Rebel Baron (24 page)

      
Ignoring the steps the footman had pulled down, the baron jumped lithely to the ground and issued instructions for stabling the carriages once the baggage was unloaded. Grateful for the interruption, Miranda stood to alight. Courtesy demanded that she allow the baron to assist her. She could feel Brand's gaze still fixed on her, almost daring her to take his hand. Thank heaven they both wore gloves.

      
Still, it did not matter when the warmth of his fingers pressed into her palm. She was relieved when Lori and her friends followed, providing distraction for her most troubled thoughts. Miranda forced her attention from him to his home. It had once been lovely and could be again.

      
But it would never be hers. She'd lied about why she'd never redecorated her house. It had been Will's pride and joy, no matter how garish it was. And it was his only child's birthright. Just as this rambling country house would be for Brand and Lori's children. She tried to think of grandchildren with joy, but somehow the image would not come clear in her mind.

      
Miranda's disturbing thoughts were put aside as the party entered the spacious foyer, which had obviously been scrubbed and polished. The oak parquet floors bore the grooves and dips of great age but also revealed exacting craftsmanship. As did the gracefully curving staircase leading to the floor above. Fresh bouquets of wildflowers adorned a pair of spindly tables, but the walls above them, once covered with facing mirrors, were stripped bare.

      
“As you can see, I was not jesting about my predecessor’s penchant for selling whatever was worth a farthing, but I'm assured the beds have been fitted with clean linens and there is a table upon which we may dine.”

      
Lori turned to Brand with a smile, saying, “Then all's well for tonight, but tomorrow the first thing I wish to do is see those darling foals. Then perhaps, if this lovely weather favors us, we could have a picnic.”

      
“I say, do they play croquet in America?” Belford asked Brand. “My man has brought the equipment, which he could set up—with your permission, of course.”

      
“They call it lawn balls down where I come from, but yes, Jon, it's played. Awfully good of you to think of it,” Brand said with a smile. “I'm certain the ladies would enjoy it, but I was hoping we could find something a bit more challenging. Say, shooting? I've had my man pack a pair of matched self-cocking Adams Conversion revolvers. How about early tomorrow?”

      
Knowing when he'd been outmaneuvered, Belford harrumphed his assent. He had heard of the Rebel Baron's reputation as a crack shot.

      
As everyone dispersed to his or her assigned room to rest and freshen up before dinner, Miranda murmured to Brand, “That was a low blow indeed.” She chuckled. “Belford could not hit the Tower of London if he were standing directly in front of it.”

      
He winked at her. “I know. But I couldn't drive a wooden ball through one of those cursed little hoops if my life depended on it.”

      
Lori watched the two of them laughing and smiled to herself. She had some planning to do for tomorrow's picnic. That was why she'd invited the boorish Jon Belford, not to mention her erstwhile friend Abbie.

* * * *

      
“That...that man is the most insufferable, rude, opinionated, jumped-up—”

      
“Do you not like Mr. St. John, Tilda? Tell me true, now,” Lori teased as Tilda fussed over the girl's hair.

      
Miranda laughed as she observed Tilda's thunderous expression, made even more fierce by the hairpins in her mouth, around which she was muttering. “The argument between the two of you very nearly frightened the horses on the ride from the station,” she said, having overheard parts of it. “Mr. St. John appears smitten with you, Tilda.”

      
“He's far too full of himself to have any interest in me.” She paused to jab the last pin in Lori's hair, then continued, “Even if he did, I'd certainly not return the regard of a racecourse gamester such as that one.”

      
“He is a bit short of height for you,” Lori said thoughtfully.

      
“Ha! That's like saying Temple Bar is shorter than the Tower of London.” She inspected Lori's curly head and nodded with satisfaction. “Now it's your turn,” she said to Miranda.

      
“Just braid it and put it up out of my way.”

      
“Oh, no, Mother! Tilda and I have selected the gold tissue gown for dinner, and you simply must have your hair curled and piled up so its highlights will show by candlelight.”

      
An argument ensued. Miranda, as usual, lost to the combined forces of Lori and Tilda. She hadn't even known that the scandalously sheer gown was among the clothes the maid had packed. Lord only knew what else would materialize from the clutch of trunks scattered about the bare room!

      
When they came down for dinner, Lori was pleased with the way the baron stared at her mother, not even aware for a moment of what he was doing. As the ranking members of the entourage, he and Miranda were paired up for dinner, with a bit of skillful manipulation by her daughter. She sat between Jon and Abbie, whom she knew were appalled by the shabbiness of the country house. If only they could see the city house, this would appear a palace by comparison! She wisely kept that bit of information to herself, knowing that to reveal it would betray that she'd been there under less than proper circumstances. Even worse, it would be a betrayal of the baron, and she was developing a genuine affection for him.

      
During the long and rather dreary courses of the meal, Lori managed to chatter inanely with her friends about the regatta at Henley and what the ladies had worn to cheer on the crews. Knowing the conversation was boring in the extreme to Caruthers and her mother, she kept an eye on their discussion of political matters pending in Parliament, a subject upon which they could argue seemingly endlessly.

      
“Why can't you understand that giving votes to unpropertied men is foolish in the extreme? What stake do they have in society?” Miranda asked in exasperation.

      
“Keeping their families from starving?” Brand supplied helpfully. “Laissez-faire economic theory is all well and good—in theory. However, in practice it works only to the advantage of the rich. The leaders of industry can set any prices and pay any wages they wish. Factory workers must put their wives and children to work just to earn bare subsistence from their combined incomes. That, my dear lady, is the stuff of revolution.”

      
“And all this time I believed it was the highly educated planters and propertied merchants of America who rallied about the cry of ‘no taxation without representation,’ ” Miranda replied dryly.

      
“I was thinking more along the lines of the bloodbath in France in 1789,” Brand said. “In America, as in England, leadership has fallen to landholders and merchants, but because of the abundance of free land on the frontier, and concomitant opportunities for small businessmen to flourish, those with 'a stake in society,’ as you put it, are vastly more numerous. Here, in the richest nation on earth, you have literally millions of people trapped in an endless cycle of poverty. Look at the conditions in places like Seven Dials.”

      
“And you'd give the cutpurses in the rookeries the vote?” she asked sweetly.

      
“Not at present. But the government can educate and provide opportunities for those poor devils before they rise up and burn the whole of London to the ground. Don't think I haven't seen what can happen when human greed runs unchecked,” he said with a grim set to his mouth.

      
“I thought the war in America was about black slavery,” Jon interjected snidely.

      
“It was about many of the same issues plaguing England, the chief of which was the unchecked greed of Northern industrialists—and,” Brand conceded, “the evil of slavery, an institution that many Southerners never condoned.”

      
“Did you not own slaves?” Jon's tone made it an accusation. He was certain that a major in the Confederate Army must surely have done so.

      
“No,” Brand replied flatly. “My family paid fair wages to everyone at River Trails, white and black.”

      
“As I pay fair wages to those in my employ,” Miranda said, wanting to divert the conversation away from a topic she knew was painful for the baron and about which Jon Belford knew nothing. “It only makes good business sense.”

      
“Touché,” Brand replied as he raised his wineglass to her. “I could not agree more, but that still does not address the issue of what we're to do about the measures being considered in Parliament.”

      
His comment set off another spirited exchange between her mother and the baron. Lori took a sip of water, having declined any stronger libation, and smiled to herself. The evening was going just as she'd hoped.

      
After dinner, they adjourned to the music room, where Abbie attempted to coax a tune from an ancient and sadly neglected pianoforte. Since the gentlemen were to have an early go at shooting in the morning, everyone retired shortly. After seeing that her mother had gone upstairs, Lori followed Brand out into the garden, where she could see he was lighting a cigar.

      
“Everything went swimmingly tonight,” she whispered, catching him as he took a light puff.

      
“You think so, eh?” He appeared dubious.

      
“I know so. You and Mother have so much in common!”

      
He threw back his head and laughed. “If she'd been born in America, she'd have beaten every captain of industry in New England from old Jake Astor to young Jay Gould. Our political views are diametrically opposed.”

      
Lori dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “No matter. She really does treat her workers well, you know.”

      
“Yes, so I've heard,” he replied thoughtfully. “She is associated with Mr. Mundella from Nottingham, isn't she?”

      
“He's quite a progressive reformer—and a Liberal M.P.,” Lori replied with a cheeky grin.

      
Brand smiled at her. “You play the air-headed miss very well, but there's quite a brain busily at work behind that pretty face, isn't there?”

      
“If I know anything at all, I know it because I've learned from watching my mother.”

      
“You've had a fine example to follow. I only hope you don't have to pay the cost she did for her knowledge,” he said softly.

      
“You've learned about why she married my father?” Lori herself knew little but had always wanted to learn more. It was a subject Miranda always deflected by explaining that William Auburn had been a fine and upstanding man of whom Lorilee should be proud. End of story.

      
He shrugged. “A little. One day, when you're older, I'm certain she'll tell you about it. But it's for her to tell, not me.”

      
“You want her to tell you about it, too, don't you?”

      
“Girl, you are a wonder,” he said with a grin. “Your mother could not ask for a finer daughter.”

      
Suddenly, looking at him this way, she could see Brandon Caruthers, Lord Rushcroft, not as the violent older stranger who had frightened her, but rather as the male relative she'd never had and always wished for. Impulsively she leaned over and planted a light kiss on his cheek. “And she could not ask for a finer husband either, I think.”

      
Standing at the bedroom window, Miranda looked down on the tender exchange below. It was scandalously bold and highly improper for Lori to be alone with Brand, but they were young and would soon be affianced. She could see them laughing and smiling at each other...hear the soft, deep drawl of his voice and Lori's clear, crisp English soprano carrying on the summer breeze, although she could not make out what they were saying.

      
And then Lori kissed him before turning and dashing inside.

      
Miranda gasped with the sudden pain of it, remembering how she'd held her hand after his lips had touched it. What would it feel like to place her lips to his beard-roughened cheek?
Foolish, foolish old woman
, she berated herself, ravaged by guilt. Her heart throbbed with a sorrow so deep it seemed to crush her very soul.

      
Soon Lori would be up to bid her mother good night. How could Miranda face her daughter when she was in love with her child's husband-to-be?

Chapter Twelve

      
“This shall be ever so exciting,” Lorilee exclaimed as the ladies made their way across the open field where Brand was offering Jon his choice of weapons for their contest “I understand Lord Rushcroft is quite famous for his marksmanship.”