If they all left, maybe he could concentrate again. And maybe—just maybe—his blasted headache would ease.
“Why must we visit the Marlboroughs, Peter?” asked Sophie. “I should far prefer to spend some time with Lady Golding and her sister if we are to only pay one call.”
“And why should you be the one to decide who we visit?” Char cut in. “I simply must see Theodora Marlborough this afternoon, or I’ll perish.” As if to further enhance her declaration, the youngest Hardwicke placed her hand against her forehead and fell backward until she lay across his desk, pushing the last of his record books to the floor in a single, loud thump. “We have so much to discuss, with our come-outs so close.”
Somehow in the midst of his sisters’ whining, Peter had missed the new sounds outside his library. The doors opened and Mrs. Pratt bustled in, pulling his two young children in tow.
The nurse spoke before his footman had a chance. “Your Grace, I simply do not know what to do with these two anymore. Lady Sarah has thrown four temper tantrums thus far today, and Lord Grovesend insists on exasperating the matter by taking her dolls away from her and taunting her with them. Much as you used to do to your sisters, I might add.” She harrumphed for emphasis and nodded so hard that her usually tidy gray knot fell loose about her shoulders.
Who had neglected to inform him that the world was coming to an end that day? Good God. If he found out, he would have them sacked in an instant.
He was granted neither a reprieve nor a chance to respond to the nurse, however. Sophie chimed in, “Peter truly was a horrible brother when we were younger, Mrs. Pratt, wasn’t he? I daresay he was the ringleader and the one most intent on leaving me behind whenever the boys went off to do something fun.”
“Why, yes my lady, I daresay he was. I do sometimes wonder if he has learned the errors of his ways with leaving the females out.”
She’d been his nurse, for Christ’s sake. She’d been employed by his family since before the day he was born. It was one thing for siblings to squabble and pick at each other, but something else entirely for a household servant to pipe in with her opinions. Unwanted opinions, at that. “Mrs. Pratt, I wonder why you should so suddenly devalue your position in my household.”
He raised a single eyebrow in her direction, which she met with a rebellious glare and two hands firmly planted atop her hips.
“Oh, gracious,” sighed a desolate Charlotte. “How much longer must we sit and mope about? Either we should be off to visit the Marlboroughs or we should find out more about Jane.” She deigned to pass him a hopeful glance.
He glared and she resumed her sulk. What more did the chit think he could tell her about Jane? He’d never met the woman either.
His daughter appeared to have been ignored for far too long. Sarah reached across her nurse’s body and attempted to pluck her doll from Josh’s hands with a wail. “Papa! I want my dolly. Josh keeps taking her from me.”
Joshua pulled hard against the toy and fell to the ground, pulling his sister atop him and tussling with her to win the prize. The nurse stood back from the fray and allowed the children to scuffle, Peter’s sisters rushed to their assistance.
Charlotte pulled the wailing Sarah to her chest, then sat on the floor and pulled the girl to her lap. “There, my sweet. I’ll find one of my dolls for you to play with.” The four-year-old girl’s tears left wet stains upon the primrose lawn fabric of Char’s day gown.
Sophie wrestled Joshua away and tickled him until a trail of giggles followed their path across the library. They knocked into chairs and disturbed a tidy stack of books waiting to be returned to their shelves, perfectly oblivious to the destruction they caused to Peter’s neat and orderly sanctuary—one which no longer resembled a sanctuary at all, and could certainly not be confused with anything resembling neat or orderly. “Well, Your Grace, what do you propose to do about all of this? Hmm?” The insubordinate nurse had inched closer to the doors and further from the hazards caused by his family. Her eyebrows were arched in the exact manner she had always used on him when he was an unruly boy, finding himself in a spot of trouble and looking to someone else to sort it all out for him.
Blast the woman.
His head screamed. Patience. He must remain patient, calm, collected. He would regain his sanity. And he would take back control over his life.
He rose to command attention. “Enough.” His voice hardly rose above a whisper. What point could there be in adding to the melee around him by shouting to be heard above everything else going on?
As expected, his tactic worked. Char and Sophie ceased their jabbering and even Sarah and Joshua looked up at him with large rounded eyes.
“Mrs. Pratt, take the children outside so they can run off their pent up energy.” His words were quiet but firm, so as to brook no argument. “Sophia, take your sister and leave my home in peace. I don’t care where you take her, whether it be to the Marlborough residence, or to visit Lady Golding, or the Queen of England herself, but I need quiet. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”
“Yes, Peter.” Sophie stood and started to organize their departure. She handed Joshua off to the nurse and turned to take Sarah from Charlotte when yet another entrance interrupted her tasks.
“Your Grace, your mother and Miss Matthews have arrived.” Peter’s butler drew aside so the ladies could sweep past him into the overcrowded room.
A twitch formed behind his right eye, strong enough it would be visible to anyone near at hand. Devil take it, would he never attain order again?
Mama glided over to him, a huge smile lighting her eyes as she looked about to find so many of her family gathered together. “Perfect. Jane, sweetheart, come in so you can meet everyone. Best to just get these introductions over with so we can move on getting you settled and situated.”
Good God. Had he known this cousin would be so—well, so long in the tooth?
Jane Matthews was no green debutante—not by any stretch of the imagination. She looked far closer in age to Sophie, possibly even older, than to Char. How was the woman not yet on the shelf? Mama had thoroughly lost her mind if she thought there was any chance of this woman finding a match on the marriage mart.
Her blonde curls looked like a giant ball of fuzz atop her head, tossed about in utter disarray. He couldn’t tell the shade of her eyes because so much of her hair hung across her face all willy-nilly to the point that he almost couldn’t see them at all. Her traveling gown, a faded blue of some sort, had seen many better days with pulled threads galore and odd, brownish stains all across the skirt. Come to think of it, Mama’s gown bore many of the same stains. Thousands of tiny hairs covered them both, to the point they appeared to have rolled around in a field of cotton.
The fabric of her gown bunched around the woman’s waist and pulled too tightly across her bosom, emphasizing her overall plumpness. Peter couldn’t tell if it was simply too small for her, or if she had fidgeted around so much during their travels that it had become twisted and tangled about her body.
Even if it were clean and free from pulls, the gown was far better suited to someone working in his kitchens than someone attending the glittering balls of the ton.
Mama would have her work cut out for her with this project. Peter could think of no one less desirable than the cretin standing before him. Who on earth could he convince to take the blasted woman off his hands? He immediately doubled in his mind the dowry he’d initially set aside for her. She would need every last pound in order to find a husband.
Not to mention a great good deal of luck.
And perhaps a bribe or two. Bribes certainly wouldn’t hurt her chances.
The room around him erupted into activity again before he could muster a proper greeting for the woman. His sisters surrounded Miss Matthews, gushing over her and pulling her into tight embrace after tighter embrace.
“Oh, Jane, we have been waiting so very anxiously for you to arrive.”
“Miss Matthews, Char. She’s not yet g
iven us permission for such familiarity.”
“But she’s family, a cousin! You don’t mind, do you, Jane?”
Sophie let out an exaggerated sigh of exasperation. “Fourth cousins are far from immediate family.”
The woman in question laughed—a warm, bubbly sound—and moved back to set the half-broken wicker basket she had been holding down on the floor. “It’s quite all right, ladies, I don’t mind in the least. Why, your mother has insisted the whole way here that I call her Cousin Henrietta. I’ll need your help in determining who is whom, though.”
To that point she had all but ignored him, which was fine with Peter. If only they would all leave his library so he could return to work on his ledgers. But then Mama arched an eyebrow in his direction and gave him a rather pointed look. She’d never allow him to go without at least greeting the woman.
He cleared his throat and waited for silence. In vain.
The female chatter rose to an excited pitch as his sisters nattered about all of the dress shops and linen drapers they would need to visit to prepare for the Season, and how delightful it would be to have Jane along with them.
So he tried again, only louder this time. Slowly, the din dropped off to an almost imperceptible roar. Everyone in the room other than his children turned to face him and waited for him to speak.
“Miss Matthews, I pray you’ll be comfortable at Hardwicke House. Should you wish for anything, I ask that you inform me immediately.”
Before she could respond, Josh once again pulled the doll from his sister’s grasp, and she bellowed her displeasure. Peter still had never deciphered how such a small child could produce such a great sound. Sarah’s tears were ever his undoing, though, whether justified or not.
He moved to admonish his son and appease his daughter, but before he could take even a step, a giant, orange ball of fuzz darted out from Miss Matthews’s discarded basket and dove headfirst toward his sweet Sarah.
“Mr. Cuddlesworth, no!” Miss Matthews called out. “Oh, you naughty, naughty boy.”
The beast would kill Sarah, or maim her at the least. Peter dashed out from behind his desk to rush to his daughter’s side. His only thought was to protect his little girl, his baby, one of the very few things in this world he held as precious and dear.
At the same time, Miss Matthews bolted across the room from in the midst of his sisters, but neither of them could possibly reach his daughter in time.
The orange monster pummeled her to the ground. Sarah caught it in her arms and rolled over with it. The damned thing was easily half her size, if not more.
He had seen the damage a rabid animal’s teeth and claws could do to a grown man. It would decimate his little girl in no time.
“Drat! You naughty boy.” Miss Matthews reached Sarah and the offending creature at just the moment he did.
Peter shook from head to toe, unsure whether fear or anger had won the battle over his nerves. Whatever creature that woman had brought into his home could have killed his daughter. As things stood, the damage remained unknown.
He prayed they had gotten to her in time.
They both reached for the pile on the floor but stopped short with the odd sounds emanating from Sarah and her attacker. Instead of cries, giggles and a loud purr rustled from them.
Peter took a step back to re-evaluate. “A cat?” Not a monster. But in his house. On his daughter. For the first time in his life, he feared he might strike a woman.
“Mama, please explain to me why you have allowed this...this...animal into my home without consulting me on the matter.” He chose to speak to his mother about it instead of Miss Matthews, because he was uncertain he could restrain himself from delivering the audacious woman a blistering set-down and ordering her immediately from his home. Peter tried to extricate his daughter from amidst the mounds of orange fur while he waited for his mother’s response, careful to avoid its sharp claws and teeth.
He fought the rage building in his chest down. How could Mama have done something like this? Her own grandchildren could be hurt, for all that she knew. But letting his temper get the best of him was not an option. He would never—never—allow that to happen before his children.
“Oh, Your Grace...er, Peter...er, I mean Your Grace, that is.” Miss Matthews looked at him with a sheepish expression when he slowly turned his glare upon her form.
She would learn to address him properly.
“Um, well, you see, Mr. Cuddlesworth has been with me since he was a just tiny kitten, and he’s quite old now and has never been apart from me, and I simply couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him for months on end.”
Obviously, the woman didn’t know how to act in polite company. He had spoken to his mother—not to her. The fact that she was responding at all spoke of her idiocy. If she had any idea of the rage building within him toward her, she would run from the room without looking back.
Of course, he shouldn’t be surprised about her display of gaucherie, based upon her appearance. He might need to suggest an asylum to his mother, instead of his home, as a suitable place for their cousin to stay for the Season. Becoming the laughingstock of the ton was not overly high on his list of priorities.
And she had brought an animal into his house. There could be no accounting for whatever else she might subject his children to.
No harm could come to them. Ever. He absolutely couldn’t allow it to happen.
“Of course my parents...er, well, they do care for him, and they would take excellent care of him, but I don’t know how he would react to not having me around. My cat goes everywhere with me, absolutely everywhere, and he becomes a bit destructive if I’m not with him for too long, you see. With his old age, there’s just no telling what he might do without me. It might be rather unpleasant, I’m afraid.”
The cat licked Sarah all over her face. She elicited another round of giggles and squeals while he continued to purr. They rolled together about the floor. Sarah’s frock was soon covered with long orange and white hairs, just as Mama and Miss Matthews were. If Peter allowed this to continue much longer, she might well have those same disgusting stains upon her attire as Miss Matthews and his mother currently wore—whatever they were.
The urge to put her in her place became overwhelming.
“Unpleasant?” he drawled, returning his attention to the miscreant. “Might its behavior be more unpleasant than whatever has caused the unsightly state of your attire? More unpleasant still than the fright that creature put me through when it attacked my daughter?” He advanced upon the woman, hoping to cause her some alarm and not stopping until he stood toe-to-toe with her.
She feared him—the look in her eyes made that fact quite plain—but she didn’t cower.
Peter narrowed his eyes and continued. Clearly, she didn’t fear him enough yet. “More unpleasant than it would be to banish you both to the stables, where it obviously belongs, and I daresay you might as well? You look an absolute fright. And Mama, you hardly look better.”
His mother’s eyes flashed at him, but Miss Matthews spoke before Mama could cut in.
“Ah, my attire? Oh, dear me, yes. Well, Mr. Cuddlesworth became quite ill on our journey and we’ve had a few accidents.”
Her hands pulled at a stray thread on her gown, and it was a miracle it didn’t unravel before his eyes. The woman had no business amongst polite society. That much was plain.
“I’m certain he’ll be more than all right now that he’s no longer in a moving carriage and can settle in.” She brushed her hands down the front of her haggard dress and tried to straighten it, but her efforts made no difference. “But you are certainly overreacting, Peter, about sending us to the stables. He’ll clean up in no time, and I’m quite sure I can remove these spots from both our gowns. Your Grace, that is. Peter. Oh, double drat, what on the blasted earth am I supposed to call you?”
A chorus of feminine gasps and childlike giggles sounded behind her.
Obviously, her faux pas didn’t even
faze her, as she kept digging herself into a deeper hole. “This business with titles is a bit asinine, isn’t it? I mean, you are only a man, like any other man. You were lucky enough to be born to the parents you were born to is all. Anyway—” she waved a hand through the air as though to ignore all of what she’d just said— “where shall I take Mr. Cuddlesworth, so we can freshen up? I should most dreadfully enjoy a bath. Why, I believe I have some remnants of his stains stuck beneath my bosom and it’s bothersome, indeed. Cousin Henrietta, wouldn’t you enjoy a bath as well?”
Her bosom. She was talking about her bosom. To him. In front of his children, for Christ’s sake. Peter had never seen or heard the like in his entire life. This Jane Matthews was a disaster ready to strike the beau monde and take him with her.
She turned to his mother while his sisters, children, and servants all looked on with their jaws agape. Mama just smiled with the widest smile he’d seen on her face since the day his niece, Isabella, was born. Sophie’s jaw quickly returned to its usual position, and her shock gave way to a smile that soon put Mama’s to shame.
He should be furious with Miss Matthews for her impertinence. He should banish her to the stables like he’d threatened. He should throttle her until her teeth rattled in her head.
No one spoke to him like that. No one dared.
But instead of doing any of those things, he had to fight back a laugh. Still, he couldn’t allow her to see the unreasonable and thoroughly irregular effect she’d had on him. He fixed his sternest glare upon her instead.
“Come along, Jane,” Mama said. “I’ll show you to your rooms and have a bath drawn. That sounds delightful to me. Sarah, will you come with us and bring Mr. Cuddlesworth so we can show him where he’ll sleep?”
His daughter squealed with joy before he had a chance to counter. “Oh, Grandmama, can he sleep with me?” Blast it, now that confounded animal would be sleeping in his home. How had he lost so much control over his life?
A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle Page 64