Maggie MacKeever by Strange Bedfellows Page A

Fergus,” Mab said gloomily, “you would not ask me that. He is very near perfection—or would be if it were not for his gorgonish mama, who will doubtless make a piece of work about nothing— oh, blast! For Henrietta to step into the solar at just that moment was the unluckiest mischance!”
    In a cravenly manner, Lady March reflected that she was very happy to have been spared the resultant kickup. “Poor Mab!” she sympathized. “Was it so very bad?”
    “Bad?” Amabel’s delightful features were chagrined. “I should say it was! There is a want of openness about my conduct, an unsteadiness of character—I am a harum-scarum young woman, and a hardened flirt! A wicked girl, she called me— wicked! How can you bear to have that sneaking gabble-grinder around you, Nell? She did not scruple to announce it her duty to tell Lady Katherine what has transpired—as if Fergus was a penny the worst of it! Oh, I do not mean to make a kickup, but I am cursedly provoked!”
    “Perhaps she will reconsider,” offered Lady March, without any real hope that Henrietta would bypass an opportunity to cast a blight upon Amabel’s romance. “I might speak to her about it.”
    “You’ll speak to her, I warrant!” Mab brushed futilely at the fur that had drifted from off the cloak onto her high-waisted, dust-smudged dress. “I’m surprised she hasn’t already brought you the tale. Perhaps she knows I am here before her—or is composing Lady Katherine a note.” Briefly, Mab looked hopeful. “I wonder if the old gorgon might think I’ve been compromised, in which event she would have to give us her blessing, so that her son’s good name could be saved.” Her spirits plummeted. “More likely she will decide I’m some scheming hussy who has led her son astray!”
    Obviously some soothing comment was called for, but Lady March could think of no hope she might hold out. “I will declare you have been compromised!” offered a deep voice from the depths of the formidable four-poster bedstead.
    “You—” A sensible girl, Lady Amabel didn’t for an instant think the bed had suddenly come to life, although she was so startled by this new entry into the conversation that her voice rose to a squeak. Should she swoon, she wondered—but this situation was fraught with possibilities too interesting to waste. “I thought I left you reading Torquemada’s Miracles,” she said sternly. “What are you doing in Nell’s bed?”
    In response to this singularly inappropriate question, which caused Lady March to turn very rosy, Lord March emerged from the depths of the old bedstead, and settled himself against one of the bone-inlaid posts. He wore a floor-length robe of expensive brocade, tied at the waist, and a self-satisfied smile. “I was so taken with the tale of the shipwrecked lady and her ape,” he explained, “that I had to share it with Nell. Shall I cut up stiff about your treatment by young Parrington, brat? As head of the household in which you came perilously close to being seduced? A young girl under my protection! Oh, shame!”
    “You are the one who should be ashamed, Marriot!” Though Lady March’s tone was chiding, her expression was not. “You must not tease Mab. This unfortunate development can’t enhance her position with Parrington’s mama.”
    “Nothing could do that,” Mab wryly pointed out, as she followed Lady March to the great bed, where Lord March was toying absently with his wife’s charming nightcap. “It’s very kind of you to offer to help me, Marriot, but no one knows you are the head of the house!”
    “They will soon enough.” Lord March made room for his wife on one side of him, and Lady Amabel on the other, and shared the molting cloak among the three of them in an attempt at warmth. “I’ve decided my reappearance must be no longer delayed.”
    “Was that why you came down from the attic?” Mab tried to imagine how it would feel to snuggle up to Fergus in this