The Baron’s Betrothal: An On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again Regency Romance (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series) (19 page)

In Shropshire, he’d wanted her when she hadn’t flirted at all. Now he was ravenous for her after days of proximity at The Graces and nights of nettlesome dreams. Indeed, he’d just dreamt of seducing her in detail. And a trip to the privy notwithstanding, his appetite remained keen. If she kept eyeing him in that thoughtful, wanton way of hers, he would crumble. Indeed, he was only moments away from tearing his mother’s hand-me-down carriage dress off her and taking her on the lumpy bed when Panic hissed, ‘Ruin her and she’ll regret it.’
 

It was just the cold splash of reality he needed to drown out the howls of Lust.

“If only,” she sighed without voicing the rest.

“What?” Clun choked out while Lust whispered in his muddled brain, ‘If only she wants what you do, Clun, do it, do it, do it.’
 

“It’s of no consequence. I should go,” she said and slipped out the door just in time.
 

‘Nooooo!’ Lust wailed between his ears and sent him prowling into the narrow hallway after her.
 

“Lady Elizabeth,” Clun whispered to her, “A man has only so much forbearance, you’d be wise to remember that.”
 

“Forbearance? Why, you curd-witted clunch,
I changed my mind,” she spat.

“You were safe even if you hadn’t, my lady,” he whispered back, perjuring himself.
 

“Lummox,” she ground out before disappearing into her room.

As last man standing in the hall, Clun prevailed. Even so, he sensed it was a pyrrhic victory.
 

Chapter 15

In which a journey of a thousand leagues ends with one misstep.

T
hough the last day of their journey was mild, the atmosphere in the carriage was decidedly frosty. Clun began inside but soon tapped on the trap and instructed his coachman to stop. He exited with a curt ‘by your leave’ to ride Algernon out of sight behind the carriage.

With each mile marker they passed, Elizabeth’s heart grew heavier. The last hours they could be together, Clun preferred not. Then again, after her clumsy, botched seduction, she couldn’t blame him for staying out of confined spaces with her.
 

The first hours went by at a snail’s pace. Her companion inside, the upper maid, sought refuge in sleep. Elizabeth could not. Nor could she read to distract herself. Even on the smooth, tarmacadam toll road, the swaying of the baron’s well-sprung carriage made her motion sick if she attempted to close her eyes or read a printed sentence. With absolute certainty, she would lose her mind from boredom without a distraction.
 

Press close as she might to the quarter light, her vantage point did not allow a glimpse of the baron riding behind the vehicle.
 

So she stared at scenery through Buckinghamshire and into Middlesex, relieved only by the stops they made to change teams and refresh themselves. Clun was uniformly taciturn at these stopovers. Countryside finally gave way to more frequent, ever more prosperous-looking hamlets and villages as they neared the outskirts of London. Elizabeth considered dropping the glass and craning her head out to find Lord Clun. She thought the better of it several times. No lady of quality would do such a thing. Besides, she was not sure the borrowed oversized poke bonnet would fit.
 

After much inner struggle, she slid down the window’s glass and peeked out as best she could. No sign of the baron. The carriage jounced and the top of her bonneted head rattled painfully against the upper frame edge with a crunch.

“Ow!”
 

 
Irritated beyond all bearing, she shoved her head through the unforgiving aperture, bonnet and all. Ominous cracks let her know the hat’s architecture had not survived. Though the maid had assured her the baroness would never miss it, Elizabeth still felt badly for ruining it. With the brim now at odd angles, she anticipated the retraction back through the window would do even more damage than the outward projection had.
 

She twisted her head and leaned as far out as she might but only glimpsed the annoying baron, astride his big, gray horse, tilting his head to look at her. He lifted his tall beaver hat with a smirk. His amusement infuriated her.
 

“Lord Clun,” she called out to him, her broken bonnet brim flopping.
 

With a pounding of hooves, Clun rode up beside the carriage, “Yes, my little turtle.”
 

She couldn’t very well ignore the clod, having just stuck her head out of the coach window and catcalled to him, but she was sorely tempted. Turtle, indeed.
 

Tamping down her pique, she asked, “Will you ride the entire way to London on horseback? Won’t that be tiresome?”
 

Her bonnet brim flapped up and down over her face because the window was too small for her to prop it up with her hand. Worse, with every upward flip, she saw how much her flopping brim amused him.
 

“I’ve ridden for years, Lady Elizabeth, I am content.”

“But I’m so uncomfortable,” she admitted to him, gripping the bottom of the window. “Won’t you join us? Just for this last distance.”

He shook his head. She scowled at him. He smiled in reply and reined in Algernon to drop back behind the carriage once again. After several awkward tries, she yanked her head and the bedraggled hat back inside the carriage. The rumble of his laughter outside made her blood boil.
 

She closed the window with a hard snap, snatched at the ribbon under her chin and tore the broken bonnet from her head. Why hadn’t she removed it before poking her head out the window? Sad to say, she thought she looked dashing in it and wanted to cajole the baron while looking her best.
 

Vanity, thy name is Elizabeth
.

The mangled hat on the empty seat reproached her, too.
 

Hours, no, ages, no,
eons
later, the coach pulled into an inn yard and the carriage door swung open. Clun filled the tiny doorway and helped her and the maid step down. They would change horses and have a small repast, he informed them.

“Bareheaded, are you?” Clun sniggered. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Poor hat.”

She frowned, spun on her heel and stalked into the inn without him.
 

Elizabeth was glad for the opportunity to stretch her long legs, use the convenience and have some tea and toast to ease her queasiness. She’d never been a good traveler and with so many additional upsets, her stomach felt turned upside down and inside out. Making matters worse, whenever the baron smiled, something inside did a quick somersault.
 

* * *

After their mostly silent repast, Clun decided to join the women in the carriage. Elizabeth’s pallor and lack of appetite alarmed him. She’d reassured him that coach travel made her stomach uncomfortable, nothing more. Still he worried. So he professed his boredom with riding behind the carriage on a dusty toll road, even though he’d had years of dusty travel on horseback during the war.
 

As tiresome as marches had been on campaign, he and his friends eased their time in the saddle with insults and dares thrown back and forth. There was much about his wartime experiences he willed from memory, but recollections of Maubrey, Seelye and Percy, the other Horsemen of the Apocalypse, were among the best in his life. Meeting his fiancée would probably prove just as memorable. Likely, it would linger for years as a regret. It didn’t bear thinking on, he concluded.

After he helped the ladies into the carriage, he climbed in and took the backward facing seat. The petite maid tucked her legs under her seat, curled neatly into the corner and made herself inconspicuous.

“Oh, so you would join us now, Lord Clun?” Elizabeth said, a new battle line drawn. “We’ve practically reached London. Why bother?”

“Wouldn’t do to let you escape the carriage and run off in the city,” he quipped. He regretted saying it the moment words left his lips. Her eyes slid to the door nearest her.
 

 
“Now, Elizabeth, do not contemplate anything so shatter-brained,” he said with a sinking feeling. “I’d never forgive myself, or you frankly, if you threw yourself from the carriage in traffic. You’ll crack your head open or get yourself trampled. Put that idiotic scheme out of mind this instant.”

She merely arched an eyebrow.
 

Clun sat opposite her, regretting his decision to keep her company. He didn’t dare nod off now and only wished there were a way to lock the coach doors. Or perhaps chain her to an interior lamp fixture.
 

Where were manacles when one needed them?
 

He didn’t want to leave the carriage again — so little time remained to be with her. Yet, staying was its own kind of torment. The air inside carried her scent, of fresh, clean, scrubbed skin and sweetness. It was distinctly, unforgettably her own.

Although they rode in a fairly spacious London-built carriage, the two long-legged creatures looking daggers at each other could not find a comfortable arrangement for their lower limbs. Try as they might to avoid it, any movement caused inappropriate contact.
 

Her primness goaded him to rub his legs up against hers. He didn’t do it. Still, she kept a close eye on him despite his good behavior.

Finally, the baron said, “Needs must,” and gathered Elizabeth’s gowned legs at the knees and shifted them to the right of his legs. He stretched his own out to his left.
 

“Thank you,” she ground out.

In theory, legs running parallel to one another need not touch. In reality, every sway of the vehicle caused their limbs to brush against each other. She kept eyeing him as if she expected something. What, he had no inkling, so he stared back. Let it never be said he couldn’t give as good as he got.

In the next instant, she dazzled him with a smile.
 

Clun decided to feign sleep. That was safe. He might drowse, but he wouldn’t fall deeply asleep. That way, if his betrothed got a maggot in her brain about flitting off on a whim, he could snatch her back by the scruff of her lovely neck before she did herself any real harm.
 

* * *

Elizabeth waited patiently for the baron to speak. He watched her as wary as a cornered animal. So she smiled at him to encourage conversation. In reply, he gave her his blackest look. Then, without another word, his lordship crossed his arms, tucked his gloved hands into the armpits of his greatcoat and let his chin sink to his chest.
 

He fell asleep.
 

Oh!

She scorched him head to knees, to no effect. She thought about kicking him — just a little — but didn’t. He slipped easily into the arms of Morpheus, leaving her to simmer queasily on her own. She stared out the window at a fixed point on the horizon to stave off her nausea.

The outskirts of London sprawled with an odd mix of fields, villas and commercial buildings. The closer they came, the more densely built were the houses and businesses crowding the main thoroughfare.
 

It was dark when their carriage rolled along Edgeware Road toward the heart of fashionable Mayfair.
 

Elizabeth contemplated her future. In less than half an hour, she would have to face the earl, confess her betrothal must end and weather his censure. After which he would sequester himself in his library with his books, leaving her to ‘consider carefully what she’d done.’
 

As the last few miles passed, her regrets ranged more widely. She was sorry to disappoint the earl and inconvenience Clun; but she deplored the necessity of finding an alternative to the baron. She already knew she would never meet a man more to her liking than the intransigent, emotionally-retarded Lord Clun.
 

If it were possible to put a fairy tale curse on him, this would be hers: that Clun would fall hopelessly in love and suffer all the torments it entailed, just as she had. And furthermore she prayed that she might witness it. She muttered this none too quietly to herself.
 

His lordship stirred. He scrubbed a big hand down his face, blinked at her then sat up straight. His legs brushed along hers from knee to ankle.
 

“I think you’re making a terrible mistake,” she said quietly. “Not only about me,” she stammered and blushed, “but generally.”

“How so?” He leaned back into the far corner of the seat.

“You are absurdly, if not to say, irrationally pessimistic about love.”

“You may be right,” he said, not meeting her gaze.
 

“I know I am and I’m sad for you.”

“Don’t fret for my sake. I must be content with your decision.”
 

“Not my decision, yours. And I hope you come to regret it, Lord Clun.”

“Time will tell,” he said and glanced out of the window. “Almost to the park, my lady.”
 

Just beyond the glass, evening fog swirled in banks of dense floating sludge. This was the ‘air’ in London at the close of cold, dank days. Almost nothing of Hyde Park was visible, just the dim caramel halos of evenly spaced street lamps. Without wind, an impenetrable cloak of murk had settled over Mayfair as night fell, thanks to sea fog mixing with coal smoke.
 

It wouldn’t be long once the carriage reached Knightsbridge Road. Traffic was light. She fought her tears and leaned forward to touch Clun’s knee.
 

“Lord Clun, I hope that we may remain friends, for I have come to appreciate your qualities.”

“And I yours, Lady Elizabeth,” he said with a croak. He cleared his throat to add, “There’s no other woman like you in England.” His avuncular tone sounded false to her.

“What a relief that must be for you,” she said, keeping her tone wry. “No one else will prove as troublesome.”