Viscount Vagabond (Regency Noblemen 1)

“There is rather odd news, My Lord,” he explained.

“She’s bolted,” Jemmy cried, thrusting himself in front of the valet. “Run off wif a sojer.”

Lord Rand jerked himself upright. “What? Cat? When? What soldier? Drat her. Why don’t that woman stay put?”

He threw back the bedclothes, thereby presenting Jemmy with the interesting spectacle of a naked aristocrat. Duly impressed, Jemmy backed away as the viscount scrambled out of bed and ripped the dressing gown out of his servant’s hands.

“I beg your pardon, My Lord. The young lady in question is Lady Diana Glencove.”

Lord Rand, who had hastily wrapped the dressing gown around himself, was about to tear it off again, having evidently decided on dressing immediately and eliminating the middleman. He now sat back down upon the bed.

“Lady Diana?” he echoed blankly.

“Your fiancée, My Lord,” Blackwood clarified. “I’m afraid the news is all over Town because Lord Glencove’s servants have been everywhere looking for her since yesterday afternoon. I heard from his lordship’s footman that the family received a message from the young lady this morning. She was married by special license last night, as I understand. Her message said nothing regarding her subsequent itinerary. One imagines that was in order to elude pursuit.”

“Well,” said Lord Rand.

“Indeed, My Lord, most shocking. Lord Glencove sent the footman round with a message asking you to call upon him at your earliest convenience. I believed it proper that his lordship should break the news to you, but unfortunately, Jemmy has anticipated that.”

“Yes,” said Lord Rand with a dazed look at Jemmy.

“I heard it at the shop first,” the boy said defensively. “They come by asking for her yesterday and today again and today when they come they tole HER and SHE tole Joan and she tole me so I come to tell you.”

“I see,” said the viscount, still looking blank. “I had better get dressed.”

Lord Rand’s interview with Lord and Lady Glencove was not the most agreeable of his life. Lady Glencove was beside herself with grief. She raved about annulments and having the fiend horsewhipped, hung, drawn and quartered. Occasionally she remembered to feel sorry for the betrayed fiance and that was even worse.

Lord Glencove, fortunately, was of a more philosophical temperament. He had, not an hour since, received encouraging news about his daughter’s new husband. Though the man’s immediate family was relatively obscure, the late father had been a man of property, which compensated somewhat for the maternal connection with commerce. The son—Colonel Stockmore—had a respectable income. He also had prospects: that is, he had a very ill, very old eccentric bachelor cousin who happened to be a viscount. Prom this cousin Colonel Stockmore would inherit a title. A prospective viscount was not a prospective Earl of St. Denys, but a man cannot have everything. Or a woman, either, as Lord Glencove was forced to remind his wife at tediously frequent intervals.

Lord Rand was also philosophical. He bore his disappointment with a most becoming manliness, which provoked Lady Glencove to another plaintive outburst after he was gone.

From the home of the Earl of Glencove, the viscount proceeded to Lord Browdie’s love nest. There he purchased a peach muslin gown for five hundred pounds. Being philosophical enough for any two aristocrats, Lynnette bore her own assorted disappointments like the Stoic she was.

Molly related the news of Lady Diana’s elopement before Catherine had even opened her eyes, and accompanied the dressing process with recitals about the mysterious ways of Providence, and human beings refusing to understand what was good for them, and the course of true love being a rocky one. The maid concluded with fervent thanks that she herself was content to love from afar, because getting close made folks act so foolish.

Fortunately, Lady Andover had very little to add at breakfast or thereafter.

“I suppose Molly has told you,” she said, “with more detail, I am sure, than I could. It is astonishing. I had always thought Diana completely under her mother’s thumb. I am relieved she is not. Their temperaments were badly unsuited. She would have bored Max to distraction and he would have taken up a life of crime in consequence.”

Catherine mumbled something about being amazed. That was the end of the subject.

Chastened by the revelations of the previous night, Miss Pelliston elected to spend the afternoon in the library reading Foxe’s Actes and Monuments of These Latter Perilous Days. Her mind, however, refused to concentrate on the Protestant martyrs of the sixteenth century.

One did not require above average intelligence to ascertain that Lady Diana’s rendezvous with her forbidden love had been devoted primarily to plans for immediate elopement. As participant, however unwitting, Catherine should at least be displeased with herself for not sensing what was afoot and striving to set Lady Diana back upon the course of duty.

Miss Pelliston could not be displeased or even surprised, considering the startling insights she’d had regarding her powers of perception. She could hardly expect to read another lady’s mind when her own was such a miserable muddle.

Besides, she defiantly admitted to herself that she was pleased with the news. Even though it changed nothing for her—Lord Rand was still forever beyond her reach—he at least would have a second chance. Perhaps this time he would find a woman who truly loved him. That could not be difficult. Only fools like herself were blind to his perfections.

All she could pray for was an opportunity to apologise for more than a month of ungrateful, childish behaviour. For more than that she could not hope. She was beyond the pale.

This morning, after a long struggle with her conscience, Catherine had decided no useful purpose would be served by confessing her shame. To tell her cousin or Louisa about Cholly would only distress them needlessly. She would plead exhaustion and tell them she wished to go home.

After that, the years seemed to stretch out interminably.

Perhaps she would sell Aunt Eustacia’s property, invest the money, and live quietly, humbly, alone. She would devote herself to good works among those even more wretched than herself. She would work among the poor. Perhaps she would contract some loathsome disease that would put a period to her vile existence.

Thus she reduced herself to a deeply penitential, utterly tragic state with no assistance f

rom The Book of Martyrs. The volume proving useless, she very sensibly closed it and commenced to dolefully studying the carpet

There was a tap at the door. She looked up to meet Jeffers’s dignified gaze.

“Lady Andover’s compliments, Miss, and would you please be so kind as to join her in—”

“Oh, do be quiet,” Lord Rand snapped, pushing past the butler. “I ain’t sitting in some damned parlor waiting for tea and making small talk with my own sister. Go away, Jeffers.”

Jeffers sighed and went.

Lord Rand strode towards her. Under his arm he had a package which he now dropped at Catherine’s feet.

“There’s your dress,” he said. “It cost me five hundred pounds. Then there’s the fifty from a month ago. Altogether I’ve paid five hundred fifty quid for you.”

Catherine’s heart immediately commenced a steady chamade. She stared blindly at the package. Then she slowly dragged her gaze up to the viscount’s face. His eyes were the blue of a frosty moonlit night, chilling her. He hated her. She deserved to be hated, she told herself. Even so, temper began to rise within her. He needn’t be so callous... and mean.

“I can do sums,” she said rather unsteadily. “I shall write to Papa for five hundred fifty pounds. Or do you require interest as well?”

“You will write to your papa, young lady, to tell him we’re going to be married.”

Inelegantly, she gulped. “I beg your pardon?” she said stupidly. She would like to say—and do—a thousand things, and could not think where to begin.

“You’re not deaf, Cat, so don’t pretend to be. We’re going to be married, as we should have done at the start.”

The viscount looked hastily away from her face and began pacing the room.

“I don’t know who had the training of you,” he continued determinedly, “but your morals are shocking. You spent a night in my bed, remember, after a night in a bawdy house. You go about collecting street urchins and letting inebriated vagabonds kiss you, and then you get into brawls in pawnshops. You are probably past all redemption, but I’m going to reform you anyhow. If you behave yourself, perhaps I’ll let you reform me on occasion, but I make no promises.”