Maggie MacKeever by Sweet Vixen

in Clio’s companion to consider this statement, she might have thought it odd indeed that an infant should have been placed under the supervision of a child who could not at the time have been more than seven years old; but Sapphira was not accustomed to wasting thought on hired companions. “Find them,” she said, with a dismissive gesture to Lucille, “rooms in the servants’ quarters. I would speak privately with Clio.”
    Delphine had tolerated a great deal in the past few days, but she would not stand for this. “Ma foi!” she cried, drawing herself up to her full five feet. “It is mal à propos. My—” She caught Lady Tess’s gimlet glance and quickly changed her words. “Mademoiselle Tess is not accustomed to being treated as a servant. Mademoiselle Clio will insist that she be given a proper room of her own.”
    “Hoity-toity!” snapped Sapphira but Clio dared not follow Delphine’s lead lest she encounter, not for the first time, an energetically wielded hairbrush. “It is true,” she interposed. “Tess is accustomed only to the best. I would not have her subjected to any hardship.”
    “Hardship!” snorted the dowager duchess. Lucille turned ashen. “Think you I keep my servants in chains? You do your people no favor by pampering them, girl! While in my house, your women will be treated as befits their station!”
    “Eh?” Delphine’s plump cheeks were flushed. “Then there is nothing for it than we must leave immediately.” She almost hoped the evil old Tartar would take her up on the threat. Far better, thought Delphine, that she and Lady Tess return immediately to the country, where the countess would be safe from both gazetted rakes and foul-tempered dowagers. Now that she had met the dowager duchess, Delphine had no doubt that Clio was in capable hands.
    Sapphira might well have granted Delphine’s wish, as indicated by the rancor writ large on her mottled face; but Giles, who had been watching with some interest the manner in which Tess, while this storm raged about her, engaged in a whispered conversation with Evelyn, and who furthermore possessed a perfectly good grasp of the science of mathematics, chose to speak. “You must not do that,” he interjected smoothly. “My mother was laboring under a misapprehension. Of course you must all be properly housed! What would Clio do without her companion and her abigail?”
    His kindly intervention earned for the duke not a single grateful word. Clio, realizing belatedly that she would go on very handsomely without the protection of her two most diligent well-wishers, was crestfallen; Delphine, understanding that she was to act as lady’s maid to that abominable minx, looked sour. Tess awarded the Duke of Bellamy a glance that indicated not only her awareness of every word of the conversation but the diversion it had afforded; and Sapphira exploded with rage. “You dare defy me?” she screeched, parrot-like. Fearing an onslaught of the vapors, Lucille grabbed for her smelling salts; and Constant tried to hide his bulk in a window recess. Drusilla exhibited no reaction at all, being caught up in unhappy thoughts of the pretty birds of paradise that vied continually for the attentions of her favorite profligate.
    “Defy you?” repeated Giles, as if it were a novel idea. “It is after all my house, Maman.”
    “Lucille!” The dowager duchess cast her eldest daughter a meaningful look. “See these people to their rooms!”
    “Do not trouble yourself, Lucille; I shall see that our guests are comfortable.” Giles bowed elegantly to Tess. “This is your first trip to London? Perhaps you will allow Evelyn and me to introduce you to the city.”
    “Do say yes!” cried that young man, and danced around them in circles, the dog barking at his heels. “And Nidget, too, for there are a great many things he has not yet seen.” He tugged at Tess’s sleeve. “You will not mind if Nidget comes along? I promise that he is very sorry