Maggie MacKeever by The Right Honourable Viscount Page A

her classic jaw dropped open. Indeed, so astonished did she appear at being addressed in such a manner that Lord Darby briefly regretted his presumptiveness. Not the act itself troubled him, but the suspicion that he had brought down upon himself yet another tedious encounter with yet another romantically inclined female. Lord Darby could not help it that his own overpowering masculinity reduced the most clear-minded lady’s mental faculties to a condition resembling cornmeal mush. Had he been the coxcomb that he wasn’t, he might have admitted that to be irresistible was not to be blessed.
    Miss Phyfe’s mental faculties, however, were a great deal more finely honed than any other clear-minded lady of his lordship’s experience. She snapped shut her jaw and set about collecting her scattered wits—a process greatly abetted by the pain attendant upon biting her tongue—and then gave every evidence of resistance.
    “Thank you, sir, I shall please myself!” she said. “And it pleases me to inform you that I disapprove most strongly of gentlemen such as yourself. You are nothing more than a herd of idle courtiers fattening on the spoils of the public.”
    With what a smug expression she watched him, as if she expected him to make a hasty and confused retreat. Lord Darby had no desire to thus withdraw. Genuinely fond though he was of the ladies—indiscriminately so, some unkind detractors claimed—he had recently noticed in himself a certain ennui. Lord Darby regarded the world and all in it with keen irony, including his conquests, and especially himself. That few females similarly amused him was one of the several disadvantages of his remarkable progress.
    Lord Darby was a man who enjoyed amusement. “You have a succinct way with a word, Miss Phyfe! ‘A herd of idle courtiers fattening on the spoils of the public’ is quite good, although I think you might make it stronger yet. Perhaps an allusion to ravening flesh or drinking blood.”
    Had she misread the nature of the man? Miss Phyfe’s brown eyes opened wide. “I would not have expected such strong stuff from a man of your reputation, Darby. Why is it I did not know before that you are in favor of parliamentary reform? But never mind that! I have been wishing for someone to speak out for the cause in the House of Lords.”
    Lord Darby had not achieved his spectacular success by allowing himself to be backed into corners by designing females. “You’ve got the wrong sow by the ear, Miss Phyfe. When I do attend the House, I am less inclined to speak than to snore.”
    This genial sally sparked no appreciative smile from his opponent. Instead, she scowled. “Reform will never be achieved until reformers and reformist MP’s make a united assault on a particular injustice. I suppose you were not serious, either, about drinking blood and ravening flesh?”
    “Well, no.” Lord Darby exercised his ability to make every female upon whom he gazed feel as if she was the sole source of his delight. “I fear I am incurably light-minded, Miss Phyfe,”
    Again Miss Phyfe quite lost her train of thought, as result of which she grew still further incensed. “I am beginning to understand that, sir! I think you must be the very epitomeof frivolity!”
    “You disapprove of frivolity?” Here was a notion as intriguing as its proponent, with her deliciously flushed cheeks and askew bonnet and flashing eyes. Lazily Lord Darby smiled. “It is a pity. I would deem you admirably suited to that pursuit.”
    Upon receipt of this ignominious suggestion, Miss Phyfe’s breast swelled with wrath. “Then even the knowledgeable ‘“Devil”‘ Darby may be mistaken!” she retorted sharply. “I abhor levity above all else.”
    “You may think you do.” His lordship’s appreciative eye alit upon his victim’s heaving bosom, the allure of which was considerably enhanced by the lady’s habitual disregard of such mundane matters as seeing buttons firmly fastened in their