Viscount Vagabond (17 page)

She scowled at her shoe. “I have wanted to strangle my papa,” she muttered.

“Egad! Patricide. Well, that’s a relief,” said he with a grin. “I thought I was the only one. Still, you probably had more provocation. My father at least never tried to force me to marry someone twice my age, and one who don’t bathe regularly to boot. That Browdie is a revolting brute, I must say. I wonder you didn’t run off the same day you got the happy news.”

“I would have,” she grimly confessed, “only I had no idea where to go and needed time to plan it out. I thought I had planned so carefully.”

Max gazed at her in growing admiration as she went on with his encouragement to describe her elaborate arrangements—the governess’s garments she’d sewn with her own hands, the route she’d planned that would get her to the coaching inn unremarked, the weary trudging through fields and little-used back lanes.

Had he been in her place, with her upbringing, he wondered where he’d have found the courage to embark upon so complicated and hazardous an enterprise. Why, Louisa had gone off with her maid in tow, in her own father’s carriage, and only a few miles at that. This young woman had no adoring relative to hide with, only a prim governess who might send the girl right back to her papa.

“I never thought about what slaves to propriety women of the upper classes are,” he admitted. “But there’s really nothing you can do unchaperoned, is there? I can drive you in the park in an open carriage or take you to Gunner’s for ices... and that’s about the sum of it. Confound it, if I were a female, I’d want to strangle
everybody.”

“Fortunately, you are not. You may do and think what you like, for the most part. The world tolerates a great deal from a man.”

“Oh, yes. We can drink ourselves blind, gamble away the family inheritance, beat our wives and cheat on ‘em and no one turns a hair. Is that what you mean?”

She nodded.

“We live, Miss Pelliston, in a corrupt, unjust, hypocritical world. In the circumstances, you’re justified in thinking murderous thoughts. If you didn’t, I’d have to suspect your powers of reason.”

He was at present suspecting his own. What did he know of injustice? He’d spent his life raging over what he now saw were a few paltry duties, minor irritations in a life of virtually uninterrupted freedom. She, on the other hand, had attempted one small rebellion—an act he’d engaged in repeatedly since childhood—and had very nearly been destroyed.

She’d never have survived Grendle’s. Though she had the courage, she lacked the skill—because no gently bred female was allowed to acquire the necessary experience.

Now he wondered if she had the skill—sophistication, as she put it—to manage the petty treacheries of the Beau Monde. Not that her beaux weren’t respectable. Andover would make sure of that. Still, she should not settle merely for respectability. She needed someone who’d not only allow her, but would teach her how to be free, how to find expression for the wild tumult always churning in her eyes.

He didn’t realise he’d stopped the carriage and was staring fixedly into those eyes, because he was preoccupied with wondering what he saw there that made him feel he was whirling in a maelstrom.

“My Lord,” she said somewhat breathlessly, “we’ve stopped.”

She jerked her own gaze away to stare past him. Then her eyes widened in shock and her face paled and froze. Lord Rand looked in the same direction to discover Lord Browdie, in company with a female Miss Pelliston had better not know, bearing down upon them.

“Don’t let on you see them,” Max warned. “If he knows what’s what, he won’t dare acknowledge you—not with that demirep beside him.” He urged the horses into motion.

Miss Pelliston lifted her chin and gazed straight ahead. Browdie and his barque of frailty clattered past, both of them staring boldly at the pair opposite.

“Now if that didn’t look like a chariot from hell, with a couple of brazen demons in it,” said Lord Rand when the vehicle had passed. “Him with his painted head and his trollop with her painted face. What a nerve the brute has to gawk at you—Miss Pelliston, are you ill?” he asked in sudden alarm. She’d gone very white indeed and was trembling.

“N-no,” she gasped. “Please. Get me out of here.”

They had reached the Hyde Park Corner gates. Lord Rand steered the horses through them and on to Green Park. The place was nearly deserted. He stopped the carriage by a stand of trees and turned to his companion.

“What is it?” he asked. “Are you ill? Or was it that disgusting fellow leering at you?”

“I know that woman. I thought I’d dreamed her, but there she was, real—and—dear heaven!—she was wearing my peach muslin dress! Oh, Lord,” she cried. “I am undone. She knew me—I could see it. Didn’t you see the way she smiled?”

Lord Rand saw at the moment only that Miss Pelliston was beside herself with grief. Since she was also beside him, he did what any gallant gentleman would do. He put his arms around her in a comforting, brotherly sort of way. He experienced a shock.

At that moment, Miss Pelliston looked up at him, her eyes very bright with unshed tears. His grip tightened slightly. His head bent and his lips touched hers. He experienced another shock as a wave of most unbrotherly feeling coursed through him.

Miss Pelliston made a tiny, strangled sound and pushed him away.

Lord Rand stared at her. She stared back. Her eyes were very wild indeed, he thought, as he resumed his grip on the reins and restored the horses to order. Perhaps she would knock him senseless. He wished she would. He had much
rather be senseless at the moment. He did not like what he was feeling. Why the devil didn’t she box his ears at least? He would settle for pain if insensibility was out of the question.

“I’m sorry,” he made himself say, though he suspected he wasn’t remotely sorry. “Something came over me.”

“Oh, dear,” said Miss Pelliston, turning away. She was also turning pink, and that at least was an improvement. “How very awkward.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated stupidly. “I couldn’t help it.”

“How could you not help it?” she demanded. “What came over you?” She turned to look at him and he thought he saw in her eyes... was it fear?

“Miss Pelliston, you were in distress. I meant to comfort you, but I’m afraid my—my baser instincts got the better of me. As you know, I’m rather impetuous—drat it.” He fell like a fool. What on earth had possessed him to kiss Catherine Pelliston of all people?

Her eyes were still distraught, though her voice sounded calmer. “My Lord, there are times when honesty is preferable to tact. I have come to think of you as a friend. I hope, therefore, you will be quite frank with me. Did I… did I do or say anything to—to encourage you?”

“No, of course not. It was all my own doing, I assure you,” he answered with some pique.

Her face cleared. “Well, that’s all right then.”

Taken aback, he spoke without thinking. “Is it? Does that mean you wouldn’t object if I did it again?” But he didn’t mean to do it again, he told himself.

“Oh, I must object, of course.”

“‘Must’? Only because you’re supposed to?” he asked though he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to hear the answer.

She bit her lip. “My Lord, I asked you to be frank. I will return the favour. You are a very attractive man and I am completely inexperienced. No gentleman has ever kissed me before—at least no one who wasn’t kin—and that was on the cheek. I think—I believe I’m... flattered. All the same, I am not
fast,”
she added.

“Of course you’re not.”

“Therefore I had rather you didn’t... flatter me again, My Lord. Right now I have enough on my mind without having to question my morals as well. In fact,” she went on sadly, “it looks as though the whole world will be questioning my morals soon enough.”

“There’s nothing to fear,” Max answered, firmly thrusting the image of a blonde Juno from his mind. “I’ll marry you.”

“What?” she gasped.

“Isn’t it obvious? We should have done it at the outset. You can’t expect to hang about in brothels and spend a night in my lodgings without some trouble coming of it. It’s our duty to marry, Miss Pelliston.”

Miss Pelliston’s colour heightened. “With all due respect, My Lord, that is out of the question. It is perfectly ridiculous, in fact.”

“With all due respect, it’s you who’s ridiculous. The tart is wearing your dress. She’s with Browdie. If she’s recognised you, she’ll tell him, and since he’s no gentleman, hell carry the tale. The only way to spike his guns is to marry me. Then, if he so much as hints scandal, I’ll call him out and put a bullet through his painted head. It’s quite simple.”

Catherine grew irritated. She had not escaped a drunken tyrant of a father in order to acquire an overbearing rakehell of a husband. She did not express her objections in precisely these terms, but object she did, and in detail. She treated the viscount to a lengthy discourse upon her views of marriage, in which suitability of temperament figured most prominently.

Lord Rand reacting to this sermon with blank indifference, she went on in some desperation to tear to pieces his rationale for proposing.

In the first place, she told him, perhaps that wasn’t her dress after all, or if it was, very likely Granny Grendle had sold it to a secondhand dealer and that was how Lord Browdie’s companion had come by it.

Second, Miss Pelliston could not be absolutely certain she
recognised the woman. With all that paint, fallen women
tended to look
alike. She’d barely glimpsed any other
women besides
Granny during her brief time in the brothel,
having been drugged for most
of
that time.

Third, even if the woman
knew
her and did tell Lord Browdie, he likely wouldn’t believe it. Or if he did, he was not so foolhardy as to carry so improbable a tale, especially when that might lead to a breach—or worse—with her Papa or Lord Andover. Either might challenge Lord Browdie to duel, and he was a great coward.

Max glared at her. “So you claim you’re not in the least alarmed?”

“Not in the least,” she answered spiritedly.

“Then why did you take a fit?”

“I did not take a fit. If I gave way for a moment that was because I was shocked. Possibly I overreacted.”

“All the same, I’ve compromised you,” he reminded. “Besides everything else, I just kissed you in a public park.”

“Good heavens, you can’t be serious. Surely you do not go about proposing marriage to every woman you kiss. In your case that would most assuredly lead to bigamy.”

Catherine stared off into the distance, her spine ramrod straight and her chin high.

“I think you must be drunk,” she continued. “Yes, I’m sure you are. It was your vices that entangled you in my difficulties in the first place, and though I am grateful you were there to rescue me I cannot but regret the reasons you
were
there. Just now, vice has nearly led you into a grievous error which you would have cause to regret all the rest of your days. Later, when you are sober, I hope you will consider the matter and learn from the experience. For the present, I wish you would take me home.”

“There now,” said Lynnette. “Didn’t I tell you it was him?” Her companion appeared not to hear her. He was sulking. Lord Browdie might not care where he found his entertainment, but he had rather keep that entertainment out of public view—unless, of course, the female at his side was in great demand among Society’s gentlemen and one might
lord it
over the competition.

Whatever degree of popularity Lynnette had achieved at Granny Grendle’s, she was scarcely in the morning with the Wilson sisters. She ought, therefore, to know her place and be content to abide quietly, awaiting her protector’s pleasure in the modest house he’d rented for her. But no, she must be wheedling and whining at a fellow the livelong day for “a breath of fresh air.” Wasn’t any fresh air in London. And now Miss Prim and Proper and her uppity viscount had seen him in company with a common harlot.

“Didn’t I tell you it was him?” she prodded.

“Him, who?” was the peevish response.

“The one that took the new girl off.” Lynnette went on to describe the highly entertaining scene she’d unabashedly watched from the top of the stairs.

“That’s how I got this dress,” she said. “I saw the old witch take it from the box and made her give it me.” Lynnette neglected to add that the dress was the compensation she’d demanded for having turned such a promising customer over to a mere beginner. Lynnette had deeply and loudly resented having to entertain an ugly, drunken sailor instead of a drunken Adonis.

“Fifty quid?” Lord Browdie repeated as she concluded her story. “You meant to say the fool paid fifty quid for a scrawny country servant?”

“I never got more than a glimpse of her, but she looked all skin and bones to me. Anyhow, it was thirty for her and twenty for her things—only they never did get all her things, as I said. Then the poor man is back two days later looking for her. The ignorant thing must have run off, thinking she could do better. Some girls have no common sense at all, I declare. A viscount you said he was?” Lynnette shook her head in regret, and perhaps not all of that emotion was reserved for the poor rustic who’d tossed away a golden opportunity.