The Babe and the Baron (3 page)

A year or two younger than his cousin, the baron had a mature dignity Freddie would probably never have attained. Freddie had failed to inherit that strong jaw, so obvious in both brothers as to be almost a caricature. The stubbornness it suggested, Laura's husband had possessed in full measure, however—at least where his own actions were concerned. She might go her own way, as long as she did not try to interfere with his. How much easier life had been since she realized that!

She had had enough of handsome, charming, stubborn gentlemen. “No,” she reiterated, “I cannot accept your kind offer.”

Lord Wyckham flushed. “It is not a matter of kindness or generosity, ma'am,” he said stiffly. “I should be failing in my duty if I permitted a female relative to live alone in reduced circumstances.”

“Not at all the thing,” put in the captain.

“Not the thing!” Laura rounded on him, shaking with sudden anger. “Sir, I have been living virtually alone for four years without Society caring a groat. I care not a groat for Society's opinion.”

“That's not what I meant,” he protested and opened his mouth again to explain. His brother glared at him. He shrugged, saluted ironically, and sauntered away, whistling.

“I believe Rupert meant that my failing in my duty would be not at all the thing,” Lord Wyckham said with a rueful smile that Laura mistrusted. “Indeed, it would not. Will you be seated, ma'am, while we discuss the matter?”

Though she considered there was nothing to discuss, she was glad to return to the bench. Sinking down at one end with a sigh, she pulled the basket and colander towards her and waved an invitation to his lordship to take the other end. With the colander in her black-clad lap—the black dye had faded already, she noted—she continued to shell the beans as she spoke.

“I am sorry if your failure to persuade me will distress you, or bring censure upon you, though that I doubt. In any case, you cannot be accused of permitting me to live alone, since you have no authority over me. Indeed, I acknowledge no one's authority.”

“Understandable.” He nodded, and she knew he was aware that her family had rejected her as Freddie's had rejected him; that speaking of Society she thought of her mother and father, her brothers and sisters. “ ‘Permitted' was the wrong word,” he went on, “and I am more concerned for your comfort than my reputation, or yours.”

She smiled at him, noting the sensitivity of his mouth, at odds with that determined chin. “So it is kindness that brings you, not duty.”

“
Touché
.” He laughed, dark blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “I plead guilty to contradicting myself, but not to prevarication. Call it mixed motives. To which may I add that I should be very pleased to welcome you to Llys.”

His charm strengthened Laura's resistance. “I am perfectly comfortable here,” she said, fishing a pink apple-blossom petal out of the colander of pale green beans. “My neighbours are pleasant, obliging people. The cottage is mine. My father's lawyer sends me ten pounds every quarter day, I have a little money put away, and I earn more with my sewing.”

“Sewing!” he exclaimed, shocked. “My dear Lady Laura, that is—”

“Not at all the thing?” She reached for another bean, hesitated as she saw a long-legged spider clambering over the heap of pods.

Before she could steel herself to deal with the horrid creature, Lord Wyckham whipped out his handkerchief, gently caught it, and shook it out on the ground. The simple action brought tears to her eyes. How long since anyone had protected her from a spider?

“Very well,” she said in a shaky voice. “I shall come to Llys. But I will not promise to stay, and I will not sell the cottage.”

He had won. Did he realize he owed his victory to a spider? More likely he supposed he had made her recognize the enormity of earning her living. What a very proper, conventional gentleman he was.

How different from Freddie!

“Excellent,” he said matter-of-factly, standing up. “My carriage is at the door.”

“Good gracious, sir, I cannot leave at the drop of a hat. I must pack my clothes and take leave of my friends and close up the house...” A dozen necessary tasks raced through her mind. “If you are in a hurry, I can travel by stage.”

“I beg your pardon, I did not mean to rush you. If my coachman drives you to call on your friends, can you be ready to leave this evening, do you think? We might spend the night in Cambridge and reach London tomorrow.”

“London? Where is Llys?”

“In Shropshire, on the Welsh border, due east of here but it will be quicker to go back to Town and out again by the post roads than directly cross country.”

“I...I had rather not go to London.” Papa and Mama never missed a Season in Town. She could not bear the possibility of a chance meeting.

“As you wish,” he said, with an indifference belied by the understanding in his eyes.

Lord Wyckham was altogether too knowing. Had he heard the full story of her elopement? Laura faced the fact that his motives might not be half so admirable as he claimed. She must be mad to go off with a stranger to an unknown destination. In a sudden panic, she clutched the bench with both hands. She was safe here...

The colander slid from her lap, depositing half its contents on the carpet of pink and white petals. Setting his hat on the bench, the baron crouched to right the colander and scooped up the handful of beans.

Impossible to distrust a man who gathered spilled beans and rescued one from spiders, she decided with a silent sigh.

He bowed, smiling, as he presented the colander to her. “Your luncheon, ma'am. We shall dine in Cambridge.”

She took the colander, and the hand he offered, and rose. He picked up the basket as if it were perfectly natural for a fashionable nobleman to carry such a prosaic object. They turned towards the cottage.

At the open back door, the gold braid on his scarlet coat flashing in the sun, Captain Wyckham stood flirting with Sally, invisible in the kitchen. The maid's giggles proclaimed her delighted with the attentions of the dashing young officer.

“May we interrupt?” said Lord Wyckham dryly.

His brother grinned. “I was just telling Sally she's in for a treat, ma'am. All settled is it? Sal, my girl, take off your apron. We're off to Shropshire.”

“Oh no, sir, I can't do that.” She appeared in the doorway, looking dismayed. “If you please, madam, Pa won't never let me go to furrin parts. He took on something dreadful when I wanted to work in Cambridge.”

“Of course, Sally, I did not expect you to go with me. I shall give you a quarter's wages and you can take care of the cottage for me while I am away.”

Lord Wyckham frowned. “That is all very well, but you cannot travel alone with a gentleman, ma'am.”

While his insistence upon propriety reassured her, Laura was ready to seize the excuse not to go. Captain Wyckham intervened.

“I'll go with you, Gareth,” he offered obligingly. “Two gentlemen, both relatives, will make it quite proper, ma'am—Cousin Laura. We must be sure to call each other Cousin.”

His brother agreed, though he seemed a trifle dubious. Perhaps he guessed at Laura's second thoughts.

They arranged that the carriage was to take the gentlemen back to Cambridge for the day and then return to be at Laura's bidding. She went up to her chamber to begin packing.

Through the open window came their voices as they walked around the outside of the cottage. “I expect I could hire a maid in Cambridge,” said Cousin Gareth. “You wanted to visit your friend.”

“I can see old Bunjie any time. I don't mind coming with you. Cousin Laura's a Trojan, isn't she? Game as a pebble! I rather like her. She's no beauty, of course, but it's just as well, for Maria don't take kindly to competition in that department.”

Laura gazed dejectedly at her meagre wardrobe of practical brown and grey cottons and worsteds, some cheaply dyed to mourning black. Not even fashionable clothes could ever turn her into a beauty. Ceci was the beauty of the family—Ceci, already the apple of her parents' eyes, who had caught the heir to a dukedom in the middle of their shared Season. If only Grandmama had not died the year before, so that Laura might have had a Season to herself instead of competing with her younger sister...

She shook her head vigorously. No more 'if only's. In her present situation, her mediocre looks were a positive advantage, she told herself with determined cheerfulness. She had been foolish to fear that Cousin Gareth had a dishonourable motive for whisking her away to his den, even if, as she suspected, he had not guessed she was pregnant. He would have no eyes for her—doubtless the loveliest ladies in the land sought his company.

Among them Maria. Who was Maria?

Laura sank down on her bed, sadly crushing the shabby gowns she had laid there. Why had it never crossed her mind that Lord Wyckham might be married?

Not that it made a great deal of difference to a five-month pregnant widow, except that Lady Wyckham might very well resent her arrival, pretty or no. She wished she had never agreed to go to Llys Manor, but she started folding her clothes for packing. She had agreed, and Freddie's cousin had gone to considerable trouble for her. For a month or two she could endure being an unwanted poor relation, then she would come home to have the baby.

* * * *

“I'm going to ride the next stage,” announced Rupert, as the carriage pulled into the yard of the Wheatsheaf at St. Neots. He opened the door, stepped down, then turned to address his brother. “Gareth, it's about time you warned Cousin Laura of what awaits her at Llys, and I don't want to be around when she throws her bandbox at you.” With a grin, he closed the door and disappeared.

Laura glared at Gareth. Though she realized Rupert was joking, Gothick fancies traipsed through her head. “Just what does await me at Llys?” she enquired grimly.

“Nothing so dreadful,” he protested, on the defensive.

“The house is falling down?”

“It's in excellent repair.”

“It is set on a crag in the midst of gloomy mountains with the nearest neighbours a day's ride off?”

“It's on a gentle hillside with a superb view—admittedly of the Welsh mountains—a mile from the village and ten from Ludlow, a pleasant market town.”

She tried to avoid the one question she really wanted to ask. “Your butler is a tall, cadaverous individual given to ominous predictions of imminent disaster?”

Gareth began to smile. “Lloyd is short, stout, and cheerful.”

“The housekeeper is addicted to strong drink?”

“Mrs. Lloyd is a Methodist. They have both been with the family all their lives.”

“The family...?”

“The family.” He grimaced. “It is to the family, of course, that Rupert referred.”

“I'm afraid your wife will not be pleased—”

“My wife! I am not wed, nor like to be.”

Laura's heart suddenly grew lighter. She relaxed against the luxurious olive-green velvet squabs as the carriage started off again. “So Maria is not Lady Wyckham.”

“Heaven forbid! I mean, no. Maria Forbes is the daughter of one of my uncles, a widow like yourself but with three children.”

Laura gathered from his gloomy voice that he was not over fond of the children. Her resolve to leave Shropshire before her baby's birth strengthened, though it had wavered when she learned that no affronted wife awaited her.

“Mrs. Forbes makes her home at Llys?” she asked.

“Unfortunately Uncle Henry, her father, is a diplomat with no fixed abode in England.”

“I daresay Mrs. Forbes runs the household and acts as your hostess.”

“No, my Aunt Antonia does that, my mother's sister. She brought us all up.”

His mother had died when he was young, then. Laura's memories of her own mother were not such that she could sympathize, so she evaded the subject. “All? Ah, yes, Cousin Rupert mentioned another brother.”

“Another three.” At last he cheered up, his affection for his brothers obvious. “Cornelius is a year younger than I. He took holy orders and holds the living at Llys. Then Rupert, then Lancelot, who is up at Oxford. And Perry—he's Percival but you call him Percy at your peril—he's at Rugby.”

“I look forward to meeting them.” She hesitated. “You have a large family. Are you sure there is room for another?”

“Lord, yes, plenty.” He laughed. “Though once appropriate, 'Manor' is misleading now.”

“It is a mansion?”

“Not if you envision a Chatsworth or a Blenheim. For one thing, Llys Manor grew up over the centuries rather than being built to a unified plan. But it is large enough for most purposes. I haven't even mentioned Uncle Julius, and we usually have at least one or two guests. Not formal house parties, just friends staying for a few days. It is an informal household, to Aunt Antonia's despair but I daresay you will not mind?”

“Not at all. After my life in the cottage, an excess of ceremony would make me terrified of putting a foot wrong.”

“No fear of that. I hope you will soon come to feel yourself quite at home,” he said seriously.

To her surprise, Laura found herself anticipating her stay at Llys with pleasure.

As the day wore on, and the sway of the carriage on its efficient springs became faintly nauseating, niggling doubts set in. Nothing in what Gareth had told her of the people at Llys explained Rupert's insistence that he warn her. She seized the chance to find out more when the captain came to sit with her while his brother rode—they were by far too gentlemanly to leave her alone.

“Llys Manor is a large house, I collect,” she opened, “since Cousin Gareth is able to accommodate so many relatives.”

“Jove, yes, a positive rabbit warren, with wings sprawling in every direction. It's not too difficult to get away from each other.”

“Why should you want to?”

“Aha, so Gareth was his usual discreet self. He didn't tell you, for instance, that Uncle Julius is mad as a March hare?”

“No!”

“Quite harmless,” he assured her hastily, “but definitely bats in the belfry. Aunt Antonia, on the other hand, is devilish—deuced—high in the instep. Her frown puts me in a quake, I can tell you. I'd rather face Boney any day.”

Laura suspected that she, too, had rather face Boney than a straitlaced elderly lady who was bound to disapprove of her. “And the others?” she asked with a sinking feeling.