Merrie by Maggie MacKeever

Author:Maggie MacKeever [MacKeever, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Regency Romance
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 1979-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16: A Household on Its Ear

Palmerston House had already that day been the scene of considerable chaos, most of which could be laid at the door of fond if misguided Uncle Luke, who had treated the siblings to an acrobatic display. Thus inspired, Miss Samantha undertook some gymnastics of her own, and suffered a rather severe tumble while attempting a triple somersault on the back-yard swing. The damsel’s main injury, it was quickly ascertained, was primarily to her pride; as Sir Jason remarked, nobody suffering severe physical damage could so strenuously exercise her lungs. Miss Samantha’s outraged shrieks penetrated the neighborhood, leading several of the less courageous dwellers there to believe that London had been invaded by Napoleon during the night, that the French troops at that very moment wreaked havoc and mayhem on Queen Anne Street, summarily murdering peace-loving citizens in their beds.

At length the neighbors were assuaged, and the doctor summoned. Though Miss Samantha, it turned out, had little need of his services, the governess was found shrieking and drumming her heels on the nursery floor, and had to be doused with a bucket of water, so his trip was not in vain. At length Maria, revived with burnt feathers stuck under her nose, was packed off to bed with a liberal dose of tincture of opium; and Miss Samantha, a bandage wrapped rakishly around her brow, was enthroned in her own bedroom, attended by Nanny, the nursery maid, and three of the household canines—as the young lady pointed out, Wellington took an entire pack of dogs with him to the Peninsula. Sir Jason, after surveying his wife’s harassed features, nobly swept the remaining young Palmerstons off to Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre, there to behold splendid equestrian feats. Next, Lady Penelope supposed, she would be privileged to see one of her children attempt a similar feat of horsemanship. She smiled as she thought of Sir Jason’s reaction when one of his thoroughbreds was appropriated for trick riding.

Pen was a lovely vision in a frothy blue confection that exactly matched her eyes. The sunlight gleamed in her golden hair. Lady Ottolie Carlisle returned the smile, smug in the knowledge that she would soon cause her hostess to wear an expression of an entirely different sort. “I believe,” said Lady Carlisle, “that you may expect an interesting announcement soon.”

Pen regarded Ottolie, who wore a simpering expression, without enthusiasm. “Oh?” Lady Carlisle was not only pursuing Mephisto with the grimmest determination, she was with equal fervor cultivating a future sister-in-law.

“My dear!” Ottolie was arch. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

Pen nobly refrained from comment; the lady was forty if she was a year. Lady Carlisle’s dark hair owed more to art than to nature, her highly-colored complexion spoke of surreptitious dips into the rouge-pot, and her plump figure was tightly laced into an improbable hour-glass shape. Pen had a naughty vision of Lady Carlisle climbing onto the great scales at Berry Brothers, there—along with the huge bags of coffee—to be weighed.

“I refer,” continued Ottolie, undeterred by Pen’s silence, “to your brother and Denham’s ward.

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