The Babe and the Baron Read online

  Disregarding this pleasantry, Laura demurred. “I am perfectly capable of making my own dresses. I enjoy sewing.”

  “I am aware of that. Please, content yourself with embroidery and such. Though I'm vague about the details, I'm sure dressmaking involves considerably more exertion.”

  “I cannot afford a seamstress and I will not hang upon your sleeve.”

  “Have you no regard for my reputation?” he demanded, half in earnest, half quizzing her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What will the neighbours think when they call and find a relative of mine dressed in the dowdiest fashion? I shall become notorious as a pinch-penny, a veritable nip-farthing.”

  “But—”

  “Or else they will suppose that I am all to pieces, one step ahead of the bailiffs.”

  “Surely—”

  “No, I shall more likely be condemned as a clutchfist, since Maria is constant complaining that I will not set her up in her own household in Town.”

  “Is she really?” Laura asked, shocked. When he nodded, she went on unwillingly, “Oh, very well, I shall let you frank me—oh dear, that sounds shockingly ungracious. Thank you, Cousin Gareth. I appreciate your generosity and I shall like to have some pretty gowns.” Even though they would all be black and big enough for an elephant, she thought with a mental grimace. On the whole, she was quite glad he had won his point this time. Gentlemen hated to lose, and she had no desire to vex him beyond bearing.

  “Good, then that's settled.” He drove around the stables and pulled up at the front door, where a groom was waiting to take the gig back to the carriage house.

  “But I should still like to go to Ludlow,” Laura said as Gareth handed her down, “to see the shops and the castle.”

  “So you shall, in full state in the carriage with coachman and footman and your maid, as soon as you have something to wear that will not disgrace me!”

  Laughing, they went into the house.

  Lloyd met them in the Great Hall. “If your ladyship is not otherwise occupied,” he said, bowing, “Miss Burleigh would like to see you in her sitting room as soon as is convenient.”

  Laura threw a glance of panic-stricken appeal at Gareth. He pressed her hand.

  “Are you too tired to speak to Aunt Antonia now?” he asked solicitously.

  She shook her head, with the greatest reluctance. If she claimed fatigue he would never let her forget it, and she had to face Miss Burleigh sooner or later.

  He continued in a low voice, “My aunt is straitlaced but charitable. You need not fear her.”

  It was easy for him to talk, she reflected forlornly as she trudged after Lloyd. Gareth, Baron Wyckham, had doubtless never given his aunt a moment's cause for uneasiness, never transgressed against the rules of propriety.

  Would that she could say the same of herself.

  Chapter 6

  “What a pleasant room,” Laura exclaimed. She had unconsciously expected Miss Burleigh's private apartment to be furnished in greys and duns. The reality of flowered chintz curtains and upholstery gave the room a cheerful, airy feeling.

  Miss Burleigh, seated at an inlaid drop-front desk, bowed her head in response to the compliment. “Pray be seated, Lady Laura.” She rose as Laura sat down on a low cabriole chair, and took a similar chair facing her, her thin face composed, her hands folded sedately in her lap. “I am willing to hear what you have to say.”

  Laura perched on the edge of the seat, her back stiff, trying to marshal thoughts that slithered and slipped from her grasp. Only the fact that she had begged for a chance to present her story enabled her to begin.

  “It all started when my grandmother died just before my first Season,” she said slowly, unfocused gaze fixed on her memories. “I was not expected to 'take,' being too thin and insufficiently docile, but I might have had a chance, that year, on my own. The next year I was brought out with my sister Cecilia, beautiful, compliant Cecilia. I might as well have been a doorpost for all the attention anyone paid me.”

  “The situation is not unfamiliar to me,” said Miss Burleigh, and there was pain in her voice.

  Her attention momentarily distracted from her story, Laura wondered if she, too, had been the despised, neglected sister of a Beauty. She had never married, devoting her life to that sister's children, but once she had been a young girl, with all the hopes and fears Laura remembered only too clearly.

  And gradually the hopes had died. “Ceci caught a duke's heir. Once they were betrothed, Mama made no more pretence of trying to find me a husband. My so-called friends commiserated with me on having a younger sister wed first. Freddie Chamberlain was the only gentleman who still bothered to stand up with me at balls.”

  “Had you no fortune to attract suitors?”

  “Nothing of significance. I had five sisters and four brothers to be provided for. Freddie was no fortune-hunter, though his pockets were generally to let. He was always kind, you know, when it cost him no effort and did not interfere with his pleasures. He was handsome, and amusing, and he danced with me. I thought myself in love.”

  “Inevitably,” muttered Miss Burleigh.

  “I persuaded him to marry me. Papa would never have considered his suit, for he already had a reputation as a gamester and a wastrel, so we arranged to elope. I sold my pearls to pay for the journey to Gretna Green. I was so sure I could reform him once I was his wife.”

  “Whoever first said that rakes reformed make the best husbands is responsible for a great deal of unhappiness. I suppose he changed his mind about marriage once you were on the road, my dear?”

  “No, you must not think so very ill of him,” Laura cried. She pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead, as if to blot out what came next. “We stopped at an inn for the night. He met some friends there, and the temptation to increase my small store of money was too much for him. He won a little at cards, lost a little, won again.” She had to force her voice through her tight throat. “For near a fortnight we stayed there while he played and drank, drank and played. He never touched me. The cards and the brandy were more attractive.”

  “Oh, my dear, how very dreadful! How utterly mortifying. Do not cry, pray do not cry.” Miss Burleigh jumped up and thrust a handkerchief into her hand, patted her shoulder. “It was then that Lord Medway found you?”

  “Papa would not listen to a word I said.” Bitterness combatted misery. “He had brought a special license and we were married that day. Though Papa did not believe it, Freddie was perfectly willing. He was sorry for me, and after all, he had no intention of allowing the acquisition of a wife to make the least difference to his life.”

  “Of course your elopement could not be hushed up, but only the families heard that you had not been married within a very few days. They were given to understand that you had voluntarily lived with Frederick as man and wife for two weeks.”

  “You are not related, ma'am. Since you know, everyone must.”

  “Your mama-in-law happens to be a friend of mine, as well as being my late sister's husband's cousin. We correspond frequently. Naturally she was deeply distressed by what the earl told her husband and she poured out her troubled mind in a letter, knowing I should repeat nothing. I despise gossip. Your story is safe with me.”

  “Thank you, ma'am.” Laura was beginning to feel relief at having disburdened herself to a surprisingly sympathetic ear. “Not that it really matters, as I have no aspirations to reenter Society.”

  “I fear your father's utterly casting you off aroused suspicions that it was not a simple elopement. Indeed,” she went on with a return to her usual austere manner, “I received an unpleasant letter the other day from Lady Frobisher, my brother-in-law's sister. Sybil Frobisher is an inveterate scandalmonger. I shall write to her today.”

  “You will not tell her—”

  “I shall endeavour to defend you without revealing the unhappy truth. Now, Lady Laura, if you are sufficiently composed, I shall ring for tea.”

 
; Laura had not shed a single tear during her recital, though she had horribly mangled Miss Burleigh's tiny, lace-edged handkerchief. Smoothing it on her knee as they awaited their tea, she decided to make another to replace it, a simple task Gareth must surely approve.

  Her curiosity revived now that her own ordeal was past. She wondered if Miss Burleigh knew the reason for her otherwise imperturbable nephew's excessive excitability on the subject of childbearing.

  She wondered if she dared ask. Miss Burleigh had softened, revealed herself not the dragon Laura had feared, but she would have every right to condemn inquisitiveness on so personal a matter. Before Laura had decided whether to risk a carefully phrased question, a maid came in with the tea.

  Miss Burleigh poured, and passed a plate of fresh-baked Shrewsbury biscuits. The crisp, lemony biscuits awoke Laura's appetite. She was crunching her third when the door opened and Uncle Julius ambled in.

  His thin grey hair straggled wildly. His chin sported a whitish stubble. His smock bore scorch marks and streaks of soot and his green satin breeches were badly creased. In one hand, like a demented Saracen with a scimitar, he wielded a deformed toasting fork.

  “This is my private sitting room,” Miss Burleigh pointed out coldly.

  “Is it?” He peered about vaguely through his thick, smudged spectacles. “But Lloyd said the young lady... Ah, there you are my dear.” A sudden doubt struck him. “You are the young lady whose toast my nevvie burnt?”

  “I am, sir.” She flinched as the augmented end of the fork narrowly missed her nose.

  “Careful, uncle!” Gareth strode into the room and gently removed the contrivance from the old gentleman's hand.

  Uncle Julius made no objection, having spotted the plate of biscuits. He picked it up and consumed half a dozen with a thoughtful air. “I'm quite hungry,” he said, sounding surprised. “I believe I left my dinner in my workshop.” He headed for the door, carrying the emptied plate.

  Gareth caught his sleeve. “Whoa, there. Why don't you explain your machine to us while a fresh meal is prepared.” He nodded to Miss Burleigh, who rang the bell, looking martyred.

  “Machine? Oh, that thing. I'd scarcely go so far as to call it a machine, nevvie.” Nonetheless, he took back the fork and sat down. Miss Burleigh winced as the grimy smock met her flowered chintz sofa. “It's just a small improvement I thought up when one of you careless boys burnt the young lady's toast.” He squinted at Gareth. “It wasn't you, by any chance, was it?”

  “Yes, I was that careless boy,” he confessed, grinning.

  Uncle Julius turned to Laura. “I can't tell 'em apart,” he confided. “That's why I call 'em all nevvie. Look here.” To the prongs of the fork, he had welded a double grid of wire, about six inches square. On one side the two pieces were attached to each other by three small hoops of wire, forming a hinge. Opposite, a hook latched them together. This he now opened. “You put the bread in and close it again. These spikes stick through it. It can't possibly fall in the fire.”

  “How clever,” Laura said admiringly. “Cousin Gareth, may we try it out this afternoon?”

  “Certainly.”

  “If you do not mind, Miss Burleigh?”

  “Should you dislike such carryings-on in the drawing room, Aunt Antonia, we can move our feast elsewhere.”

  “Not at all. I shall order a fire in the drawing room.”

  They turned back to Uncle Julius, to find him fast asleep, swaying slightly as he sat on the sofa, his latest invention clutched in his grimy hand.

  The footman who came in answer to the bell was directed—instead of feeding Mr. Wyckham—to put him to bed.

  “You must think I run a Bedlam,” said Gareth ruefully as they left Miss Burleigh in peace. “What with Maria's hysterics and Uncle Julius's little peculiarities...”

  “I like him. Eccentricity and absentmindedness are pardonable in so clever a gentleman. Besides, it is the first time anyone has invented something just for me, even if he still has no notion who I am.”

  “Maria, his own brother's daughter, had lived at Llys six months before he began to recognize her, and he is still perplexed by the children. You must not be affronted when he fails to recall your name.”

  “How could I be, when he cannot tell you apart from your brothers?”

  “Shocking, is it not? From Uncle Julius I never receive the deference due to the head of the family. Even Aunt Antonia occasionally recalls that I am Baron Wyckham of Llys, no longer a scrubby schoolboy.” He sobered. “She was not unkind to you, was she?”

  “Oh no, amazingly sympathetic and understanding.” For a horrid moment Laura was afraid he would ask the subject of their conversation, but he went on speaking of his aunt.

  “She has an acerbic tongue at times, but I am eternally grateful to her for the care she has taken of my brothers these many years. I hope that in you she will find female companionship of a kind Maria is incapable of providing.”

  “I hope so, indeed.” She would be glad to make some return for his hospitality. As they reached the Great Hall, she realized she was tired after the morning's exercise and emotions. Now, how to retire to rest without alarming him? “I must write to Lady Denham, my neighbour. There is a little writing desk in my sitting room, I noticed.”

  “I have letters to write, too. Will you not join me in the library? No stairs, if I may venture to offer that as an inducement.”

  “It is not offers I take exception to, but orders. Thank you, cousin, I shall be happy to join you in the library.”

  The library was in the newest part of the house. Bookshelves ran up to a high ceiling ornamented with plasterwork. Opposite an elegant Adam fireplace on one wall, crimson velvet-curtained sash windows set in alcoves looked out on the avenue of oaks leading up to the house. Each alcove was provided with a small table and chairs. A huge mahogany desk dominated one end of the room, a long table the other, with a group of comfortable armchairs clustered about the fireplace. Newspapers, magazines, and books with places marked were scattered about, giving the room a pleasing air of being in regular use, not just for show.

  “My father spent much of his time in here in his later years,” said Gareth. “He became something of a recluse after... Well, no matter. I don't wish to bore you. Where will you sit?”

  She chose a window table. He took writing materials from its drawer for her, mended a pen, checked the inkwell, reminded her to ask him for a frank, and settled to his own correspondence.

  Laura found her letter difficult to write. Lady Denham, in her good-natured way, had made her promise to send news of her safe arrival, but she did not flatter herself she would be actively missed. Her neighbours in Swaffham Bulbeck had been friendly without ever becoming friends. A gentlewoman in reduced circumstances belonged among neither the gentry nor the villagers, nor yet the prosperous yeoman farmers.

  In the end, she wrote a brief note stressing Lord Wyckham's kindness and Miss Burleigh's respectability. As she folded and sealed it, she saw Rupert striding towards the front door, a game bag and a shotgun over his shoulder, two panting terriers at his heels.

  Gareth saw his brother at the same moment. Leaning out of an open window, he shouted, “Rupert, for pity's sake come in the back way. Aunt Antonia will have your ears for egg-cosies if she meets you in the hall.”

  The captain gave a cheery wave. “Rabbit pie for dinner,” he called, and altered course for stables, kitchen, and gun-room.

  “If Cousin Rupert is come home, it must be time for luncheon,” said Laura hopefully.

  * * * *

  After luncheon, she pleased Gareth by choosing to take a nap. She took a book to her chamber with her, but fell asleep. When she awoke, it was time for afternoon tea. Though the craving for hot-buttered toast had left her, she wanted to see the trial of Uncle Julius's toasting fork, and she was thirsty enough to drink a whole pot of tea. She made her way to the drawing room.

  Miss Burleigh was just pouring the tea. Uncle Julius, neat and clean in an ol
d-fashioned frock coat, his spectacles sparkling, was methodically devouring a plateful of ham sandwiches. Maria and her daughter wore matching blue-sprigged muslin today, and identical pouts. Two small boys in nankeen, their pink faces suggesting a recent scrubbing, had backed Rupert into a corner where he goodnaturedly regaled them with tales of derring-do.

  Miss Burleigh smiled at Laura. Maria said, “Good afternoon, Lady Laura,” with such half-hearted graciousness that Laura suspected she had just been ordered to do so by Miss Burleigh.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Forbes,” she responded noncommittally, taking a seat.

  Without prompting, Arabella came to curtsy to her. “I'll bring your tea,” she said eagerly.

  “You'd best let George do that, Bella,” said Rupert, coming forward. “Why don't you offer Lady Laura a biscuit? These two young rascals are George and Henry, cousin. Make your bows, boys.”

  Maria looked on complacently as her sons bowed, then spoiled it by saying, “Henry, your wristband is torn. Lady Laura will think you a gypsy. Go and have Nurse mend it at once.”

  “But, Mama, I'll miss tea, and Cousin Rupert, and everything! You can't make me—”

  “Henry, apologize to your mother.” Gareth came in just in time to forestall a storm. “Maria, I daresay Lady Laura will overlook a torn wristband this once. Let the child stay.”

  “Please do, Mrs. Forbes,” Laura requested and, deciding a change of subject was due, she turned to Gareth. “Do you mean to demonstrate Mr. Wyckham's new invention, cousin?”

  Uncle Julius tore his attention from his sandwiches for long enough to beam with pride. Gareth picked up the fork, propped by the fireside. He inserted a slice of bread and snapped the catch shut.

  “Can I hold it?” begged the older boy. “Please, Great-uncle Julius. Please, Cousin Gareth.”

  “Oh no, George, you will burn yourself!” Maria at once objected.