The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane by Kasey Michaels Page B

is simply an age since last you graced us with
your presence so early in the Season. Indeed, the Season is not yet
officially here, is it, although one couldn’t tell that by the
turnout today, could one? I declare, half the two thousand, at
least, must be in the park today.”
    Throughout the delivery of this speech the
lady’s watery-pale orchid eyes (an answer to the unasked question
of why an aging female of little beauty and a rather muddy
complexion would deck herself head to toe in pale orchid) darted
back and forth between his grace and Tansy. Doubtless she was
mentally trotting out and discarding reasons why this unspectacular
looking and, if not on the shelf, definitely at her last prayers
female should be the first of her sex to be seen handling an
Avanoll pair since the dowager Duchess retired her whip twenty
years before.
    Since the Duke seemed ready to give her only
a small smile and a nod before rudely dismissing his dear departed
Mama’s oldest and dearest friend—well, perhaps that was stretching
a point, but they did have their come-outs the same Season, and her
with her youngest still to get off her hands after three unfruitful
Seasons, drat the chit—the lady blithely discarded the niceties and
asked the name of the charming miss who had the pleasure of his
grace’s company.
    “How remiss of me. Lady Stanley. It seems in
my absence from town my manners have gone a-begging,” he replied
without any hint of gentlemanly remorse. Then he very quickly
effected introductions and nudged Tansy’s foot with the toe of his
boot in an effort to get her moving.
    Tansy was only too happy to oblige and raised
her hands, only to be stopped by Lady Stanley’s incredulous, “Your
cousin? Why the only Tamerlane I know of was Sir Andrew Tamerlane,
and that man couldn’t possibly be related to you.”
    “Why ever not. Lady Stanley?” purred Tansy in
a tone Avanoll already knew only too well.
    But before his grace could wade in and smooth
the waters. Lady Stanley sealed her fate by blurting out, “Why,
really, my dear child, you must know Sir Andrew was a worthless
ninny-brain who gambled and drank himself underground two years or
so back—ending a singularly worthless and unproductive life. His
wife, bless her soul, a sweet young thing several years my junior,
died of a broken heart, I heard—thanks to that wretch of a
man.”
    Avanoll looked wildly about him for a hole in
which to hide before the rockets started exploding around his head.
As Tansy drew herself up to a commanding height—no mean feat,
considering she was seated—his grace thought: here we go, cant
expressions, stable language and all. Why didn’t he leave well
enough alone and let Emily elope with that young dandy? How easily
he could have avoided all this mess!
    But when Tansy spoke it was quietly and with
great dignity. “My mother, Lady Stanley, expired from a putrid cold
the summer I was eight. Her only regret in dying was that she must
leave her beloved husband Sir Andrew Tamerlane, my father. His
sorrow may have led him to indulge quite earnestly in vices only
dabbled at during his grasstime, and it may have hastened his
blessed release from an unhappy life to a reunion in heaven with
his beloved wife.”
    Avanoll was impressed. This was a crushing
set-down, delivered with the expertise of a seasoned London matron.
But his mouth dropped to half cock as Tansy finished her speech
thusly:
    “And my father’s life was not, as you say,
worthless, for he taught me many things. For one, he always
impressed upon me never to behave so commonly as to malign
needlessly the dead or attack those, living or dead, unable to
defend themselves. Which is much the same case in this instance,
don’t you agree?”
    As Lady Stanley’s face took on an unbecoming
shade of puce that clashed badly with her plumes, Tansy delivered
the coup de grace. “And Mama, thinking of my future no doubt, told
me on her deathbed—with all the veracity of any