“Perhaps, no, and no, definitely not,” Rachel replied, pointing to each of the trio of young hopefuls in turn. “This meeting concerns one Tristan Rule. Something has got to be done about the boy.”
“Marry him off!” Lucy and Jennie declared in unison, while Mary’s only reply was to pucker up her nose in an expression of distaste, saying, “And a more boring subject I cannot imagine.”
Rachel sat down gingerly on the edge of the satin settee and addressed her next words directly to Mary. “You won’t believe it boring when I have told you just what maggot my nephew has taken into his head about you. I don’t remember him going off on such a wild tangent since that time he decided Lucy was really a boy in disguise and her father had put her into skirts so that he wouldn’t have to spring for an education at Eton.”
Jennie whirled on Lucy, who was laughing uproariously. “Lucy!” she exclaimed. “He never did! How old was Tristan when this happened?”
Lucy had to take refuge in her handkerchief as tears of mirth streamed from her eyes. “T-ten!” she chortled. “I was just a little past three myself. Oh dear, you would perish on the spot if I told you how Tristan was at last proved wrong. Thank goodness I have little but a hazy remembrance of his triumphant unveiling of my ‘masculine’ form in front of the vicar and his sister. I swear, Tristan couldn’t sit down for a week after my father got through with him!”
Mary found herself laughing in spite of herself, and in spite of the deep animosity she felt for Tristan Rule—especially after the events of the previous evening. The fact that she knew she couldn’t confide in either Rachel or Sir Henry without somewhat incriminating herself for her own less than ladylike behavior did not detract from the poor opinion of the man. Trying to keep her mind on the subject at hand, she put in, “I gather, Aunt, that your nephew’s latest incorrect assumption is even worse?”
There was no way to dress the thing up in fine linen, and Rachel was not about to try. Taking a deep, steadying breath, she announced baldly: “Tristan believes Mary might be a spy in the pay of Napoleon.”
Looking quite clearly puzzled, Jennie murmured, “But Napoleon is imprisoned on Elba. The war is over. Surely Kit would have told me if there was any danger. We plan to travel there next spring with Christopher and my father. And Montague was so looking forward to it too—he’s French, you know.”
Rachel shook her head. “We consider the war to be over, pet, but even Sir Henry is uneasy about the laxity of Bonaparte’s imprisonment. There has been more than one rumor about forces being at work to reinstate the man in Paris. He still carries the title of emperor, you know, even if he is in exile.”
While Rachel was explaining all this to Jennie, Lucy was observing Mary shrewdly out of the corners of her eyes. The girl was sitting as stiff and still as a ramrod, looking as if steam would commence pouring from her ears at any moment. Obviously Mary did not share Rachel’s apprehension, Jennie’s confusion, or her own hilarity—no, Miss Mary Lawrence was, in a word, incensed!
“How dare he,” Mary whispered nearly under her breath, and then more loudly. “How dare he!”
Immediately Jennie set out to placate her guest. “Now, Mary, don’t be so out-of-reason cross. Tristan has simply made an error in judgment. Surely Aunt Rachel has already set him straight.”
“It’s not for myself that I’m angry, Jennie,” Mary explained, rising to her feet to begin pacing up and down the length of the carpet. “It’s the insult to Sir Henry that I cannot and will not abide! How dare that ridiculous man cast such aspersions on the intelligence and discretion of one of the nation’s greatest patriots? For myself I care nothing, for Tristan Rule’s opinion of me is not something I would lose any sleep over, I assure you, but if Sir Henry were to catch wind of this—why, I cannot imagine the consequences.”
Rachel could. Rachel had. Which was why she was sitting here amid a group of painfully young ladies instead of pouring out her fears to the one man who she felt could settle the matter once and for all. Oh yes, she had thought of confiding in Julian or Kit, but since it was so pleasant to have her two nieces so happily married, she should hate having to start over from scratch finding replacements once that hot-headed Tristan had made them both into widows. Especially Lucy—dear Lord, getting that one bracketed had cost Rachel more than a few gray hairs!
“I have, unlike you, had a full night to ponder our problem, so I have entertained a few ideas…” Rachel slid in before Mary could snatch up her reticule and go off searching for Lord Rule in order to bash him soundly about the head and shoulders. All three pairs of young eyes immediately concentrated in her direction.
Agreeing with Mary that Sir Henry was best left ignorant of Rule’s assumption, Rachel admitted that the only concrete idea she could come up with was that Tristan Rule needed to be taught a lesson—a very strong lesson. She was now, she told them sincerely, applying to three of the most agile, devious, determined minds she knew for ways to render to her nephew the trimming he so obviously deserved.
“We could have him impressed in His Majesty’s service on a ship bound for deepest Africa,” Mary offered most evilly.
Rachel declined that option, warning, “Mary, my dear, if you would please try for a little more elegance of mind? Besides, knowing Tristan, he would incite a mutiny within three days of leaving port and return here with a full crew of faithful sailors bound to help him expose your dastardly purpose. No, much as I wish it, we shall have to deal with Tristan, not merely transport him.”
Mary just shrugged, then suggested a second option—something vaguely connected with boiling his lordship in oil.
“Oh, I do like this girl!” Lucy said, giggling. “No simpering miss, this.”
Slowly it dawned on the company that Jennie had not spoken for some time. Lucy looked over at her cousin to find the girl wiping away a tear, and promptly asked her what was amiss. “I’ve been thinking about poor Mary, and how she must feel to be supposed guilty of such a grievous crime,” Jennie supplied before daintily blowing her nose. “It is horrid, simply horrid! I wonder how Tristan would feel to be placed in such a position. Perhaps if the slipper were on the other foot for a change, it might show him how unfair his assumptions can be.”
Mary immediately stopped her pacing, an unholy grin lighting her beautiful face. Racing over to swoop the still-sniffling Jennie into her arms, she gave that girl a resounding kiss on the cheek. “Jennie, you dearest thing, you have hit upon it exactly. Lord Rule is long overdue for a lesson. For too long has he been allowed to make hare-witted assumptions about his fellow man and then set about proving how right he is, no matter what the cost to his victim. For Lucy’s injured sensibilities as a child, for his insult to Sir Henry, and for all the other people he has persecuted with his single-minded, not to mention simpleminded determination—we shall teach him a lesson!”
Lucy tipped her head to one side. “I agree about the rest of it, but I don’t know if you can truthfully say I was a victim,” she corrected impishly. “After all, I have it from my old nurse that I quite enjoyed showing off for the vicar, and repeated the practice every time an adult came into range for the next few months—until Papa finally broke me of the habit.”
“How did he do that?” Jennie was the only person interested enough to inquire.
“By the simple expedient of basting her drawers to her shift until she got the message,” Rachel supplied, smiling a bit to herself. “It was my idea, actually. Hale wrote to me in desperation.”
Ben
