The Wicked Marquess by Maggie MacKeever

could sweep her off her feet so well.
    Mr. Dowlin had the opportunity, while listening to Mr. Atchison prose on about the Royal Catalogue of 1773, when the botanic collection had included seven hundred and ninety-one species and varieties from one hundred and seventy-seven genera, to screw up his resolve. A young barrister-at-law with chambers facing the pleasant gardens at Grey’s Inn, Mr. Dowlin was not a coward, but merely shy. The circumstance that the object of his admiration was conversing in low tones with a bird-of-paradise plant made her more approachable somehow. “Do you enjoy the theater, Miss Russell? There is to be a production of Blue Beard at Drury Lane.”
    Perhaps Benedict would attend the theater. Maybe if she encountered Benedict at the theater, Miranda might proceed further along the pathway to perdition. “You must call me Miranda!” she said gaily. “As for the theater, I like it above all things.”
     

Chapter Ten
     
    “Confound the girl! I wish she would develop a preference for someone so we could be done with all this frivolity and fuss!” Sir Kenrick was feeling particularly peevish due to the antics of Miranda’s swains, a couple of the more daring of whom – in response to having been excluded from the expedition to the Botanical Gardens at Kew – had set out to serenade her the previous night, but had mistakenly arranged themselves under his own window instead, as result of which he had derived considerable satisfaction from emptying the contents of his chamber pot over the player of the French horn. “Never think I am blaming you. I don’t know how we would go on without you, either Miranda or myself.”
    Nonie flinched at these kind words. She was very much to blame for keeping her employer uninformed, both about Miranda’s curiosity concerning kissing reluctant gentlemen, and her tendency to slip her leash. “The gardens at Kew were lovely. You were very good to arrange our visit there.”
    “It was no trouble.” Antoinette was looking queasy. Kenrick hoped Miranda wasn’t dosing her with some wretched concoction of herbs.
    He would cheer her with a compliment. “Is that a new gown?”
    Nonie fingered the fabric of her walking dress, which was long-sleeved and round-necked with a trimming of narrow lace at the hem. “I tried to dissuade Miranda, but she wouldn’t listen. I hope you do not—”
    Kenrick resumed his pacing. “I know how Miranda is when she takes a bee under her bonnet. There is no reason why she shouldn’t spend her pin money on you if that’s what she likes. My niece could present you with an entire wardrobe and it wouldn’t adequately compensate for the aggravation involved in dealing with her.”
    Aggravation was not the word for it. Wearily, Nonie smiled. “Did you know that the famous 1787 voyage led by Captain Bligh on the HMS Bounty, famed for the mutiny that took place on board, was primarily an expedition to collect breadfruit from Tahiti for cultivation in the West Indies? Mr. Atchison is a very bookish gentleman, you see, and Mr. Burton is addicted to sport. While poor Mr. Dowlin can’t say boo to a mouse. Or so Miranda claims.”
    Kenrick paused by the marble-inlaid mantle. “Confound the girl!” he said again. “Surely there are other applicants.”
     “An unending number. Your niece regards none of them in a favorable light.” Among the more flattering of the epithets bestowed by Miss Russell on her beaux were ‘paperskull’, ‘popinjay’, and ‘whopstraw’.” Nonie knew that only by the art of pleasing could women attain any influence in the world. Miranda had yet to be convinced.
    Damned if they weren’t as much tormented by suitors as Odysseus’s Penelope. Kenrick continued his perambulations around the room. He was anxious to leave behind the racket of the London streets for the bucolic serenity of his estates.
    Nonie watched her employer pace. She must wait quietly until she was dismissed, hopefully from his