Margaret Moore - The Wastrel

Mr. and Mrs. Wells appeared at the top of the staircase, by their appearance having interrupted their toilette. Byron Wells wore a finely tailored tweed suit that owed more to town than country, and Mrs. Wells’ dressing gown simply defied description.

Before Paris could answer, Clara Wells darted past him at the same time the black cat reappeared, this time returning toward its mistress and the kitchen wing. Before Paris could step back inside the sanctuary of his study, Jupiter tore down the corridor and crashed into his master, sending him reeling. Paris slipped on the polished floor and collided with Miss Wells. Stumbling over her skirts, he managed to right himself, then lost his footing again and finally fell to the ground, one foot shooting out and inadvertently kicking Miss Wells.

She lost her balance and landed on top of him in a pile of skirts and righteous indignation. “Get up!” she cried, putting her slender hands on Paris’s chest and pushing. “Get up!”

Paris could easily imagine how ridiculous they looked, him flat on his back in the middle of the hall with a young lady, red of face and glaring of eye, sprawled on top of him and telling him to get up. However, he wasn’t so startled that he didn’t notice that although her eyes blazed with indignation and despite her ugly brown dress, Clara Wells was really very pretty.

“I should point out that task would be much simpler if you were to rise first,” he said, hard-pressed not to laugh out loud as he put his hands about her slim waist to lift her up.

She wore no corset, for he felt only soft flesh beneath her gown, not whalebone. She was breathing hard. A few wisps of hair had escaped her tight bun and her mouth was partly opened. He had but to raise himself a few inches and he could capture those lips with his own....

Miss Wells’ face turned even redder as she realized her position. “Take your hands off me, sir!”

“May I be of assistance, miss?” Witherspoon intoned.

“Yes, please,” Miss Wells said, scuttling backward in a crablike manner that imparted to Paris new and fascinating sensations.

With great dignity, Witherspoon inclined and took Clara Wells’ hand in his to help her stand.

“Lord Mulholland, are you hurt?” Aurora Wells asked, bustling toward him solicitously, her ringlets quivering with concern.

“Only my pride,” he replied, standing and bestowing a gracious smile on his guests, especially the youngest of them.

Then Jupiter started to bay.

“He’s trapped Zeus!” Clara Wells cried anxiously as she turned once more toward the corridor leading to the kitchen. “Poor thing!”

“Jupiter won’t hurt your cat,” Paris said, hurrying after her. “He’s very gentle.”

Miss Wells shot him a withering glance. “I was thinking of your foolish dog,” she said. “Zeus can take care of himself.”

Before Paris could formulate an answer, Jupiter gave a great long howl, and in the next instant, came careening around the corner, Zeus clinging to his back and yowling. Jupiter looked as if he had Satan himself for a rider, and this cat could have been a familiar, for it held on with demonic determination as they rushed past the startled onlookers who pressed themselves back against the wall. Jupiter, with another wild yelp, spun around in the foyer and dashed back past them.

“I believe they are returning to the kitchen, my lord,” Witherspoon remarked unnecessarily.

A shocked screech—Mrs. Macurdy, the cook’s, no doubt—and a clash of pots confirmed Witherspoon’s assumption.

Paris ran to the kitchen followed by the Wells and halted abruptly on the threshold. Mrs. Macurdy, surrounded by fragments of pastry and pieces of tea sandwiches, was leaning against the table in the middle of the large room as if she had had the fright of her life. A kitchen maid stood in the corner with a ladle clutched in her hand, Jupiter was in the corner by the coal box whimpering and a black cat not nearly as huge as it had looked on Jupiter’s back sat on the windowsill calmly licking its paw.

Mrs. Macurdy turned her shocked visage toward him. “What in the name of heaven happened, my lord?” she asked in a stunned whisper. “Is that cat possessed?”

“No, he isn’t,” Miss Wells said as she pushed her way past him. “Your maid dropped a pan.” The scullery maid flushed guiltily and slowly lowered her ladle. “That scared poor Zeus, so he ran.” She glanced over her shoulder with a scathing look. “And then your brute of a dog chased him.”

She went to the windowsill and picked up the cat, nestling it to her chest and crooning, “Did he try to hurt you, Zeus, that nasty, stupid dog?”

Paris felt contrite until he saw the bloody scratches on Jupiter’s back. “That cat is a menace!” he said through clenched teeth as he went toward his wounded pet. “Poor Jupe,” he murmured. He crouched down and stroked the dog’s head. “Did that nasty, stupid cat attack you?”

Jupiter looked at him as if to ask what he had ever done to deserve such a punishment, and Paris had to agree.

“Since there is nothing for me to do here, I believe I shall decamp,” Aurora Wells announced grandly. She gathered her brightly colored wrapper around her ample frame. “Come, Byron!”

Byron was in the process of sampling one of the remaining intact pastries when his wife’s command interrupted. While continuing to unashamedly hold on to the cream puff, he bid everyone an airy adieu and ambled after her retreating figure, taking great care not to step on any fragments of food.

“I assume, my lord, that tea will be indefinitely postponed?” the ever-unflappable Witherspoon remarked.

Miss Wells paused in her crooning and, for the first time since this whole episode began, looked contrite. “Oh, dear me,” she said, and Paris noticed she spoke more to Mrs. Macurdy than to him. “Please, don’t make any more on our account. We can wait for dinner.”

“Good,” Paris said rather ungraciously. He was discovering that he detested being ignored, especially in his own home. “Mrs. Macurdy, don’t bother with tea.”

The cook nodded, turning a murderous eye onto Miss Wells and her cat triumphant. Witherspoon nodded his understanding and drifted out of the room.

“He’s usually no trouble at all,” Miss Wells said defensively. She brushed back one of the stray wisps of hair from her flushed face with the back of her hand. “I don’t think he’ll bother Jupiter again.”

“I should hope not.”

She frowned, making a furrow of worry appear between her shapely brows. So, she was not completely immune to his opinion.

Suddenly all was forgiven. Until she spoke again. “Such a large dog should be kept outside, shouldn’t it?”

“I like having him in the house,” Paris replied. “I didn’t realize you were bringing a cat.”

“You did say to bring all the household.”

“And is this all, or have you a mynah bird, a bear or an elephant somewhere hereabouts?”

“No, my lord. Only Zeus.” Clara Wells’ lips twitched as if she were trying to suppress a smile.

Paris did not remark that “only Zeus” had reduced his kitchen to a shambles and possibly upset Mrs. Macurdy’s delicate nervous system. He didn’t speak because the knowledge that she found his sarcastic comment amusing affected him strangely. On the one hand, he was pleased to think he could make her smile. On the other, he had never before wanted a young woman to take him seriously, as he did Clara Wells.

She glanced at the door leading to the kitchen garden and buttery and went toward it, opening it and setting her cat down. The beast walked majestically away, as one would expect any pet of the senior Wells to do.

“Sending your familiar to fend for himself?” Paris inquired.