“Mayhap not,” Mrs. Gladstow said, her lip curling. “But you are a woman, and Sir Tristan a man. One of the more impressive examples of the species, but a man all the same. You will use that fact to your advantage this evening.”
Her daughter’s mouth worked silently for a time before she cried, “I don’t know the first thing about using such wiles.”
“You will find a way,” Mrs. Gladstow grit out. She released the girl, who wasted no time in escaping, spinning on the ball of her foot and rushing up the great curving staircase.
And that is my cue to exit, Rosalind thought, desperate to get away from her still-seething employer. Mrs. Gladstow’s voice rang out before she could take a step.
“Miss Merriweather, this is your last chance.”
Dread washed over Rosalind. “My last chance, ma’am?”
“You will assist my daughter in capturing Sir Tristan’s attention this evening.”
Frantic to prevent the woman’s plans from coming to fruition, Rosalind cast about for a valid argument. For she was not such a fool that she thought the woman would listen to her if she spewed her theories of Sir Tristan’s nefarious intentions. And even if she did believe her, would she care? She was cold enough that she would probably see it as a boon, and use the man’s interest, honorable or not, to trick him into marriage with her daughter.
Rosalind refused to see that happen.
Finally, she stumbled upon the only fact she could think of that would appeal to Mrs. Gladstow’s high-reaching aspirations. “But Sir Tristan is not even a peer, ma’am. I was under the assumption you wanted a noble title for your daughter.”
Mrs. Gladstow’s eyes narrowed. “Like I said before, you’re not stupid, are you? I don’t expect the man to propose to my daughter, nor do I want him to. You think I would settle for a mere baronet when my husband has promised such a dowry on her that it should attract even the most discerning nobleman? Hardly.” She let loose a harsh laugh. “But men are basically animals at heart, Miss Merriweather. His attentions will only whet the already-increasing interest of a more appropriate suitor.”
Rosalind frowned. For the woman looked far too smug for this to be a vague kind of thing. She thought quickly back along the past fortnight, searching through memories, trying to single out any one man the woman might have set her sights on for her future son-in-law.
Lord Ullerton’s face rose up in her mind then, his jowls jiggling about like so much cream jelly.
Rosalind felt a chill down to her bones. “You cannot mean to marry her off to Lord Ullerton,” she blurted.
The self-satisfied look on the woman’s face was replaced in an instant by a fury so hot and fierce Rosalind was surprised she wasn’t scorched by it.
“You think to tell me what to do? You, a mere companion, the daughter of some country nobody who gambled away every penny he owned, then proceeded to drink himself to death?”
She advanced. Rosalind, shocked to her core at the venom spewing from her mouth, backed up until her spine rammed into a small end table, nearly toppling the cut glass vase of roses that topped it.
“I do not care for you, Miss Merriweather,” the woman continued, towering over her. “I never have, and I daresay I never shall. And so I say it again. This is your last chance. Lord Ullerton, important man that he is, must return to his country seat for the next month. Before he leaves, you will help my daughter secure his hand. She will be a countess by the Season’s end. If she fails, I will have no compunction throwing you out on your ear, deathbed promise or no.”
A sick feeling swirled and bucked in Rosalind’s stomach. Not only for Miss Gladstow, who was nothing but a pawn to her parents’ desires to join the ranks of England’s best families, but for herself as well. For though she had dealt with a daily barrage of threats to her position, this had the awful ring of truth to it, the woman’s voice holding all the finality of a death knell.
And so she had no choice. If she wished to survive, she would have to fall in with the woman’s plans.
“Yes, ma’am,” she whispered, the words bitter as laudanum on her tongue.
Mrs. Gladstow smiled, a slow and cruel thing that only increased Rosalind’s disgust with herself. “Good. Now go and help my daughter ready herself. We’ve a baronet to use and an earl to capture.”
