Lord Rand sighed. “Doesn’t the brat have work enough at the dressmaker’s? Why must he haunt my house?”
“Apparently, sir, he’s spying on you.”
“Oh, give me strength.” The viscount ran his fingers through his golden hair.
“Indeed, sir. It seems Mr. Hill was endeavouring to chase the boy away a few days ago. Mr. Gidgeon, who doesn’t care for interference in household matters, took the lad’s part in consequence. They had rather a row about it, and what must Mr. Gidgeon do but call Jemmy in for a talking to and tell him we wouldn’t have vagrants hanging about. Mr. Gidgeon handed the boy a broom. Mr. Hill was fit to be tied.”
“No wonder Hill’s been sulking. I was missing his funereal pronouncements. So Jemmy’s watching me, is he? Does he thing I’m one of Buonaparte’s spies?”
“No, My Lord. He wishes to assure himself that you do not attempt to spirit Miss Pelliston away to your domicile for no wicked biznez,’ as he puts it.”
The viscount decided it was high time to have a talk with young Jemmy.
When Lord Rand opened the door, he found Jemmy diligently cleaning the railings. “Don’t the maids do it well enough for you?” his lordship asked.
“Me hand’s smaller,” was the sullen reply. “I ken get in ‘em—them—those little places.”
“Don’t you have work to do for Madame Germaine?”
“Not in the arternoons. Besides, SHE’S in one of ‘em Aggerations. Allus is now, wif Miz Kaffy gone and Annie still sick.”
Jemmy threw the viscount a reproachful glance before returning to his work.
“I suppose you haven’t seen your friend in some time now?”
“Not since you took her off.”
“Would you like to see her today?”
The urchin nodded, though he kept his focus on the railing.
“Shall I take you, then?”
A pair of brown eyes squinted suspiciously at the viscount. “You don’t mean ‘at—that.”
His lordship uttered a small sigh. “I’m afraid I do. Only I can’t take you to my sister’s looking like a dirty climbing boy. Go down to the kitchen and ask Girard to give you something to eat,” he ordered, breaking into a grin as he envisioned Jemmy’s confrontation with the temperamental Gallic cook. “I’ll see whether Blackwood can find you a better rigour.”
Despite his vociferous objections, Jemmy was given a bath by a pair of housemaids assisted by a footman. Following that ordeal, the boy was dressed by Lord Rand’s own valet in a brand-new suit of clothes, and his brown hair was brushed until it shone. Jemmy’s own mother, even if sober, wouldn’t have known him. He endured these diverse insults to his person only because, according to his lordship, they were necessary sacrifices.
“Look at me,” Lord Rand said. “D’you think I let Blackwood strangle me with this blasted neckcloth because I like it? Ladies are very difficult to please,” he explained.
Had he been so inclined, the vicount might have also mentioned that he’d like to take a look at Miz Kaffy himself. He’d not seen her since he’d removed her from the dressmaker’s shop—more than ten days ago.
Miss Pelliston had been nowhere in View whenever he’d called, and his sister had refused to bring her into sight, claiming that Max would have to wait, as everyone else must, until Miss Pelliston was fully prepared for her entrance into Society. Lord Rand was not, however, inclined to explain this to Jemmy.
When their respective sartorial tortures finally ended, the two males marched bravely to Andover House and into the glittering presence of Lady Andover.
“I believe you’ve heard something of Jemmy,” the viscount said to his sister.
“Oh, indeed I have.” She smiled at the boy. “Catherine has told me all about you.”
“Where is she?” Jemmy demanded, not at all intimidated by Lady Andover’s grandeur, though he thought her very fine indeed.
“She’ll be down in a moment,” the countess said easily, making Max want to slap her. “Perhaps you’d like some biscuits and milk to sustain you while you wait.”
Though Jemmy had been very well sustained at the viscount’s establishment, he was not fully recovered from his recent ordeal. He was, moreover, a growing boy, and like others of the species hungry all the time. He nodded eagerly.
He had just plunged a third biscuit into his mouth when Catherine appeared. He nearly choked on it, so great was his astonishment. Lord Rand, who had not been eating biscuits, only blinked and wondered if he’d been drinking all day without realising the fact.
In place of the prim schoolteacher he’d expected was a delicate-featured young lady in a fashionable lavender gown. Her light brown hair was a confection of curls, some of which framed her face and softened its narrow features, while the others were held back in an airy cloud by a lavender ribbon.
He stared speechless at her as she made a graceful curtsey. She darted one nervous glance at his face, then hurried forward to clasp Jemmy in her arms.
“How happy I am to see you,” she said. “And how fine you look.”
“He made me do it,” Jemmy answered, recovering quickly from his surprise. “Made me have a bath ‘n’ everything.”
“Oh, my. Was that very dreadful, dear?”
“It wuz horrid. But I done it cuz he said he wouldn’t bring me if I didn’t. He had to be strangled, he sez.”
Lord Rand did strangle an oath before hurriedly explaining, “I was referring at the time to my neckcloth. Blackwood claims it is a Mathematical. I call it a Pesticidal myself. Feel like a curst mummy.”
“You look very well for all that,” said his sister. “This Blackwood must be an extraordinary fellow from all I’ve heard—and seen,” she added, eyeing her brother up and down.
“Yes. Drives me terribly. He has interesting notions about who is master. Just like the rest of the household. Not a one of them does anything but what he pleases. My butler drops his aitches and sets young vagrants to sweeping my steps. I’m hanged if there’s one of them ever hears a word I say.”
“If they listened to you, Max, the house would be a shambles and yourself the sad wreck you were but two weeks ago. Was he not a sad wreck, Catherine? Was he not felling to pieces before our very eyes, and that because he’d spent six months doing exactly as he pleased? Now that he does his duty instead, he’s almost presentable, don’t you think?”
Though Miss Pelliston had led Jemmy to the sofa in order to talk quietly with him, she had not missed any of the preceding discussion. She glanced at the viscount then looked quickly down at her hands when she felt heat rushing to her cheeks.
She had never thought him a sad wreck, except perhaps morally, and now he was so tidy and elegant that one must have a very discerning eye indeed to detect the crumbling moral fiber within. One certainly could not detect it in his eyes, which were no longer shadowed and bloodshot. There had never been any lines of dissipation about his mouth, as there were about Papa’s, nor was Lord Rand’s long, straight nose webbed with red, spidery veins.
Still, Papa was past fifty and Lord Rand not even thirty... and it was perfectly absurd to sit here tongue-tied like a shy little rustic, she told herself angrily.
She raised her head to meet the viscount’s unnerving blue gaze. His lips twitched. Was he laughing at her?
“His lordship and I are so recently acquainted that I have no basis for forming an opinion on that subject,” she answered. “At any rate, I do believe some years of concentrated effort are needed for a healthy young man to reduce himself to a sad wreck. The human body is amazingly resilient.” Then, in spite of herself, she winced.
Lord Rand’s blue eyes gleamed. “Right you are, Miss Pelliston. I told my family six months wasn’t nearly enough time. Some years, did you say? How many do you suggest?”
“I suggested nothing of the sort. Certainly I would never undertake to advise anyone upon methods of self-destruction.”
“No? Well, that’s a relief. I’d hate to have it get about that a young
lady of one and twenty had to instruct me in dissipation. Most lowering, don’t you think?”
“I should say so. I hope I know nothing whatever about it.”
“Catherine, you must not take Max so seriously. He is blaming you.”
“I was not. I thought for once I had someone on my side.”