Viscount Vagabond (Regency Noblemen 1)

“I collect you mean she would insist that you marry her,” was the thoughtful response. “Well, that would be most unjust. In the first place, though you arrived at erroneous conclusions about my character, the evidence against me was most compelling. Second, you must have reconsidered, since I am quite—unharmed. Finally,” she continued, as though she were helping him with a problem in geometry, “it is hardly in my best interests to wed a man I met in a house of ill repute, even if I had any notion how to force a man to marry me, which I assure you I have not.”

“No idea at all?” he asked, curious in spite, of himself.

“No, nor is it a skill I should be desirous of cultivating. An adult should not be forced into marriage as a child is forced to eat his peas. Peas are only part of a meal. Marriage is a life’s work.”

“I stand corrected, Miss Pettigrew,” he replied gravely. “In fact, I feel I should be writing your words upon my slate one hundred times.”

She coloured. “I do beg your pardon. You were most kind to consider my situation, and I ought not have lectured.”

Whatever irritation he’d felt was washed away by a new set of emotions, too jumbled to be identified. He brushed away her apology with some smiling comment about being so used to lectures that he grew lonely when deprived of them.

They had reached the square in which Miss Collingwood’s Academy was located.

“Shall I wait for you?” he asked, hoping she’d decline and at the same time inexplicably dismayed at the prospect of never seeing her again.

He had at least a dozen questions he wished she’d answer, such as why and how she’d come to London and where she’d come from and who or what she was, really. Yet, it was better not to know, because knowing was bound to complicate matters.

“Oh, no! That is, you’ve already gone so far out of your way, and there is no need. I’ll be all right now.” She took front him the bandboxes he’d been carrying. “Thank you again,” she said. “That sounds so little, after all you’ve done for me, but I can’t think how else—”

“Never mind. Goodbye, Miss Pettigrew.”

He bowed and walked away. A minute later he stopped and turned in time to see her being admitted into the building. He grew uneasy. “Oh, damnation,” he muttered, then moved down to the corner of the street and leaned against a lamppost to wait.

“Oh, dear,” said Miss Collingwood. “This is most awkward.” Her fluttering, blue-veined hand flew up to fidget with the lace of her cap. “I sent your letter along to Miss Fletcher—that is, Mrs. Brown, now, of course. Did she not write you?”

Without waiting for an answer, the elderly lady continued, “No, I would expect not. I am sure she had not another thought in this world but of him, and what a pity that is. She was the most conscientious instructor I have had since I founded this school, and the girls doted upon her. Naturally, I was compelled to discharge him. I have never held with these odd conventions that it is always the woman’s fault. Men are such wicked deceivers. If even Miss Fletcher could be overcome, what hope is there for weaker vessels, I ask you? To be sure, he was a most charming man. Ten years with us and always most correct in his behaviour, though the girls will become infatuated with the music master.”

Catherine barely heard the headmistress. Miss Fletcher, that paragon of propriety, had run off with the music master? No wonder she hadn’t answered Catherine’s last letter. By the time that epistle reached the school, Miss Pelliston’s former governess had already become Mrs. Brown and departed with her new husband for Ireland.

“I’m so sorry you have come out of your way for naught,” Miss Collingwood continued. “I feel responsible. I should have counselled Miss Fletcher: marry in haste, repent at leisure.”

“I’m sure you did all you could,” was the faint reply. “I should have waited until I heard from her... though it was inconceivable that she should not be here. She last wrote me but two months ago and only mentioned Mr. Brown in passing. Still, I was at fault.”

Greatly at fault, Catherine’s conscience reminded. She had let her hateful passions rule her and was now reaping the reward.

“No doubt,” Catherine went on, pinning what she hoped was a convincing smile on her face, “Miss Fletcher’s reply is at home awaiting me.”

After assuring Miss Collingwood that the trip would not be a total loss, and concocting some plausible story about doing a bit more shopping (that explained the bandboxes) with the aunt who’d supposedly travelled with her and was now visiting friends, Catherine took her leave.

She made her way slowly down the street, not only because she did not know where to go, but because her conscience was plaguing her dreadfully and she must argue with it.

She would not be in this predicament if she hadn’t run away from home, but she wouldn’t have run away if her papa had only stopped now and then to think what he was doing. However, he never thought—not about her certainly. His cronies, his hounds, his wenching and drinking were much more important.

Papa should have arranged for her to have a Season. Even Miss Fletcher had believed he would, or she’d never have accepted the post in London three years ago. Instead, he had sent Catherine to live with Great Aunt Eustacia. If that elderly lady had not died a year and a half later, Catherine would be there yet. She would have endured those endless monologues on religion and genealogy day after day until she dwindled into a lonely spinster like Aunt Deborah, who’d been the old lady’s companion for some thirty years before Catherine came.

She had no illusions about her attractions. Her sole assets were her lineage and her father’s wealth. She knew she had no chance of attracting a husband unless she entered an environment where suitable bachelors abounded. That meant the London Marriage Mart.

Yet, even after the family’s mourning period, had Papa troubled himself about his daughter’s Season? Of course not, she thought, staring morosely at her trudging feet. He thought only of himself. He went off to Bath and found himself a handsome young widow. Upon his return, he’d announced his own and his daughter’s wedding plans simultaneously.

Lord Browdie, of all people, was to be her mate. He was more slovenly, crude, and dissolute than Papa. The man was ignorant, moody, and repulsive. Catherine had never expected a Prince Charming—she was no Incomparable herself—but to live the rest of her days with that middle-aged boor! She had borne much in the name of filial obedience, but Lord Browdie was past all enduring.

Now she knew better. Now she knew what it was to be utterly helpless, utterly without protection, and virtually without hope. She had no idea how to get home, dreadful as that homecoming would be. She had not a farthing to her name, and Mr. Demowery must be miles away by now.

Chapter Three

Her eyes swam with tears and Catherine scarcely noticed where she walked. She would have stumbled into the path of an oncoming carriage if a hand had not shot out to grab her elbow and drag her back to the curb.

“Damn if you ain’t an accident waiting to happen,” said a familiar voice.

Still immersed in her misery, Catherine looked up into a lean, handsome face. As she had the previous night, she caught her breath, as though the piercing blue of his eyes had stabbed her to the heart.

“You ought to be carried about in a bandbox yourself.” He took her baggage from her.

“Mr. Demowery, how—what are you doing here?”

“Protecting my investment. I wasn’t about to watch fifty quid trampled into a puddle. Not to mention how it mucks up the streets, don’t you know?” With that, he strode swiftly away from the square, and she, seeing no alternative, followed him. They had not gone many yards before he located a hackney. Not until her luggage was stowed away and she had been hustled into the musty-smelling vehicle did Catherine venture to ask where they were going.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” was the abstracted answer.

“Oh, no. I mean, there isn’t anything to figure out. I shall have to go back now.”

“Back where? Granny Grend

le’s?”

“Good heavens, no! I shall have to return h-home.”

Though her voice broke at the last, Catherine squeezed back the tears that had welled up as soon as she’d thought what she’d be returning to.

“Is it as bad as all that?”

The sympathy she heard in his voice nearly undid her. So unused was she to sympathy of any kind that it rather frightened her, in fact. “Oh, no. I’ve made a dreadful mistake. I see that now, and it has been a lesson to me—not to let my passions rule me, I mean,” she explained, just as though he had been Miss Fletcher and had asked her to examine her conscience.

“What passions are those, Miss Pettigrew?”

“Resentment, certainly. And pride. And—oh, everything opposed to reason and good sense. If I’d stayed and done what I was told, none of these horrid things would have happened to me—”

“What were you told?” he interrupted.