Viscount Vagabond (Regency Noblemen 1)

She’d never have survived Grendle’s. Though she had the courage, she lacked the skill—because no gently bred female was allowed to acquire the necessary experience.

Now he wondered if she had the skill—sophistication, as she put it—to manage the petty treacheries of the Beau Monde. Not that her beaux weren’t respectable. Andover would make sure of that. Still, she should not settle merely for respectability. She needed someone who’d not only allow her, but would teach her how to be free, how to find expression for the wild tumult always churning in her eyes.

He didn’t realise he’d stopped the carriage and was staring fixedly into those eyes, because he was preoccupied with wondering what he saw there that made him feel he was whirling in a maelstrom.

“My Lord,” she said somewhat breathlessly, “we’ve stopped.”

She jerked her own gaze away to stare past him. Then her eyes widened in shock and her face paled and froze. Lord Rand looked in the same direction to discover Lord Browdie, in company with a female Miss Pelliston had better not know, bearing down upon them.

“Don’t let on you see them,” Max warned. “If he knows what’s what, he won’t dare acknowledge you—not with that demirep beside him.” He urged the horses into motion.

Miss Pelliston lifted her chin and gazed straight ahead. Browdie and his barque of frailty clattered past, both of them staring boldly at the pair opposite.

“Now if that didn’t look like a chariot from hell, with a couple of brazen demons in it,” said Lord Rand when the vehicle had passed. “Him with his painted head and his trollop with her painted face. What a nerve the brute has to gawk at you—Miss Pelliston, are you ill?” he asked in sudden alarm. She’d gone very white indeed and was trembling.

“N-no,” she gasped. “Please. Get me out of here.”

Chapter Twelve

They had reached the Hyde Park Corner gates. Lord Rand steered the horses through them and on to Green Park. The place was nearly deserted. He stopped the carriage by a stand of trees and turned to his companion.

“What is it?” he asked. “Are you ill? Or was it that disgusting fellow leering at you?”

“I know that woman. I thought I’d dreamed her, but there she was, real—and—dear heaven!—she was wearing my peach muslin dress! Oh, Lord,” she cried. “I am undone. She knew me—I could see it. Didn’t you see the way she smiled?”

Lord Rand saw at the moment only that Miss Pelliston was beside herself with grief. Since she was also beside him, he did what any gallant gentleman would do. He put his arms around her in a comforting, brotherly sort of way. He experienced a shock.

At that moment, Miss Pelliston looked up at him, her eyes very bright with unshed tears. His grip tightened slightly. His head bent and his lips touched hers. He experienced another shock as a wave of most unbrotherly feeling coursed through him.

Miss Pelliston made a tiny, strangled sound and pushed him away.

Lord Rand stared at her. She stared back. Her eyes were very wild indeed, he thought, as he resumed his grip on the reins and restored the horses to order. Perhaps she would knock him senseless. He wished she would. He had much rather be senseless at the moment. He did not like what he was feeling. Why the devil didn’t she box his ears at least? He would settle for pain if insensibility was out of the question.

“I’m sorry,” he made himself say, though he suspected he wasn’t remotely sorry. “Something came over me.”

“Oh, dear,” said Miss Pelliston, turning away. She was also turning pink, and that at least was an improvement. “How very awkward.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated stupidly. “I couldn’t help it.”

“How could you not help it?” she demanded. “What came over you?” She turned to look at him and he thought he saw in her eyes... was it fear?

“Miss Pelliston, you were in distress. I meant to comfort you, but I’m afraid my—my baser instincts got the better of me. As you know, I’m rather impetuous—drat it.” He fell like a fool. What on earth had possessed him to kiss Catherine Pelliston of all people?

Her eyes were still distraught, though her voice sounded calmer. “My Lord, there are times when honesty is preferable to tact. I have come to think of you as a friend. I hope, therefore, you will be quite frank with me. Did I… did I do or say anything to—to encourage you?”

“No, of course not. It was all my own doing, I assure you,” he answered with some pique.

Her face cleared. “Well, that’s all right then.”

Taken aback, he spoke without thinking. “Is it? Does that mean you wouldn’t object if I did it again?” But he didn’t mean to do it again, he told himself.

“Oh, I must object, of course.”

“‘Must’? Only because you’re supposed to?” he asked though he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to hear the answer.

She bit her lip. “My Lord, I asked you to be frank. I will return the favour. You are a very attractive man and I am completely inexperienced. No gentleman has ever kissed me before—at least no one who wasn’t kin—and that was on the cheek. I think—I believe I’m... flattered. All the same, I am not fast,” she added.

“Of course you’re not.”

“Therefore I had rather you didn’t... flatter me again, My Lord. Right now I have enough on my mind without having to question my morals as well. In fact,” she went on sadly, “it looks as though the whole world will be questioning my morals soon enough.”

“There’s nothing to fear,” Max answered, firmly thrusting the image of a blonde Juno from his mind. “I’ll marry you.”

“What?” she gasped.

“Isn’t it obvious? We should have done it at the outset. You can’t expect to hang about in brothels and spend a night in my lodgings without some trouble coming of it. It’s our duty to marry, Miss Pelliston.”

Miss Pelliston’s colour heightened. “With all due respect, My Lord, that is out of the question. It is perfectly ridiculous, in fact.”

“With all due respect, it’s you who’s ridiculous. The tart is wearing your dress. She’s with Browdie. If she’s recognised you, she’ll tell him, and since he’s no gentleman, hell carry the tale. The only way to spike his guns is to marry me. Then, if he so much as hints scandal, I’ll call him out and put a bullet through his painted head. It’s quite simple.”

Catherine grew irritated. She had not escaped a drunken tyrant of a father in order to acquire an overbearing rakehell of a husband. She did not express her objections in precisely these terms, but object she did, and in detail. She treated the viscount to a lengthy discourse upon her views of marriage, in which suitability of temperament figured most prominently.

Lord Rand reacting to this sermon with blank indifference, she went on in some desperation to tear to pieces his rationale for proposing.

In the first place, she told him, perhaps that wasn’t her dress after all, or if it was, very likely Granny Grendle had sold it to a secondhand dealer and that was how Lord Browdie’s companion had come by it.

Second, Miss Pelliston could not be absolutely certain she recognised the woman. With all that paint, fallen women tended to look alike. She’d barely glimpsed any other women besides Granny during her brief time in the brothel, having been drugged for most of that time.

Third, even if the woman knew her and did tell Lord Browdie, he likely wouldn’t believe it. Or if he did, he was not so foolhardy as to carry so improbable a tale, especially when that might lead to a breach—or worse—with her Papa or Lord Andover. Either might challenge Lord Browdie to duel, and he was a great coward.

Max glared at her. “So you claim you’re not in the least alarmed?”

“Not in the least,” she answered spiritedly.