Maggie MacKeever by Lady Bliss Page B

filled with tears. “Don’t be angry with me, please. I was so sure you’d understand—my poor father’s untimely end, and Aunt Adorée and Uncle Innis—oh! ‘Twas such a sad affair.”
    “Now see what you’ve done!” Percy shot a bitter glance at Miss Lennox. Encouraged by his sympathy, Cristin cast herself weeping onto his chest, to the detriment of his cravat and embroidered waistcoat, neither of which desecrations Percy seemed in the least to mind. “There, there. Miss Ashley! No need to make a fuss! Jynx don’t mean half of what she says!”
    “Oh!” Miss Ashley raised her pretty little face, the charm of which was not a whit diminished by tearstains. “Call me Cristin, pray!”
    “Delighted!” Lord Peverell was much moved by this sign of favor. “And you must call me Percy!”
    “And the pair of you are addle-brained!” commented Miss Lennox, who was excessively weary of listening to loverlike absurdities. She sent up a silent prayer of thanksgiving for Viscount Roxbury, who did not fatigue her with such flummery. “Am I to understand, Cristin, that you wish to stay in Blissington House?”
    “But, Jynx!” Cristin’s wet eyes were wide. “Where else should I go? And I am very fond of Aunt Adorée, and even Uncle Innis, though they do argue a lot, and especially because Uncle Innis wants me to come into the saloons at night, and Aunt Adorée will not agree.” She frowned. “I suppose she will give in eventually; Uncle Innis usually has his way. And truly I would not mind so much, except for Eleazar Hyde— indeed, I think it would be great fun to meet fine ladies and gentlemen!”
    Miss Lennox refrained from pointing out that Cristin was unlikely to become acquainted with the crème de la crème in the Blissington gaming rooms. “Who,” she ventured, “is Eleazar Hyde?”
    Cristin grimaced, enchantingly. “Oh, the most dreadful old man, and I cannot but think his attentions a great deal too particular. But he is a friend of my Uncle Innis, and I am to be nice to him, my uncle says. So I am.” She looked perplexed. “But he does say the strangest things to me.”
    Lord Peverell had been making the most extraordinary faces during this naive speech, and his comely, if vacant, countenance bloomed with color. “Hyde!” he ejaculated, at last. “A curst rum touch! I tell you, it won’t do!”
    Jynx suspected that for once Percy had made a shrewd deduction; any friend of the gay and profligate Innis Ashley was very unlikely to be fit company for his unworldly niece. She set that matter aside for later consideration, and pursued her original line of endeavor. “But if you are quite happy with your lot, why did you write so to me?”
    “Because you are lazy, Jynx!” Cristin’s giggle was very reminiscent of her aunt’s. “I knew that if you saw all was well you would not visit me. But if you thought I was in trouble, you would immediately come to my rescue, like you did when we were in school, and you kept the other girls from teasing and bullying me about my father!” She looked cautiously at her friend. “And I did wish to speak with you!”
    Had Miss Lennox trusted herself to express an opinion of this candid confession, she might have remarked that her championship of Cristin Ashley was the sole piece of folly in an otherwise blameless career. “Why?” she inquired bluntly.
    “Haven’t you guessed?” Cristin clapped her little hands in glee. “And you were always the clever one, Jynx! It is about Innis, of course! I fancy that my uncle has developed a decided partiality for you.”
    This ingenuous utterance roused Lord Peverell from his entranced state into a tardy realization that Innis Ashley’s attentions toward Miss Lennox had been particular indeed. “Oh, God!” said he, in tones of the deepest dismay. “The Lennox fortune! I might as well give Shannon my head for washing without further ado!”
    “Shannon?” queried Cristin, confused.
    Miss Lennox did not offer