The Baron’s Betrothal: An On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again Regency Romance (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series) (33 page)

“I don’t doubt it,” Clun said. “By God, you’re a sensitive soul. The only other time I’ve seen you this misty-eyed was when I passed on Ainsworth’s praise for your way with bootblack. Smile a little!” He grabbed his valet’s shoulders and shook him till he relaxed. “There, that’s an improvement.” With a hand still on Fewings’ shoulder, Clun told him, “Take care of my brother tonight. Keep him clear of Lady Clun till the morning.”

“Yes, your lordship!” Fewings replied, his expression earnest. To Roddy, the valet became business-like and said, “You’ll want a hot bath, sir, and a dinner tray in the guest room farthest from Lady Clun’s chambers. Brandy or port?”
 

“Brandy,” Roddy answered.
 

“I’ll see to it with Mr. Snelling. Your clothes will be clean and your boots gleaming by morning, sir.”

“Good man. Explain the situation to the butler discreetly, will you?” Clun continued issuing orders, “Second,” you’ll be responsible for keeping her ladyship misinformed. You’ll distract her here while Roddy cleans house in Wales. In the New Year, she’ll find herself and her staff removed to Ludlow, where she’ll live as I see fit.”

“Speaking of fits, won’t she be having spasms over this,” Roddy chuckled.

“It’s customary. I must marry. The dowager baroness belongs at the property set aside for her enjoyment.” All three laughed at the thought of Lady Clun enjoying permanent exile from her seat of power. “With your help, Fewings, we’ll have her thinking I’ve taken her bait and I’m considering the Mangold chit. That should keep her here for the time required.”

“I’m your man,” Fewings said, stoutly.

“And I am late. I’ll return in an hour or so.”

With that, Clun rushed from the room, pulled on his riding gloves and tall beaver hat and flew out the front door. A footman awaited with Algernon’s reins in hand. Clun mounted his horse, urged him to a smart trot and threaded through traffic. He rode to No. 12-13 Lincoln’s Inn Field and dismounted. He showed a street urchin a shiny coin and told him to tend his horse until he returned. With a hop, the boy took hold of Algernon’s halter fearlessly.
 

“You’ll earn two more, if you keep him happy,” Clun added.
 

The boy, cynical even at his age, laughed and said, “Oh, ’e’ll be eggstadic, m’lor’.”

* * *

Elizabeth dressed with care for this interview. She wore a pelisse of Mexican blue silk and wool striped satinet and a warm, cream cotton poplin walking dress elegantly flounced with three tiers of lace in the same shade. She wore a lace fichu tucked in her bodice so as not to distract Clun while they talked. Her bonnet in matching blue satin sported a coquettish plume and her gloves were the same cream of her gown in soft kid suede. The modiste had sworn up and down that Mexican blue rather than Pomona green made her eyes sparkle and flattered her complexion. Elizabeth prayed it was true.

Washburn had dressed her hair in a braided bun with curls at her temples that inevitably relaxed into softer waves at her cheeks. Drooping hair would not distract her; nothing could put her out of curl, for the day was full of promise.
 

She and her maid arrived at Mr. John Soane’s townhouse and offices at No. 12-13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields just before the appointed hour to “bump into” Lord Clun. She came on the pretext of returning a book her father borrowed from the famed architect.
 

Mr. Soane was famous for having redesigned the Bank of England, its great halls and the Guards’ barracks. The commission had made Mr. Soane a rich man and, as was the fashion among rich men, the architect collected rare books and antiquities. His library contained thousands of books on architecture, but he also shared an interest in language with the earl. In fact, Mr. Soane and her father lent one another scholarly works and rare dictionaries on a regular basis. To facilitate their exchange, Elizabeth often volunteered to retrieve or return books because she loved wandering through the double-height galleries Mr. Soane designed to display his accumulation of classic antiquities.
 

Mr. Soane’s butler, Pilcrow, explained that his master could not join Lady Elizabeth, and she should feel free to go to the Student’s Room and exchange books as she wished.
 

Elizabeth left Washburn sitting in the front foyer.
 

At the end of the narrow hallway, Elizabeth entered the Dome Room. It was a macabre clutter of Classical Greek and Roman fragments. Ancient sculpted body parts hung from the walls and decorated every possible open space. Marble hands pointed nowhere and felt nothing they touched. Severed stone heads stared without seeing from niches. Cinerary urns emptied of their dead filled shelves. Ancient kraters cluttered tabletops. All was an unsettling jumble of lost and broken people illuminated by natural light from skylights high overhead. Too late she realized it was not the most comfortable place in which to have a fraught conversation.

In the Colonnade past the Dome Room, she climbed a narrow staircase to the Student’s Room, a small library devoted to general references, atlases, encyclopedias and dictionaries. She waited there for a time.
 

And she waited.

And waited.

Growing restless, she returned to the Dome Room and peered down the hall at Washburn dozing by the front door. She sat on a truncated Corinthian capital and traced acanthus leaves with her fingers. A massive Roman altar dedicated to Hercules stood in the middle of the Dome Room floor. She walked over and examined its scenes. In one, he slew the Nemean lion; just beyond, he stood poised to behead the Hydra. She circled it slowly. The gloriously muscular demigod, naked but for a lion’s skin and sandals, held up the girdle of the Amazons’ queen. Ignoring the fanciful birds, bulls, horses and mythical creatures, she found the hero in each segment of the frieze (and thumped her bonneted head against the stone trying to get a closer look). Rubbing her forehead, she went around again to linger lasciviously over the naked figure so like Clun in miniature. She enjoyed the shiver each iteration inspired.

The half-hour chimed on a clock tucked away somewhere. He was half an hour late, and just when she’d decided not to linger, she jumped at the echoing sound of the door’s brass knocker. A footman opened the door. Her heart raced. Pilcrow approached and bowed Lord Clun into the foyer. Her skin heated as her anxiety grew. Her thoughts jumbled and she stood frozen in place.

Lord Clun’s arrival did not faze the butler in the least. Many visitors came to see Mr. Soane’s acquisitions, from antiquities to Hogarth’s oil paintings of “A Rake’s Progress.” The ‘right sort of gentleman’ was always welcome because they often came to consider a commission for the architect. Born and bred the right sort, Clun handed the butler his hat, stick and gloves and presented his engraved calling card. He was directed down the hallway with the butler’s profuse apologies that Mr. Soane was unavailable.
 

* * *

Clun saw Elizabeth immediately. She stood slim and straight in the tall doorway at the end of the hall. Lit from above, she glowed like a celestial being, his angel of doom.

Her eyes revealed nothing. No smile for him today. He strode up to her and bowed.

“Elizabeth,” he greeted her. She stiffened. Remembering himself, he glanced over his shoulder to check for the butler. More loudly, he said, “What a pleasant surprise, Lady Elizabeth.”

“I’m on an errand for my father and became engrossed in Mr. Soane’s other treasures,” she said. “For quite a long time.”

“Ah. By chance, I thought to see them myself, then an urgent matter delayed me. I suppose you are anxious to conclude your errand here and be on your way.” This coded conversation was conducted for the butler’s benefit, in case he eavesdropped out of sight. “Could I persuade you to show me some of the notable items?” Clun offered her his arm. She hesitated before taking it. “Mr. Soane has so many antiquities. Have you a favorite, my lady?”

He assumed she would take him aside, tell him their betrothal was over and leave with her somnolent maid.
 

Elizabeth regarded him for a moment and said, “Indeed I do. Let me show you.”

She led him to the Roman altar in the Dome Room.
 

“Mr. Soane purchased this from the Earl of Bessborough’s estate. He outbid my father at the auction and now I’m sorry we lost the bidding. It’s dedicated to Hercules.”

She leaned over and ran a gloved finger over Hercules’ broad back carved in deep relief. “That’s a lion’s skin on his shoulders.” Clun leaned close to look. Her face was inches from his. “But it could just as easily have been a grizzly bear’s,” she whispered to him.
 

Wait.

Her smile made breathing difficult. Her soft tone and considering look also took Clun by surprise. He straightened up slowly, confused by this most perplexing female. Of course, he wanted to hold her just once more before—well, before their good-bye. He gathered her to him and inhaled deeply. Her scent floated above the earthiness of stone and clay surrounding him.

She didn’t resist. Perhaps, she’d allow a kiss good-bye, too.
 

He bent his head and watched her as she watched him come within a hair’s breadth of her lips. He stopped.

“Oh, I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” She squeezed her eyes closed.
 

Grateful as a condemned man for his last meal, he kissed her upturned mouth, once, twice and so forth till he lost count.
 

She leaned away slightly to stop him and said, “Clun, I must say something.”

After he kissed her again, he replied quietly, “Say what you must. ’Pon my word, I can feel no pain at the moment.”

“That’s most fortunate because I’ve come to ask you to marry me.”

Of the many things Clun imagined Elizabeth saying, strangely enough, this was not among them. He struggled to get his bearings. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. What to say? Time stopped as he fumbled for a coherent thought.
 

She pushed him away.
 

When he looked at her again, he saw what he dreaded most to see in her expression: disappointment.

“You’ve nothing to say, my lord?”
 

“I don’t know what to say. Could you be happy with me?”

She studied him, “What makes you think I can’t?”

“Everything you’ve said to date. I haven’t changed.”
 

“No, I don’t suppose you have, Clun, but you have a little affection for me, don’t try to deny it.” She chuckled.
 

Chuckles of that nature under those circumstances could be misinterpreted a number of ways. One might, for example, mistake this involuntary expression of nervous bravado for arrogance. Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, Clun understood. He heard it for what it was, the breathy, hopeful laughter of a nervous young woman waiting to have her fantasy of love made real. By him.
 

It infuriated him. He was furious, too, that she made him feel things that he’d explicitly told her he would not.
 

A
little
affection for her?
 

No, damn it. About her, he felt immoderately, passionately, desperately doomed. Doomed because he would rather live in hell than ever cause her to regret him. And he knew in his heart that even if he cared for her to the best of his ability, he was doomed to watch her dreams wilt, brown and crumble to dust over the years while he said the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing time and again.
 

At least, he knew what was best for her — even if it meant carving out his own, cold, undersized heart in the process. He lied. He stared back at her and finally broke his stony silence, “Lady Elizabeth, I fear you’re mistaken.”

She blinked at him. He waited. She frowned at him and gave no indication she was about to burst into tears, slap him or storm off. He’d prepared himself for those reactions, knowing all were well deserved.
 

“Clun, perhaps I should’ve explained myself better,” she assumed the tone of a university lecturer. “I have changed my mind. I admit I did romanticize love in the past. Lately, I’ve come to a more mature appreciation of emotional moderation. I will endeavor to embrace your point of view. In other words, I can in good conscience accept your terms. Now will you marry me?”

“I’ll only make you miserable,” he said, making himself miserable.
 

“That is rubbish, Clun, really.”

“You won’t be happy compromising to suit me,” he tried again.

“I say I will.”
 

“What in God’s name have I done?” He cried in anguish. “You of all people mustn’t settle. You deserve all the poetry, moonbeams and fairy tales that life has to offer.”
 

“Clun, I believe I can be happy with you if only you’d stop arguing with me.”

“How could you after lecturing me for weeks that my notion of marriage is a pathetic mistake?”

Finally, he silenced her. Though it gave him the satisfaction of turnabout, it left him uneasy. She narrowed her eyes at him and pursed her lips.

“Clun, are you quite well?”

“I am and don’t matronize me.”

“I’m only concerned you’ve suffered some sort of mental debility.” She leaned close to enunciate at him, as if he had gone simpleminded, “I agree with you. A sound marriage must be based on more than naïve fantasies of love. Therefore, I accept marriage on your terms, so long as you accept a few conditions of mine.”

“Such as?”

“I won’t reproach you for your lack of feelings so long as you don’t reproach me if I have feelings you don’t approve of or reciprocate. You may not hold them against me. Now. Will that do?”

“No. That will not do!”

Perhaps she was right and he had lost his wits completely. Here he stood arguing against precisely what he’d argued for not long ago. And he did it because he would walk through the gates of Hell to see her happy in life. In truth, he anticipated taking up residence there once she was happily married.