The Baron’s Betrothal: An On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again Regency Romance (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series) (21 page)

“It was my understanding yours was a love match.”
 

“So it became, yes. Ours began as an arranged marriage contracted between two noble houses. She brought the prestige of pedigree and I brought ground rents in the City and considerable property south of Hyde Park. And a title,” he said with a dry chuckle and handed Clun his refilled glass. “Frankly, neither of us much liked the other or the idea of marrying. We were young and headstrong, both of us.” The earl gave him a searching look. “Do you wish to know what changed, Clun, or have my sentimental ramblings bored you already?”

“Yes. That is, no,” Clun babbled. “Not bored. Honored. Please, go on.”

“What changed?” The earl closed his eyes, His beetle brows arched and he sighed. For an instant, his face had the look of a much younger man. “Everything changed though I’m not sure how or why. One day she was the woman foisted on me by my dictatorial father and the next, she was all that was winsome and essential to my happiness. We were married four years before she conceived. As God is my witness, I was never happier than while married to my Bess,” the earl said, “and never more lost than when she left me a widower.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” Clun said, though it was long ago.
 

“As am I. I do so wish Bess could’ve seen our daughter grow up.” The earl fell silent, his eyes closed, long fingertips still touching.

Clun said nothing to disturb the older man’s reverie. The earl recalled himself to the present with a sniffle, “Bess made me promise to find our baby Elizabeth a worthy husband and arrange her marriage. She insisted on it even as she lay dying. She was extremely headstrong. And I warn you, Elizabeth takes after her.”

Forgetting his circumstances, Clun said, “I am up to the challenge, I believe.”

“As do I,” the earl replied. “It is the fashion to seek a love match in the hopes of assuring happiness after vows are said. There are no guarantees in love or marriage. There is only doing one’s best. Elizabeth will do her best, Lord Clun. She will make you a fine wife. And to answer your question more directly, gentlemen approached me, but none impressed. I accepted you because you are universally acknowledged an honorable, steadfast man. You have want of a wife not a dowry and have been most generous in the marriage settlement. You will make a fine husband for my daughter.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Clun said around a lump in his throat. Why this man’s praise affected him, he couldn’t say. Perhaps it was the closest he’d ever come to a parent’s approval.
 

“I knew your father,” the earl continued as if hearing Clun’s thoughts.
 

Clun tensed.
 

“You are his image.” The earl smiled at him. “Never met a man who loved life more than he. Marvelous sense of humor. Your parents’ marriage…Unfortunate situation, that. It did neither party credit. As I say, there are no guarantees.”

“I would not abandon Elizabeth or our children,” Clun vowed, forgetting he’d never marry the earl’s daughter.
 

“Your father did what he thought best. He was an honorable man, too.”

“Was he?”

“More than most. Refused to ostracize his by-blow though life was made difficult for him thereafter. I enjoyed his acquaintance, dined with him at the club on occasion. Excellent company, as I say. Proud of you and your half-brother.”
 

“Ah.”

Sensing Clun’s tension, the earl changed the subject, “Of course, I hope you and Elizabeth come to love one another. One cannot help loving Elizabeth, but then, I’m biased, naturally.”

“I am told de Sayre men cannot love.”

“Judge the source,” the earl advised, “the Lord Clun I knew loved well.”

“I must take your word for it. I didn’t know my father.”

“Pity. I daresay you’d have liked him.” The earl sipped his brandy and allowed the silence. Clun drained his glass and set it softly on a side table.
 

“Thank you, your lordship. I am honored by your confidence and will do my best for your daughter, I give you my word.” He stood and bowed to the earl. “The hour is late, I’ll see myself out.”

“You’ll forgive me for not getting up,” the earl said with a wave of a hand at his thin legs. “Good night, Clun.”
 

* * *

In her bedroom, Elizabeth ruminated about her wretched homecoming. The earl made painfully clear he hadn’t dispatched any Bow Street runners. He hadn’t even missed her while she jaunted about on her own. That shocked her, though it hurt no worse than the earl’s usual inattention had over the years. It mortified her far more that Lord Clun had witnessed her humiliation.

He’d stalked out of the shadows looking dark and dangerous while her father criticized her. He might’ve demanded an end to their engagement on the spot. He didn’t. Instead, he complimented her spirit. That likely choked him! (Hadn’t he often complained about her lunatic gypsy behavior in Shropshire?)

She would never forget Clun’s expression. It wasn’t pity for her but anger at the earl, for her sake. He stepped forward to speak up for her. And when she caught his eye and shook her head ‘no,’ he swallowed his anger for her sake as well.
 

 
Then of all the gall, he suggested spanking her just to exasperate her. She was spitting mad while she hung over the bannister listening to him and she stuck out her tongue when he looked up. Well, he deserved it, being so outrageous. Was it her fault if he made her forget her mortification, ignore all bounds of propriety and behave like an unmannerly brat? No.

Oh!
 

Clun meant to do it. His teasing appalled her and raised her hackles and her spirits. Laughing aloud, Elizabeth recognized another sign of affection: chivalry. His interpretation of chivalry left something to be desired. Still, she sighed, it was sweet of him.

With understanding came hope.

The baron was a man of his word. He would let her end their betrothal as she saw fit. Elizabeth resolved it would end but not as he expected. No. It would only end with Lord Clun at St. George’s, Hanover Square, even if she had to tow him there kicking and screaming.

Poor Clun.
 

No matter how furious it might make him, he would have to accept one measly, minor obstacle to his plan for a loveless marriage: she would not cry off.
 

* * *

On the way to his townhouse in North Audley Street, Clun took stock. He knew it would be wiser to go off and sulk in Shropshire while fate found Elizabeth a better match. The baron also suspected it would be unwise to attempt his second bride hunt with her distracting him from whomever else might be prevailed upon to marry him.
 

At that moment, however, Clun was not a wise man. He was a man deeply, reluctantly in love. And as any number of poets and authors have noted, a man in this condition is prone to do epically stupid, self-defeating things. Case in point, Clun decided to stay in London and circulate to keep an eye on Elizabeth ‘for her own good.’

The next morning, Clun made a most unpleasant discovery:
 
his mother.

Chapter 16
 

In which hell hath no Fury (because she’s in Mayfair).

A
s his lordship descended the staircase in the morning, he overheard a footman and parlormaid whisper back and forth about gunpowder and sparks sure to come.
 

Puzzling.

 
The townhouse bustled in a way that surprised him as he walked to the morning room. He smelled coffee, bacon and all manner of breakfast fare and the aromas sharpened his appetite. Servants bowed or curtseyed to him as they hurried past. He wondered how did they know he’d arrived? Distracted, he entered the sunlit room.
 

“Good mor-ning,” the baroness sang with brittle cheer from her seat at the far end of the table, “late though it is.”
 

If he hadn’t been a strapping man in the prime of life, Clun might’ve dropped dead on the spot.

Lady Clun surveyed her son with pale, almost colorless, aquamarine eyes under thin eyebrows arched in permanent surprise. At the corners of her lips, creases pointed down parenthetically on either side of her chin, giving her mouth the appearance of a smile fixed upside down on her face. Her clothing was expensive and elegant, her posture upright and her body thick without softness. The Fury, in the flesh.
 

Clun wished to wake up so he pinched himself hard and hissed.
 

Fortunately, she wore a walking dress, which meant she was going out to shop, call on friends or visit a subscription library and give him a chance to recover from the shock. He strolled to the sideboard, helped himself to coddled eggs, bacon and toast and sat at the table’s other end. He stabbed into his food. Everything on his plate except the bacon tasted of bile. He sipped his cup of tea and waited.

“You were in Bath, I understand,” she chirped, an opening salvo with more to come.

“Duke of Ainsworth’s wedding,” he answered.

“So I heard. How nice.”

How in God’s name had she heard that? He’d raced off to Bath on a whim and a bet to help his friend Ainsworth. (Much good it did the man.) He hadn’t written or mentioned anything to anyone at the castle or The Graces for that matter. Only a few servants in London knew about that trip.
 

Was someone in the Fury’s pocket?
 

Clun sipped his tea, now furious. If there was a spy, he would have to root out and deal with her ladyship’s hireling.
 

She buttered a piece of toast thoroughly, her smallest finger curled above her grip on the little sterling butter knife. “I heard something else curious.” (Scrape, scrape.) “Nothing much to mention,” (Scrape.) “but, as your mother, I thought I ought.”

“What was that?”

“Why, that you’re secretly betrothed to the Earl of Morefield’s daughter.”

He choked as inconspicuously as possible.

“You’ve yet to introduce her to me, William.” She bit into the toast with a fierce, little crunch.

Ah, his Christian name hurled down the long table at him.

“How do these ridiculous rumors arise?” He murmured without making eye contact.

“The earl mentioned something about it to me the other day, dear,” she said, putting a stiletto’s point on the word ‘dear.’
 

Lady Clun had been forever telling him to leave his bride hunt to her and now she was furious he hadn’t. She caught him out. Though living in Wales most of the year, she managed to remain apprised of the latest
on dit
, including his own doings and whereabouts. Even a bookish semi-recluse like Morefield knew her. At some recent jollification, the earl must’ve bumped into her and mentioned it, assuming she knew. Damn.

Clun examined his self-involved, self-pitying mother. She stared back, eyes bright with reproof. Wouldn’t this give her a big, splintery, new cross to bear! To wit, the fruit of her loins, her only son — and here she would heave a theatrical sigh — kept his
betrothal
a secret from his own mother. Add to all the other joyless tasks he faced before the year’s end, the Fury was here to subject him to her habitual fault-finding and vitriol, served with a spoonful of treacle. Clun ground his teeth.

“Don’t grind your teeth, dear, you’ll wear them to stubs. Just like your father, terrible teeth.”
 

“If you’ll excuse me, I have a full day. Must make an early start,” he said and stood. “Will you return to Wales for Christmas?”

“Oh I couldn’t say. I am enjoying myself at the moment. I’ve so missed London, the private balls and fetes, the drapers and warehouses, the entertainments, Drury Lane, Vauxhall, Covent Garden — I simply adore the theater — but most especially better Society! Much as I enjoy my castle, I languish whilst so many interesting things are afoot in Town.”
 

It was his castle, but he didn’t correct her. In effect, he’d ceded it to her when he went off to war. (Had he died, it would’ve been the heir presumptive’s unenviable task to evict her.) As for ‘interesting things,’ he knew she meant in particular his betrothal to Elizabeth.
 

Clun tried again, “For how long will I have the pleasure of your company?”

“I didn’t realize I needed your permission to stay however long I wanted. Really. Next you’ll expect me to give vails to the servants!”
 

That was no answer. By rights and as a common courtesy, she should’ve asked him before coming to roost in North Audley Street. Again, he let the matter go. She did not.

“Not that you were here to ask, Clun. Imagine my surprise when I arrived to find you missing. And where is poor Fewings? At sixes and sevens no doubt,” she continued, “You hare off to Bath on a whim then send your man back to London whilst you disappear off the face of the earth. You ought to have a valet installed at each of your properties. Or keep your staff better informed.”

“Did my staff expect you, ma’am?”
 

“I am not you, I am merely your mother the baroness and only that until you marry the Damogan chit, poor thing,” she added reflexively.

Her words rankled what few undisturbed nerves he still possessed.
 

Her steady, considering look made Clun even more uncomfortable. What else had the Fury gleaned from her cronies? Or the earl? He consciously relaxed to disguise any sign of anxiety. She had a predator’s instinct for fear and no compunction about exploiting one’s vulnerability.
 

“Good day,” he said with a nod and ceded the morning room to her. Over time, he would probably yield most of the London townhouse to her occupation, excepting his suite upstairs and the study.
 

It simply wasn’t worth the row.

Chapter 17

In which our heroine is determined to help our hero, poor Lord Clun
.

W
hen Elizabeth awoke, she recalled slowly it was the morning after her betrothed had herded her to the steps of her father’s townhouse in front of the mortified earl. Without her lady’s maid Eleanor Washburn to prod her, she contemplated remaining abed. No. That was not her way of dealing with setbacks.