The Wild Baron

by Catherine Coulter

  “A year is nothing to a woman of your stamp. Indeed, in the presence of your very dashing brother-in-law, you have lost any morals you might have laid claim to. Have you seduced the poor baron? It doesn’t matter, you know.”

  “No,” said Mrs. Hackles, the first of Lady Dauntry’s Greek chorus, “you cannot trick him into marrying you as you probably did poor George Carrington, who had never looked at a girl in his young life—such a pity for his parents. No, a brother cannot marry his brother’s wife. That is the law. You obviously didn’t know that, but now you do. It is best that you take your child and leave the poor baron and his sweet mother alone. You have intruded, and it is vulgar.”

  Susannah could only gawk at them. Her head, which hadn’t ached in two days, had begun to throb with a vengeance. Her eyes hurt just from looking at the three women who were marshaling themselves around her, eyeing her with the enthusiasm of a hanging judge facing a room full of thieves. She wanted out of here, but she knew she would have to knock them down to get to the door.

  She would try reason. She looked at each of them, splaying her hands. “But what did I do?”

  “You took off your clothes and tried to seduce the poor baron, pretending that the man had hurt you,” said Lady Dauntry—no hesitation at all. “We have all discussed it. You are not welcome here. Indeed, we wonder if you were even married to poor, stuffy George. The dear baron will find out all about you and then he will kick you out, the little boy and that little bastard with you.”

  Susannah was ready to crash herself into all three ladies. She hoped she would break an arm, a leg, mayhap even a head. How dare they call Marianne a bastard! She was an instant away from attack when she heard a man’s voice.

  “Ladies, I hope I’m not disturbing you.” It was Rohan, gracefully skirting her attackers, coming into the ladies’ withdrawing room, a room no gentleman was supposed to acknowledge even existed. Susannah drew up short, staring at him. How long had he been there? How much had he heard? Oh, dear, what would he do?

  He continued in that easy voice of his, “It is pleasant to have such caring neighbors, isn’t it, Susannah? You’re looking just a bit peaked. I tried to keep you in bed, but you couldn’t bear lying there, growing mold, you told me. Now look what’s happened. I will have my mother come see to you shortly.

  “Ladies, I’m glad you are all here, for if Susannah had become faint, then you would have seen to her. I thank you all for your concern, your generosity.”

  “My lord,” said Lady Dauntry, “surely Mrs. Carrington is still too unwell to be dancing with such verve. We have already told her that.”

  “Yes, I believe I heard you say that,” said Rohan. “You know, after listening to you, I have begun to wonder. Do you suppose that since her face still looks like a battlefield, she planned for it to look like that? Do you believe it is cosmetics that make her look so awful? I ask myself, is all this a ruse?”

  Mrs. Hackles said, in a very loud, carrying voice that could have deafened a horse at fifty feet, “We will assume that you are jesting, my lord. There is too much sarcasm in it to be an excellent jest, but we will accept it as an attempt at a jest nonetheless. She was quite naked just three days ago—”

  “And you were carrying her,” Lady Dauntry said. “My dearest husband remarked that your hand was on her leg—the top of her leg. Her naked leg. He was naturally upset.”

  “Jealous, was he?”

  “My lord!”

  “You are purposely avoiding the point,” said Lady Dauntry.

  All three of the ladies were well prepared to explore that exact point ad infinitum. It was at that moment that Rohan realized it wouldn’t end. Susannah would be ostracized. He’d been dreaming when he’d thought that everything would be all right, that his neighbors would fall into line. He supposed he should just give her the twenty thousand pounds and send her on her way. Yes, that would be the right thing to do. It was the only honorable thing to do. She deserved it, no matter what George had done. It would free him of her presence, it would solve all the attendant problems that she carried with her. Yes, that was what he would do.

  He said, “Actually, ladies, you are perfectly right. I heard you questioning whether or not she was even married to my brother George, questioning whether her child is a bastard. Let me be frank with you all, for you have known me since I was just a lad and have always had my best interests at heart.” He drew a deep breath and spit it out, not looking back. “You are perfectly correct. Mrs. Carrington was never married to my brother George.”

  Susannah had been watching Rohan with the admiration that she would feel for a great orator who was demolishing other pretenders. But not now. She couldn’t have heard him right. She could only stare at him, as were those three wretched besoms. Her head was pounding now, nausea roiling in her stomach. She managed to ease down onto a chair. She closed her eyes. Perhaps if she kept them closed, all of this would disappear.

  “It’s all right, my love,” Rohan said, smiling at her, his voice sweet and soothing. She managed to cock her eye open at that. His love? What was he up to? Oh, God, she knew she wasn’t going to like it, whatever it was.

  “Yes. You see, my dear ladies, it was never George she was married to. I am the Carrington she married. Susannah has been my wife for four and a half years. Yes, indeed. Marianne is our legitimate child.”

  The three ladies looked as if they’d just swallowed raw herring.

  “That is absurd!”

  “That makes no sense at all!”

  “You continue with your god-awful jests, my boy!”

  Rohan spread his hands in front of him. He actually looked embarrassed, he was a bit flushed with chagrin. “Well, actually, let me be totally honest here. You deserve it. You see, I was trying to bring my mother around to accepting her,” the baron said. “My dear mother didn’t want me to marry so young, and indeed, I was the greenest young man when I met and married Susannah. But you see, I fell violently in love with her. I knew I could not take her for a mistress. She is a lady. On the other hand, dear ladies, I didn’t want to break my parents’ hearts. They wanted me so much to become a sensualist that Society could admire and they knew that it would require years of continual practice and refining of skills. Also, I didn’t want to make my father believe that I had no control over my, er, ‘lustful young man’ instincts. My father, as you know, believed that a man should be controlled so that he could always give of his best to the ladies.”

  “That is true about your dear parents, baron,” Mrs. Goodgame said, “but you married this chit? When you were only twenty-one years old? It makes no sense.”

  “And not tell your parents?” Mrs. Hackles said, an impossibly thick eyebrow inching up. “Surely they would come about if indeed you were married to the girl. You say she’s a lady? Just look at her—that loose gown, those cosmetics on her face.”

  “That is my mother’s gown and my mother also applied the cosmetics to hide the bruises.”

  “Well, it is a different matter when dear Charlotte wears a gown like that. She would look like an angel in that gown, not a loose chit like this girl looks.”

  Susannah could only stare at Lady Dauntry. She wanted to scream at all of them that she was a lady, that her poor gambling father was half Irish but her mother had been a knight’s daughter who was unceremoniously drummed out of the family when she’d married beneath herself. She knew if she opened her mouth, she would yell and then she would be sick. But what to do? What was Rohan doing, claiming that he was married to her? Perhaps she had heard him wrong. Perhaps this was all a game to him.

  He leaned closer to the three ladies, who were regarding him as if he had just escaped from Bedlam.

  “You all have my best interests at heart, I can see that. You want to protect me. But it isn’t a matter of protection. Perhaps you can help me convince my dear mother that I love my wife and my daughter and it is time for me to bring them out of the cellar, so to speak.

  “It was I who made up th
is tale about Susannah’s being married to George. Just look at that pathetic little face of hers, ladies. Even without cosmetics covering the bruises, she would look on the pathetic side. I ask you, could that face launch even one ship? No, not even a raft—that is what you’re thinking. But she is sweet and she is the mother of my child. She is my responsibility. I cannot very well kick her out.

  “Yes, ladies, if my mother still doesn’t wish to accept Susannah, may I count on you to assist me to make my dearest Susannah accepted?”

  Lady Dauntry was in the biggest quandary of her life. Her tongue was all sharpened, but what was she to fillet?

  Mrs. Hackles readily agreed that the girl looked pathetic. What else could she say?

  Mrs. Goodgame sighed, her heart touched despite herself. It was an affecting story. Rohan Carrington had disappointed all of them, truth be told, but he had married this girl and she had borne him a child. What to do? She sighed again. She saw clearly that her dear friend Lady Dauntry, their undisputed leader, was looking as if she’d been shot in both feet. She would deal with this, then. She said, “Almeria, Elsa, listen to me. We cannot let our dear boy down. If need be, we must help dear Charlotte understand that she simply must accept this girl here. But, my dear boy, a question. Why did you create this fiction involving George?”

  “So I could bring Susannah here to my home. So I could prepare Mother for the treat. Marianne is her granddaughter. I could not bear to keep denying her the flesh of her flesh.”

  “This would not necessarily be a treat, my lord,” Lady Dauntry said, “to our dear Charlotte.”

  Rohan looked genuinely downcast. It was a very effective pose.

  “Very well,” Lady Dauntry said at last. “We do not wish you to be hurt over this fiasco. If dear Charlotte cannot bring herself to accept this, then we will speak to her. For you, dear boy, for you.”

  Rohan gave them a boyish smile that held such relief and gratitude, Susannah was certain he could rival Edmund Kean.

  She decided to wait until the ladies left before she killed him.

  Lady Dauntry eyed her, seeing that she looked very pale, despite the nasty cosmetics that made her look very pathetic, just as the dear baron had said, poor boy. “You look sickly, my lady. Don’t stare like a half-wit. Since you are the baron’s wife, you must be accorded the title.”

  My lady? Oh, dear, oh, dear.

  “Yes,” Lady Dauntry continued, in control again now, “it must be accepted that a husband could dress his own wife in his shirt and jacket. It must be accepted that he could carry her, his hand on her naked leg—the top of her naked leg—to her bedchamber. Yes, we will accept this and we will make our husbands stop looking at you as if you were a hussy. We will even accept that you were kidnapped and that our dear boy here saved you.” She paused, looking pointedly at Mrs. Hackles.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Hackles, jumping in with both feet now that she knew which direction to jump. “We will even overlook this strange tale the dear boy tells. If my own son had done such a thing, why, I’m sure that I would like to meet my grandchild, but I don’t know about Charlotte.”

  Rohan said easily, “She has accepted Marianne, thank the good Lord. It’s just that she still believes that Marianne is George’s daughter, not mine.”

  “That is something,” said Mrs. Goodgame. “It is just that dear Charlotte isn’t expecting this. Surely she believed you would marry a lady of her choosing, one who would be just like her or a milksop who wouldn’t say a word when her husband left her to be with his score of mistresses. There would be no other sort of wife for you, in Charlotte’s mind.”

  Lady Dauntry bent a fierce eye on Susannah. “Are you like dear Charlotte?”

  “In what way?” Susannah felt as though she were a minor actress in a play, only she didn’t know her lines. Nor did she know the ending of the play. Perhaps all the actors would suddenly stop speaking their lines and burst into insane laughter.

  “I suppose you’ve only just met your mother-in-law,” Mrs. Goodgame said. “Charlotte, very simply, isn’t like any other lady in the land. She is herself. She is so beautiful she is entitled to do anything she wishes, with anyone she wishes. It is a paradox. Her dear husband—the baron’s dear father—adored her. Fortunately, he shared the same inclinations. All worked out well until our dear boy here slipped and took a mighty fall. You’re only twenty-five, Rohan, and you have a child. Not a mere little babe, but a child. You have a wife. It flabbergasts the mind. It renders one speechless.”

  Nothing had ever rendered any of these ladies speechless, Rohan thought.

  “Perhaps,” Mrs. Hackles said, leaning toward Susannah and lightly thumping her fan on Susannah’s knuckles, “you are a milksop. That will do just as well. There is no possible way that you could ever be like Charlotte even if you tried. You’re not pretty enough. You haven’t a word to say for yourself. You are doubtless lacking in wits. You are perhaps boring. Further, you don’t have her sweetness, her divine sense of the wicked and the clever. Yes, you must be a milksop. It is the only thing you can be to make all of this work out properly.”

  Susannah jerked out of her chair, her head pounding and her stomach roiling and vomited short of the basin in the corner behind the screen.

  “Yes,” she heard Lady Dauntry say with some satisfaction, “she is a milksop, so you are saved, my dear boy. Surely a woman like Charlotte—indeed, a woman with any spirit at all—would not have been content to live in the middle of nowhere with little or nothing were she married to you. Had she any spirit at all, she would have arrived on your doorstep, her child in her arms, and demanded to take her place in your home. But she didn’t do any of this. No, she stayed where you put her. You will do well with a milksop. You will continue to be true to your nature—as you have, even though you married her. Just look at all you’ve accomplished in the past four years. You are growing into your dear parents’ beliefs and habits and endearing ways. Perhaps we shan’t despair.”

  Rohan heard the sound of dry heaves. He prayed Susannah would continue vomiting. It would keep her mouth shut, so to speak. He prayed that Toby would remain in the corridor, his own mouth firmly seamed together.

  He clasped Lady Dauntry’s hands in his. “Your consideration and devotion touch me, ladies.” He gave each of them a tender smile. A man of his reputation could produce a tender smile for the sourest of old biddies. “Now, perhaps you would consent to see my dear mother tomorrow. You will all convince her that Susannah is a fit wife for me—in short, a milksop wife. You will ensure that she is well on her way to accepting my marriage. I thank you.”

  He actually bowed, Susannah saw, poking her head around the screen. He was incredible. The ladies then walked out, and she heard scattered words about who would speak about what to dear Charlotte.

  She rose to her feet, hanging on to the screen, which wobbled, and said, “I am not pathetic. I could launch a raft. I am going to kill you now.”

  Not a moment later, Toby came into the room. His eyes looked glazed. He said, “Don’t kill him until he can tell me why he told those ladies that you and he were married.”

  Both of them were staring hard at him. Rohan saw that Susannah’s hands were two quite efficient-looking fists. She was still pale; the powder was off and he could see the green and yellow of the bruises on her cheek. Her beautiful gown was askew.

  He said gently, “Would you like to clean out your mouth, Susannah?”

  “No, not yet. Tell us now, Rohan. I don’t want to have cramps in my fists.”

  He looked at the pitiful girl in front of him, then at Toby, who looked as shocked as a vicar in a brothel, and smiled. “I haven’t the foggiest idea why I did it.”

  14

  THEY SAT OPPOSITE EACH OTHER, DRINKING TEA LIKE A companionable married couple after a long evening.

  “You asked me why I did something so incredibly unexpected,” Rohan said at last, wishing she had said something first, but she hadn’t. “I have told you I don’t know why I did i
t, but dammit, Susannah, it is done. It cannot now be undone. Another thing: I don’t think it was stupid. I believe this will solve every problem. I’m not sorry I did it.” And to his own astonishment, it was true. He didn’t regret it at all. The truth was, he wanted to marry her. No wonder he was so comfortable with his lie. However, having told it, he didn’t think marrying Susannah would be any easier to execute for having claimed her as his wife.

  Susannah was striving for patience. “Rohan, in olden times, you would have been the perfect gentle knight. But what you told those three old witches was a lie, a bold-faced lie. A quite silly lie, really, since anyone can so easily find out that it is a lie. I was married to George. You have just added to my problems. If you and I were married, we would be breaking the law.”

  “No, we wouldn’t.”

  She just shook her head at him, clearly distracted, thinking, speaking again. “Just send me away. I will never bother you again. I am not your responsibility. I did quite well until you came along.”

  He saluted her with his teacup. “Now there’s a lie that doesn’t bear scrutiny.”

  “Very well, but for the most part I was managing. George did send money—I told you that—up until the time he died.”

  “How much did he send you?”

  She looked down into her teacup. The tea leaves were spread in a strange pattern in the bottom of the cup. She was thankful there were no gypsies about. She would have dreaded to hear what they made of those leaves.

  “It is really none of your business, but I will tell you anyway. George didn’t have much money, but you know that. He was at Oxford, on an allowance from you.”

  “Oh? I can’t seem to remember how much I gave him per quarter.”

  “You gave him twenty pounds per quarter. George sent us ten.”

  He felt the rage boiling up in him. If George had been in the room, Rohan would have smashed him into the wainscoting. He would have yelled at him first, then hit him. “Ten pounds,” he repeated, “all of ten pounds per quarter. Yes, Susannah, you must have done very well indeed with all that largesse. Why don’t you want to be my wife?”