Maggie MacKeever by The Tyburn Waltz

obligation to the family. Think of your sister, if you won’t think of me. Consider what would become of Clea if you was to suddenly become deceased.”
    Ned had no intention of suddenly becoming deceased, but the previous earl probably hadn’t either, unless it was to escape his tiresome parent. “I’m hardly the last of the line. The title is in no danger of dying out.”
    “The title came to you!” snapped Hannah. “Heaven only knows where it might end up next. I’ll see to your sister’s come-out on one condition: you shallspeedily choose a companion for life.”
    The suggestion became no less appalling with repetition. Still, Hannah had a point. With the title had come properties, and with properties tenants. Countless other people were depending on Ned to do as he should.
    Hannah clamped her hand vise-like on his arm. “At least you may begin to survey the field.” Without giving Ned an opportunity to retreat, she steered him around the room, introducing him to one young lady and another, in between explaining their pedigrees.
    The first damsel glanced away in pretty confusion. The second favored Ned with a giggle and a smile. What did one talk about with young ladies so ignorant of the world? He and Bianca had done little talking. Not that Bianca had been an innocent.
    And not that Bianca would have made a proper earl’s wife. “They’re barely out of the schoolroom,” protested Ned.
    Hannah awarded him an impatient glance. “You’ll want a young wife. So you may mold her to your taste.”
    Ned thought of the young women in London’s countless brothels and the men who had molded them and wondered, where’s the difference? Nonetheless, he smiled and nodded and said everything kind and civil to Hannah’s countless candidates, who were all very proper, and very boring also. He clenched his jaw to stifle a yawn.
    “Don’t look so forbidding!” scolded Hannah, then hissed out a breath as the person she liked least in all the world stepped into her path. The flibbertigibbet was fitted out for the occasion in a froth of heliotrope satin and white crape, trimmed with lace and knotted beading and gossamer net, a Grecian scarf around her shoulders, and blue satin slippers on her feet. Her hair was arranged in ringlets and knots. Draped about her person was a profusion of pearls.
    Said Hannah, not quite beneath her breath: “Mutton dressed as lamb.” Added Ned, quickly: “Lady Georgiana. You take my breath away.”
    “You are too kind, Lord Dorset.” Fluttering skillfully darkened lashes, Lady Georgiana tapped Ned’s arm with her carved ivory fan. “Hello,Hannah. I am surprised to see you here. Oh, but your poor William was acquainted with the Regent, was he not? A pity you couldn’t join us at dinner. Prinny had in front of him at the table a basin of water with a temple in it, from which a stream meandered the entire length — two hundred feet, my dears, if an inch! — bordered with moss and aquatic flowers, spanned by four fantastic bridges, and filled with frolicking silver and gold fish.”
    “I hear the Regent hung his portrait set in brilliants around Marshall Blücher’s neck.” Hannah sounded as if she might have had a frolicking fish stuck in her throat. “Blücher knelt at his feet.”
    Lady Georgiana gently fanned herself. “I vow dear Prinny changes the furniture so often one can scarcely find time to catch a glimpse of each new arrangement before he has replaced it with another. The present state of things is unusually fine. Have you noticed the chandelier in the Crimson Drawing Room?”
    Hannah bared her teeth. “I’ve noticed that you have a new companion. What happened? Did you wear the last one out?”
    Ned had been so enjoying the hostilities — Georgiana and Hannah were bitter rivals, Georgiana holding the advantage because she was a lady by birth and Hannah merely by marriage, as result of which Hannah was determined to topple Georgiana from her throne — that he had