Maggie MacKeever Read Free Page A

sensibilities of the females present at his dinner table, for the duke was not in the habit of considering anyone but himself, but because he knew it was futile to try and get a rise out of Binnie. For the fact that she neither fawned on him nor exhibited awe in his extremely overbearing presence, as did the majority of the females of his acquaintance, including those privileged to be taken under his protection, he accorded Binnie no plaudits. Indeed, he was accustomed to referring to her, among his cronies, as Miss Prunes and Prisms. The satisfaction accompanying this admittedly childish and churlish behavior was greatly lessened by the conviction that she spoke even worse of him.
    “Mannering’s girl.” He waved a singularly dirty piece of paper under Binnie’s Grecian nose. “The missing heiress has come to light. In a tinkers’ camp, no less. So dire are her straits that she’s written to her father, begging for rescue—and in the process, I might add, scribbling a great deal of fustian.”
    “And since Mannering is dead, and you are his executor, the letter came at length to you?” Binnie contemplated the dinner table, strewn with the remains of an excellent meal, among which had been stewed pippins, scalloped oysters, crayfish in jelly, lobster in fricassee sauce, stewed mushrooms, and a solid syllabub in a glass dish. “You will have to do something about the girl, for to ignore her plight would be shockingly remiss. Dear me, how very tiresome! A man of rank and fashion should hardly be expected to trouble himself over a schoolroom miss. When would you have time?”
    Though these remarks were delivered in the most sympathetic of manners, the duke was not deceived. Nor were the others, who were—to their sorrow—well acquainted with this long-standing enmity. “A letter!” said Edwina hastily, before the duke could utter a withering rake-down, and thusly spoil her appreciation of her apricot tart, an indulgence for which she would atone by going without both her breakfast and her nuncheon on the following day. “Miraculous, is it not, how bad news always seems to catch up with one, while good news so often goes astray? And in a tinkers’ camp, you say? God bless my soul! I cannot help but think, dear cousin Sandor, that this is shockingly irregular conduct. Well-brought-up young ladies simply do not do such things!”
    “Nor do they employ vulgar expressions,” remarked Binnie, who had tweaked the letter from Sandor’s fingers and was perusing it with vast appreciation. “Mistress Delilah, it would appear, has little patience with ladylike things. Neal, you will enjoy reading this—do be careful with it; heaven only knows where it’s been! In the coal-scuttle, from the looks of it. Sandor, do you think this girl may be an impostor, out to claim Mannering’s wealth? Apropos of that, I wonder if she knows he left his entire fortune to her. She could hardly expect such generosity, after she ran away.”
    “Run away?” echoed Edwina, as she took a second helping of the apricot tart. “Mercy! Dear Sandor, you cannot mean to take up such a rag-mannered girl.”
    Until that very moment, His Grace had contemplated no such thing. It was not his habit to cater to the sentiments of his dependents, if anything the contrary; and the contretemps that would result from the introduction of a hoydenish madcap—as Miss Delilah Mannering most obviously was— into his household was a notion that afforded him marked satisfaction. The duke’s sense of humor was practically nonexistent; he was dissolute and stern and selfish; he admitted scant fondness for anyone or anything, especially the cousins who dwelt beneath his roof, and who evidenced an unshakable determination to cut up his peace. Therefore, he thought it would be a very good thing if they received a richly merited comeuppance. That of the three Binnie alone set herself at loggerheads with him did not occur to His Grace; and if it had, he would have