Raven's Ransom (14 page)

“Your tricorne, sir, is of no concern to me. Keep it upon your head, I beg. It is almost certainly of more use there.”

“What? What?” Lord Raven almost bellowed at this calm, rather mild reproof. Still, that was ever his way. Beneath the gruff exterior, his rather kind heart was rejoicing. If this young man could play fast and loose with his fortune, he didn’t need it. Lord Rochester, marvelously, unaccountably, was offering for Primrose out of sounder motives than he had feared.

Lord Rochester cut into his private thoughts. “You hear me, Raven! The wretched ransom—and yes, I call it that—is of more nuisance than consequence. Allow me Primrose, and I shall be satisfied with the
real
treasure.”

“You shall, shall you?” The gruff voice, in spite of itself, was more mellow.

“Oh, undoubtedly.”

“The minx! She said nothing of meeting you at all.”

The marquis felt a sudden stab of pain.

“Nothing at all?”

The earl, for the first time in forty years, actually grinned.

“Nothing at all. That means, my dear, glum-looking greenhorn, that in the contrary way of females, you have made a conquest. Shall I ask you how this came to pass?”

“I think not.” Lord Rochester’s lips twitched a little, though his voice remained pleasingly firm.

“Bother! I think it would make the most intriguing tale yet. Despite her calm exterior, Primrose has always struck me as a dark horse, rousable to passion.”

“Quite possibly, but it is a tale that I
assure
you, my lord, shall remain untold. I take it you are amenable to my offer, despite any or all prior claims?”

The Earl of Raven shrugged. It would not do to appear too eager.

“Suit yourself.”

“Oh, I shall, my lord. I shall. By the by, I have a missive here from my mother. How remiss of me not to have handed it to you earlier.”

“The marchioness? May I have it?” If the earl appeared a little eager, Rochester appeared not to notice. He rather pitied the old man, really, for there was nothing in the missive that was likely to bring hope to his cheeks or a sparkle to the heavy, black eyes.

He was wrong. His lordship ripped open the contents and snorted, a
decided
glimmer in his world-weary eyes.

“Ha!” He said. “Ha! So your mother thinks she can whisk away my granddaughters in the twinkle of an eyelash, does she? Well, there she is very much mistaken! Lily may be her goddaughter, but by god, blood is thicker than water any day! She shall not ‘sponsor’ them, if you please! As if the Chardey sisters need sponsoring! Why, their blood is all as blue as you please, their lineage unimpeachable, as granddaughters to the Earl of Raven!”

Rochester was gentle. “That may be so, sir, but they are still in need of chaperonage. Why, Primrose believes she is old enough to play that part! She as good as told me so!”

“Stuff and nonsense! Primmy is a diamond of the first water; she is not to be regarded as a miserable, maudlin, meddling old . . .”

“Ah”—Rochester’s eyes lit with sudden amusement—“I take it you do not hold chaperones in high regard?”

“No I do not! Crabby old spinsters! And if you have the impertinence, sir, of suggesting that my Primrose falls into that category, why, I shall . . . I shall . . .”

“Withdraw all consent?”

“Precisely. And stop smirking, sir! You are liable to choke! Though what in tarnation I should care . . . Good God, I feel another spasm coming on....” Lord Raven put old, gnarled hands to his chest. Alarmed, Gareth rang the bell hard and stepped forward. Lord Raven appeared short of breath, but recovered sufficiently to wave the younger man away irritably with his cane.

“I am not dead yet, Rochester, so you needn’t look so grim. And don’t think to slumguzzle me with your kindness merely because I apparently have a foot in the grave. There is fight in the Raven yet, and I give you fair warning.”

Brave words, but they failed to have the desired impact on his guest. Lord Rochester refused to continue the argument, despite various taunts from his host. Instead, he rather solicitously handed the earl some water—for which he was not thanked—and waited quietly for a manservant to arrive.

He took heart when Lord Raven revived sufficiently to remark that if Lady Rochester
did
take them on, she would best have her wits about her, for his granddaughters were nothing, if not hen-hearted, and would undoubtedly lead her a merry dance. By which Lord Rochester inferred that grudging consent had been given, and privately rejoiced.

Sadly, the marquis, though burning with sudden impatience, did
not
speak with Primrose that day, for by the time his singular interview with Raven was brought to a close, the sisters had left the house, headed, with just a groom and a footman, for Hookhams and the London Museum. He was not alone in his regret, for Lily, too, was sighing at this rather unexciting agenda. She wondered whether Barrymore had received the note she’d penned, and more importantly, what he would do about it. Surely,
surely,
he would not be so hard-hearted as to ignore it?

Perhaps she ought to have stayed at home in case he called. Better still, she ought really have sneaked out of the house and called up a hack. She had no patience with young ladies who sat around in hope when they could have been devising ingenious ways of shaping their own fate. True, she could be ruined, but oh, at such a very tender age, the specter of such a thing seemed too far away to contemplate. Besides, she had not imagined the blaze kindling in Lord Barrymore’s eye. She wanted nothing more than to kindle it again, detestable Raven’s Ransom or no.

She was still deliberating over her next rather uncir-cumspect course of action, should Lord Barrymore fail her, when her eyes alighted on a rather old-fashioned landau. Despite the fact that the wheels were not as well sprung as they might have been, the carriage was smart, all up to the rig with a fresh coat of paint. It drew to a halting stop some small way up Marlborough Street. None of the sisters hurried, for the chaise was unknown to them, but something in the bearing of the sole passenger sent delicious warning tingles up the youngest Miss Chartley’s spine.

“Good afternoon, ladies!”

“Good afternoon, my lord!” Primrose answered, for Lily, though a wreath of sudden smiles, was suddenly, uncustomarily, tongue-tied. My lord—for indeed, it was undoubtedly Lord Barrymore within—did not appear to notice. Rather, he grinned and politely remarked that the weather was crisp, for that time of year. At which both Primrose and Daisy agreed heartily.

Lily, however, was silent, for she was gazing quite shamelessly at the gentleman in the debonair morning coat of ruby red superfine. She appeared mesmerized by his epaulettes, which indeed
were
rather handsome, being trimmed in gold braid and adding a military style to his jaunty ensemble. Still, my lord could wish that the full force of her deep emerald eyes could be cast a little higher, perhaps, to match his own. In this wish he had to be patient, for Lily—ever resourceful even in tongue-tied crises such as these—was now scheming to consult him alone. She thus did not needlessly waste her energies on trifles like looking up. The amused, rather twinkling blue eyes that watched her were doomed to disappointment.

“Would it be daring, Miss Primrose, to offer to convey you all to wherever your destination might be?”

His gaze turned from Lily with reluctance and alighted, once again, upon the remaining sisters.

“I am afraid, so, my lord.” Her eyes stared at him levelly.

Daisy dug her parasol into the elder Miss Chartley’s ribs, but she need not have bothered. Dear Primmy was merely having fun at his lordship’s expense.

“It would be daring, sir, for I do not believe that your elegant chaise would house more than two extras at most, and we have five between us, counting Horsley our footman and Standish, the groom.”

Both men shuffled uncomfortably under the viscount’s sudden scrutiny.

“True, Miss Chartley! How very maladroit of me not to have perceived the problem instantly. Shall I send for a larger chaise?”

“On no accounts, my lord, for Daisy and I were merely stepping into Hookhams and that, as you can see, is not so very far at all.”

“Ah. And Miss Lily? Was she not going to select a book for herself?” My lord addressed himself very properly to the
elder
Miss Chartley, but it was clear by the direction of his smile that it was the
younger
Miss Chartley that maintained his interest. She answered, now, before Primrose could dream up a plausible reply.

“No, for I still have
Evalina
to get through and the heroine is so tedious it takes her
pages
to do anything!”

“How very inconsiderate! I am certain that if
you
were the heroine, your readers would not have the substance to make a similar complaint.”

“No, for I should not weep into my pillow and pray for miracles. I would take action upon the instant.”

“Like writing clandestinely to the hero and demanding immediate rescue?”

Lily shifted uncomfortably in her pastel walking boots of powder blue. She shot a glance at her sisters, but they seemed satisfyingly unaware of the innuendo that was passing between them. So, gathering her courage, she took a deep breath, and looked, at last, boldly into the handsome face.

He quirked an eyebrow that nearly caused her to choke. Pointedly, she ignored him, as she replied, with some emphasis, “
Exactly
like that, my lord.”

“Ah.”

He smiled noncommitally but Lily was not deceived. She no longer wondered whether he had received her note, or how to ask him in so public a place with the sharp ears of her sisters about her. They were dears, of course, but she knew she had been horribly naughty in demanding an assignation with the frivolous likes of Denver, Lord Barrymore.
Especially
when Grandfather had so expressly forbidden it. Primmy was bound to have scruples. Daisy, too, though her soft heart would feel earnestly for her. Better they knew nothing of it. Now, she waited for Barrymore’s next move. Not anxiously, for by the set of his shoulders he was bound to have thought up
something.
One did not have such delectably compelling shoulders if one was not a man of firm resolve. Lily, for all her youth, was determined about this.

“Shall
you
step into my carriage, then?”

“Said the spider to the fly?” Primrose’s tone was light, but the words were curt and interrogatory.

“With the groom up front, of course. Stanley, was it?”

“Standish. And
that,
of course, makes all perfectly acceptable.” Primrose allowed him a glimmer of a smile. My lord responded in kind, though he cursed poor Standish to the devil.

“Standish?”

The groom made an inarticulate gesture, being a man of fewer words than stable talents—and hoisted himself, pillionlike, upon Lord Barrymore’s finest beast. This was not nearly so fine as Lord Raven’s, being one of the few the viscount had not sold off to recoup his debts, but it was admirable nonetheless. Standish made a huffing murmur into his throat and subsided back into habitual silence.

“And now, Miss Lily?”

Lord Barrymore stared hard at his beloved. She gazed at him in trusting triumph and tried desperately to still the sudden beating of her heart. Surely a man brazen enough to whisk her out from under the elder Miss Chartleys’ noses must care? Or did he merely wish to privately—and decidedly—decline her rash offer of herself and the gamble that necessarily came with it? At either possibility, Mistress Chartley’s heart felt quite entitled to hammer ceaselessly in her chest, and did so with unrelenting vigor. As she climbed into the landau and waved her sisters away with an airy brush of her satin-gloved hand, she could hardly hear herself think. She wondered whether her thoughts were as transparent to Lord Barrymore and she winced. Oh, if only he were not
quite
as debonair! Or quite as much in need of funds!

She was very quiet as the horses settled into a pattern and clip-clopped against the cobbles in a soothing, if rather monotonous rhythm. The viscount’s groomsman must have known his destination, for his lordship saw no need to issue any altered commands to the first postilion. Rather, he concentrated all his energy on
not
kissing the adorable Miss Lily full on the lips, an act he was perfectly certain she would approve, but one he was equally certain society would not. So he laid his cane upon his knees and settled for watching the breeze play havoc with her neat, rather elegantly turned chignon. Lily said nothing.

“Excellent weather, is it not?”

She peeped at him. Her eyes were wider than he remembered, and more green. Behind her, England was turning from cobble to lane. She scarcely noticed, for his voice was a luxurious tone she had not before encountered. Still, she was not the type of lady to agree without question to everything a gentleman—however personable—might say, so she turned her mind to the question and pulled her bonnet down hard.

“If
you are partial to great gusts of wind and icy squalls, my lord.”

“Icy squalls? You exaggerate. But here, if you are cold, you may have my traveling rug.”

For the first time, Lily blushed. The rug was warm from his knees and the intoxicating thighs one tried so hard not to notice. Or at least to
peep
at without being observed. So annoying that Barrymore seemed to be a mind reader, for he obligingly revealed his legs, shockingly clad in buckskins that had not the shadow of a crease upon them, and stretched them—and himself—luxuriously, so she could see both the buckskins and the broad expanse of his impeccable chest.

When she blushed again, he merely chuckled and cocked his head annoyingly in her direction.

“Where are we going, my lord? Should we not be turning back?” The first question was asked idly, to turn his mind from his coxcomb thoughts. Also, to introduce a safe topic of conversation. It was about time, Lily thought, that she conversed. She would not like Lord Barrymore to think she was deficient in turning out a common phrase. The second question came rather more sharply, for she had just noticed, from the pastoral scenery, that they were well beyond the boundaries of fashionable London.

The viscount grinned and wrapped the traveling rug snugly abut her person.

“Turn back? After all the trouble I’ve been to to abduct you? It is not easy to do such a thing, you know, in the very heart of London! I was forced to bribe your under butler into divulging your direction, and that, you know, goes against the grain with mel”

“What?”
Lily gazed at him in a turmoil of confusion.

“Do I infer this is not to your liking? I felt perfectly certain, after the note I received, that this was your most earnest desire! I have had my team tooling up and down the streets all morning, hoping for a glimpse of your lovely self.”

“My nose is red from the cold. I cannot be lovely at all. ”

“True. That is why I propose we marry at once and have a delectable wedding feast by a cozy fire. That way, your nose will soon be restored to its former glory.”

“Oh, you are horrid! There is nothing wrong with my nose. You trifle with me, sir, and I cannot say I like it!”

“No? Then I shall have to make amends. I assure you, madame, that when next I trifle with you, you shall like it enormously.”

Lily blushed. “You are a coxcomb, sir, and I should scream!”

“Oh, undoubtedly. That would certainly be the
correct
thing to do in such a circumstance.”

Lily looked at him doubtfully. Was he teasing her? Certainly, there seemed to be a frivolous ring in the deliriously fine lilt of his tone. If only he would stop looking at her, then perhaps she would be able to think! She averted her gaze and Lord Barrymore very kindly suggested that he order the landau to stop.

“Why, my lord? That we may turn back?” Lily felt a most unaccountable stab of disappointment.

“No, don’t be so absurd, my chicken, we are not turning back. I merely meant so that you can scream. Stanley shall not hear you if the horses are trotting at this pace and the breeze is howling behind us.”

As he spoke, a great gust of wind flung the remains of Lily’s walking bonnet skyward. Her grown-up chignon came adrift in seconds, causing a squeal of dismay.

“There, that is a start, but I cannot help but mention a better attempt ought to be made. That sounded more like a squeak than a gusty shriek. Stanridge has not so much as heard you.”

“Standish. And that was not a scream. That was merely annoyance at the loss of my bonnet. I fear it cost Lord Raven a fortune.”

“And shall undoubtedly cost
me
an equal one in its replacement. Forget the bonnet, I despise the things anyway. Your hair is much better as it is. It is flowing like a witch.”

“What a horrible thing to say!”

The Viscount Barrymore grinned. “Then get used to it, for I shall
always
call you a witch. If you didn’t have green eyes that entranced me quite sinfully, I should not now be making a cake of myself by marrying you!”

“Not even for the Raven’s Ransom?”

“Oh, quite possibly for
that,
but I cannot be certain.”

He was teasing again, but Lily could not help wishing he had not answered as lightly.
Was
he abducting her purely for yet another gamble? For a chance at the riches Lord Raven dangled so skillfully before him? Suddenly, despite all her earlier protests, it mattered to her. Yet is was the one question, in all earnestness, that she feared asking. So she accepted his flippant answer with a toss of her head that sent such sparks flying between them that Lord Barrymore thanked the heavens that he had a special license in his pocket. There were certain limits to a gentleman’s patience, after all! Lily certainly raised him to those limits faster than even the first serving wench he had bedded as a boy.

In front of them, Standish was growing restless. It was not his place to question the gentry, but Lily was a high-spirited thing and if she took a notion into her pretty little noggin there was nothing anyone could do about it. Nothing, of course, save the
butler
, who would probably take a switch to his shoulders before dismissing him out of hand. Miserable, poor Standish could only glance in dismay at the first postilion—a gentleman very firmly entrenched in the viscount’s household—who seemed to see nothing amiss in an unscheduled trip into the country.

“Stanborough seems resdess.”

Lily giggled.
“Standish,
you horrid fellow! And I don’t wonder he is resdess, for Grandfather shall have spasms when he finds out.”

“Then you agree to relinquish your pretty name of Chartley and take up the hideously sober appellation of Barrymore?”

“You have not yet asked, my lord.”

“One never proposes when one is abducting. It is not
comme il faut.
All the textbooks agree.”

“Now you are being nonsensical!”

“And
you
are avoiding my query.”

“Oh, very well, then, I shall be Lady Barrymore. But I warn you, my lord, if we are headed for Gretna I shall be chilled to the bone and
quite
unable to speak my vows
.
I’ve heard the journey takes days and I have not even a feathered muff.”

“How improvident! One should always dress to be abducted. It is the first law of any decent ladies’ seminary. I am surprised your education is so deficient.”

“And
I
am surprised you know so much about young ladies!”

“Are you? Don’t be. I am rather knowledgeable on that score.”

Lily felt a sudden lump in her throat. She cast her eyes downward, so that he would not get a glimpse of her maudlin tears.

“Yes, a rake and a fortune hunter. I had heard that.”

Barrymore’s tone was suddenly hard. “Do not be deceived by all you hear, Miss Lily.” He relented as he caught the glimmer of a shimmering tear. It had fallen from downcast eyes and stained elegant pastel-colored gloves. “Oh, do look up!
I
shall try not to eat you if
you
try not to sniff! We are not traveling to Gretna, but we have several miles more to traverse in this unsatisfactory traveling rig. Yes, you are perfectly correct, I
should
have brought a closed chaise, but sadly, being at
points non plus,
I sold it!”