Page 3 of Lady Beast's Bridegroom
When the door upstairs slammed, he retreated to his desk, and began writing on a scrap of paper. A nonsense succession of phrases and words, but he hoped it made him look busy and unconcerned about the temper tantrum approaching in a flurry of lace, flounces, and ribbons.
“Beau Ransome, how dare you! You cannot cut me off. It would be unconscionable. I am your mother! When I think how I have cherished you, loving you as if you were my own son, and now you turn on me like this. I have nourished a viper in my bosom!”
Peter had expected this speech, and ignored it, continuing to write.
“Your father would expect you to look after me. Was it not the express wish in his will? ‘I trust my son to care for my wife and her daughters as I know he will care for his own sisters.’ Unnatural son!” An admonition that would not have been necessary if Peter’s father had not gambled away all his unentailed property as well as his wife’s portion and the dowries he had promised to his stepdaughters.
Lady Ransome stamped her foot. When she lost her temper, the good looks that had captivated his father were not much in evidence. Usually, the blacks she wore to trumpet her widowhood formed a frame for her fragile porcelain beauty; she was a tiny sprite with golden hair and creamy skin, looking even more slender and ethereal in the funereal color. Now, she was so white with fury that her careful use of makeup was disclosed to all observers, hot red blotches of rouge coloring her cheeks, angry creases marring the perfection of her skin.
“You may be seated, Lady Ransome,” Peter said.
“Are you listening to me, Beau? You cannot cut me off without any money. Your sisters and I are leaving for London in less than a week. I have bills to pay at the local dressmaker. I have to send a deposit with my orders to the London modistes. And that incompetent nitwit Richards has refused to hire a townhouse for me without your direct order. You must tell him immediately that I have your authority, Beau. I will not be told what to do by a mere servant. I do not understand why you sold our London townhouse. It was unutterably foolish, Beau, and your father would never have done such a stupid thing.”
Peter would not react to her insistence on calling him by the foolish nickname he’d attracted as a schoolboy. “Handsome Ransome,” they’d dubbed him. Then one wit changed it to Beau,and the name had stuck, though Peter liked it no better in French than in English.
His stepmother knew he hated it.Which is why she uses it.
“Richards ismysolicitor, Lady Ransome. He has very properly alerted me to your plans, which were against my direct instructions. Let me, therefore, tell you again. We cannot afford for my stepsisters to have another London season this year. You will not be going to London.”
She started to speak, but Peter ignored the dictates of courtesy and spoke over the top of her.
“By next year, or at least the following, if you make the necessary economies, I hope to be able to afford accommodations for you in one of the cheaper towns. Cheltenham, perhaps. Or Bristol. Not this year. And any other expenses will have to come from the generous stipend my father allocated for your support. If you cannot pay, the clothing you have ordered will have to be cancelled. If it has been delivered, it must be returned.”
She yelled. She threatened dire social consequences. She hurled verbal abuse. When he refused to give in, she resorted to tears. When those failed, she retreated for long enough to fetch his stepsisters to wail and complain about the loss of the husbands they were sure to meet this year, though none had shown an interest in previous seasons—four for Laura and five for Pauline.
Peter continued, obdurate. Even if he could afford it, he would not have bent to their bullying. The generous allowance his father had willed to his second wife was perfectly adequate to her reasonable expenses. As it was, the allowance ate up money that should be going on debt repayment, and left nothing for necessary estate maintenance, let alone improvements. He had no choice but to continue to refuse the ladies a Season.
The three of them withdrew at last—to prepare for dinner, Peter assumed. Foreseeing another series of attacks over his meal, he sent Edwards to bring a tray to his bedchamber, and retired for the night.
The next three days were miserable, as Lady Ransome continued to cycle through the various approaches of attack, abuse, beg, weep, and wheedle. While the weather was wet and bleak, Peter went out every day to visit tenants, preferring the cold and the damp of the ride to the discomfort of his own house.
His stepmother even tried to enlist his half-sisters from the schoolroom to her cause, and they obediently parroted what she’d told them to say, ten-year-old Vivienne in an uncanny imitation of her mother’s voice, and eleven-year-old Rosalind in a sepulchral monochrome that had him fighting down a grin. The girls caught his amusement despite his attempt to remain stern. They giggled. He lost the battle with his features and joined the merriment.
“But you should not mock the viscountess,” he warned them. “If someone informs her, she will be cross.”
Viv wrinkled her nose. “Only we three know, Peter. Mother was going to come and make sure we said what she told us to say, but Pauline told her you were more likely to give in if it was just us two.”
“Your mother does not wish to believe I cannot afford to let her and your sisters go to London this year,” Peter explained.
Viv sighed. “Are we very poor now, Peter? Will I need to scrub floors? Will we be able to keep Rose?”
“We are not so poor you will need to scrub floors, Viv,” Peter assured her. “And Rose is our sister. Rose, darling, this is your home.” In fact, Rose had already been installed in the nursery when Lord Ransome married the former Mrs. Turner and brought her and the Turner sisters home. Vivienne was bornfive months after the wedding, her robust good health hinting at the reason for the sudden marriage.
Lady Ransome disliked having her husband’s base-born daughter raised with her own child, but had kept her opinion to herself while Peter’s father was alive. Any mistreatment of Rose was the one thing that caused the former Lord Ransome to exert himself to lose his temper with his wife.
Perhaps Peter needed to throw things, shout, and threaten beatings.
Instead, he did his best to reassure the two girls.
By the third day, Lady Ransome was demanding he immediately seek out a wealthy heiress, marry her, and reinstate his stepmother’s previous standard of living, “For the paltry allowance you are giving me, Beau, is totally inadequate to my consequence as the widow of an earl. Even your father, God rest his soul, was not so parsimonious, and I blame him entirely for failing to give dear Pauline and Laura the support—the setting, if you will—in which they could attract the proper kind of suitor.”
Peter was not aware that either of his stepsisters had had any kind of suitor, proper or otherwise, in all the years since their debut. In his opinion, it was their personalities, so much like their mother’s, which kept them single. He kept the thought to himself and merely replied to the only new element in her litany of complaints. “I do not intend to marry at this time.”
“That is so like you, Beau. Always thinking of yourself. So selfish.”
No wonder my father spent so much time at his club, or with his mistress, or anywhere that Lady Ransome was not.
His stepsisters also kept up the pressure, Laura in particular, alternately berating him and pleading. Pauline was more circumspect. He found her one evening in the nursery, whispering with his sisters, undoubtedly filling their heads with his stepmother’s lies.
