The Baron’s Betrothal: An On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again Regency Romance (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series) (40 page)

“What took you so long?” He huffed.
 

Clun lay on his back, his hands behind his head, wearing a smile. Nothing else. Lounging at his ease, his upper arms and chest bulged with muscle. Her eyes swept slowly downward. She took in the sleek ripples of muscles across his belly and followed an emphatic line of dark hair from below his navel lower to where his cock rose proud from its lush nest.
 

“It’s a vast place, you beast.” She sauntered toward him slowly and watched his erection respond.

“Being such a clever puss, I expected you to find me in no time. I’ve been here so long I had to light a fire. A naked man prefers not to lie around in the cold, Bess,” he confided. “Bad things happen to his best parts.”
 

She couldn’t help smiling back at him.

“Ah.” She let her borrowed dressing gown slip from her shoulders and placed her feet on either side of his hips. “It never occurred to me to look here.” She swept her long hair over one shoulder to stare down at him.

“Learned that from you, to go where I’m least expected.”
 

His eyes slid up her inner thighs and lingered at her downy sex. Although they’d sated their hunger for each other many times already, the way his eyes devoured her made her feel at once overwhelmed and powerful. She stood over him like the Colossus of Rhodes and in his avid gaze she felt like one of the Seven Wonders of the World. How she loved him for this, too.
 

“Unfair of you to use my own strategy against me, my lord,” she murmured.

“But clever for a lummox.”

“Mmm, very. What am I to do with you, William?” She sighed.

“I’ve not the slightest idea, but I fear you must
do something
!”
 

“I suppose I must.”
 

* * *

Clun stared up at the glorious Amazon straddling his body.
 

“Perhaps it’s best I leave our future in your capable hand,” he said and moaned as she slowly settled on his thighs and grasped him firmly. “Name your boon, madam.”
 

His lordship flexed his hips suggestively and let her do with him what she would. She wished first to map with her fingertips the engorged, branching veins that fed his erect length. She made a thorough exploration of his organ from its swollen head down to delve gently between his legs. And she cupped his sac, weighing and rolling him softly in her palm. She sent bolts of lust crackling through him. He remained still with great, trembling effort. But not silent. There was no biting back his throaty moans, as she touched him, tasted him and committed him to memory.
 

Gently, he drew her down to lie on his chest and her hair fell in a silken curtain around them. In that bower, he made love to her again.

Several days passed riotously as they occupied themselves in all manner of games. They laughed and loved almost as much as they dodged about squealing and taunting. It was a time out of time. The years rolled back and they frolicked with each other, happy as they’d never been as children. Dressed or not, especially when not, they studied one another with the unselfconscious curiosity of young lovers.
 

Having anticipated their wedding night, repeatedly, Clun assumed there would be no harm in anticipating some of the honeymoon as well. So without explanation one clear, wintry day, he took Elizabeth up before him in the saddle and together they rode to the woodsman’s cottage. He said nothing even as he opened the low door for her.
 

She balked on the threshold. “Clun, we mustn’t. It’s occupied.”
 

On the table sat a basket with a bottle peeking out, cloth-wrapped packets of meat, cheese and a loaf of bread. Tall beeswax tapers burned and illuminated the small, clean room. Embers glowed in the hearth.

“No, it’s not.”

She took in the cloud-like eiderdown at the foot of the bed, made up with clean, pressed linens and a drift of pillows at its head. The counterpane was turned down in welcome. She turned back to him to argue, “But someone’s refurbished it.”
 

“At my direction.” He drew her inside and closed the door. “I’d thought to bring you here after we wed. Then you came to your senses and refused me. So, I had to haul you back to London instead.”

“Oh, Clun.” She kissed him sweetly and whispered in his ear, “Make a roaring fire, I want your parts at their best.”

The day after New Year,
the baroness descended on The Graces. Penfold showed her ladyship into Clun’s library, where she found her son, looking smug as a fishmonger’s cat, and Lady Elizabeth Damogan, in a similar, self-satisfied state. She blinked from one to the other. No one offered an explanation so she spat out, “Well, what is the meaning of this?”

“This? Well, Bess and I have—” he trailed off and looked at his betrothed.

“Negotiated our differences,” Elizabeth supplied before choking on something.

“Not
this
,” Lady Clun waved her hand dismissively back and forth between them. “
This
couldn’t be more obvious. One can hope for an heir, at least.” She fixed her son with her coldest gaze. “No, I refer to the castle. Where are my servants, Clun?” She demanded. “And what are your servants doing there?”

“They are doing my bidding, Mother.”

“In point of fact, they have overrun my castle.”

“
My
castle.”

“The castle where I have spent my entire life since I was eighteen and newly wed, Clun, do not be obtuse. What’s more, you’ve turned off my staff.”

“Not most of them.”

“Those who remain are insolent and disobliging. I will not have it.”

“No, you won’t have to. Your familiars now staff the hall in Ludlow.”

“Ludlow! That’s…It’s been shuttered since— Oh. You expect me to live in the dower property?”

“And embark on the next phase of your life as the dowager baroness. In the Ludlow dower house. Just as custom and I require. Of course, you may make use of the place in London.”

“That will do nicely. I much prefer North Audley Street.”

“Not
my
place, the house on Russell Square.”

“Russell Square,” she strangled saying it. “You cannot mean for me to live on the
fringe
.”

“Life is full of disappointments or so you’ve always told me.”
 

She was silent for a moment.
 

“And surprises,” Lady Clun pursed her lips and gave the couple a thorough once over. “I am not pleased, Clun. No one on earth can make Russell Square
comme il faut
,” her ladyship declared. “And what of my birds?”

“I expect you’ll want to have some with you. To lend an exotic flare to your new address,” he said. Having feasted on love to his heart’s content for days, Clun found himself in a magnanimous mood. “If anyone can make Russell Square fashionable, Mother, it’s you. What’s more, I shall underwrite the renovations you deem necessary. See if that doesn’t bring
ton
friends to your door.”

She sniffed and Clun arched an eyebrow. She swallowed her retort.

“Lady Clun, I hope you will attend our wedding,” Elizabeth said, “after you’ve had time to settle in.”

“To be clear,” Clun interjected, “we will not postpone the wedding for any reason, Bess.”

Elizabeth smiled back at him and confirmed, “As you say, we’ll marry in London without delay.”

“I will,” Lady Clun replied her mouth puckered as if eating lemon peels. “Thank you for asking, though it seems rather after the fact.” She huffed and looked away.

“If there is a whisper to that effect anywhere, from any quarter,” Clun spoke in a slow, menacing tone, “you will find the Russell Square place sold out from under you and no alternative but Ludlow for life.”

She blinked her pale aquamarine eyes. “Of course, I understand, no need for theatrics.” She paused, as if there was something else she wished to say, shook her turbaned head and set her plumes writhing. “Well, there’s much to do. I can make Ludlow by sunset if I start immediately.” With that, she swept from the room.

“Perhaps there’s a nicer option for your mother among the London properties in my dowry.”

“First let her accustom herself to our convenience. In a year or two, you’re welcome to offer her another place.”

The day before Twelfth Night, Clun returned Elizabeth to the Earl of Morefield’s London residence for the second and last time. (Her maid Washburn rode in a second carriage so he could be alone with his Bess.) In this instance, his betrothed did not fling herself from the moving carriage risking life and limb to escape him. This was progress, he noted with satisfaction. She also kissed him like a wanton in the privacy of the closed carriage before descending from it like a lady with his help.
 

Soon, he and Elizabeth sat on one side of the earl’s vast book-stacked desk in his library. The earl sat in his chair on the other side.

When Elizabeth told her father she’d decided to marry Clun after all, the earl’s face stiffened.
 

“Have you objections now, my lord?” Clun asked, tamping down his outrage.

The earl blinked rapidly, shook his head and said,” Of course not. Mustn’t become emotional, but I am so happy for you, Elizabeth. And you, Clun. Relieved and happy. So very, very,” he croaked and sniffled, “happy.” He groped blindly and tugged the top desk drawer open. From within, countless wadded, crumpled linen pocket squares popped up in a jumble. He plucked one out, pulled it smooth and dabbed at his eyes. He took up another and blew his nose into its wrinkles. “Such happy, happy news. I’m sadly overcome.”
 

With much prodding, he just managed to stuff the used handkerchiefs back into the crowded drawer and close it.

For a moment, Elizabeth sat stunned. In the next, she rushed around the desk to her father and threw her arms around him. She hugged him tight and kissed his tear-dampened cheek.
 

“Your mother was forever telling me I was a hopeless watering pot and to put a cork in it,” he patted her arms and sniffled. “And you my dear were such a clever, perceptive a little girl, I couldn’t have you think your papa was over emotional.”
 

“I wouldn’t have minded, Papa.” She hugged him and he patted the arms she wrapped around him.

“In that case, I warn you, I may shed a tear or two at your nuptials.”
 

“Just say they’re tears of joy to have her finally off your hands,” Clun quipped before his betrothed silenced him with one speaking look.
 

The earl gave a watery chuckle. “He has a devilish sense of humor, Elizabeth.”

“Yes, but I love him anyway,” she replied. “It’s my cross to bear.”
 

Clun threw back his head and howled at that.
 

Afterward, the baron left to make arrangements at the church and Elizabeth prepared the menu and directed the earl’s staff to begin preparations for the wedding breakfast her father would soon host.
 

Thereafter, the baron called at No. 1 Damogan Square daily before the wedding. On one occasion, he brought with him Sir Thomas Lawrence. Elizabeth was everything gracious and a little confused when the artist asked her preference for costumes, color, style and degree of formality for their portrait. She looked at Clun, not knowing what to say.

“I thought we’d pose together, Bess, so I might do something other than scowl. Beg pardon, Sir Thomas, I cannot contemplate a sitting otherwise.”

“But each the de Sayres—” Elizabeth began to argue.

“Looks lonely and miserable. With you, I am neither. We shall laugh and tease each other and let Sir Thomas do what he may with us.” Clun turned to the artist to add, “All I ask, sir, is that you do justice to my beautiful wife.”

“It would be my pleasure, Lord Clun,” Sir Thomas reassured with a bow.
 

Lady Elizabeth Damogan married William Tyler de Sayre, Baron Clun, at St. George’s on the 15
^th
of January in the year of our Lord, 1817.
 

The wedding itself was an intimate ceremony typical of aristocrats with nothing to prove. The Earl of Morefield and Georgiana, Lady Clun attended. The Right Reverend Bishop of Wherever did not turn to stone looking upon the Fury, as Clun impishly predicted. Nor did the stone floor in the nave open up to swallow her, as Seelye was willing to wager. In addition to the bride and groom’s parents, the Travistons and Lady Jane Babcock attended for the bride. Witnessing the solemnities for the groom were the Earl of Uxbridge and the other Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Duke of Ainsworth, with his duchess, Lord Seelye and Mr. Percy.

“Uxbridge’ll steal a march on us if we’re not careful,” Lord Seelye said under his breath to Percy on his right. Then looking to his left, he continued, “Watch him with your duchess, Ainsworth. He may’ve lost a leg, but he’s still in possession of both hands.”

Uxbridge merely smirked over his shoulder at the men he once commanded before resuming a suitably sober mien.
 

Clun wore an immaculately tailored dark coat, blindingly white cravat, shirt and waistcoat, buff breeches, proper silk hose and gleaming black leather slippers with brilliantly polished sterling buckles, all thanks to Fewings.
 

The groom fretted out of habit. He watched Lord Morefield slowly escort Elizabeth down St. George’s nave to him. His palms sweated and his heart raced as she walked toward him on her father’s arm. One last, unreasoning worry preyed on his mind: that she would come to her senses and make a dash for it. His eyes flitted briefly to the church doors. They were closed and unlocked. So, he kept an eye on her. Her footsteps never faltered. Her sparkling green eyes and siren’s smile reassured him.
 

When Elizabeth stood beside him, Clun finally allowed that he was an extraordinarily lucky man.

Though he might never be the handsome flutterby his Bess deserved, he could live and die her devoted, powdery moth, flapping heedlessly around her till he expired, grateful to have been dazzled as long as Divine Will permitted.