A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (92 page)

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 given 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.”