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“You have your valet on your side, dear, and that is all a man requires, according to Edgar.”
“Can’t be. Miss Pelliston has neatly avoided answering your question about my presentability, so I can only suspect the blackguard has failed me.”
“I beg your pardon, My Lord. I had no idea you sought reassurance,” Catherine responded with a trace of irritation. “I assumed your glass must have told you that your appearance is altogether satisfactory.”
“Is it? Kind of you to say so. Did your own glass tell you that you look like a spray of lilac?”
If this was more teasing, Catherine was at a complete loss how to respond. Her face grew hot.
“Here now,” Jemmy cut in. “Wot’s he about?”
Haven’t the vaguest idea, Max answered inwardly. Aloud he said, “I was telling Miss Pelliston how lovely she is. Don’t you agree?”
Jemmy gazed consideringly at his friend for a moment. Then he nodded. “Why’d you go all red, ‘en?” he asked her.
“I was embarrassed,” was the frank reply.
While Jemmy was deciding whether or not he approved this state of affairs, Lady Andover hastened to Catherine’s rescue. “My dear, you must become accustomed to compliments. You will hear a deal more tomorrow at Lady Littlewaite’s ball.”
“Still, she might blush all she likes,” said the provoking Max. “The chaps will love it.”
“Since you know nothing whatever about how gentlemen behave at these affairs, I beg you keep your opinions to yourself,” the countess retorted dampeningly.
“Being a chap myself, I expect I know more about it than you do,” her brother rejoined before returning his attention to Miss Pelliston. “So that’s to be your first foray into Society?”
“Yes. I did not wish to take any steps before we were certain Papa would not object. Lord Andover just received his letter a few days ago. Apparently, Papa has reconsidered— about Lord Browdie, I mean.”
“Browdie. So that’s the old goat’s name. Never heard of him.”
“You never heard of anybody higher in the social scale than a tapster, Max. The Baron Browdie is not precisely an old goat, as you so poetically put it, though he does have nearly three decades’ advantage of Catherine. He is also reputed to lack refinement. According to Edgar’s mama, Lord Browdie’s company is not coveted by Society’s hostesses, though he is tolerated.”
“Better and better,” said Max. “Means you’re not likely to be running into him very often. That is, if he’s in London at all.”
“That we don’t know,” the countess answered, before Catherine could look up from her conversation with Jemmy. “Lord Pelliston wrote that Lord Browdie had come to Town looking for Catherine but would be receiving written notice that the engagement was off.”
“There now, Miss Pelliston. Didn’t I tell you to put your faith in Louisa?”
Miss Pelliston, who had not yet fully recovered from her previous exchange with his lordship, had much rather talk to Jemmy. She answered, a tad distractedly, “Oh, yes—certainly. Still, I can scarcely believe it. Even when Lord Andover let me read Papa’s letter, I couldn’t believe it. It was so unlike—I mean to say, I mustn’t have expressed myself plainly enough—”
“Oh, of course,” Lord Rand sweetly replied. “Nevermind that Andover can talk the horns off a charging bull. Don’t you know that’s what they’re always wanting him for at Whitehall? If he ain’t persuading Prinny’s ministers he must be persuading Prinny himself.”
“I did not mean to discount Lord Andover’s efforts. I agree that I should have listened to you in the first place, My Lord.” Catherine’s gaze dropped to the child sitting beside her. “Yet if I had, I would never have met Jemmy. I cannot be sorry for that, whatever hundred other things I am sorry for.”
Though much of the conversation was beyond his comprehension, this Jemmy grasped.
“So why don’t you come see me?” the boy demanded.
“I will. Tomorrow afternoon when Lady Andover takes me to order the rest of my wardrobe from Madame,” Catherine promised. “The dress I’m wearing had to be made up in rather a hurry, I’m afraid, along with a gown for tomorrow night, and I didn’t want to impose on her, knowing how very busy she must be.”
“Will you show me more letters when you come?”
“I will show you some now, if her ladyship and his lordship will excuse us,” Catherine answered, so eagerly that Lord Rand frowned.
“Well, Max, you do look fine,” said her ladyship after teacher and student had exited, “but you are no match for Jemmy’s sartorial splendour.”
“No, despite my fine feathers, Miss Pelliston knows I’m a bull in a china shop. Leastways she looks at me as if she thought any minute I might step on her or crash into her or I don’t know what. Am I that clumsy, Louisa?”
Lady Andover studied her brother for a moment before answering quietly, “I don’t think anyone’s ever teased her before, Max. She is rather fragile in some ways.”
“Bull in a china shop, just as I said. Well, then, as long as she’s out of the room, why don’t you tell me your plans for your innocent victim? Has she the least idea what she’s in for?”
Some hours later, as he recalled his conversation with Miss Pelliston, Max grimaced. Like it or no, he seemed to be undergoing a transformation, and that annoyed him. In the first place, he thought, glaring into the cheval glass, there was his appearance. When he’d first returned to England, he’d let his sister coax him into ordering two new suits of clothing. These he’d promptly abandoned after the battle with his father and the truce allowing the heir six months’ freedom.
Max had considered two new costumes sufficient, even when he assumed his rightful position in Society, since he most certainly had no intention of gadding about with a lot of dim-witted macaronis. Yet the day after he’d returned Miss Pelliston to his sister’s care, he’d made a long visit to Mr. Weston. There and at the establishments of Mr. Hoby, the bootmaker; Mr. Lock, the hatter, and diverse others, Lord Rand had ordered enough masculine attire to fit out Lord Wellington’s Peninsular Army for the next decade.
A person would think he was well on his way to becoming a damned fop, he mused scornfully.
In the second place, there was his behaviour. A spray of lilac. What the devil had he been thinking of? That was just the kind of trite gallantry that had always filled him with disgust and that was one of the reasons he avoided Fashionable Society. Young misses expected such treacle and one must be endlessly cudgelling one’s brains for some effusive compliment or other, even if the miss had a squint and spots and interspersed her sentences with incessant Oh, la’s.
It didn’t matter that Miss Pelliston had neither squint nor spots and was perfectly capable of intelligent conversation. It was the principle of the thing, dash it!
That she’d left off her prim, buttoned-up, spinster costume was no reason to pour smarmy sludge upon her. Obviously his new ensembles had gone to his head. Because he looked like a fop, he’d tried to act like one. Clothes make the man.
Apparently, they made the woman as well. Perhaps he might not have taken leave of his wits if he hadn’t been so very surprised at her transformation. The lavender gown and soft hairstyle had brought out a subtle, delicate beauty that no one but Louisa would have realised the girl possessed.
Idly he wondered whether other men would appreciate it, and if they did, what they would make of the curious character beneath. Not that most men would waste much time evaluating her appearance or personality when they learned who her papa was. She would be prey to fortune hunters, naturally, but Louisa and Edgar would protect her.
Miss Pelliston was in good hands. A
ll the same, he might as well pop in briefly to Lady Littlewaite’s “do” tomorrow night. If other fellows turned out to be slow to recognise Miss Pelliston’s attributes, she would need a partner. Though Max had little taste for the convoluted intricacies that passed for dancing, he knew all the steps just the same. He would dance with her and appear captivated and Edgar would do the same and eventually some other chaps would notice.
The ball, of course, would be tedious, stuffy, and hot, as such affairs always were. Still, he had only to do his duty by the young lady, then take his leave.
It occurred to him that he hadn’t addressed certain needs in nearly a month. About time he turned his mind to that issue. After he left the ball, he’d drop by the theater and see what the Green Room had to offer.
Lord Rand accosted his lugubrious secretary and ordered the startled Hill to convey his Lordship’s acceptance of Lady Littlewaite’s invitation.
“Excuse me, My Lord, but I sent your regrets, as you requested, three days ago.”
“Then unsend ‘em,” came the imperious reply. “Apologise for the mistake or whatever. She ain’t going to argue. They always want those affairs well-stocked with bachelors, don’t they? Daresay she wouldn’t turn a hair if I towed you along with me—or Jemmy, for that matter,” the viscount added wickedly.
Chapter Ten
“That’s all that’s left,” said Miss Pelliston, examining in some surprise the names scrawled upon her fan, “except for the waltzes, and I mayn’t dance those until I receive permission from Almack’s patronesses.”
“You seem to be the belle of the ball,” said Lord Rand.
“There seems to be a shortage of ladies, rather. Nearly everyone who attended Lady Shergood’s musicale the other night is ill,” she explained. “Fortunately, hers was a most select affair or I daresay this ballroom would be deserted.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. The house is crawling with females. You underestimate your attractions.”
