Viscount Vagabond (30 page)

“Get up, will you? Wot are you waiting for?”

“Judgement Day. What in blazes do you want?”

Blackwood appeared at the bedside, having entered the room in his usual noiseless fashion. He pulled Jemmy away and apologised for the lad’s outlandish behaviour. Unfortunately the boy had dashed up the stairs so quickly that Mr. Blackwood had been unable to catch him in time.

“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 from
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.”

“Oh, Max.”

He did not seem to hear the pitiful sound, because he went on heatedly, “There’s no point telling me everything that’s wrong with me, because I know all that by heart. I’m a bully and a ruffian and a drunkard and a gambler and I act before I think, always. I’m also short-tempered—and yes, mad, bad, and dangerous. Just as you are—which is why we suit so admirably.”

“Oh, Max,” she said once more, as a tear trickled down her nose.

He stopped pacing to glance at her. “There’s no use crying,” he said, his voice less assured now. “You can’t manipulate me with tears. I’ve made up my mind...” His voice trailed off. “Drat,” he muttered.

He stood uncertain for a moment, clenching his fists. Then he sighed, moved closer, and knelt before her. “Come, sweetheart, is it so bad? Don’t you like me even a little?”

“Oh, Max,” she cried. “I love you madly.”

In the moment it took him to digest this stupendous news, Lord Rand’s face lighted up. It turned, in fact, slightly red about the cheekbones.

“Do you, darling?” he asked tenderly, taking her hand. “Do you really? But of course you do—you must—as I love you.”

She stopped him with a small, sad gesture. “Still, I can’t marry you.” Before he could argue, she plunged on, desperate to put this agonising scene to a speedy end. “I can’t marry you—I can’t marry anyone—because I’m—oh, Max, I’m ruined, truly ruined.”

Lord Rand patiently told her that she was hysterical. Citing her shocking travail of the previous day, he generously excused her, in between telling her not to be silly.

Catherine knew she was not being silly—not, at least, about this. She found her handkerchief, wiped her eyes and nose, and confided as calmly as she could what Lord Browdie had told her about Cholly.

When she’d come to a shuddering end, Lord Rand drew her up from her chair and into his arms. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said softly against her curls. “That was a terrible thing for him to tell you, but it’s past and done. We’re going to be married. Forget Cholly and think about us—about our happiness.”

She pulled away slightly to examine his face. “Didn’t you hear me, Max? I just told you I’m not—not pure.”

“I’m not exactly Sir Galahad myself, sweet.”

“That’s different. Men are expected—oh, Max, you can’t marry me. A gentleman expects his bride to come to him untouched,” she patiently reminded, while her heart fluttered madly between hope and despair.

“I’m not like other gentlemen, as you well know.” He brought her near again and let his fingers play among the light brown curls. “Nor are you like other ladies. You’re Cat, the lady I found in a brothel, the lady who scolds me endlessly, the lady I love madly. Put Cholly out of your mind.” He lightly kissed her nose.

“Come, sweetheart,” he added when she did not respond. “It can’t be so hard. Browdie could have been lying—and if he wasn’t, you weren’t even conscious at the time. Besides, didn’t I break his nose that night? And yesterday I broke his jaw, I think. If you like, I’ll break everything else, but I do think the poor fellow’s paid dearly already.”

This was reasonable enough, though it was his peculiar sort of reason. Catherine let her anxieties evaporate in the warmth of his love.

“I suppose,” she murmured to his lapel, “if I don’t believe you, you’ll dash my head against the wall until I do.”

“I might,” he answered. “I’m very stubborn and ill-behaved.”

“Yes. No wonder I love you so.”

There was only one possible conclusion to this sort of intellectual exchange. Lord Rand tightened his clasp and kissed his darling thoroughly and repeatedly until they were both in a highly agitated state, not at all conducive to abstract reasoning.

Fortunately, Lady Andover put her head in the door at this perilous moment.

“That will be sufficient for the nonce, Max,” she said composedly. “You are wrinkling Catherine’s dress and Molly will be in fits. Now come out and talk to Edgar like a gentleman.”

Not all the viscount’s ranting, raving, and threats of violence could hasten the wedding day. Six unbearably slow weeks crept by because Lady Andover insisted that any earlier date would be unseemly as well as inconvenient. This would be the wedding of the year.

If Society was duly impressed with the result, Catherine and Max were not. They were oblivious to all that went on about them. Except for the moment when they were pronounced husband and wife, all that stood out for Max among the blur of chaotic activity was meeting Catherine’s formidable papa.