Maggie MacKeever Read Online Free PDF Page B

in the least. Your behavior still merits the most severe reproof.” She paused to sip ratafia from a crystal glass.
    Perhaps he had not changed during his travels abroad, thought Malcolm, but he fancied his cousins had. With the shrewd attention of the connoisseur, he contemplated Lady Davenham, clad in a habit-shirt with high frilled neck, and three-flounced skirt fashioned from colored sprig. He had forgotten Thea was so voluptuous, and so prim. Then he glanced at Vivien, standing at the window, gazing serenely down upon his gardens. As always, it was impossible to guess what dwelt behind that aloof facade.
    Alerted by the silence to the fact that the conversation had lagged. Lord Davenham turned a vague eye on the participants. “Puncheons. Jardinieres,” he said.
    “Puncheons?” echoed Sir Malcolm. “What the deuce?”
    “Tubs on wheels which can be trundled through the garden to distribute water,” explained Thea, looking glum.
    “And jardinieres?” persisted Sir Malcolm.
    Lady Davenham drained and set aside her glass. “The terracotta tubs in which Vivien grows his fruit trees. At this time of the year they are brought outside. They spend the winter within doors, you see, where stoves are used to protect them from the cold.” Her tone was distinctly ironic. “Charcoal, Cousin, is far preferable to wood! Gardening is Vivien’s passion, Malcolm—if you can conceive of Vivien being passionate about anything, which I concede is difficult. Now, if you please, I would rather hear about your exploits!”
    Sir Malcolm looked from Lord Davenham, whose serene attention was once more directed outside, to Lady Davenham, who was tapping her elegant fingers on the scrolled end pieces of the straight-legged sofa where she sat. There were few nuances of the game of hearts with which Sir Malcolm was not familiar. This marriage between his cousins had room for improvement, he thought.
    “You wish to hear about my passions?” he murmured wickedly. “Shame, Dorothea! You have just got through chiding me about my shocking misadventures, and now you ask to hear more of them. I have already told you about my journey here, and of my travels on the Continent. That’s all dull stuff for me, my Thea; I was there. I would much rather hear what you have been doing during our separation.” He smiled. “Much as you may like to hear it, I do not especially enjoy talking about the fleshpots!”
    Lady Davenham toyed with a curl which had escaped its severe braid to nestle on her cheek. “Le Roué,” she responded. “You were ever a disobliging wretch! I am not a ... a prattle-bag; you may trust me to treat your disclosures in confidence. Not that I wish to hear about your conquests among opera dancers and demi-reps!” Her expression was speculative. “Have you never considered contracting a marriage, Cousin? You must realize you are a bachelor of the first stare. At thirty it is time your affections became fixed.”
    Why Lady Davenham should seek to persuade him to enter into an estate for which she herself exhibited little enthusiasm, Sir Malcolm had not the most distant guess. “Though I may not enjoy talking about the fleshpots, neither do I intend quitting them. You may not reform me, Thea,” he responded, with his forbidding half-smile.
    Thea was not unacquainted with her cousin’s temper, which his expression gave her good reason to recall. “Oh!” she said abruptly. “I did not mean to presume. It is just that I have got in the habit of arranging things. You will forgive me, Malcolm?”
    In his window, Lord Davenham stirred. “Not flesh-pots!” he was heard to mutter. “Jardinieres. Terracotta tubs.”
    To this interruption, Lady Davenham and Sir Malcolm wisely paid no heed. “It is you who must forgive me,” he protested, sitting down beside her on the sofa and taking her hands in his. “I should not have ripped up at you in that odious fashion. My manners have not improved during my travels, I