To Bed a Beauty (Courtship Wars 2)

Roslyn raised an eyebrow. “That must make the Season awkward for you both.”

“Oh, we don’t share the same abode, God forbid. I bought my own town house and gave her the house in Grosvenor Square. She lives her own life, and I live mine. It works much better that way for both of us.”

“I can imagine,” Roslyn murmured. “I begin to see why you don’t want to marry. You worry that your duchess will turn out to resemble your mother.”

Drew shot her a sharp glance before giving her a humorless smile. “How very perceptive you are, darling.”

They had reached the library by now, and Drew stood aside to let her enter. The room dwarfed the one at Danvers Hall, and Roslyn showed proper respect.

“Oh, my,” she said reverently, moving to the nearest shelf to inspect the various titles.

“The collection in my London library is actually much better. And frankly, so is your late step-uncle’s at Danvers Hall. These are only the inferior volumes because I ran out of room at my London house.”

“You call this inferior?” Pulling out a book at random, she opened it. “I can tell that being obscenely wealthy has quite spoiled you.”

He grinned. “Wealth does have its advantages. Now if you will excuse me, sweeting, I want to pay Mathers a visit. She will expect it. I can leave you here or show you to your room so you can change into your riding habit.”

Roslyn looked up from the book. “May I meet her?”

Drew felt surprise, yet he saw no reason to refuse her request. “If you wish. Indeed, she has been eager to meet you since my last visit here when I told her of our betrothal.”

When Roslyn returned her book to the shelf, he led the way upstairs to the fourth-floor servant hall. At the corridor’s end, he knocked softly on a door and opened it when a craggy voice bid entrance.

Immediately his gaze went to the ancient crone who sat in a rocking chair beside the open window, basking in a stream of sunshine as she slowly knitted from a skein of wool yarn. His fondest memories of his early childhood centered around this old woman, and he regretted her pitiful state now-the stooped shoulders, the gnarled hands, the cane resting beside the chair. But it was the cloudy eyes that evidenced her near blindness.

Mathers canted her head, listening intently, then smiled before Drew said a word. “You came.”

“Did you expect anything less?” he asked, shepherding Roslyn into the room.

“Not from you, your grace. But I didn’t know if your bride-to-be would let you out of her sight.”

Drew bent to kiss her age-crinkled cheek and drew Roslyn closer. “Actually my betrothed is here with me. Miss Roslyn Loring, may I introduce you to my former governess, Mrs. Esther Mathers?” Before Roslyn could respond, he added, “Miss Loring asked to meet you, Mathers.”

“Did she?” The old woman sounded pleased.

“Yes, it raised her curiosity when I told her how you bullied and beat me when I was a snip of a boy.”

Mathers gave him a broad, toothless smile. “And did she believe you?”

“You will have to ask her that yourself.”

“So did you, Miss Loring?”

Roslyn laughed. “Truthfully, this is the first I have heard about your cruelty, Mrs. Mathers-but I expect you know that. I am happy to make your acquaintance.”

“And I, you.” She let her knitting needles fall to her lap. “Come here so that I may see you, Miss Loring.”

“Ah, no, Mathers,” Drew intervened. “You cannot treat her the way you do me, with no respect.” He smiled fondly down at her as he murmured to Roslyn, “I am still six years old in her eyes.”

Mathers’s rasping laugh was more like a cackle. “I changed his napkins and taught him his manners. ’Tis hard to think of him as a lord, no matter how grand he has become. So, Miss Loring, I hear that you teach at a young ladies’ academy. That surprises me greatly.”

“Yes, I do, along with my two sisters. Several years ago our finances necessitated that we seek employment, so we opened an academy with the help of a very generous patron.”

“And do you despise teaching?”

“On the contrary, I enjoy it very much. We instruct the daughters of tradesmen and merchants on how to deal with society…develop their polish and refinement so they won’t be quite as disadvantaged if they make genteel marriages.”

Mathers nodded in approval. “I hope your pupils are better behaved than this scamp here was.”