The Wild Baron

by Catherine Coulter

  “A man of your reputation wouldn’t want a dozen children,” she said slowly, looking at him straightly. Then she paused, frowning. “Oh, I understand now. If I was pregnant all the time then I wouldn’t be in London to interfere in your outside pleasures.”

  He held his anger. After all, a man of his reputation had to accept certain judgments about his character. The good Lord knew he’d worked hard enough to make sure that people had made those certain judgments. He drew a deep breath, saying calmly, with dead certainty, “Actually, I wouldn’t go to London at all. I would walk about patting your belly, telling stories to my child. I would probably wear a perpetual idiotic smile on my face.”

  “I don’t understand you,” she said very slowly, still looking at him straightly, everything she felt so clearly writ on her expressive features. “You are reputed to be a great womanizer, a man of a satyr’s appetites. Everyone admires you for it, as they do your mother. As they did your father. You are renowned as a connoisseur of women. George said no man had a more splendidly lascivious reputation than you. Then he’d laugh and rub his hands. Naturally, now I understand why he laughed. He was trying to emulate you. I wonder if I was his first?

  “No, enough of that. Why in heaven’s name would you want to marry me and have a dozen children?”

  “Would you believe me if I were to tell you that none of that is true?”

  “No.”

  “But you haven’t seen me hieing myself off to have a woman since you met me?”

  “It’s only been a bit over a week.”

  “Yes, but a man of my reputation must have a woman at least twice a day. Maybe not even the same woman. You know, a woman in the morning and a different woman in the evening. Isn’t that what you’ve heard?”

  She gulped. This was plain speaking indeed. “So you’re exercising some control. I appreciate it.” Then her eyes widened. “But wait—you’re jesting, aren’t you? Twice a day? That’s unimaginable, outlandish. Why, it must be sinful. Surely the biggest womanizer of all time didn’t have a different woman in for his pleasures twice a day?”

  He was tempted to laugh, but he didn’t. “Would you consent to believe me were I to tell you that I have sown all the wild oats for a dozen men and am ready to settle down with one woman and that woman is you?”

  She couldn’t quite say no so quickly to that. She could only stare up at him helplessly. “But why me? I am nothing, less than nothing. I am worth only ten pounds a quarter. I already have a child by your younger brother. Why me? Wouldn’t you want a young virgin of splendid birth and fortune? I have heard it said that rakes prefer virgins, that they—”

  “Where did you hear all this about rakes?”

  She flushed, a very charming shade of red, really, and he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to do a whole lot more to her, but he was willing to begin with a kiss—or perhaps half a dozen kisses. “Er, perhaps it was from Mrs. Bingly, who was the local seamstress. She spent her youth as a lady’s maid in London.”

  “Well, perhaps that is what a common rake would prefer,” he said, lifting her out of the hole she had dug so deep she would fall to China if she kept talking. “I am not common. I am at least three cuts above common. Thus, what I would prefer must be different. I want you. I want Marianne. I want Toby. However, I will be blunt with you. I do not want your cursed father.”

  She persevered, he had to say that for her. She got the rope between her teeth and pulled and pulled. Her hands were kneading his shoulders now. It pleased him that she had no idea she was doing it. “You wouldn’t have looked at me for a second if it weren’t for this wretched situation. You wouldn’t have looked at me at all even if I’d paraded in front of you without my clothes on.”

  His eyes nearly crossed, but he wasn’t a green boy. His father had always said that a man without control over his sexual urges wasn’t worth spit. “I wouldn’t count on that. Did I ever tell you I like your nose? Nice and thin and turned up just exactly right at the end.”

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “I would have looked at you at least three times. If you were naked and parading in front of me, I would have thanked God for his beneficence and bounty and put a stop to your parading immediately. You are really quite beautiful, but not in the common way. Thus you deserve a man who is also not in the common way. Marry me, Susannah. I will teach you about enjoyment. Together we can learn about what’s important to us and what isn’t. We will take on life together, you and I. I won’t embarrass you in our lovemaking. I won’t humiliate you. I swear to you that at least half the groans between us will be yours.

  “Let’s sweat together, Susannah.”

  His damned voice was shaking her to the core. His words—no, surely he was smooth in his delivery, and his words sounded perfectly serious—but she’d already been taken in once, and not by a master, like the baron. She’d been taken in by a very young man. Taken in very easily. She’d been the greatest fool alive. Yes, it was madness to believe him. She couldn’t listen, couldn’t trust him. He still held her loosely, his hands splayed across her back.

  Rohan was ready to throttle her for her damned tenacity as she said, aware that even to her own ears, she was floundering, “You must listen to me. You would come to detest me. I told you that I hated all those things men do to women. To me it is disgusting, repellent. It makes me ill just to think about it—having to take off your clothes not just in front of anybody, but in front of a man who has the legal right to do anything he pleases to you—it is horrid and I won’t do it again. There, I have told you the truth. I know sex is important to men—surely not as much as twice a day, at least to a reasonable man—but if that is so, then how long would it be before you went back to London to enjoy yourself with a woman who wanted to be with you in that way? For that many separate, er, occasions?”

  She actually shuddered. The resulting difficulties of having a reputation as a womanizer had certainly come home to roost.

  “I will make you a promise. A vow.”

  He kissed her fleetingly on her mouth.

  His lips were warm. She blinked and tried to pull away from him, but he didn’t let her go.

  “What promise? What vow? I don’t like sweat. You can’t promise not to sweat on me.”

  He laughed, he couldn’t help himself. “We’ll see about that. My vow is this: First you must marry me. If you decide you can’t bear me or my man’s body and my demands on you, if you don’t like our simply living together, then I will let you go. You will have the protection of my name and you will have ample funds for all your wants and needs for the rest of your life. Marianne will also have the protection of my name and her proper place in Society when the time comes. She will never want for anything. She will make a fine marriage. I will see to that. I will ensure that Toby has a proper education. He will go to Eton, then to Cambridge. Not to Oxford. I make you that promise, that vow.”

  Goodness, he was offering her the world. Why? No, there was a huge problem here. “But you must have an heir.”

  “Yes, it’s true that it would be nice to have a son to go with my daughter. Yes, Marianne will be my daughter. She will call me Papa. If, however—” he swallowed hard on this one “—you can’t bear me, then I wouldn’t ever get my heir. But again, our line wouldn’t die out, since I do have a younger brother, Tibolt. Upon my death, he would take the title.”

  “That isn’t fair. I would be a wretched human being to consent to that, so I will not. Besides, what if I gave you an heir and then I wanted to leave? I wouldn’t be able to take my son with me.”

  How the devil was she able to come up with so many arguments? The woman was a damned well that just didn’t run dry. And this argument took the prize. How confident was he? No, the better question was how could he even begin to doubt himself at this point? A man of his reputation had, perforce, the highest order of confidence.

  “If you gave me an heir and then wanted to leave me, then you would keep our son until he went to school. However, I would always be
active in his life. Do you agree?”

  “It is too cruel. No, I can’t agree. I am not a monster. No, forget that part of it.”

  So she was doing herself in with all her own arguments. This would have been fascinating to behold if he hadn’t had such a deep stake in the outcome. But she was bringing him the outcome herself. He drew in closer for the kill. “Then what do you suggest? No, we’re talking marriage only here. Nothing else. Forget leaving me and running off with Marianne and Toby. That won’t happen. I won’t let it. Forget leaving me with my heir.”

  She chewed her bottom lip over that. He had her, he knew it, but still, he hated the questions, the doubts, in her eyes. Finally, she said exactly what he’d expected her to, “You’re saying, basically, that I have no choice at all in this?”

  “Yes, that’s about it.”

  “Then there is no reason for me to be reasonable, is there? I will agree to your promise. What length of time?”

  “Fifty years.”

  She grabbed him about his throat and squeezed. She tried to shake him. “You make light of everything. You don’t take anything I say seriously.” She looked into his eyes. They were beautiful eyes, green as the thick grass at the edge of the Mountvale gardens.

  But what were eyes in the master scheme of things? “You won’t even recognize that my reasons for not marrying you are quite valid?”

  “They’re not. Can you think of a valid reason?”

  She dropped her hands to his shoulders. She stared at his cravat. It looked soft, yet perfect, just like he was, only he was a womanizer. Oh, dear. She swallowed. “At least I thought I loved George.”

  He felt an intense bolt of rage, but it was gone quickly enough, for George was gone, and life had shifted, dishing out new possibilities. Nothing was the same, thank God. He struck the pose of the reasonable male, which he knew he was. “Susannah, I know you don’t love me, yet. You’ve known me for a week. I don’t love you either. How could either of us have garnered deep emotions for each other within a week?”

  “Then this would be a marriage of convenience, all the convenience being for me?”

  “No, it would also be immensely convenient for my family. We would be protecting George’s reputation, and thus the Carrington name. Don’t doubt that anyone with even the slightest suspicion would find out quickly enough that your marriage to George was a fraud. This fake preacher, Bligh McNally, is really very well known. No, this is the only solution. I protect George and thus the Carrington family reputation. And you become a real Carrington. Everything will be neat and tidy.”

  He gave her a blazing smile. “And I get a daughter and a son, if you’re willing to oblige me, maybe even a half dozen of each.”

  “Would you let me go?”

  For a moment he thought she was referring to fifty years from now. But no. She was speaking of right now, of today, just walking out of his life. He released her, but didn’t move away from her. “No.”

  She began to pace, just like his mother, her stride long and sure, her brow furrowed in concentration. She didn’t have the immense beauty of his mother, but whatever quality she had, it was deep and mysterious and intense. What she was, was unique. What she was, was precious, at least to him. And who else mattered, for God’s sake? He wanted her, it was that simple. He thought a few fanciful thoughts of fate, then shook his head. Whatever she was, she fit with him. She was the woman God had fashioned for him and him alone.

  He watched her, content for the moment. She continued to pace, pausing every few steps, obviously caught up in very profound thought, then shaking her head, clearing it, and pacing again. Good, it meant she was discarding arguments. All the better for him. He sat down, leaning back in his chair. He rested his head back against his folded arms. He watched her walk, move. She was very graceful. She would sweat nicely.

  Suddenly she whirled about to face him. “I saw that. You are smiling. Why?”

  “If I told you, you just might attack me. You might run into the library, grab that ugly Chinese vase, and throw it at my head.”

  “It is probably a loathsome man-thought that made you smile.”

  “Indeed.”

  She sat down and arranged her skirts around her. He hadn’t noticed before, but he did now. She was wearing one of her three ugly gowns, this one a pale gray, nearly white from so many washings. The damned thing nearly touched her chin. It wasn’t cut properly either. It just went straight down from her breasts, not cupping in at all, no band to define her figure. She was wringing her hands. He raised an eyebrow at that.

  “Talk to me, Susannah.”

  “I am still thinking about this heir business. I would have to let you do those things to me—how many times?—in order to become with child.”

  “It’s called making love, at least it would be called that between us. It’s a pity that you don’t believe that. But you will believe it. Trust me.”

  Her voice was tart and quite cold. “Making love? Surely that is an invention of some man a very long time ago to draw women in.”

  “No, actually I don’t believe so. But I am not an expert on the Egyptians, so my opinion isn’t altogether learned.”

  If she’d had the Chinese vase nearby, she would have thrown it at his head. “And there would be no guarantee it would be a boy. I perhaps would have to submit to this for years before you got your heir.”

  “All true.” His eyes nearly crossed again. “I rather like the thought of five girls before we make our boy. Don’t be melancholy, Susannah, it won’t take all that long, if you don’t wish it to. Not more than twenty years.”

  She actually shuddered. What the devil had George done to her? But he knew, of course. Many men didn’t have any knowledge at all about women’s bodies. Many men did have knowledge, but they didn’t care. He personally thought that all men should have rigorous training in how to make love properly to a woman. His father had certainly seen to it that he’d gotten proper training.

  He’d been fourteen when his sire had rubbed his hands together, slapped him on the back, and turned him over to his most skilled mistress, Mary Claire, a lass from Wexford, Ireland, who gave Rohan three lessons a week for six months. Actually, she’d confided to him some years later, he hadn’t needed any more lessons after three weeks, but she enjoyed him, and besides, she’d laughed then, his father had paid her handsomely for bringing his boy into proper shape. He tried now to remember if he’d ever felt embarrassment with Mary Claire. He didn’t think so.

  He still occasionally saw Mary Claire. She was an excellent friend. She had been so distraught after his father’s death that his mother had gone to console her. In fact, the two women had been close ever since then.

  As for George and Tibolt, they’d also had appropriate training. There’d been no reason for George to be a clod. He’d not been tutored by Mary Claire, but surely his father wouldn’t have had him placed with an inept woman. But he had proved himself a clod, obviously. Why? He must have been one of those men who didn’t give a good damn about a woman’s pleasure. Rohan couldn’t imagine such a thing.

  Susannah was saying, “My mother was the daughter of a knight. He evidently did something in the Colonies to please George III and was thus rewarded. As for my father, he was a second son, half Irish, with not a sou to his name. Her father disowned her. So you see, my antecedents are on the very edge of acceptable.”

  “Ah, so your family can’t trace itself back to the Conqueror?”

  She frowned at that. “I haven’t the foggiest idea. I should know that, shouldn’t I? I could write to my grandfather. I’ve never met him, but perhaps he doesn’t wish to keep me disowned now that my mother has been dead so many years. My mother used to say that he wore the starchiest cravats of any gentleman she knew. She said he could scarce move his head. Thus it was impossible for him to look down and see his daughter. She said she doubted if he ever saw her except at a distance.”

  “This sounds highly eccentric. Perhaps there are bats in your ancestral
belfry.” He raised his hands at her. “No, don’t think about throwing that vase at me again. Very well, here is what I will do so you will not feel guilty for your less-than-adequate birth. I will simply lower your quarterly allowance to compensate myself for your lacks.”

  “I will write to my grandfather,” she said firmly. “Surely there must be something of note in the family tree, something salutary to make you commend my ancestors.” Then, to his absolute delight, she lowered her head, whispering, “I don’t want you to be ashamed of me.”

  So she was coming around. More than that, she was very nearly there. Excellent. “Who is your grandfather?”

  “Sir Francis Barrett, from Coddington, in Yorkshire.”

  “He sounds up to the mark. We’ll see. Have you come up with anything else to torture yourself or me with?”

  “I don’t suppose that you will tell your mama all of the truth?”

  “I already did. Mother is a force to be reckoned with. She woke me up before six o’clock this morning and squeezed me dry before six-thirty.” Rohan just realized what a marvelous weapon she’d just handed him, the final nail. He looked for a moment at his fingernails. Then he smiled at her. “Mother believes we should marry as soon as possible, in fact, immediately. She is naturally upset about what George did, but she wants you and Marianne to be protected and she agrees that marriage with me is the only thing to do.” He paused, for just the exact small moment, then added, “You know, Susannah, my mother has an incredible sense not only of what is proper but also of when it is just the right time to execute the needful in order to gain the proper.”

  She sighed deeply.

  “Our marriage is the needful.”

  She sighed again, even more deeply.

  He had her.