“Wh-why—L-Lord Rand, sir,” stammered Sir Matthew Melbrook, his poise knocked to pieces at being addressed by the Great Beau. “A r-radical—and a great r-ruffian.”
“Ah, yes. Viscount Vagabond. His neckcloth is a work of art,” said Society’s arbiter of fashion. He turned away and sauntered back to the card table.
In less than a minute his pronouncement had made its way out to St. James’s Street. A gentleman who’d been endeavouring to lay his hands upon that same neckcloth— apparently intending to throttle his adversary with it—backed away, and Lord Rand, to his astonishment, was invited to enter the club.
“I ain’t a member,” he challenged loudly as he stomped inside.
“‘Fraid you are,” drawled Lord Alvanley while he surveyed the newcomer with appreciative amusement. “Have been this twelvemonth. Andover sponsored you and the decision was unanimous. Apparently some of our lads forgot that small matter. I would have spoken up sooner myself, but I hated to spoil the entertainment you were so kind to offer us.”
“Confound it,” the viscount complained as Lord Alvanley ambled away. “Has everyone in Town taken leave of his senses?”
“If you mean the warm welcome,” came a voice behind him, “it must be they suddenly remembered what a dull old stick Percy was. Either that or the fact that Brummell admired your cravat.” The voice’s owner, a good-looking young man with dreamy grey eyes and rumpled brown hair, moved to Lord Rand’s side. “Don’t you remember me, Max? Langdon. We were at Oxford together.”
“So we were, Jack,” said the viscount, a smile finally breaking through his clouded countenance. “Only how was I to know you without a book in front of your nose? Damn if I didn’t think they grew there.”
“Oh, these suspicious fellows won’t let me read when we’re at cards. They claim I keep a spare deck between the pages. But come. As your brother-in-law isn’t here to do the honours, let me introduce you around.”
His humour partially restored by the presence of his old school chum, Max submitted with good grace. Whatever remained of his rage soon evaporated in the convivial atmosphere of gambling, drinking, and increasingly raucous conversation as the night wore on. So convivial was the company that Lord Rand had to be carried out to a hackney shortly before dawn, from which vehicle he was removed by a brace of footmen, who carried him to his bedroom. There Blackwood succeeded to the honours of attending to his happily unconscious lordship.
While Lord Rand had been trying to ascertain whether an alien spirit had taken possession of his father’s body, Miss Pelliston had been having an equally baffling evening with her host and hostess. Catherine had expected an interrogation. When that did not occur during a dinner she was far too agitated to eat, she anxiously awaited it later, when Lord Andover, after a quarter hour alone with his port, rejoined his wife and guest.
No attempt was made, however, to ascertain just what exactly this odd young woman was doing in the Earl of Andover’s noble townhouse. Catherine was sure her pristinely elegant host must think her odd, given the occasional pained glance he dropped upon her grey frock.
Whatever he thought, he was scrupulously polite and thoroughly charming. Conversation through dinner focused on politics, and after dinner on books, the earl having quickly discerned his guest’s keen appetite for literature.
While she inwardly cursed her cowardice, Catherine could not bring herself to open the subject so courteously ignored, though she did wince every time her host addressed her as “Miss Pettigrew.”
It must be as the countess had said, Catherine told herself later, while Molly brushed her hair. The matter was reserved for discussion on the morrow. She did wish she might have some peace and quiet in the meantime, so that she could decide at last what to do. Unfortunately, Molly talked incessantly from the time she entered the bedchamber until the time she left.
The abigail’s main subject was Lord Rand, with whom she unblushingly admitted she was infatuated.
“Not but what I knows, of course, that he’d never notice me—or should, either. Still, a cat may look at a king,” she paraphrased in response to Catherine’s startled expression. “Once when her ladyship took me with her to a picture gallery I fell in love with a picture of a foreign gent what had on no clothes to speak of, just a bit of cloth. And so long as he was only paint on a bit of cloth himself there’s no harm in it. Same with him—My Lord Rand, I mean—like a great handsome statue, because he wouldn’t be pinching a girl, either, no more than the statue would. Not like some I could mention, who if you so much as smile the least bit they grows another dozen hands all at once, I declare.”
Catherine’s attempts to distract Molly from discussion of the roving hands of males of all classes only led to further enlightenment about the idol. He had not returned to England, according to Molly, until eighteen months after his brother’s death.
“It weren’t so long a voyage as all that, Miss, either, but that he didn’t want to come back on any account, as he already had a sweetheart there and was planning to marry her and stay there forever, living among the wild Indians.”
“I collect,” Catherine faintly responded, “the lady changed her mind.”
“Say Lord St. Denys changed it for her, rather. Mum’s been with Lady St. Denys since afore her ladyship married and she was at the house when Mr. Max come back. Mum said he was arguing so loud with his papa you could hear it down at the stables. She says everyone in the house heard him yelling that his papa had sent the girl money to break it off. Not but it wasn’t the right thing, you know, her being a nobody and a foreigner at that. Mr. Max—his lordship, I mean—couldn’t hardly bring back some poor farmer girl and take her to meet the Queen, now could he?”
From what Miss Pelliston knew of his lordship, she was convinced that he could very well introduce a farmer’s daughter at court—and in pattens, no less. Had he not introduced to the Countess of Andover a girl he’d found in a brothel?
“I suppose that would be rather awkward,” said Catherine. “Especially when our two nations are at war.”
Molly, who knew nothing of international politics and who believed the United States was located somewhere in China or Africa, wisely ignored this remark.
“Anyhow, I know he never did get over it,” she went on. “He hasn’t spoke a word to Lord St. Denys six months now— nor anyone else, either. Until today, that is. Why, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I come into the drawing room and seen him sitting there, chatting with her ladyship just as easy as if he’d been here every day, and her ladyship no more amazed than if he had been.”
Having doggedly brushed Catherine’s hair the required two hundred strokes—Catherine had kept count as a means of steadying her nerves—the abigail stood back to admire the results. “What splendid hair you have, Miss. I declare when I first saw it I was sure I was in for a long night of it—curly hair do tangle so—but yours is soft as a baby’s. Such a handsome colour too. There’s folks’d pay a pretty penny for it.”
Miss Pelliston had been contemplating, in spite of herself, Lord Rand’s tribulations. Now she came abruptly to attention. “Pay?” she asked. “Not money, surely? Or did you simply mean that some would be envious?”
“Brown hair is common enough, but not light and soft and curly as yours. Oh, I’d expect plenty would like to have it, Miss.”
“You mean for wigs? But surely those have been out of fashion for years.”
“That don’t mean a hairpiece don’t come in handy for some folks. Monsoor Franzwuz, what does her ladyship’s hair, could tell you stories about that. Nor I don’t mean her,” the maid hastily explained. “Every bit of what’s on her head is her own, and no curlpapers, neither. Now then, Miss, shall I bring you a nice warm cup of milk?”
This Catherine politely declined.
“Really, I think you should, Miss. Tom says you never touched your dinner hardly and if you’ll pardon my saying so, you’ll be all hair and eyes if you keep on at this rate.”
&n
bsp; Touched by this concern, Catherine acquiesced, though when the milk arrived she found it difficult to swallow enough to satisfy the well-meaning Abigail. Miss Pelliston was too excited about the alternative that had suddenly presented itself to care about nourishment, and the prospect of becoming all hair and eyes did not alarm her in the least.
“Well, Edgar,” said the countess as her husband settled himself among the pillows and took his book from the nightstand, “what do you recommend we do about her?”
“Burn that dress,” he replied. “It frightened me out of my wits. And do something about her hair. That knot is a crime against nature.”
“Then you believe we should take her in?”
“Have to,” said his lordship as he opened his book. “Pelliston’s chit.”
Her ladyship, who’d also snuggled comfortably against her pillows, bolted upright. “What? Who?”
“How many times have I told you, Louisa, not to make sudden movements? You’ve made me lose my place.”
“Stop teasing, you wretched man. Are you telling me you know her?”
“Not personally. I believe her mama was my mother’s second or third cousin.” He returned his attention to the Bard.
“Edgar!”
“Yes, my precious?”
Lady Andover jerked the book from her husband’s hands. “If you do not explain this instant, I shall tear the curst thing to pieces.”
The earl breathed a sigh. “Ten years, and I have never been able to teach you patience. Still, what’s a mere decade to centuries of impatient Demowerys? I see you intend to beat me over the head with poor Will’s work if I cannot satisfy your all-consuming curiosity.” He gazed sadly at the bedclothes.
“Well, then?”
“I met her some months before that blissful day when we two were united—”
“Edgar!”
“Ten years ago. Our families have never been close, but Pelliston is known for his hounds and I meant to make a gift of a pair to your papa.”