The hackney finally halted before a splendid townhouse of classical design and proportions. Catherine concluded that Mr. Demowery’s sister must have married very well indeed, even if she had rejected the “rich old toad” her parents had initially selected for her.
So preoccupied was Miss Pelliston with her wonderings and worries that she scarcely attended to her companion’s conversation with the butler. Only when she was ushered into the sumptuous drawing-room and beheld her hostess did the words belatedly register.
The butler had addressed Mr. Demowery as “my lord,” and was not corrected. Now Catherine heard distinctly the sigh of exasperation her benefactor uttered when the butler announced, “Lord Rand to see you, My Lady.” Miss Pelliston’s face grew hot and her heart began pounding so hard that she believed it must burst from her bosom.
“Ah, Max,” said the lady. “Am I the first to behold the prodigal’s return?” She gave her brother a peck on the cheek before glancing enquiringly at Catherine.
“Louisa, may I present Miss Catherine Pettigrew. Miss Pettigrew, Lady Andover—m’ sister, that is.”
The ersatz Miss Pettigrew sank into a graceful curtsey, and wished she might sink through the floor. Her benefactor’s sister was the Countess of Andover! Her benefactor himself was a nobleman. Demowery, indeed— he probably had a dozen names besides.
When Catherine rose she found Lord Rand staring at her in that puzzled way he’d done several times before. She gave him one reproachful look, then turned to his sister, who was expressing rather subdued pleasure at the acquaintance while dropping a quizzical glance at Miss Pettigrew’s frock.
In her ladyship’s place, Catherine would have been hard put to express any sort of pleasure at all. What must the countess be thinking? Catherine looked like a betweenstairs servant. She had carefully designed a wardrobe that would convey that impression. To dress as befitted her station would have aroused speculation and, probably, trouble during her travels. Her present costume, however, was bound to provoke another sort of speculation in these surroundings.
Still, for all that Lord Pelliston was an arrant scapegrace, his title went back to the eleventh century at least, and his daughter had been scrupulously trained. She returned the countess’s greeting in her politest manner, apologised for intruding, made another curtsey then turned to leave the room.
Lord Rand’s none-too-gentle grip on her elbow prevented her. “Dash it, Miss Pettigrew, don’t be such a coward. It’s only Louisa, you know. She won’t bite you.”
“Not, certainly, on such short acquaintance,” Lady Andover observed. She gestured towards a chair. “Won’t you be seated? I’ll order some refreshment.”
Miss Pettigrew murmured more gratitude and apologies along with a firm expression of her intentions to leave.
“Oh, sit down,” said her benefactor. “You haven’t anywhere to go, you know, and wouldn’t have the first idea how to get there if you did. Besides which, Louisa’s all afever to know why you’re here and who you are, only she’s too dashed well-bred to show it. Ain’t that so, Louisa?”
“I am curious why Miss Pettigrew looked so stunned when Jeffers announced you, Max. Have you been running about under false colours all these months?”
Without waiting for a reply, she bade her brother ring for a servant. That personage appeared instantly—not at all, Catherine thought, like those at home, who pretended to be deaf, and then if they did heed a summons were prodigiously offended. This one appeared, vanished, and reappeared in minutes, a scrupulously polite and efficient wraith.
In the interim Lord Rand’s sister kept up a light flow of amusing conversation, unaided by her two