“Dearest, I’m sorry, but if you aren’t reasonable about this, then Susannah and I will simply ride to Eastbourne and make inquiries.”
“Both of us, Charlotte?”
“Naturally. I am willing to let you share the excitement. Ah, the art of detection. I find it fascinating. I am quite good at it. I was the one who found Lady Perchant’s ruby ring, you know. Perhaps there will be young men to question. I am very good at getting just about anything out of young men. They haven’t a chance.”
Rohan threw his napkin into the air. It fluttered down over his plate, still filled with delicious scrambled eggs and bacon and a rather tasty scone heaped with clotted cream.
“Me! Me!” Marianne shouted, pulling free of Lottie’s arms and running full tilt toward Rohan. “Me go too!”
Rohan groaned. “It is too much. Am I not the master in my own house?” He wasn’t about to put any of his family in danger. Surely Susannah realized that it had probably been Theodore Micah who fired at them the previous evening. Surely she realized he was more dangerous than Cleopatra’s asp. He appreciated her keeping her suspicions to herself.
“I will see to Marianne, sir,” Toby said.
“Yes, but first give me a go at her.” Rohan held out his arms. “Ro-han!” He picked her up and sat her on his lap. He lifted his napkin from his plate and the two of them ate his scrambled eggs.
Susannah stared at the man whose wife she had been for more than two weeks now. He was holding her daughter, playing with her, quite at ease with her. Nothing new really, but this time she felt something powerful move deep inside her. This something powerful—it was like a flower, she thought, a lily: it was radiant and white and pure and was coming into full bloom. It was very frightening. She’d never had much luck growing lilies.
There was no way she would let Rohan ride into danger alone. She knew that Theodore Micah had probably been the one to ambush them the previous night. Perhaps he had been following them, perhaps he had been hiding near Tibolt’s vicarage. No, she wouldn’t allow Rohan to go alone. She had to protect him.
What the baron did an hour later was underhanded, but it worked. Lady Dauntry and her two companions, Mrs. Goodgame and Mrs. Hackles, came by for a visit. It was too early for a proper visit, Charlotte said to Susannah, but she couldn’t very well tell them to leave.
Susannah didn’t trust Rohan an inch. She hoped he wouldn’t take advantage of this visit to run off to Eastbourne without her. She knew he thought he had her best interests at heart, but he would soon smother her with such protectiveness. She watched Rohan go to his estate room and close the door. He looked as if he would wait until the ladies left. Still, she didn’t trust him. But she also knew it would be intolerably rude of her not to play hostess to the “three battleships,” as Toby called them. So, Rohan had a chance to leave.
The old biddies had come by for a good gossip, Charlotte explained in a whisper. It was the family’s responsibility to feed the women appropriate tidbits. It was even their duty, and an excellent opportunity as well. “After all,” Charlotte said, “if we tell what we want everyone to know and believe, then they won’t be encouraged to make up their own little tales, which, trust me, would bear only incidental resemblance to the truth. I will, naturally, tell them all these little bits in strictest confidence. Also, Susannah, Rohan has gone into the estate room. He is hopefully doing correspondence with dear Pulver, not planning to go by himself to Eastbourne.”
Rohan waited until both ladies were well occupied. He put Pulver to work and told him to stay in the estate room until he returned to let him out. He went to the stable and told Jamie to take all the horses to the east pasture for at least three hours and not come home until the time was up. He said he was to pull two wheels off the two carriages as well. He himself saddled up Gulliver, even as Jamie and the other stable lads made a chain of the horses and led them away.
He was whistling when he rode Gulliver away from Mountvale House down the splendid graveled drive lined with lime and oak trees. A man did what a man had to do, he thought, and he’d bested them. He wished he could have smiled at his duplicity, but he was too worried. He waved at Jamie, who was well beyond the brightly painted white fence, too far away now for either his mother or his wife to bring him back. He stopped briefly and spoke to two of the patrolling men. They’d seen no one suspicious.
He was so relieved with his stratagem that he belted out a limerick he’d heard Jamie sing several times. He yelled it out at the lovely blue sky overhead, at the top of his lungs.
“There was an old lady of Kent
Whose nose was remarkably bent
One day, they suppose
She followed her nose,
For no one knows which way she went.”
Gulliver’s head snapped around. He snorted at his master, then tried to bite his boot.
When Rohan reached Eastbourne an hour later, he rode directly to the waterfront. It didn’t take him long to find out the name of the woman who rented rooms. Indeed, she had rented a room to an actor fellow who had the sweetest smile and the deadest eyes that Alice, the incredibly buxom barmaid, had ever seen in all her born days.
The actor fellow was gone. A man who had Rohan’s reputation would have been easily seduced by the buxom barmaid Alice, but instead he rode home. He didn’t relish returning home, but there was no hope for it.
He thought ahead to the ball for all their neighbors, at which he would confess his sins and seek redemption. He needed to practice. He wanted his performance to be perfect.
“I think,” his fond mama said, “that we should forgive him for this, Susannah. After all, he said he didn’t discover anything. My son obviously did not get his gift of detection from me. He failed in his mission. He failed because he treated us like sheep and slipped away. Stupid sheep that are good only for making wool.”
“Now that’s an innovative idea, Mama,” he said, suddenly wishing he were in London, where no one would look at him as if he were a sod. Mothers, he supposed, were to keep one humble.
“I agree with your mother, Rohan. You will not do such a thing in the future or else I shall have to take a hand, or something.”
He raised an eyebrow at that. “Oh, Susannah? And just what might that hand be? Or that something? Is it interesting?” He rather wished she could have taken a hand or something the night before, but she’d been exhausted. He’d kissed her nose, her left ear, and by that time, she was fast asleep.
Charlotte, on the point of further berating her son, chanced to look at her daughter-in-law and saw that she had flushed scarlet to her hairline. “Goodness, Susannah, whatever are you thinking? Ah, you must be thinking of Rohan. Is that the reason for your embarrassment? But Rohan said nothing untoward, nothing that could have made you think about intimate things or luminous fancies.” She smiled fondly at her son. “Your father, dearest, loved to call me luminous. He rather loved to see me wear luminous nightgowns. Ah, such a pity.” She sighed deeply, then blinked, bringing herself firmly back into the room with them.
“She’s thinking of my hands, Mama. Just my hands—and look at her face.”
“You are splendid, dearest. Just the mention of your hands and you render her speechless. I am impressed with you, and here you’ve only been married such a short time. Not that I’m all that surprised, naturally.”
Susannah, routed, picked up her skirts and fled the room.
A seamstress came to Mountvale House from Eastbourne and remained for four very happy days, for Baron Mountvale was paying her more than she could earn in six months, all for sewing new clothing for his new wife, who was, indeed, in dire need of her excellent services.
The only problem Mrs. Cumber suffered was with the new baroness. She was twitchety. She didn’t enjoy being on the receiving end of such largesse from her husband. Largesse? Goodness, Mrs. Cumber thought, it was only four gowns and two riding habits, not to mention a good half dozen chemises made of the most wicked French silk, which the baron’s mam
a had brought back from Paris.
Mrs. Cumber was there to assist her ladyship on the evening of the party welcoming the new baroness—or rather the newly revealed baroness—to the area as the now emerged Baroness Mountvale. Mrs. Cumber gently smoothed down an errant pleat. Then she stood back to behold her magnificent creation. The young baroness looked so lovely, Mrs. Cumber was impressed at the depths of her own genius.
It was then that the adjoining door opened and the baron strolled into the room. Ah, what a splendid-looking gentleman he was, tall and well formed, a merry sparkle in those lovely green eyes of his and a very nice smile on his mouth, a mouth that made Mrs. Cumber wish she was twenty years younger and not a seamstress. Why, a man of his reputation would never look at a seamstress and think of frolic. She wondered if it was true that he kept at least three mistresses at any one time.
“Ah,” Rohan said, stopping and stroking his chin as he looked Susannah over thoroughly. “The cream. It is amazing what you do to that color, Susannah, along with that delicate Valenciennes lace around your neck, just hinting at all the lovely flesh . . . well, never mind that much detail. It’s all that sinful mink hair of yours that enhances the gown. Sabine did an excellent job. I like all those lazy curls floating over your shoulders and down your back. Mrs. Cumber, you are to be congratulated. You have managed to flatter an already quite perfect figure.”
“Thank you, my lord,” she said in a very demure voice, though she wanted him powerfully. This little wife of his likely didn’t know a bloody thing, not that Mrs. Cumber knew much more, but she knew some.
“I do have a token to further enhance your beauty,” he said to Susannah, and opened his hand. Diamonds and sapphires flowed over his palm, sparkling, glimmering in the rich candlelight, snatching her breath away.
Susannah stuck out her hand, then quickly withdrew it. “Oh, goodness, I’ve never seen anything so exquisite. You cannot mean you want me to wear this incredible jewelry? No, I cannot. What if I lost some of it? What if I—”
He merely smiled at her, shook his head, and clasped that incredible necklace around her neck, then lifted her wrist, kissed the inside, and fastened the bracelet on. He handed her the earrings and watched her secure them in her ears. She took a step back and looked at him helplessly.
He stared at her, he couldn’t help it. To him, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. And that was all that mattered. From the look on his handsome face, Mrs. Cumber determined that he wanted his wife more powerfully than she, Mrs. Cumber, wanted him. No, she thought just a moment later, that wasn’t possible.
He kissed his wife’s hand. She was looking at him now, not at the luscious jewels. “Look in your mirror and tell me what you think.”
She looked down at her wrist. The brilliance of the diamonds and sapphires nearly blinded her. She made an undignified dash to her dressing table with its wide mirror, sat down, and stared at her reflection. She lightly touched her fingertips to the necklace, then to her earlobes.
She turned around. She seemed oddly vulnerable, sitting there, looking like a princess. There were tears shimmering in her eyes. “I have made you cry, Susannah?”
She could only shake her head and swallow furiously.
He said to Mrs. Cumber, who was looking at Susannah more avidly than Lady Dauntry had that evening when Ro-han had announced that he was Susannah’s husband, “Thank you. My wife is glorious. You may leave us now.”
She left the bedchamber with a lagging step. At her age one had to enjoy such splendid animals as the delicious baron vicariously.
“Now, why the tears?”
She shook her head, her face down. He came down on his haunches in front of her. He took her hands in his, smooth hands now, for she hadn’t scrubbed any floors at Mountvale. “Susannah. Look at me. What is wrong?”
She scrubbed her fist over her cheeks. It made him smile. He should tell her that no female wishful of a man’s regard would do such a thing. How ridiculous. He found it endearing.
She blurted out, “Why are you being so generous to me? I have brought you nothing but pain and heartache and responsibility, even danger. A lot of danger. Because of me you have discovered that George was a rotter. Because of me it’s possible that Tibolt is a rotter as well. It is likely that you would never have known about them were it not for me. That man could have killed us, he could have shot Elsay again. It was all my fault. Truly, I am a trunk filled with rocks, a clinging ivy to choke you, a wasp to bring you incalculable pain, a—”
“A leech to suck my blood? A ringworm to ruin the innards of our racing kitten? A lead-filled pillow to smother me?”
She was laughing now, despite herself, despite her gloom, hiccuping, trying to shove him with her fists, but he grabbed her wrists and held her firm.
“What you are,” he said slowly, “is the woman who is my wife. As for the other, there will be answers. Because I am a superior man I will find the answers we need.”
She was utterly distracted. It had been well done of him, and he knew it. Then she flung her arms tightly around him, sending them both backward onto the carpet, an unexpected bonus to his brilliance.
“I would like to stay here with you for a fortnight and do everything that it is possible to do to your lovely self.” He leaned up and kissed her mouth. “Unfortunately, you will make all your fine curtsies tonight and charm all our neighbors. I will be contrite and by the end of the evening everyone will be on the road to forgiving me my perfidy because it is obvious that you have.”
Curse him and bless him, Susannah was thinking sometime after midnight as she stood fanning herself behind a palm tree, he’d been right. Of course, it was his own lazy, self-deprecating charm that gained him forgiveness from all and sundry.
Her feet hurt, and she stood on one leg to wiggle her toes. On top of everything else, her husband was an excellent dancer. When she’d told him that, laughing up at him when they came together, he’d said simply, “Isn’t that what you would expect from a man of my reputation?”
She’d frowned at him. She frowned now, thinking about it. He was charming, vigorous, and wickedly handsome, she’d heard one of the ladies say behind her hand. But he was also something more, something a lot more.
She heard his laugh and came out from behind the potted palm. He was dancing with his mother, and the two of them were so beautiful, so graceful together, that several of the couples had moved back to watch them.
She heard a voice say softly behind her, “Well, well, just look at them. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
Susannah turned around slowly to look up at Tibolt.
“You were not invited,” she said slowly, not moving. He was dressed immaculately in black evening clothes, his shirt as white as the chalk cliffs.
“No, but then again, I’m a Carrington and thus can come and go as I please. Just look at them,” he said again, staring at Rohan and his mother. “You can see where Rohan gleaned all his carnal knowledge. From her. Do you know that she seduced my tutor? Yes—he was young, filled with the Lord’s fervor, cloaked in grace, until he saw her and was lost.
“I preach that women are the snare of the devil. My folk believe me because when I say the words—oh yes, I say them often—they know I believe them utterly. Yes, just look at her. Have you ever seen a mother look like she does?”
“Why are you here, Tibolt?” Susannah wasn’t about to speak about Charlotte to him. That he could speak of his own mother in such a way only lowered him more in her eyes.
“Did you know that she scarcely paid me any attention at all once I was determined upon my course to become a man of God? Even when I told both her and Father that I would eventually become the Archbishop of Canterbury, they paid me no heed. I would crown kings, I told them, but they didn’t care. I disappointed her, you see. She and my father had hoped that I would become like Rohan. They wanted two sons like themselves. Then, of course, she birthed George. They believed they’d gotten another priggish puritan like me, but now at l
east Mother knows differently. George was a budding rotter. I have wondered whether if he hadn’t drowned he would have become a complete rotter with the years.”
Susannah wished the music would end. She wished Rohan would magically appear beside her. She felt uncomfortable with Tibolt, no, more than uncomfortable, she was beginning to feel a bit alarmed. “Why are you here, Tibolt?” she said again.
“Why, I came to see my little niece, the little bastard you foisted off on Rohan.” Suddenly she felt a pistol pressed hard against her stomach. “Actually, Susannah, you will give me your half of the map and that little golden key. You and I will simply walk out the glass doors here and onto the balcony for a bit of fresh air. Then we will go around the gardens to the side door into the estate room and from there upstairs. If you make a sound, trust that you will regret it.”
“Why are you doing this? Why?”
“Shut up. I haven’t much time. Let’s forget my little niece on this visit, hmmm?”
She wondered if she should simply pretend to faint from sheer fright and collapse at his feet. Would he shoot her? No, surely he would not. She sucked in her breath, but he grabbed her arm, whispering with ferocious calm in her ear, “You try to deceive me in any way and I will take that little bastard of yours and no one will ever see her again. I will put her in a workhouse, where worthless little bastards belong. Do you understand me, Susannah?”
Oh, yes, she understood. She nodded.
“Hurry, then.”
26
TIBOLT CARRINGTON EASED INTO HER BEDCHAMBER AFTER her, then very quietly closed the door. Only one branch of candles was lit. The air was redolent of some sweet spice, coming from the candles.
Tibolt sniffed. “It is my mother’s doing, isn’t it? Imagine a candle smelling like a brothel. I expect that you fit right in. It sickens me that you and Rohan will breed another generation of degenerates. I must congratulate you on the matchless job you did of trapping my brother. Rohan has always believed himself so superior to the rest of us, but just look at what he has saddled himself with for life.
The Wild Baron Page 26