Viscount Vagabond Read Online Free Page B

evident by the time they’d left his lodgings, only now did the implications occur to him. Any respectable woman who’d spent two nights as she had just done was ruined— if, that is, anyone learned of the matter.
    He halted abruptly and grabbed Miss Pettigrew’s arm. “ I say, you’d better not tell anyone where you’ve been, you know. That is,” he went on, feeling vaguely ashamed as the hazel eyes searched his face, “you may not have considered the consequences.”
    “Good grief, do you think I’ve considered aught else? I shall have to tell a falsehood and pray I’m not asked for many details. I shall say I was delayed and pretend that my message to that effect must have gone astray. It must be simple,” she explained, “because I’m not at all adept at lying.”
    This being a perfectly sensible conclusion, Mr. Demowery had no reason to be sharp with her, but he answered before he stopped to reason. “Good,” he snapped. “I’m relieved you don’t have any hard feelings. I did, after all, take you to my lodgings in opposition to your expressed wishes. Another woman would have exacted the penalty.”
    “I collect you mean she would insist that you marry her,” was the thoughtful response. “Well, that would be most unjust. In the first place, though you arrived at erroneous conclusions about my character, the evidence against me was most compelling. Second, you must have reconsidered, since I am quite—unharmed. Finally,” she continued, as though she were helping him with a problem in geometry, “it is hardly in my best interests to wed a man I met in a house of ill repute, even if I had any notion how to force a man to marry me, which I assure you I have not.”
    “No idea at all?” he asked, curious in spite, of himself.
    “No, nor is it a skill I should be desirous of cultivating. An adult should not be forced into marriage as a child is forced to eat his peas. Peas are only part of a meal. Marriage is a life’s work.”
    “I stand corrected, Miss Pettigrew,” he replied gravely. “In fact, I feel I should be writing your words upon my slate one hundred times.”
    She coloured. “I do beg your pardon. You were most kind to consider my situation, and I ought not have lectured.”
    Whatever irritation he’d felt was washed away by a new set of emotions, too jumbled to be identified. He brushed away her apology with some smiling comment about being so used to lectures that he grew lonely when deprived of them.
    They had reached the square in which Miss Collingwood’s Academy was located.
    “Shall I wait for you?” he asked, hoping she’d decline and at the same time inexplicably dismayed at the prospect of never seeing her again.
    He had at least a dozen questions he wished she’d answer, such as why and how she’d come to London and where she’d come from and who or what she was, really. Yet, it was better not to know, because knowing was bound to complicate matters.
    “Oh, no! That is, you’ve already gone so far out of your way, and there is no need. I’ll be all right now.” She took front him the bandboxes he’d been carrying. “Thank you again,” she said. “That sounds so little, after all you’ve done for me, but I can’t think how else—”
    “Never mind. Goodbye, Miss Pettigrew.”
    He bowed and walked away. A minute later he stopped and turned in time to see her being admitted into the building. He grew uneasy. “Oh, damnation,” he muttered, then moved down to the corner of the street and leaned against a lamppost to wait.
    “Oh, dear,” said Miss Collingwood. “This is most awkward.” Her fluttering, blue-veined hand flew up to fidget with the lace of her cap. “I sent your letter along to Miss Fletcher—that is, Mrs. Brown, now, of course. Did she not write you?”
    Without waiting for an answer, the elderly lady continued, “No, I would expect not. I am sure she had not another thought in this world but of him, and what a pity that is. She was