Page 77 of Miss Delightful
“Is MacKay out when you call,” Orion Goddard asked, “orout?”
Dylan Powell took his cousin’s hat and coat and his walking stick. Goddard was dressing more nattily since marrying Miss Ann Pearson, who was now styledmadame le chefat The Coventry Club. Goddard had taken over management of the place, a job that he claimed resembled wrangling mules and supplies for the military, but with far better rations and considerably less mud.
At least one cousin was settled, while the other showed signs of having come completely unmoored.
“I have my sources,” Powell said, leading the way to his library. “MacKay is honestly from home.” Mrs. Lovelace, Powell’s housekeeper, claimed receiving even family anywhere but the parlor was a faux pas of monstrous proportions, but a worried man wanted comfortable cushions for his backside and decent brandy for his nerves.
Neither was to be found in the fussy front parlor.
Though the fresh flowers were a nice touch, and the room had the best light of any in the house thanks to Mrs. Lovelace’s insistence on lacy drapes instead of musty velvet. The sisters, when they eventually descended, would adore that parlor.
The library, by contrast, had only two windows. Powell told himself the library was snug and quiet because it faced the garden rather than the street. On a winter afternoon, the room was more accurately described as gloomy and stuffy.
“What do your old soldiers tell you?” Goddard asked as Powell led him down the corridor.
“MacKay is out prowling around at all hours. He’s chatting up his lady friends, as well as the urchins, drunks, crossing sweepers, night-soil men, lamplighters, linkboys, and even the constables.”
“Desperate measures, then. What is all this in aid of?”
“He’s looking for the Fairchild woman.”
Goddard paused on the threshold. “I thought she jumped from the Strand Bridge.”
“Nobody saw her leap, if you’ll recall, and MacKay thinks he’s seen her since her supposed demise. Brandy?”
“Half a tot to ward off the chill.” Goddard eased into a wing chair on a sigh. “Spring is taking its jolly time arriving this year.”
Powell poured two drinks and passed one to his guest. “To the arrival of spring and the return of MacKay’s wits.” He took the second wing chair and sampled very good brandy, which was on his sideboard only because Goddard had family in France, and Powell’s sisters—who delighted in warding off chills—were not on the premises.
Yet.
Goddard took a sip, then set his glass aside. “You think MacKay has grown worse?”
“I gather Alasdhair is taking it hard that the Delancey woman tossed him over for some bishop-in-waiting.”
Goddard swore softly in French. “He was starting to come back to life, starting to recover his old… I don’t know… twinkle in his eye. Quote me on that, and I will thrash you.”
“As if you could. The old Alasdhair, the one who drank us under the table as a lad, flirted with anything in skirts, and sang like an Italian, would not recognize himself now.”
“Blighted, beastly Badajoz.” Goddard, whose household included many children, had taken to limiting his profanity since marrying Ann. “Do you have any idea what happened to him there?”
“Just what you’ve told me. He was abroad in the worst of the horror.” An armed mob wreaking unchecked violence on civilians, prisoners, and officers, destroying all in its path for three straight days. “A more disgusting betrayal of honor could not be imagined this side of opium hellscapes.”
“I could not see it,” Goddard said. “I was never so tempted to tear off my bandages, but the surgeon assured us we were protected by locked doors and armed guards. When MacKay came by, I heard wildness in his voice, near panic. In the face of massed French cuirassiers, he was the picture of unconcern, but he was nigh unraveled that day.”
MacKay had been unraveled ever since. He did not come to London to socialize, he came to hand out money and meals to shivering streetwalkers, to flagellate himself for a day best forgotten.
“I hoped Miss Delancey might ravel him back up.” Powell had prayed for that outcome, though he’d never admit to another that he had resorted to importuning heaven. He’d otherwise given up begging the Almighty for anything years ago.
“What happened to the world’s fastest courtship?” Goddard murmured. “Miss Delancey is not, by reputation, a woman who dithers or changes her mind.”
“Mrs. Lovelace befriended MacKay’s staff while she was overseeing the prenuptial cleaning. Seems Miss Delancey did change her mind, as simple as that. MacKay’s version is that a more suitablepartisupplanted his suit.”
“Then Miss Delancey is Miss Dunderhead. MacKay is sorely smitten.”
“Something untoward is afoot,” Powell said. “Alasdhair would never surrender his heart to a fickle female. Now he’s wandering all over London at unwise hours. I fear for our cousin. He has been too serious for too long.”
“You being the pattern card of jocularity yourself?”
