The Baron’s Betrothal: An On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again Regency Romance (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series) (15 page)

“No need, Peters, thank you. Have someone see to my horse and rig, will you? We’ll be leaving again this afternoon.”
 

Clun took Elizabeth to the aviary first, knowing she would enjoy its exotic birds, though not for the reason the Fury did. His mother enjoyed her parrots and macaws because they could be taught to repeat what she said, as if seconding her opinions.
 

The aviary stood tucked into the castle’s foundation. From a distance, its framework looked like delicate filigree. As they approached it, the structure became a gargantuan, glassed-in birdcage. He led her to its wrought iron and glass door and bowed her inside. After securing the outer door, he opened an inner door and warm air enveloped them.
 

Exotic trees with splayed, waxy green leaves arched high overhead. Squat, broad-leaved fan palms and lace-like ferns grew in dense profusion. Somewhere in their midst, a fountain played and plashed. Sunlight filtered through the foliage so the air seemed to have a brilliant verdant cast. In the midst of this jungle, jewel-bright parrots and macaws flickered from place to place. They took delight in climbing up and vaulting into the air from high branches strewn with ropes of vine. Ear-piercing squawks and almost human calls punctuated the atmosphere.

The birds fascinated Elizabeth. Clun found them entertaining, too, though they screeched the Fury’s pet phrases in chilling approximations of his mother’s voice.

“Wretched creature!” An iridescent blue with yellow belly scolded while flapping its wings to settle on a perch. “Go away!”

Another commanded, “Come back!”
 

“Wretched creature,” another chanted before it groomed the lime green feathers on its back.
 

“Horrid thing,” a blue, red and yellow macaw called out. “Bad boy!”

“You’re a pretty bird,” a bright turquoise parrot screeched from a perch above Elizabeth’s head.
 

She watched the bird shimmy up the vine, fluffing its feathers in an arrogant display of its finery and sighed, “How very beautiful!”

“Indeed you are,” Clun purred without thinking. With a start, he realized what he’d said. She hadn’t heard him. His inadvertent bit of drivel passed unremarked, and he shook off his momentary lapse into God-knows-what.
 

After the aviary, they walked to the formal garden. It was late in the season for butterflies, but a hardy few still flitted among the last flowers.
 

“Clun, this is heaven.”

“Hardly,” he said thinking of his early life and the gothic horror usually in residence. He watched Elizabeth as she took in the orderly yews, lined up like infantry in review.
 

She turned back to him. “Don’t move,” she ordered. “There’s a flutterby on you.”

He stilled.

She pointed to his shoulder and he turned his head slightly to look. A bright yellow and blue butterfly slowly fanned its wings on his coat. After a moment, it sailed into the air, winking away in the light.

“Flutterby, my lady?”

“As a child, that’s what I called them. I couldn’t say butterfly properly. Was I so wrong? What sense is there in calling that magical creature ‘butterfly’? It doesn’t resemble a fly. Nor does one associate it with butter unless you consider pollen buttery, I suppose. I think butterfly is a misnomer, whereas flutterby suits it nicely.”

“Flutterby,” he tested it and laughed. “’Pon my word, Bess, you are a treasure.”

He gathered her in his arms for a rocking, affectionate hug of the variety Cook provided. It was the only innocent physical thing he could think to do to demonstrate his delight with her. When not being obstreperous or over-curious, he had to admit, she was a pleasant female to have on hand. He released her eventually, as he knew he must.

Spying something on the ground, she bent down to look at an odd, dew-covered pink flower growing off the path, “And what is this?”

“That little monster is the common sundew,” he informed her. “The sticky dew you see entices insects so it may trap and eat the hapless. It prefers bogs but, with the rain hereabouts, it grows where it will. My mother finds them fascinating.”
 

Not surprising, he thought, if one knew the Fury, who enjoyed setting her own traps. Luckily, Clun had grown too large too quickly for her to eat away at him with her caustic clinginess.
 

But why dwell on gloomy topics? They were at the castle, the Fury was not, and their day together had exceeded the baron’s most
 
hopeful prognostics.
 

Elizabeth wandered down the path.
 

From a distance behind, he heard Dafydd ap Rhys call out, “Lord Clun?”

She turned back.
 

Clun said, “Go on, I’ll find you, Bess. Don’t fall into any sundews.” She smiled at him and strolled out of sight. He wished he could bundle her behind a yew to make sure the Fury’s familiar caught no glimpse of her.
 

“Don’t trouble yourself, ap Rhys,” he called out to the castle’s de facto seneschal. Despite his hint and fervent desire, Clun was joined by the lanky Welshman.
 

“Good day, your lordship. I only just heard you were here,” ap Rhys apologized as he bowed. “Are you needing me?”

“Not at all. I wanted to see the castle. I’ll be leaving shortly.”

Ap Rhys looked down the path, reluctant to accept the implied dismissal.

“That will be all, thank you.” Clun said pointblank and blocked his view. Ap Rhys finally bowed and turned back to leave as he’d come, looking once over his shoulder.

Clun waited till he walked out of sight then strode down the path to find his free-ranging fiancée.

* * *

It happened at the castle when Lord Clun said ‘flutte
Rrr
by’ and rocked her back and forth in his arms, laughing. That was the precise moment Elizabeth knew she loved William Tyler de Sayre.
 

 
It began with his laughter. His rumbling amusement flowed deep and dark, like oak sap honey. When he abandoned himself to mirth, his eyes screwed up, his brows rose, his mouth, often a hard line of reproach, softened and curved up to reveal white teeth. His laugh sounded sweet and delicious and, as it subsided, it thinned the way honey did when drawn from the honey pot. Even more enchanting was the lone dimple in his left cheek. It started deep with his hearty laugh and smoothed away as he cooed himself slowly back to a quiet, happy huffing.
 

Finally, he purred in his deep, rolling, Welch-infused voice, “Oh, Bess dear, you are a treasure.”
 

‘Dea
Rrr
’ he said, and ‘t
Rr
easu
Rrrr
e.’ The sentiment rolled down her spine with his
Rr
’s.

Spoken with unalloyed affection, those few words melted her heart first. Then he gathered her in his arms without warning and gave her an affectionate bear hug as he rumbled. She stiffened in surprise, but he drew her up tight against him anyway and rocked her gently. He said nothing more; Elizabeth didn’t mind.
 

In a heartbeat, the rest of her melted.
Melted
. Even her knees softened like butter in the sun and turned all creamy. Her spine began to dissolve next and she had to throw her arms around his neck, just to keep herself upright on her feet. This was, she realized, exactly how she wanted to feel in a man’s embrace, like a delightful surprise.

She tried to pull back and check his impertinence. He merely clucked, tucked her head into the hollow below his jaw and chuckled till everything that had melted formed a pool of heat low in her belly.

“Flutterby it is, my lady.”
 

‘Flutte
Rrrr
by.’
Oh, good
Lord.
 

All she could do was sigh and nod against him. She felt his heart beat and his laughter reverberate through her. Reluctantly, she moved away and bowed her head rather than let him glimpse in her gaze all that she felt for him. The last thing she wanted to do was repel him with emotions he disdained. So she asked about the odd flowers at her feet to distract him.
 

When one of the castle’s servants called to Clun, he let her wander off. In solitude, she regained her composure.
 

Afterward, Clun escorted her back to the castle’s main entry. He pointed out the original keep and its immense rag stones, now part of the larger structure. Inside, tapestries and medieval armaments hung on the great room walls. A fireplace tall as the baron was a great, gaping, blackened maw surrounded by a hardwood mustache of a hearth. A delicate needlepoint fire screen did little to lessen the impression of dark, infernal depths.
 

In the castle’s portrait gallery in the ‘new’ Tudor-era wing, row upon row of de Sayres in deep, carved and gilt frames frowned down at them. The glowering men shared Clun’s coloring and features, dark hair, black, penetrating gazes, strong, straight noses, firm jaws and mouths. Dour women stared from their separate frames. The only portrait Elizabeth liked hung at the far end. This baron had a faint smile on his lips and softness about the eyes that differed from the haughty, impenetrable stares of the rest. He looked as though he’d just heard a naughty joke or was about to tell one. This portrait reminded her most of the man at her side. She’d seen that expression in life though it was fleeting.

“Who is this?”

“William Powys Tyler de Sayre, the previous baron.”
 

“He looks happy.”

“He was dissipated roué so he knew how to enjoy himself.”

“That’s awful to say.”

“Couldn’t help himself, or so I’m told. He fathered me then went his merry way,” Clun’s tone was chilly.
 

“Well, I like him,” she said.

“Which proves you’re a lunatic.”
 

Ignoring him, she asked, “Where is your portrait?”

“Don’t have one yet, takes forever. Ainsworth’s nearly out of his mind sitting for his. His Grace suffers from a near fatal case of the fidgets. He’s making his wife sit beside the artist so he won’t look like a complete wretch for posterity.”

“Who will you commission?”

“Sir Thomas Lawrence, same as Ainsworth. Wellington’s sitting for him, too. Apparently, he’s found a flattering angle for the Iron Duke’s great beak. He’s a miracle worker, in other words. Though he’ll have an easy time with you.”

“Me?”

“Look around, my lady. All these surly females married one or other de Sayre. Largest collection of Friday-faced beasts I’ve ever laid eyes on. There has to be one beauty among them. That is, if you can still manage a smile after we’re married.”

“Again, the gallows humor about marriage,” Elizabeth said, blushing. She did not acknowledge Clun’s compliment for fear he’d disclaim it.

He led her from the gallery through low doorways to parlors, saloons and on through much of the castle. He avoided the wing where the baroness’ rooms were.

“That’s not all there is, but it’s everything of interest,” he said to preempt her curiosity.
 

“Except your mother.”

“She is not here. Nor, I believe, is she of interest.”

“You are not close?”

“Ha!” It sounded more like a bark than a laugh, and he answered, “No. Not close.”

“Were your parents happy together?”

Another bark. “Not that I know of.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not in the least. It’s time to return. Roddy’s rarely wrong about the weather.” He offered his arm to her and she slipped her gloved hand into its crook. Over her hand, he placed his own. In a gentler tone, he said, “Don’t let it trouble you, Bess. That was their story. Ours is still to be written.”

“I am relieved to hear you say that.”

Elizabeth found the return equally as enjoyable as the trip to the castle had been. In the slanting autumn light, everything stood out in golden, high relief. Offa’s Dyke cast a long shadow.
 

In good time, they reached The Graces. He drove the gig to the main door and helped her down.
 

“I’ll have Cook delay dinner,” he said.

“No need. I can bathe and dress in time.”
 

Clun looked grim and distracted when she promised punctuality so she excused herself and hurried inside to make sure she was ready as promised.
 

* * *

God help him if she kept casually mentioning her intentions to
bathe
, Clun fumed.
 

A man’s heart could take only so many stresses before it sputtered to a complete stop. And his generative organ, he also noted sourly, could take only so much unfulfilled over-stimulation before it was rendered permanently limp by frustration.
 

He stomped in after her and made for the brandy decanter in the study. He needed a calming nip and a frigid dousing before dinner.

Chapter 12
 

In which everything that can go pear-shaped does.

W
hen Elizabeth formed an opinion on a subject, her opinion was firmly fixed indeed. Love, she knew, was a wholesome emotion that uplifted the spirit and nurtured the soul of the person who loved as well as the person who was loved. Clun’s stubborn refusal to contemplate the possibility of love baffled her.

Following their visit to the castle, they spent two days together in Clun village and in the larger town of Ludlow. They laughed and joked easily back and forth. Indeed, Clun continued to warm up to her, until without warning he cooled to the point of icing over. The cause of this sudden freeze remained obscure.
 

They had returned from their jaunt to Ludlow in high spirits and she suggested they drive directly to the stable so she might say hello to Algernon.

Clun guided the gig to the stable entrance. A groom held the horse while the baron stepped down to help Elizabeth alight. Inside, they came upon Ted leaning over the top stall board offering a carrot to the big gray.
 

When Clun cleared his throat, Ted jerked around. Carrots tumbled to the hay-strewn floor. The boy lurched off balance and would’ve fallen had not Clun caught him up.