Page 9 of Lady Beast's Bridegroom
She giggled like a girl and tapped him lightly with her fan. “Oh, you. But Lord Ransome, I am almost your aunt, for your mother, Lady Ransome, is like a sister to me!”
It made sense that one such as this would be friends with his stepmother. He managed not to show his disgust, not then, and not later, when Belinda finally turned from her other admirers and ignored John while flirting with Peter. It almost overcame his good manners when she mentioned how much she admired the Turner sisters, Laura and Pauline, whom she insisted on referring to as his sisters. He recovered and turned the remark off with a comment about a brooch she was wearing.
The regulatory half hour for a call passed with glacial slowness, but at last he was able to take his polite leave. Before they were down the front steps of the townhouse, John was explaining that his love was not at her best. She was intimidated by Peter’s title. She knew how good a friend Peter was and wanted to impress him for John’s sake. Peter needed to give her a chance, and he would come to admire her as John did. Though not as much, of course.
Peter didn’t know how to respond. What was his duty when his friend was about to make a terrible mistake? He would keep his peace, he decided. John’s passionate defense of the budding virago showed a dawning awareness of her true nature. And if John was too much of a gentleman to withdraw from the betrothal, unannounced though it was, Miss Weatherall and her harridan of a mother would drop him the instant they had a better prospect in mind, for John was only a second son. Though, to be sure, John’s elder brother had so far had only daughters.
Peter returned to his hotel as the sun set and the air chilled. The manager must have been watching for him, for he hadn’t taken two steps inside before the man was at his elbow. “Lord Ransome, you have visitors, my lord, and they cannot stay here.”
“Visitors?” Peter looked around the foyer but could see no-one he knew. The manager tugged at his arm. “I let them intoyour rooms, my lord. I thought it best. But it is most irregular. Most irregular.”
Frowning, Peter followed the fussing man, but the mystery was solved when the manager used his master key to unlock Peter’s door. There, one on each fireside chair, were his sisters, Viv and Rose. Their governess slipped from her perch on his bed at his entry, standing almost to attention.
“Peter,” the two girls chorused, and ran into his arms, burying their faces in his coat so he could hear only the occasional word of the half-sobbed explanation that poured out of them.
The manager cleared his throat. “They cannot stay here,” he repeated.
“No, of course,” Peter agreed, his mind racing. “But they will stay while I make other arrangements for tonight. Tea. They must be hungry.” He looked at the governess. “Have you had anything to eat?” She shook her head.
“Food. Whatever you can manage,” he ordered the man. “And a pot of tea.”
Grumbling, the manager left, closing the door on his way out.
“You won’t send us back?” Viv lifted her head to plead with him, tears still running down her cheeks. “Mama sold Rose!”
“No, no, I won’t send you back,” he assured her, his eyes on the governess, who was nodding.
The two distraught girls quieted under his soothing pats, and he guided them over to the chairs, sitting in the larger of the two and settling a sister on each side of him, perched on the wooden arms.
“Sit down, Miss Pettigrew. Can you explain, please?”
“It is true, my lord. Edwards drove Lady Ransome and Miss Rosalind into Barnstable in the gig yesterday morning. I was suspicious, so I instructed a groom to follow them. Her ladyship indentured Miss Rosalind to the mantua maker and left herthere. Harry, the groom, was not sure what to do, but Miss Rosalind climbed out of the window of the room where they had locked her, so he put her up before him on the horse and brought her home. I thought it best to escort both girls to you, sir.” She blushed. “I only had sufficient money for the stagecoach, my lord. It was not proper, but I did my best to look after the girls.”
“You did quite right,” Peter agreed. Better than right. The governess had spent her own money to defend the girls who were his to protect. Lady Ransome had gone too far. He would have his stepmother out of his house if it was the last thing he did. No. It couldn’t be the last thing he did. He had to live to stand between the two girls and that evil woman. She could not be allowed to have charge of them ever again.
For tonight, though, he had a problem. He couldn’t keep two schoolgirls here. Even if the hotel catered for females, which it didn’t, he had barely enough funds to feed them all, let alone to pay for a room for them. It would be just for tonight. He’d see Richards again in the morning—beg a loan if he had to. Where could he take them tonight? Maybe John could help. He hoped so. His other town-based friends were less than respectable and would be no help at all.
A knock on the door heralded a pair of maids with laden trays. The two girls allowed Miss Pettigrew to draw them away and chivvy them into washing their hands and faces.
“Girls, I am going out to find you a place to stay for the night,” Peter told them.
They turned alarmed faces to him. “We want to stay with you,” Viv declared, a hint of hysteria in her voice.
“I will try to find a place we can all stay,” he promised. “If I cannot do that tonight, I will by tomorrow.” Somehow.
Now that their faces were clean, though, he noticed something. He tilted Rose’s face to the lamp. Sure enough, shehad a large bruise over one cheek. A hand-shaped bruise. “Who slapped you, sweetheart?”
Rose’s voice was little more than a thread, and he had to bend close to hear it. “Madame Le Roux. I told her you were my guardian and Lady Ransome had no right to bring me to her, and she slapped me. She said Lady Ransome owed her money and she had taken me in part payment of the debt. She said I was worth next to nothing, and no one wanted to hear the opinion of a bastard.”
“She is a very stupid woman if that is what she thinks,” Peter told the girl, doing his utmost to keep his anger from his voice. He would save it for his stepmother and her mantua maker. A pair of monsters to treat a child so.
After a few more assurances, he managed to disengage himself from the two girls. Then he had to soothe the manager, who stopped him as he strode through the lobby to once again insist the girls could not stay the night at the hotel. Peter stopped that conversation with an abrupt demand to know if the man doubted his word as a gentleman. “I am on my way to arrange accommodation for my sisters. You have my thanks for allowing them to wait in my room, and for arranging a meal for them, but do not imagine I would allow them to remain here.”
The manager stepped out of his way, intimidated by the stern, cold voice, and Peter hurried on to John’s lodgings. His friend wasn’t home. Perhaps he was at the house of his betrothed? But the butler denied he was present and when Peter, in desperation, asked for Miss Weatherall, she listened impatiently to his explanation of his problem, and told him she could do nothing for him. Mrs. Weatherall arrived to hear the end of her rejection, and expostulated. “My dear! Lord Ransome…”
“Lord Ransome is penniless, Mama,” Miss Weatherall said. “And wants to foist his half-sisters off on dear Lord John. Both of his half-sisters!”
Mrs. Weatherall was as outraged as her daughter. “What! Including his father’s…?”
