possible for even the most agreeable suitor to prove himself a disagreeable husband, but if a man does not trouble to make himself agreeable before the marriage, he can scarcely be expected to make himself agreeable after. "

  Dr. Cary was forced to admit the wisdom of this assessment, though it pained him to relinquish the Marquess from his imagination. "Why could he not be well-favored and agreeable as a Marquess ought to be?" he moaned.

  Down in the garden, Juliet and Cynthia were discussing this very thing.

  "Well, Cynthia!" said Juliet. "I did not exaggerate when I described Lord Swale as a stableboy with nettlerash."

  "His hair really is quite horribly red," Cynthia murmured. "I thought he was going to hit Papa."

  "Why do gentlemen persist in marrying attractive red-haired ladies?" Juliet wondered. "Do they think they will bear only attractive red-haired daughters? Don't they know they are just as likely to give birth to ugly red-haired sons?"

  "I would not call him ugly exactly," said Cynthia. "He is too terrible to be merely ugly."

  "You would not call him ugly-not to his face, perhaps," said Juliet, laughing. "For he has the most vile, loathsome temper of anyone I have ever met!"

  "But ... Cynthia bit her lip. "You do not think he is behind the attack on Cousin Cary?"

  Juliet sighed. "No, I expect I must give all that up. He is incapable of guile. His face bursts into flame at the slightest provocation. I am inclined to think him a mean-spirited bully, but quite innocent of hurting my brother. He actually thought those paltry grays had a chance against Cary's chestnuts! But then, he hasn't very much sense."

  "Oh, Juliet! " Cynthia admonished her. "Do you not see you have falsely accused an innocent man? Small wonder he is angry."

  Cynthia was right. Juliet's cheeks burned, but she said crossly, "Rely on it-he has done something for which he deserves a cruel setdown."

  "Well, perhaps," Cynthia said unhappily.

  "I expect I should not have said `if,"' Juliet admitted more gracefully. "`If I have wronged you, I am sorry.' I should not have said that. That is what made him throw the basket. Now there," she said suddenly in quite a different tone. "There is a man who looksand behaves-like a marquess."