Maggie MacKeever Read Online Free PDF

numbers of whom were considerable, a gentleman totally devoid of sentiment or shame, a gentleman who was committed to a continued routine of dissipation, and who possessed not one estimable or redeemable quality. He had, at thirty-two, earned no little notoriety as a philanderer; he had, it was said, already possessed one-third of the female population of the town. This may have been slight exaggeration—and again, it may not—but those who knew Innis accorded him the epithet of très amoureux but très inconstant.
    Lady Bliss continued to bemoan her perennial financial crises, waving her handkerchief for emphasis. “And to run a polite gaming house was your idea, Innis! You said that if we issued discreet cards of invitation, and set out faro tables and handsome suppers and good wine, and let it be known that the play was fair, we would speedily become rich. But we haven’t! And I’m sure I don’t wonder at it, since champagne costs seventy shillings the dozen, to say nothing of spring chickens and salmon and green peas. I shall end up in debtors’ prison, I know it, and then you’ll regret your treatment of me.”
    “Pax!” Innis interrupted, and crossed his legs at the knee. “Considering that you have enslaved half the government, I doubt not that you’d be rescued from Newgate gaol by some admirer who wouldn’t wish to suffer the embarrassment attendant upon your presence there. But you worry needlessly, Adorée. It won’t come to that. I fancy I’ve found the perfect way out of our difficulties.”
    Lady Bliss did not respond enthusiastically to the ray of hope thus proffered; Lady Bliss had what might be charitably called a one-track mind. “I will admit,” she said stiffly, “that I have had my share—perhaps even more than my share—of amorous intrigues.”
    “What you’ve had,” remarked Innis, who wasn’t one to coddle any lady, “is a series of highly publicized and scandalous flirtations. And not one of them did you turn to advantage! Never did I think to see an Ashley whistle a fortune down the wind! Yet here we are, suffering from a run of the most damnably persistent ill luck, with one disastrous occurrence following hard on another, and you allow one of the richest men in England to escape your net.”
    Lady Bliss surveyed her brother, whose blue coat and fawn pantaloons and Hessian boots displayed his magnificent figure to a nicety. His countenance was honest and open and cheerful, his manner disarming, and his dark locks tumbled in an engaging and careless manner over his noble brow. Lady Bliss evinced little appreciation at the handsome picture he made. “You would have me act the tart,” she pronounced awfully. “I have told you before, Innis, that I refuse to capitalize on my, er, affaires de coeur.”
    So she had, and Innis considered it further proof—not that further proof was needed—that his sister was a skitterwitted slow-top. She was his meal-ticket, however, and he did not wish to argue with her. “So you have,” Innis replied cheerfully. “So be it! I shan’t say another word about Roxbury.”
    “Oh, Innis!” Lady Bliss was immediately distracted, as her brother had intended she should be. “He has behaved so handsomely!”
    “He has?” Accustomed as he was to his sister’s limited powers of intellect, her utterances sometimes caused Innis a certain confusion. “Dash it, Adorée, the man gave you your ticket-of-leave!”
    “Yes, he did.” Lady Bliss again had recourse to her handkerchief. “And the sapphire set he gave me as a parting gift was very handsome! And he has a sincere regard for the girl, which is so affecting, and I think it’s all marvelous!”
    “It’d be a great deal more marvelous,” retorted Innis, “if Roxbury had a sincere regard for you! Will you wear the willow for him, then? I thought you didn’t care for the man.”
    “Wretch!” Had not Lady Bliss so adored her younger brother, she would have been all out of charity with