The Babe and the Baron (5 page)

The elaborate arch over the stairway hid her from him until he was near the bottom of the flight. He ran down the last few steps.

“Laura, what the devil are you doing here?” He looked aghast and sounded furious, and he had never used such language in her presence before.

Puzzled, she responded calmly, “Admiring your warlike family history.”

“You ought to be in bed!”

“I am quite recovered, thank you. I cannot sleep forever.”

“But you must rest. Come and sit down.”

Aha, he had discovered her delicate condition. “In a moment. Tell me, pray, what battle is that over the fireplace?”

“Gravelines. The second baron sailed with Drake against the Spanish Armada. Do come and sit down, cousin,” he pleaded, clasping her upper arm. His deep blue eyes held a hint of desperation. “Lloyd has just taken tea into the drawing room.”

Tea would certainly be welcome. Unfortunately, Miss Burleigh and Mrs. Forbes doubtless wanted some, too. Laura held back, delaying the moment when she must face their hostility. She wondered why Gareth was so frantic, but did not like to ask. “Your house is delightful,” she said. “I should like to see more of it.”

“Yes, yes, naturally, I shall give you a tour—one of these days. The drawing room is an excellent place to begin.” He drew her irresistibly towards the stairs, then stopped and ran his fingers through his fair hair. “Dash it, you cannot climb the stairs.”

“Don't be nonsensical, of course I can.” She pulled away from him and started up, holding the rail and taking it at a leisurely pace. “On the way from my chamber I climbed countless stairs, both up and down.”

“I know, I'm so very sorry about that. Here, lean on me.” He offered his arm. She spurned it. “Aunt Antonia has already had a different chamber prepared for you, close to everything.”

“That is most kind of Miss Burleigh.”

“I'd have insisted had she not suggested it. I shudder to think of you walking all that way, and without help.”

“Cousin Gareth, I am not an invalid,” she snapped, beginning to be irritated. “Pregnancy is a natural condition, not a debilitating malady. That the journey tired me, I admit—”

“If only you had told me!”

“—but otherwise, I have never felt healthier. Indeed, the exercise of walking from my chamber has given me a healthy appetite. I hope the tea is accompanied by something to eat.”

“Cakes, biscuits, perhaps sandwiches. You are eating for two, though, and you ate so little as we travelled. I shall order something more substantial. What would you like?”

Much to her annoyance, Laura felt a sudden, overpowering craving for hot-buttered toast. She could almost taste it, slightly smoky, burnt at the edges, dripping with sweet butter. At home she would have gone to the kitchen, sliced a loaf, taken down the brass toasting fork from its hook, and toasted the bread at the kitchen fire. In this grand house, as in her childhood, it was a nursery treat. Wistfully she shook her head.

Not deceived for a moment, he asked anxiously, “What is it? What do you want?”

“I know it is impossible: hot-buttered toast.”

A grin of pure delight spread across his face. “What an absolutely splendid notion. I wager the toasting forks are still up in the nursery. Come and sit down, and I shall see what I can do.”

Laura smiled at him, forgetting his maddeningly excessive solicitude, forgetting to mistrust his charm.

He ushered her into a high-ceilinged room with dark linenfold wainscoting and tall lattice windows spattered with raindrops. A painted frieze ran round the walls above the panelling. At one end, a huge, intricately carved chimneypiece framed an inviting fire.

Two faces turned to observe her entrance, their expressions anything but inviting. Maria Forbes looked sullen, Antonia Burleigh stiffly disdainful. Laura clutched Gareth's sleeve.

Chapter 4

Gareth seated Laura by the fire, pulled up a tapestry-work footstool, and insisted that she use it. Miss Burleigh poured a cup of tea and he brought it to her, along with a plateful of tiny, triangular watercress sandwiches, trimmed of crusts.

“To keep you going,” he said. “I shall be back in just a moment.”

Though he left to provide for her whim, Laura felt deserted. The ladies sipped their tea in silence. Nibbling on a sandwich, she studied the fireplace, carved with wreaths of honeysuckle, bunches of grapes, arabesques, and arched niches holding vaguely Classical figures.

“Mama, who is that lady?” asked a small voice. Half hidden by Mrs. Forbes's chair, a gold-ringleted child of four or five, seated on another footstool, regarded Laura with bright-eyed interest.

“Her name is Lady Laura Chamberlain, darling.”

“Why is she here? Is she a visitor?”

“She has come to live at the Manor,” said Maria Forbes resentfully.

“Maria,” snapped Miss Burleigh, “pray do not speak of Lady Laura as though she were not here. Present the child to her.”

She pouted but obeyed. “Arabella, show Lady Laura how well you make your curtsy.”

“If I do, can I have some more cake?”

“Of course, darling. You shall have your brothers' share because they were naughty and Cousin Gareth says they may not come down to tea today.”

Arabella came to stand in front of Laura. She was dressed in a miniature version of her mother's high-waisted gown, white India muslin with deep flounces and coquelicot ribbons. She performed a perfunctory curtsy and said, “Hello. Why are you wearing that horrid dress? Are you a servant?”

Laura paused a moment to allow Maria to correct her daughter's impertinence. When no lesson in good manners came, she smiled at the child, who was after all not to blame for her mother's indulgence, and said, “Hello, Arabella. No, I am not a servant. I am in mourning.”

“But it's afternoon,” Arabella pointed out with irrefutable logic. “You did ought to wear something pretty, like me and Mama. Do you want some cake, 'stead of those horrid sammitches wiv the green stuff in them?”

“Maria, if you cannot make the girl mind her tongue, pray send her from the room!”

“I won't go, I won't go,” screeched Arabella, suddenly transformed into a small virago. “I didn't have my cake. You're a horrid old witch. I'll hold my breaff till I die.” She clapped her hands to her mouth, puffed up her cheeks and began to turn crimson.

“Really, Aunt Antonia,” wailed Maria, “you know what she is like. Why must you interfere? Now she will make herself ill. She's only a baby. Lady Laura did not mind. Hush, darling, you shall have your cake.”

“No, she shall not,” said Miss Burleigh grimly. “It is past time she was taught to behave herself.”

They continued to wrangle, ignoring Arabella who was now nearly purple. Leaning forward, Laura poked the child hard in both cheeks. Her breath exited with a whoosh and she gaped dumbfounded at her assailant.

“Well done, cousin.” Gareth had come in unnoticed, bearing two toasting forks and followed by a footman with a tray. “Arabella, go to Nurse at once.”

“I want my cake!”

“Little girls who throw tantrums have to make do with bread and milk,” he said sternly and pointed at the door.

She began to trail out, head hanging. Maria jumped up. “You are cruel, Gareth!” She seized a plate and a piece of cake and sailed from the room, nose in the air, towing her stumbling daughter after her by the wrist.

Gareth sighed, shrugged. “How can a mere male contend against a mother's love?”

His rhetorical question drew an immediate response. “Pooh!” said his aunt, as the footman set down the tray and departed with discreet haste. “Nonsense. Maria likes to have the child about her because she was once told what a charming picture they made together. She will not trouble herself to discipline her, and any attempt to do so she takes as aimed at herself.”

“I am inclined to agree,” said Laura hesitantly, “as far as I can judge from what little I have seen. Mrs. Forbes was far more intent upon her quarrel with Miss Burleigh than upon Arabella's imminent suffocation. Not that I suppose for a moment that she could possibly have held her breath long enough to suffer any damage.”

The elderly lady threw her a glance of surprised approval. Gareth looked doubtful. “Maria is easily offended,” he admitted, and changed the subject. “Aunt Antonia, you will not mind if I make some toast at the fire for Cousin Laura?”

Miss Burleigh waved gracious permission. “Another cup of tea, Lady Laura?” she enquired.

“If you please, ma'am.” Laura started to push herself out of her chair.

“Sit down!” roared Gareth.

Taken by surprise, Laura sat. Sooner or later, she thought crossly, she must make it quite plain to the dictatorial gentleman that she refused to be wrapped in cotton-wool. For the moment, there had been enough pulling of caps for one afternoon. She meekly accepted the cup he brought her.

He set Arabella's footstool before the fire and sat down. Soon the mouthwatering odour of toasting bread arose.

“Toast?” A pear-shaped gentleman of perhaps fifty summers wandered into the drawing room, sniffing the air. Narrow head with thinning grey hair, sloping shoulders, and undeveloped chest in a long labourer's smock widened to a comfortable pot-belly. Spindly legs in green satin breeches and clocked stockings seemed an unnecessary afterthought.

He peered through thick-lensed spectacles at Laura. “Have we met?” he asked uncertainly.

Gareth turned away from the fire. “My uncle, Julius Wyckham, cousin. Uncle, this is Lady Laura Chamberlain.”

“You are burning the toast, nevvie,” observed Mr. Wyckham, peering now at the ascending curl of smoke.

Swinging back to his task, Gareth jolted one of the forks. The toast fell off the prongs and rapidly blackened among the dancing flames. “Sorry, Laura. I'll have another for you in a trice.” He reached for a slice of bread.

Mr. Wyckham removed the fork from Gareth's hand and examined the prongs intently. “Must be a better way to do it,” he muttered, and trotted out of the room again, taking it with him.

“Julius is an inventor,” said Miss Burleigh with austere disapproval.

Gareth took the toast from the remaining fork, spread it lavishly with butter, and passed the plate to Laura. “You must admit, Aunt Antonia,” he said, spearing another slice, “occasionally he comes up with something useful. Remember the drying machine?”

“How could I forget. It was a large metal drum, Lady Laura, perforated with small holes. A clockwork mechanism rotated it above a charcoal brazier and it tumbled sheets and towels about, drying them quite efficiently in wet weather. Unfortunately, the clockwork broke one day. Two pair of the best sheets were badly scorched.”

“Uncle Julius had lost interest by then and never repaired it,” Gareth added.

“It sounds very clever,” said Laura. “That reminds me, I must wash and iron my gowns, ma'am. I daresay Mrs. Lloyd will tell me where to go?”

“You will do nothing of the kind!” Gareth swung round, once again endangering the toast.

Laura opened her mouth to protest, then licked a drip of butter off her hand instead as Miss Burleigh added her shocked prohibition. “It is quite out of the question. I shall have Mrs. Lloyd direct one of the maids to wait upon you.”

“Thank you, ma'am.” She might have argued with Gareth, but she recognized his aunt's objection as motivated by propriety, not over-solicitude. Besides, the old lady had mellowed somewhat and she had no desire to reawaken her antagonism.

Gareth gave her another slice of toast, and then spread one for himself. He was about to take a bite when he intercepted Miss Burleigh's wistful gaze. He exchanged a glance brimful of amusement with Laura. “Aunt Antonia, do you care to sample the product of my venture into domesticity?”

“Thank you, I will take half a slice.”

“Might I suggest, cousin, that you provide Miss Burleigh with a napkin?” Laura caught another drip with the tip of her tongue.

With a rueful grin, he passed her a napkin and served his aunt. Rupert came in, his scarlet coat exchanged for an aged shooting jacket. Exclaiming indignantly that no one had told him and he had nearly missed the treat, he took over the toasting. What had started as a thoroughly disagreeable situation turned into a merry party.

The last of the loaf disappeared into the captain's bottomless pit. He bore off his brother to the stables to discuss the horses purchased since he was last at Llys. As Gareth left, he bent over Laura and asked anxiously, “Are you quite comfortable? You need not come down to dinner, of course. Aunt Antonia shall order a tray for you.”

“Perfectly comfortable,” she assured him with a smile, ignoring the rest of his speech.

In fact, she was still a little tired after the journey, though she would not admit it to him for the world. As soon as the door closed behind him, she said to Miss Burleigh, “If you will excuse me, ma'am, I believe I shall lie down for a while before dinner.”

“Your previous accommodations were arranged before I was aware of your...delicate condition.” Miss Burleigh stood up and went to ring the bell, a hint of pink touching her sharp cheekbones. “Mrs. Lloyd shall show you to your new chamber, and I shall ask her to arrange for your dinner to be brought to you on a tray.”

A footman in brown and buff livery came in and was sent for the housekeeper. In the awkward silence that followed his departure, Laura decided that she could not live with the uneasy truce. Better to have the scandal in the open, where she could defend herself.

“I do understand, ma'am, why you wish as much as possible to exclude me from the family. My reputation was...sullied, through my own fault, five years ago. But I have done nothing since to deserve your contempt, unless my husband's faults be imputed to me also. Am I to suffer all my life because I was so foolish as to elope?”

“If it were only an elopement!”

Laura bit her lip. “You have heard the story, then.”

“I have.”

“Does Lord Wyckham know?” she asked in a strangled voice.

“I believe not. He was twenty-three at the time, a mere boy with no interest in such matters. I see no need to enlighten him.”

“I thank you, ma'am, but let me tell you my side of the story. Let me explain the circumstances, I beg of you.”