Beauty and the Baron

Chapter Three

Damn his fool pride! Lucius chided himself as he strove to ignore the hopeful light in his grandfather’s eyes.

“Carruthers tells me you went out riding this afternoon.” the earl glanced up from his book. “In the direction of Netherstowe.”

Lucius glared at the ancient valet who stood behind his grandfather’s chair. “Plenty of places lie east of here besides Netherstowe.”

“True.” The faint specter of a smile passed across the earl’s face as he cocked one gray brow. “But that is where you went, isn’t it?”

“What if I did?” Lucius turned to stare out one of the tall narrow windows of Helmhurst’s library. A thick bank of clouds had blown in from the west, shrouding the sun’s earlier brilliant glare. “Perhaps I was curious to discover whether Miss Lacewood bore any resemblance to the paragon you’ve been touting so continuously.”

He’d discovered that Angela Lacewood bore a strong resemblance to the sunshine from which he shrank—too warm and bright for a creature of the night to bear.

“And what was your verdict, my boy?” Beneath the mild, polite-sounding inquiry, Lucius detected a gloating note in his grandfather’s voice.

He meant to dismiss the young lady with some wry quip, only to hear himself murmur, “You scarcely did her justice.”

“I beg your pardon?” said the earl, though Lucius suspected he had heard.

Turning back toward his grandfather, Lucius spoke louder, exaggerating his words. “Pleasant enough, I suppose, if one’s tastes are that way inclined.”

The earl closed his book. “And yours are not?”

Lucius knew his grandfather well enough to read the subtle signs of disappointment on those wrinkled patrician features.

“Once, perhaps.” Moving toward the old man’s chair, Lucius shot Carruthers a look that bid him leave the two of them alone.

“Ring if you need anything, my lord,” muttered the valet as he shuffled out of the library.

Lucius settled himself onto the footstool by the earl’s favorite chair. How many hours of his boyhood had he spent on that footstool, while his grandfather had read to him?

A raw place in his heart gave a twinge. Too soon his grandfather would be gone and he would be all alone in the world. By his own choice, but alone just the same.

“I suppose you won’t leave off asking until I tell you about it.” A rueful sigh escaped from Lucius. “The truth is, I went over to Netherstowe to propose to your delightful Miss Lacewood.”

Perhaps if he admitted what had occurred—an expurgated version of events, at least—it would lay the earl’s matchmaking schemes to rest once and for all. Then Lucius would proceed to do everything else in his power to make his grandfather’s last months happy.

“Well done, dear boy!” The earl’s face remained impassive, yet it lit with a joyful radiance that Lucius regretted he would soon have to snuff out. “You’ll never repent your choice, I promise you. My young friend is a rare jewel.”

Lucius did not tell his grandfather that he already repented his interview with Angela Lacewood. She had provoked a vague sense of discontent within him, one he could not afford to entertain.

“She has certainly improved since I saw her last.” Lucius knew he must disabuse his grandfather of the ridiculous notion that Miss Lacewood had accepted him, but he could not bring himself to do it straight away. “She used to remind me of a plump brown rabbit with her round face and long teeth.”

“Winsome little creatures, rabbits,” said the earl. “Soft. Timid.”

“Not quite as helpless as they look, though.” Lucius remembered having one as a pet in his younger years. “Those back legs can deliver a nasty scratch if you’re not careful how you pick them up.”

The earl gave a soft, wheezy chuckle. “Even the meekest of creatures must defend itself when cornered.”

He reached out and patted his grandson’s hand. “Turned you down, did she? Well, never mind. I proposed to your grandmother four times before she got tired of refusing me. Fortunately we Daventry men are a patient lot.”

Lucius glanced up at the portrait of his grandmother that hung above the library mantelpiece. Though not strictly beautiful, she’d had a certain glow the artist had managed to capture.

“You had so little time with her,” Lucius mused aloud. “Did you ever wish you’d married a lady with a more robust constitution?”

For a moment, he wondered if the earl would answer so intimate a question. They had never been given to speaking of such matters. Lucius could not suppress a sense of gratitude to Angela Lacewood for having opened a door that had previously been closed between them.

“At first,” the earl admitted. “But less and less as the years passed. Certain people burrow themselves deep into one’s heart, and their going leaves a greater void on that account. Better a heart riddled with such holes, I think, than one perfectly intact…untouched.”

His grandfather made it sound so simple. Lucius knew better.

When a man’s heart was in danger of becoming nothing but a collection of holes, wasn’t he obliged to protect the tattered remnants he had left?

“About Miss Lacewood, Grandfather…”

He’d better have out with it—admit he’d fled like a coward before Angela Lacewood had a chance to refuse him a second time. Somehow he must make his grandfather understand that he could not go begging her repeatedly.

Before he could finish what he’d started to say, a discreet knock sounded on the library door and the earl’s valet peered in. “Miss Lacewood to see you, my lords.”

The earl set his book aside and rose to his feet rather unsteadily. “Bring her in, Carruthers, by all means. The dear girl hardly needs to stand on ceremony after all these years.”

Angela Lacewood breezed into the library, looking a trifle windblown but all the more attractive for it. “I hope you don’t mind my arriving out of the blue, my lord, but this seems to be a day for unexpected visits.”

When she held out her hand to him, the earl raised her fingers to his lips. “The only thing more pleasant than anticipating a regular visit from you, my dear, is receiving a surprise one.”

As she lavished the earl with a fond smile of dazzling intensity, Miss Lacewood cast Lucius a fleeting glance in which he perceived sorrow, valiantly restrained. So she did have some skill in masking her emotions, as she’d claimed.

Lucius was grateful that her pretense of felicity appeared to convince the earl.

Carruthers fetched her a chair and set it close to his master’s. When she thanked him with greater warmth than so small a service merited, the desiccated old stick beamed from ear to ear as he tottered back out of the library.

To his bafflement, Lucius felt a sharp, savage little twist deep in his gut. Surely it could not be anything so absurd as…envy?

“Do sit down, my dear.” The earl indicated the chair his valet had brought for her. “You sound a trifle winded.”

Angela had run most of the way from Netherstowe, yet it was only when she’d caught sight of Lucius Daventry again that she had found herself unaccountably breathless.

“Thank you, my lord.” She lowered herself onto the seat, as the earl settled back into his favorite chair. “You’re always such an attentive host.”

Lord Daventry did not resume his seat on the footstool from which he had risen so abruptly when she’d entered the room. Instead he skulked some distance away with his hands clasped behind his back, regarding her with an expression of thinly veiled wariness.

Clearly her unexpected arrival had put him on his guard, the way his appearance at Netherstowe had put Angela on hers. Forgetting for a moment her intent to show the man some compassion, she wondered how he liked this taste of his own medicine.

Perhaps he feared she might break down and tell the earl of his doctor’s dire prediction. If so, Lord Daventry had vastly underestimated her.

The next words out of his mouth disabused Angela of that notion. “Shall I give the two of you some privacy to enjoy your visit?”

Though the stiffness of his question irritated her, she saw past it and silently chided herself. Lord Daventry had been enjoying a quiet, private moment with his beloved grandfather, which she had interrupted. How many more such moments might they have in the coming weeks?

“Please don’t go, my lord!”

“No indeed,” insisted the earl in a voice that must have once been rich and resonant like his grandson’s but which now put Angela in mind of threadbare satin. “It is not as though Miss Lacewood has come courting me. I should be the one to withdraw and give the two of you a private moment.”

He shook his head and gave a soft chuckle. “But I don’t intend to.”

Angela fought a losing battle against the stinging blush that crept into her cheeks. At the same time, a yawning emptiness gaped within her, one that she sensed was but a foretaste of the bottomless void her dear friend’s passing would create in her life.

“I leave subtlety to the young,” said the earl. “You have time for it. At my age, I fear one must be indelicately frank if one expects to achieve one’s aims.”

He wagged his forefinger at Angela. “So no maidenly evasion about what brought you to Helmhurst, my dear. I hope you won’t hold it against my grandson that he told me he proposed to you.”

“Grandfather!” barked Lord Daventry.

The earl dismissed his grandson’s protest with a slight wave of his hand. “Carruthers and I extracted the confession under torture, of that you may be certain.”

For some reason the dry quip made Angela’s eyes prickle with tears she dared not shed.

Perhaps Lord Daventry sensed her distress, for he provided her a reasonable cover. “Please, Grandfather, you are embarrassing Miss Lacewood.”

She raised a hand to shield her brow, which gave her the moment she needed to compose herself.

“Is that so, my dear?” The earl sounded both surprised and contrite. “Well, you must pardon me as an old friend and an old fool. You know I’d never willingly do anything to distress you.”

Angela reached for his hand. She would not see the earl’s final months marred by the least shadow that was within her power to dispel.

“I’ve never doubted your kind intentions toward me, sir.” She hoped he would attribute any slight moisture in her eyes to excessive modesty. “It’s just that this has all taken me so greatly by surprise. I had no idea Lord Daventry knew of my existence, let alone that he entertained…tender feelings for me.”

She stole a glance in the baron’s direction only to find his gaze averted. His demeanor appeared as imperturbable as ever, yet it reminded Angela of the smooth surface of simmering water just prior to boiling.

She almost fancied she could hear his thoughts—Tender feelings, indeed!

Somehow, believing she had flustered him, even a little, restored a bit of her composure, which he had so thoroughly rattled.

The earl seemed to enjoy sporting with his grandson, too. “You may depend upon it that I have made my grandson favorably aware of your existence, dear child.”

“I hope you have not sung my praises so loud that Lord Daventry finds I cannot live up to your account of me.”

“On the contrary,” replied the earl with obvious relish. “He said I failed to do you justice.”

“Really, Grandfather!” cried Lord Daventry, confirming Angela’s suspicion about the simmering water. “If you mean to go on like this, then perhaps one of us should make himself scarce.”

“Nonsense.” The earl showed no sign of repentance. “What is wrong with relaying a word of praise to a young lady so vastly deserving of it.”

He turned to Angela. “No wonder you refused him, my dear, with that attitude. I expect his marriage proposal had all the romantic trappings of a legal writ.”

“Enough of this.” Lord Daventry stalked toward the library door. “I shall leave the pair of you to abuse me to your hearts’ content.”

A sickening tide of shame propelled Angela out of her chair to come between Lucius Daventry and his means of escape. “Please, my lord, don’t go.”

Though she knew her next words would probably vex him, she could not fathom why. Not that it mattered, for she could not bite them back. “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to torment you, truly.”

“Speak for yourself, girl.” The earl leaned farther back in his chair, resting his chin against his clasped hands. “I have been chaffing my grandson like this since he was half his present size. He’s never taken an ounce of umbrage until today, which may betray his partiality for you.”

Angela cast the earl a look of pretended severity. “I think you had better stop it before you change his opinion of me.”

She raised her eyes to Lord Daventry. “Shall we punish your grandfather by going away to talk in private?”

The corners of the baron’s firm lips raised ever so slightly. “It would serve him right, the old meddler.”

“Away with you, then.” The earl made a great show of picking up a book from the small table beside his chair. “Be warned, though, I am apt to sulk.”

He was only teasing, Angela knew, but since this was all meant to be for his benefit, she did not want the earl to miss a moment of their performance.

“In that case—” She addressed herself to Lord Daventry “—I came to tell you that I hope you did not mistake my hesitation in accepting your proposal as a sign that I meant to refuse. From what your grandfather has said, I fear you have.”

“I could scarcely blame you,” the baron replied. “My grandfather is right—it was badly done on my part and far too precipitous. I…apologize.”

“Does that mean you wish to withdraw your offer?” she asked, not entirely certain how she hoped he would answer.

Before Lord Daventry could reply, the earl spoke up. “Not unless he wishes me to hurl this book at his head.”

Perhaps the baron heard the gleeful ring in his grandfather’s voice, for his compelling green gaze searched hers, wordlessly inquiring if she could tolerate the two of them going on like this for…as long as necessary.

He had said her face was an open book. Now Angela hoped he could read her unspoken response, for suddenly she knew what answer she wanted from him.

“My offer stands, Miss Lacewood.” He held out his hand to her. “And not because I entertain any fear of my grandfather braining me with his volume of Rasselas.”

When she placed her hand in his, Lord Daventry bowed over it, grazing her fingers with his lips. The chaste gesture made Angela feel as if she were a saucer brimming with syllabub—frothy and intoxicating.

“In that case, Lord Daventry, I accept.” Before she realized what she was doing, Angela raised his hand to her lips to seal their bargain.

“Marvelous!” The earl applauded their convincing performance.

That was all it had been, Angela told herself, a command performance to entertain and edify a very special audience.

During the coming weeks, she must take care to remember that, and not fall under the perilous illusion that Lord Lucifer was capable of caring for her.

Or she for him.

The sensation of Angela Lacewood’s divine lips grazing the back of his fingers brought all manner of provocative, unwelcome memories whispering through Lucius. In his younger years, when his looks had made women swoon, he’d been something of a rakehell, gorging himself on a banquet of pleasures afforded by his wealth, his title and his handsome countenance.

Since the war, and the disfigurement that made women swoon for the opposite reason, he had become as devoted a celibate as he had once been a libertine. Until just now, Lucius Daventry had not realized how little he’d missed the shallow diversions of his youth.

But, his lovely, new fiancée threatened to rouse the sleeping hunger within him, damn her!

The earl held out his hands to Lucius and Angela. “I believe this calls for a toast!”

Lucius made every effort not to drop Miss Lacewood’s hand too abruptly, while battling an equally fierce inclination to kiss it again.

Toast, indeed! They could toast his peace of mind like a crumpet over the glowing coals of his rekindled lust.

“Tell Carruthers to fetch us a bottle of our best champagne from the cellar,” the earl ordered Lucius. “On second thought, have him hunt up three or four so the servants may also drink to your happiness.”

The gleam of delight in his grandfather’s eyes countered the reservations that gnawed at Lucius. Three months would pass by far too quickly. Besides, what was a gift worth without a little sacrifice?

“You don’t want to set the cook drunk, and have her burn our dinner,” he said as he set off to relay the earl’s instructions.

“Drink half a dozen toasts and we’ll never notice.” The earl beckoned Miss Lacewood toward him.

Lucius hesitated at the library door long enough to see her stoop and ask, “May I call you Grandfather from now on?”

The earl pulled her into his embrace, “My dearest girl, nothing could make me happier!”

As Lucius watched them together, a foolish, wistful ache settled deep in his belly. With dogged effort, he reinforced his flagging composure and hurried off to order the wine.

He returned to the library a few minutes later to hear his grandfather ask Miss Lacewood, “How soon shall we set the date? June is always a pleasant month for weddings.”

Set a date? A bottomless sensation engulfed Lucius, as though the library’s parquet floor had suddenly opened up beneath his feet.

Before he could stammer out something that might have exposed their ruse to the earl, as well as making himself sound a complete ass, Miss Lacewood came to his rescue.

“We dare not make plans until my aunt and uncle return from the Continent. In fact, I probably shouldn’t have accepted Lord Daventry’s proposal without their permission.”

Lucius privately applauded her quick thinking.

“Old Bulwick?” scoffed the earl, who bettered his neighbor’s age by at least two decades. “Nonsense! You’ve reached years of discretion?”

“Decidedly on the shelf,” Miss Lacewood admitted. “I don’t doubt my aunt and uncle will be delighted to see me make such a fine match, at last. However, they can be somewhat…jealous of their privileges.”

“Yes, yes,” the earl grumbled. “Since you’ll be remaining in the neighborhood, I suppose we ought not to offend your relations by wedding you off in their absence.”

Carruthers appeared just then, bearing a tray with three tall slender glasses and a bottle of champagne. With a murmur of thanks, Lucius set about uncorking and pouring the wine.

Once in possession of his glass, the earl raised it toward Miss Lacewood in a salute. “Let us drink to the most beautiful addition to the Daventry family in many a year—my dear Angela. I hope I may take the liberty of calling you by your name, since you propose to call me Grandfather.”

She nodded, lowering her gaze while a self-conscious little smile hovered on her lips.

“To Angela.” Lucius raised his glass, adding his voice to his grandfather’s. Her name sparkled on his tongue with an intoxicating sweetness that rivaled the champagne.

The earl sipped his wine and gave an approving nod.

“Anxious as I am to see you settled, perhaps a long betrothal is not a bad thing in your case. The two of you need some time to become better acquainted before you marry.”

Before Lucius could voice his agreement, the earl added, “Of course, I know why you’ve gone and gotten yourselves engaged in the first place.”

Lucius felt his jaw go slack as his fiancée sputtered her champagne.

Chapter Four

Champagne dancing its way down her throat was one of the sweetest luxuries Angela had ever enjoyed. Champagne surging back up, its innocent little bubbles scouring the back of her throat and nose, was another matter entirely!

When she heard the earl declare that he knew the true reason behind her engagement to his grandson, she could not stifle a gasp, which set her choking on her wine. Her eyes watered and she struggled to catch her breath between bouts of violent coughing.

She managed to hold on to her champagne flute long enough for a steadier hand to take it from her. A moment later she felt Lord Daventry gently tapping her on the back.

“Are you all right, Angela?” he asked. “Can I get anything for you?”

If she’d been able to reply, she might have told him it did no good posing questions to someone who was coughing too hard to speak. All the same, the warm concern of his tone eased her enough that she was able to catch her breath again. Before long, she had her coughing under control.

“Poor child!” The earl sounded flustered. “I hope you didn’t think I was implying any sinister motive to your betrothal. I only meant that I know you’ve both undertaken it to please me, in which you have heartily succeeded, I assure you.”

Angela felt doubly foolish. She should have known the earl was not referring to his doctors’ grim predictions. Now her excessive reaction to his remark might rouse his suspicions.

Fortunately, a lifetime of practice smoothing over her many blunders came to Angela’s rescue. “It had nothing to do with anything you said, my lord, truly. This was the first time I’d drunk champagne, that’s all. The bubbles tickled the back of my throat.”

“First taste of champagne?” The earl shook his head at his grandson. “And Bulwick fancies himself a gentleman?”

The hand with which Lord Daventry had been patting Angela’s back came to rest there for a moment, in what he might have meant as a comradely gesture of approval for her quick thinking.

Her reaction to his innocent touch was anything but innocent. A dark, ravenous energy stirred within her and began to rove through her flesh. Her thoughts swarmed with longsup-pressed curiosity about the mysterious rites of lovers.

To her vast relief, those immodest fancies did not blaze on her face for the gentlemen to see.

“Sip slowly, my dear, if you are not used to it,” the earl advised her in a most solicitous tone before taking a drink himself.

Lord Daventry left Angela’s side to refill her glass. His brief touch had made her hunger for more. When he returned with her champagne she made a deliberate effort to brush her fingers against his when he handed the flute to her.

Was it possible he felt something of the strange force he had excited in her? she wondered as he lifted his gaze to hers and held it for a taut, expectant instant.

The earl’s voice broke in on their fleeting private moment. “Perhaps I should be ashamed of myself for meddling in your lives.” He regarded Angela and his grandson with transparent satisfaction. “But I’m not. This modern notion of love matches is folly if you ask me. Let a young man choose his own mistress, I say, but let him be guided by his elders in the choice of a wife.”

“You needn’t preach to me, Grandfather. I quite agree.” As Lord Daventry retreated to the mantel with his own champagne, he tossed the remark off in such a casual tone that Angela decided she must have imagined the potent flicker of awareness between them.

Hoping to quench her own futile preoccupation with his lordship, Angela savored a deep draft of her wine, and then another.