Page 31 of The Rogue and the Viscountess

Prunella didn’t miss the girl’s use of “we.” And how was she to pay a loyal maid wages, having nothing of her own? She would have to ask Pete to offer Jenny board for as long as he meant to keep Prunella, and—just how long did he mean to keep her?

She had never been the planning sort, not one to look very far ahead, but the thought landed with a sobering thud. She must make a plan for what to do with herself once Pete was done kidnapping her.

Her chest hurt at the thought of leaving him, and wasn’t that odd in its own way. A man she’d been with for hardly more the span of a full day, and he’d put his hooks into her already?

And why would he want her? Prunella had never quite understood what Edwin saw in her, when he had a crop of fragrant debutantes at his disposal, as slender and smooth and dainty as the rushes that flowered in spring in the fens of Huntingdonshire. All Prunella could offer Pete Wilkins was a title that meant little, now that she was a dowager, and pleasure. For her part, a pleasure she’d never known, which saturated her bones and made her as tender and glowing as a pearl left in an oyster shell.

And right out in the open beneath the rowan tree, while the sheep were watching. He was a bold one, her Peter Wilkins, and she was a wanton in his arms.

“Jenny, go find the housekeeper and sort out your room. Then look through my things and see what I might wear for calls. I fear I’ve gotten a bit of grass on my walking dress.”

“Aye, and someone’ll have to collect that picnic.” Jenny snorted. “Looks yer enjoyin’ being raptured away, mum, and here yer Jenny couldn’t catch a wink of sleep for worry of ye.”

“Then perhaps you might take a bit of a lie down this afternoon, while I’m taking calls,” Prunella said. She was not going to feel ashamed for lying with Pete. She was a grown woman, she’d more or less decided it was time she took a lover, and here he was.

He might ruin her for other men, she realized as she located the family parlor Pete had spoken of, done up in themes of buttery yellow and gold. Seashell shapes topped the window and decorated the cornice, and the fireplace was a veined Italian marble. Rowan Hill really was a lovely house, peaceful and comfortable and inviting. Here was a room a family could relax and take their pleasure in, as well as a pretty showpiece for visitors. No wonder Barabara was so fond of it.

The writing desk was a ladies’ style, with tapered legs and an ormolu inlay with bronze fittings. A desk she’d be pleased to use herself. Prunella rolled up the cylindrical top and found an inkwell, an assortment of quills, and a tiny penknife, but no paper. A peek into the lower drawer revealed parchment, neatly stacked. Lady Wilkins did not seem to be one of those industrious letter writers who spent hours a day at the task. A ledger book was shoved inside the drawer, blocking her way, and she shifted it to access the paper, placing the ledger on the desk.

It fell open to the first page, and Prunella, naturally, glanced at the book. Then she slid the drawer shut and looked at the ledger in earnest, all thought of a letter to Lydia forgotten.

It was not well known of Prunella Price that she had a cold, sound head for numbers. One didn’t credit it, looking at her sweet, mild face and soft body, especially given the pleasantly vacant expression she assumed when forced into the company of someone she couldn’t bear. But Prunella had been keeping the household accounts for her mother from the tender age of twelve, and she had put the Penrydd books in good order when she became lady.

At least, she had done so for the household accounts. She couldn’t stop Edwin siphoning money from the estate to pay his gambling debts, but she could be canny with the household purchases so she might yet lay a table and adorn a room that gave no sign of approaching penury.

She guessed from the tremulous hand that Barbara kept the household accounts, or tried to. And she knew, after a time spent paging through the ledger, that Pete was in a peck of trouble.

“Mum?” Jenny appeared in the door of the parlor. Prunella looked at the clock on the mantel to see that she’d been absorbed in her task for nearly an hour.

“Yes, Jenny?” The maid wore a different gown, the second of the two in her possession, along with a tidy white apron and mobcap. Her shoes had been cleaned of the dirt of the road. She looked prepared to be maid to a former viscount’s lady.

“Lady Wilkins wants ye in the formal parlor, mum.”

Ah, time for the showing. Prunella rubbed her eyes. “I suppose I ought to change.”

“That ye ought, mum. Her ladyship’s done up grand, and I don’t mean for her to shine ye down, being only a baronet’s relict as she is.” Jenny had a grim set to her mouth that said she understood the fight laid out for her, and she did not intend to lose.

“Very well.” Prunella took the sheet of numbers she had made, blew on the ink to be certain it was dry, then folded the sheet into her hand, since the dratted delicate apron had no pocket. She had some inquiries to make, and they would require the utmost discretion.

She would also have to watch out carefully for herself, and for Jenny. Because either Pete Wilkins was in danger, or Prunella had been kidnapped by a murderer.

***

The problem was, he didn’t look like a murderer, sitting in the parlor with its awful clash of salmon pink and pea green. He wore yellow buckskin breeches but with tall boots instead of pumps, and his waistcoat had trim in more salmon pink. Barbara must have had a hand in selecting his tailor. His coat was expertly cut, fitting the breadth of his shoulders and shaped to his chest in a way that showcased his muscular lines. His cravat was tied carelessly, as if he didn’t care which way it fell, and the note of shabbiness kept him from looking a dandy.

Prunella more than once suppressed the urge to cross the room and fix his neckcloth. He looked every inch a man who had been ported from a rough life in Wales, where he lived on his wits and his fists, into the elegant salon of a British parlor, and he wasn’t quite sure yet what to do about it. He needed a valet to keep him in order. He needed a wife.

And she needed to know just what part Pete himself had played in his transplantation from Wales to Wiltshire. She’d formed the impression that the previous baronet, his cousin Barnaby, had been an old man, decrepit and near senility. Yet the morning calls were most illuminating, as soon as Prunella could shift conversation from her own situation to that of Pete’s.

How surprising to learn that Sir Barnaby, Wilkins, Bart., had in fact not been thirty years of age when he died, quite abruptly, without presage of any illness. It was a great shock to the neighborhood, both his sudden passing and Pete’s sudden appearance, and only Barbara seemed unperturbed as her neighbors, each new influx of them, hashed over the death of the old baronet and succession of the new with avid detail and clear delight.

No one seemed to know much about the rivalry between Pete’s father and Barnaby’s that had driven Nathaniel away. No one had much to say about Eunice, Barnaby’s mother, who, from what Prunella could gather, had never been more than a shadowy wisp in the house, though she was supposed to be its mistress. She had produced one son after great travail and long waiting, she had lived in Barbara’s shadow throughout her life, and she had passed without much remarking or lamentation around the time her son inherited. People had a hard time remembering what she looked like.

“Dear Eunice,” Barbara said, clearly reconciled to her losses with calm equanimity. “She was not made for country life, I fear.”

Country life did not seem so difficult, as least as Barbara lived it. Servants brought her food, cleaned her house, and tended her lovely garden. Sheep and crops afforded money for the fine things she enjoyed. She dwelled in one of the grandest homes in the neighborhood, from what Prunella had seen, and whatever scandals had plagued her family, they had not harmed her status, for she preened a bit each time someone addressed her as Lady.

Prunella would be pleased to find herself so fine a situation. Many a woman, already in it, would do whatever she must to keep such a place.