Viscount Vagabond (22 page)

“I hope I give satisfashun, sir.”

His lordship blinked and put the glass down to stare at the boy, half expecting him to have miraculously sprouted whiskers and shot up two or three feet.

No, this was still an eight-year-old boy, but one doing an uncannily accurate imitation of Mr. Gidgeon, minus the misplaced aitches.

“So you mean to enter my employ, young man?” the viscount asked with like gravity.

“Yes, sir—My Lord. ‘N wear one of ‘em blue coats wif shiny buttons, like Roger got.”

“Exactly. Shiny buttons. I commend you on your choice of profession, Jemmy. The question is, what about your lessons?”

“Wot about ‘em?” Jemmy asked, a guilty expression overtaking his grave dignity.

“Miss Pelliston tells me you don’t attend as you used to. She’s worried.”

Jemmy sighed. “First it wuz the letters and then the words and still there’s no end to it. Sentences, she says. And punk—punk—”

“Punctuation,” Max supplied.

“Wot you said, Wi grammar. Don’t it
never
end?”

“I’m afraid not. After that, there’s books. No end to them at all, as you see.” The viscount gestured towards the bookshelves Louisa had crammed with several hundred tomes his lordship had no intention of opening.

Jemmy groaned.

“Not as interesting as the buttons, eh? Why should they be, to a lad of your talents? You have greater things awaiting you. In a few years, with diligence, you might become a footman. Or if you find your tastes don’t run to fetching and carrying, perhaps you’ll consider horses.”

“Horses?” the boy echoed wonderingly.

“Yes. If you’re as conscientious as Mr. Gidgeon says, perhaps I ought to think of training you as my tiger.”

“You don’t mean ‘at!” The child’s face glowed with excitement. Evidently he’d not dared aspire to the honour of tending his lordship’s prime cattle and dashing vehicles.

“I do. But it will require a deal of work. I don’t know where you’ll find time for your lessons.”

Gloom overtook the glow.

“What’s the trouble, Jemmy? You don’t care for them anyhow. You might as well give them up now and spare Miss Pelliston and yourself some pains.”

“I can’t,” Jemmy answered in anguished tones.” ‘Ats the only time I get to see her. ‘Cept when she comes for gowns and such—and all that time she’s talkin’ wif HER—Missus, I mean. Or Sally or Joan.”

“So the only reason you put up with these lessons is to have Miss Pelliston’s undivided attention?”

Jemmy nodded dolefully, rather in the style of Mr. Hill.

Max sipped his Madeira and thought. Buttons, even shiny ones, could not compete with Miss Pelliston’s undivided attention. One had better reveal the ugly truth. The child would have to face it sooner or later anyhow.

“Jemmy, I must speak with you man to man. Do you know why Miss Pelliston is in London?”

“Parties. She dresses up fancy and goes to parties, day and night.”

“She is in London, going to these parties, in order to find a husband. The parties are given mainly so that unmarried young men and women can find someone to marry. Because Miss Pelliston is a very wealthy young lady of fine family, she will marry some great lord. That lord will not want his ladywife teaching anybody—not even his own children. He
will hire governesses and tutors for that purpose. Do you understand?”

“No.”

Lord Rand decided to take a simpler if more brutal approach. “Miss Pelliston will marry soon—possibly within the next month. When she does, I promise you will not see her again, except when she visits the shop to buy more gowns. There will be no more lessons.”

To his credit, Jemmy did not reel from this blow. Instead he gazed upon the viscount with something very like suspicion. “Why din’t she tell me, then?”

“I don’t know. Today is your lesson day, isn’t it? Ask her. I am not trying to deceive you. I am not so desperate for a tiger.”

Immediately after this discussion, Jemmy sought out Mr. Blackwood. If anyone knew what was what, this gentleman did. To his distress, Jemmy learned that Lord Rand had spoken the truth. In fact, rumour had it that both Mr. Langdon and the Duke of Argoyne were vying—albeit slowly and cautiously—for Miss Pelliston’s hand.

As Jemmy was aware, servants knew a deal more about what went on in the Great World than its members did. If you could not get the facts belowstairs, you couldn’t get them anywhere in the kingdom.

“Wot about HIM?” Jemmy asked after he’d digested this catastrophic news.

“His lordship, you mean? What about him?”

“Is HE here to get married too?”

“It is his lordship’s duty to marry at some point and get heirs to carry on the title. Whether he has set his mind to that matter yet is a question I cannot answer. I have heard some talk about Lady Diana Glencove, but no more than talk. To my knowledge, his lordship has called on her once and danced with her on occasion.”

“Don’t HE see Miz Kaffy too? Don’t HE never dance with her?”

Mr. Blackwood studied the round face lifted enquiringly
towards his. He believed he could see the inner wheels beginning to turn. Mr. Blackwood approved of turning inner wheels.

By and large the aristocracy was intelligent enough. The problem was that its members had no need to live by their wits. Thus their wits atrophied. If they could not rely upon the sharper instincts and abundant common sense of their servants, the British upper classes would destroy themselves through sheer inertness.

That was precisely what had happened in France, and look at the result. Until very recently, most of the civilized world had been under the boot of one short, ill-tempered Corsican. Compared to Napoleon, even a mad King George III was a desirable monarch, and the fat, dissolute Regent an Alexander the Great. Mr. Blackwood was no radical.

For the survival of Britannia the turning of inner wheels must be encouraged.

“Yes, Jemmy,” the valet answered, “he does see her and he does dance with her and he has, to my knowledge, taken her driving twice.”

“Wot for?”

“I hope, my boy, you have abandoned the notion that his lordship has designs on the young lady’s virtue.” Receiving a blank look, the valet explained, “He doesn’t mean anything wicked, you know.”

“Then wot does he mean?”

In his pursuit of wisdom, Jemmy had followed Mr. Blackwood along the hall and up the stairs. They now stood at the door of Lord Rand’s chambers.

Mr. Blackwood glanced about him. Then he bent towards the boy and said in a low voice, “I think my lad, I had better explain something to you about the upper-class mind.”

Lord Browdie sat in the bedchamber of his love nest glaring at the peach-coloured gown that lay in a heap on the floor. There Lynnette had dropped it after opening a large box containing the two monstrous overpriced gowns she’d insisted on having.

What a greedy creature she was. Worse, here he was, throwing away perfectly good money on a whore—captivating though she was—when he still hadn’t found himself a wife. The only respectable willing females he’d met had turned out to have pockets to let. His affection for Catherine’s property and dowry was increasing daily in consequence.

“Now isn’t that better?” Lynnette asked coyly as she re-entered the room. She made a slow, langorous turn so that her protector might fully appreciate every entrancing detail of the crimson gown and the shapely form upon which it was draped.

“Yes, better,” the baron answered shortly, wondering what the bill would look like.

“There was a moment there I thought it wouldn’t be ready after all, such a fuss there was at the mantua-maker’s. That little girl,” she went on while admiring herself in the glass. “You know—the one was with him that day—that tall one you said was a viscount.” Lynnette knew very well the man was a viscount and she knew precisely how tall he was, but she didn’t tell her protector everything she knew.

Lord Browdie was nudged out of his painful meditations. “Catherine Pelliston, you mean?”

“If you say so. With the great eyes and everything else so little,” she added disparagingly. “I was going into the dressing room and she comes out with a horrid little boy holding her hand. Miss Hoity Toity went all white,” she sniffed. “The way she stared at my gown—she even had me thinking there was something nasty crawling on it. That one.” She nodded towards the frock Lord Browdie had absently picked up while she was talking. “Which of course when I thought of it I had to give her some credit, as it didn’t really suit me at all.”

Lord Browdie stared at the gown as his brain slowly, ponderously creaked into motion.

“Such a stir she made. The boy starts howling and Madame comes running in and no one has a thought for me,
because they must give the delicate lady the cup of tea—so she could recover from the terrible shock of seeing a fallen woman.” Lynnette smiled. “Actually, I did feel sorry for her. She looked so ill and white that for a minute she put me in mind of that poor country servant I told you about—the one that cost that viscount so much money. Remember?”

“Yes.” Lord Browdie’s head began to throb.

“I expect Miss Prim and Proper would faint dead away if she knew she reminded me of her fine gentleman’s low sweetheart.”

“No,” said Lord Browdie. “She’s too obstinate to faint. Did she really look like the girl? Maybe that’s why Rand took up with her.”

“Oh, you naughty boy!” Lynnette reached out to playfully ruffle the garish red hair, then changed her mind and settled for a coquettish smile instead. “Maybe that
is
why. I told you I never saw much of her myself. You know how Granny is—never liked the girls to get together because she thought we’d plot behind her back. I couldn’t say really if she’s like her or not. It was just one of those odd ideas that come into your head sometimes.”

Lord Browdie had a very odd idea in his head at the moment. Lynnette had connected the dress with Catherine during her monologue. Now he made his own connection.

This was the frock Catherine had donned when she’d emerged from those unspeakable mourning costumes she’d worn for her great aunt. The warm colour had been such a relief from the ghastly blacks and half-mourning that he’d noticed. He even recalled thinking at the time that for once she didn’t look like a corpse herself. No wonder he’d remembered the gown.

Catherine’s gown. Now Lynnette’s gown. In between it had been, briefly, Granny Grendle’s—and she had stolen it from the female Lord Rand had paid fifty quid for. In a brothel.

The idea of Catherine Pelliston—the most sanctimonious of prigs—in a brothel was so outlandish that the baron would need two bottles of wine to assimilate it. He ordered
Lynnette off to the milliner’s. He was too taken up with his wonder to think of the bills that would result, and knew only that he needed to be alone, to think.

Lynnette promptly obliged him. She was gone before he’d opened the first bottle, in fact. Many glasses later, Lord Browdie’s bewilderment had given way to the happiest of daydreams.

Another man might shrink at the prospect of a soiled wife, but Lord Browdie was not just any man and this was not just any wife. A soiled Catherine Pelliston was vulnerable, and a vulnerable Catherine Pelliston was the only female of that name who would agree to marry him—once, that is, he pointed out the alternative.

The precise name for what Lord Browdie contemplated was blackmail, but he was not overly concerned with semantics, any more than he was concerned with physical technicalities, such as virginity. That only meant he wouldn’t have to endure any tiresome whining on his wedding night.

As long as she wasn’t breeding already—and he’d make sure of that first—her maidenhead was of no concern to him. If she was breeding... he frowned briefly, but only briefly. In that case, the price of keeping her secret would be to let him enjoy the favours others had tasted—like that insolent Rand, for instance.

Lord Browdie refilled his glass and swallowed its contents with as much joy as if it had been the ambrosia of Olympus. After all, what greater happiness is there than contemplating the humiliation of one’s enemies?

Lord Rand’s plans and Mr. Langdon’s hopes were doomed to disappointment. Miss Pelliston did not appear at Almack’s that evening because Lady Andover had been suddenly taken ill.

The countess was better the following day, though somewhat stunned by the experience. She had never been sick a day in her life—she scorned illness, refused to have anything to do with it.

Given her attitude, it was hardly surprising that she insisted on attending the celebration of Miss Clarissa Ventcoeur’s betrothal to Lord Fevis. Louisa most certainly could not lie abed all day, and if she were forced by her brute of a husband to remain at home, she would drive herself mad. The brute, who had merely suggested—in the gentlest way—that his wife indulge in a day’s rest, shook off his alarm and withdrew the hateful suggestion.

Lord Rand also attended the exuberant celebration, mainly to be at hand in case Mr. Langdon required any guidance or moral support in the pursuit of Miss Pelliston.

The party was held out of doors on the Ventcoeurs’ large estate several miles from London. This meant that the guests were at liberty to join in the planned entertainments or amuse themselves by wandering about the beautiful grounds. Being at liberty to wander, Jack did so. He got into a lively debate with a literary gentleman on the merits of the Lake Poets and strolled off with him into the maze. There the two intellectuals met up with Miss Gravistock
and her cousin, who promptly joined the battle.