The Bargain of a Baroness

by Sande, Linda Rae

  “I know how to play, of course,” Edward admitted. “You taught me.”

  “Up for a game tonight? My allowance gives me a certain amount to gamble with every month, and I haven’t yet taken advantage.” The earl’s next shot left a ball at the very edge of a pocket, and he cursed softly.

  Edward furrowed a brow as he lined up his shot and sunk the teetering ball. “Your allowance, sir?” he teased. Before his grandmother had told him about their arrangement with respect to gaming, Edward would never have believed an earl would be limited by how much blunt he was allowed to gamble.

  “Allowance, indeed. Your grandmother warned me some fifteen years ago that if she heard I lost more than a certain amount at the gaming tables, she would include a mention of it in that damned rag of hers.” He cursed again when Edward’s next attempt sunk another ball. “There are times I wonder why I bought that business for her, but it makes so damn much money for the earldom...” He shrugged. “Keeps me out of trouble, I suppose.”

  Despite the seriousness of Mayfield’s delivery, Edward struggled to keep a straight face. “May I inquire as to how many times your gambling losses have been featured in The Tattler, sir?”

  The earl glowered a moment before he allowed a hearty laugh. “Only once. Your uncle Alistair took me for five-hundred pounds one night, so we were both featured in the next issue. That’s never happened again.”

  Edward allowed a low whistle before he chuckled. He sobered when his ball spun off at an odd angle and knocked another so it was perfectly aligned with the queue ball. “I would think your son by marriage would know better than to beat you at whist.”

  Allowing a guffaw, Mayfield said, “Well, it wasn’t whist at which he beat me.” At Edward’s look of surprise, he added, “Hazard. He’s never done it again, but that’s probably because he doesn’t throw the dice much these days.” The earl sunk the perfectly aligned ball and straightened with a huff of satisfaction. He easily sank the last ball. “Brooks’s it is.”

  His eyes darting to one side, Edward asked, “Am I allowed to go into the club, sir? I’m... I’m not yet a member.”

  “You’ll be my guest, of course. When you’re up for election, I rather doubt there will be any black balls. You’re a baron now, after all.”

  “Sir?” He remembered what Tom had inferred—that he could expect to gain his late father’s courtesy title on the occasion of his next birthday.

  “You are my heir as well as the Baron Harrington,” Mayfield stated. “’Bout time you were seen in Society as such.”

  Excited at the prospect of attending the men’s club, as much for the experience as for who he hoped to find there, Edward gave a nod. “Very good, sir. Shall I... shall I tell my mother I’m going?”

  Mayfield furrowed a brow. “Well, if you don’t, you’ll be in a good bit of trouble at breakfast. But don’t go asking her permission. Just... just tell her you’re going with me.”

  Giving his grandfather a bow, Edward said, “I’ll be ready to leave in just a few minutes.”

  He hurried off to the first floor parlor, slowing his steps as he made his way over the threshold.

  “Did you let him win?” Hannah asked in a hoarse whisper, a grin teasing the corners of her mouth. She held the bowl of a steaming teacup between the palms of her hands, as if she was using it to warm them.

  “I kept it close, but I did let him win, which means we’re off to Brooks’s,” he replied in a quiet voice. “We’ll probably return after the supper is served at eleven. I wanted to let you know before I took my leave.” He paused and then straightened. “Oh, and it seems I have the title of baron now.”

  Hannah blinked, about to put voice to a protest. But instead, she gave him a brilliant smile. “Well, now that you know you are a baron, I expect you to do as your grandfather wishes,” she finally said. “But do try to limit your losses.”

  Edward gave a start at hearing her words, wondering if she had overheard his grandfather’s declaration. “I cannot lose if I do not play,” he countered with a smirk. He bent down and kissed her on the cheek before he gave a bow and took his leave of the parlor.

  Chapter 8

  An Unexpected Introduction

  Later than night, Brooks’s, 60 St. James Street, Mayfair

  “I expect there will be some murmurs of surprise when you enter with me,” the Earl of Mayfield said as he and Edward made their way toward Brooks’s.

  Due to the number of carriages parked along St. James Street, their town coach had been forced to park a good deal away, and although the driver offered to drop them in front of the club, Edward had suggested the walk would do them both good after such a large dinner.

  “I would expect nothing less,” Edward replied. He might have been declared a baron—and that was only a courtesy title belonging to the Mayfield earldom—but he was still rather young to be attending a men’s club that featured all manner of gaming. He had heard rumors there was even a cockpit in the basement.

  “I’ll vouch for you, of course, and stake you twenty pounds,” the earl continued. “After you’ve reached your seventeenth year, I’ll see to it there’s an election for your membership.”

  Edward clamped his mouth shut when he determined it might be left hanging open at the earl’s declaration. “Is that really a good idea? I haven’t yet started my classes at Oxford.”

  Mayfield scoffed. “Although it’s commendable you wish to attend, I may decide it’s not worth your time. Better you remain in London and learn how to run the earldom.”

  Rather alarmed by the comment, Edward furrowed a brow. Many claimed when he did so, he looked just like his uncle—and his mother’s twin brother—Henry Simpson. “Is there something you’re not telling me?” he asked as he motioned that they should slow their steps. The front door of the club was only a few yards ahead.

  Turning to regard his grandson, Mayfield allowed a sigh. “I am nearly sixty-seven years old. Already a few years older than my father was when he died.”

  “But you have made it clear you shall be alive as long as Grandmama, and Mother claims she will live to be a hundred.”

  Mayfield blinked. “Did she now? Hmph.”

  A dimple appeared in the base of Edward’s right cheek. “Something about not allowing another man to have his way with Grandmama, if you should die before her?”

  His eyes widening, Mayfield looked thunderstruck, and then he laughed. Loudly.

  Edward glanced around them, aware that a few passersby had noticed his grandfather’s outburst. “I rather doubt Grandmama would do such a thing,” he started to say.

  “She wouldn’t,” Mayfield said with confidence. “But you’re right to remind me I am not yet at death’s door.” He turned to discover they were instead at the front door of Brooks’s. “Although this place will be the death of me should I lose more than my allowance for the month,” he added with a guffaw.

  The two entered, and Edward noted how the earl barely paused to allow an impossibly tall footman to remove his greatcoat. His own was removed from his shoulders by another footman, and then he was suddenly in the club.

  A rather elegant club.

  He struggled not to appear boggled by the lush furnishings, by the dark wood paneling and high coffered ceilings, by the thick carpeting that absorbed most of the sounds of tinkling glassware and conversation, or by the stares of several older gentlemen who paused in whatever they had been doing to give him a passing glance. Almost as quickly, they returned their attentions to their games of chance, and Edward finally exhaled the breath he’d been holding.

  “I promised Morganfield a game of whist,” Mayfield said as his gaze swept the large room. Various gaming tables were scattered throughout, most populated by aristocrats or gentlemen of genteel breeding.

  For years, the club had been the bastion of those who owned country estates. On this night, nearly every chair was filled. “He took fifty pounds off me last month, and I intend to get it back,” he added, referring to David Car
lington, Marquess of Morganfield.

  “Is it permissible for me to simply watch the play? Or... or must I play and place bets?” Edward asked as his attention went to the faro tables.

  “You can watch, but do look as if you’re thinking of joining a game,” Mayfield replied, his gaze still wandering about the room. His attention was captured when a tall gentleman waved in his direction. “Ah, looks like I’ve found my prey.”

  Without a backward glance, Mayfield headed to the table at which the Earl of Trenton and the Marquess of Morganfield were sitting with a young man who might have been Morganfield’s heir.

  Haddon, Edward realized. His cousin Juliet’s husband.

  Edward watched as his grandfather made his way to the whist table. About to head in the direction of the faro tables, his attention was captured by the arrival of another rather tall gentleman.

  Handsome in a rough sort of manner and broad of shoulder, the gentleman stood near the entrance and surveyed the room as if he had never been there before. His brown hair was a bit longer than was usual for an Englishman, but he was clean-shaven. Although Edward was sure he had never been introduced, he was also sure he knew him from somewhere.

  After a moment, he realized why.

  He had seen a younger version of the man in a painting. He struggled to remember where it had been hanging.

  Over a mantel, in a parlor. Across the street from Grandmother’s house, he thought as his eyes widened. At the Wellingham’s townhouse!

  He hurried over to the man.

  “Pardon me, sir. You look familiar, but I cannot seem to place you,” Edward said as he held out his right hand. “Edward Harrington, at your service,” he added.

  Graham Wellingham regarded the young man who stood before him, stunned by his youth, his words, and his appearance.

  Familiar?

  He was quite sure he had never met the boy before, and given his apparent age, Graham was sure he hadn’t even been born before Graham was last on British shores.

  Graham had only come to Brooks’s on this night because he had a thought his father might be in attendance. A glance around the room proved Thomas Wellingham was probably at the townhouse in King Street, no doubt enjoying the company of Graham’s mother, Emma.

  Graham struggled to remember what the young man had said, his brain a bit foggy from lack of sleep.

  Edward Harrington.

  Blinking several times, Graham once again experienced a moment of vertigo before the room seemed to right itself. “Graham Wellingham,” he stated, not sure how else to respond to the whelp’s comment.

  And then the word ‘Harrington’ permeated his sleep-deprived brain.

  “Good to make your acquaintance, Mr. Harrington,” Graham said. “Since I have just today arrived from Boston, how is it I am familiar to you?”

  Edward’s eyes widened. “You did say, ‘Wellingham’, did you not, sir?” he asked as an eyebrow arched.

  “I did,” Graham acknowledged, curious as to why such a young man would be in Brooks’s. He also thought he looked familiar. Like a young man he had known in his youth. “As in Wellingham Imports,” he added with an arched brow. “My father’s business.”

  When the young man’s countenance changed before his eyes, Graham was compelled to add, “My father’s cousin is the Earl of Trenton.”

  Edward’s eyes widened even more, and Graham realized why the young man looked so familiar. He had the same eyes as Graham’s mother. Eyes shared by all the Fitzsimmons, in fact. But all thoughts of eyes flew from his brain upon hearing Edward’s query.

  “Are you by chance the... the turtle?”

  Stunned by the simple question, Graham blinked. He glanced around the club, looking for anyone he might know. When no one who glanced in his direction seemed to recognize him, he settled his gaze back on the young man who stood before him displaying an expression of awe. “Who told you?”

  His head shaking as if to clear it, Edward said, “My mother, sir.”

  Inhaling slowly, Graham fought off another round of vertigo before he said, “Is there somewhere we might... sit?” His gaze once again swept the room, his attention settling on a few who stood at the faro tables and then on some of the card tables, where whist seemed the game of choice on this night. Smoke billowed from an occasional cheroot.

  Edward spied a set of upholstered chairs set next to a bookcase. A fireplace was lit, although it was doubtful it provided the room’s only warmth. There were enough patrons to keep the large room comfortable.

  He motioned for Graham to follow him, and he hurried to the chairs as if he feared another party might claim them.

  “May I buy you a drink?” Edward asked when he paused in front of one of the chairs.

  Graham furrowed a brow. Given the elegance of the club, he decided ordering an ale would be uncouth. “I could do with a brandy,” he replied as he settled into the other wing-backed chair.

  From seemingly nowhere, a footman appeared to take their order. “Two brandies,” Edward stated, as if he had been at the club before and knew what to do.

  The footman said, “Very good, sir,” before he bowed and hurried off.

  “Forgive my impertinence, but how old are you?” Graham asked as he watched Edward take the adjacent chair.

  “I’ll be seventeen in a fortnight.”

  Graham regarded the young man with suspicion. “And your mother?”

  Edward screwed up his face in concentration. “Five-and-thirty?” he replied. Then his eyes rounded. “No, she’s six-and-thirty.”

  “I meant, who is your mother?” Graham asked, although he already knew the answer. The boy’s resemblance to Henry Simpson—Hannah’s twin brother—could not be mistaken. He supposed the resemblance to the Fitzsimmons was because his grandmother, the Countess of Mayfield, was a Fitzsimmons. “Hannah?” he added, anxious to hear the answer.

  Nodding, Edward brightened. “She is. The former Miss Hannah Simpson. And you... you are her turtle?”

  Graham shook his head, hoping his reddening face wouldn’t be apparent under the gas chandelier that hung above them. “You are her son?”

  “I am,” Edward acknowledged.

  “She told you about... the horse and the turtle?” Graham asked, his sleep-deprived brain barely able to make the connections. He stared at the younger man, and for a moment, he was reminded of how he once looked in a mirror.

  Since they were both related to the Fitzsimmons, it stood to reason there would be a resemblance.

  Edward nodded. “I think my father was the horse,” he said. “Ran fast, took the lead—”

  “Got the girl.”

  “But...” Edward allowed the sentence to trail off as he gave his head a shake. He rarely felt sorrow over this father’s death these days, so the moment of melancholy surprised him.

  “I am sorry for your loss,” Graham offered. His initial annoyance with the young man dissipated at the reminder that Edward’s father had died.

  “Thank you, sir. That’s rather... kind of you considering my mother should have been your wife.”

  Graham’s mouth dropped open in astonishment at the same time a glimmer of hope formed in his heart. “How... how do you know this?” he asked.

  Edward glanced around before he leaned forward and said in a lowered voice, “I made her tell me,” he admitted. “Last year, after my father died. I always knew he wasn’t her first love.”

  A number of thoughts tumbled through Graham’s head just then. Perhaps he had forgone the opportunity to return to town and had simply fallen asleep in his old bedchamber at Woodscastle, and now he was experiencing a vivid dream.

  Or perhaps he really had taken Tom’s suggestion that he attempt to find his father at Brooks’s and one of his friends from school was playing a trick on him. This young man was merely a plant. An urchin dressed up to resemble a young aristocrat and taught to speak perfect English.

  But he knew this all had to be real.

  What else could explain how i
t was Edward knew the tale of the horse and the turtle?

  What else could explain how the young man could look so much like Henry Simpson? Unless he was Henry Simpson’s son—a cousin to Hannah’s son and in on the ruse—but, according to Tom, that was almost impossible.

  Henry hadn’t yet been caught in the parson’s mouse trap.

  Henry hadn’t yet found the perfect woman for him, and it was doubtful the young man was Henry’s by-blow.

  Given their ages, Graham and Henry really did need to consider marriage soon, for their chances of seeing their heirs age enough to be educated and ready to inherit their estates was growing slim.

  Noting the young man’s look of expectation, Graham remembered the comment, “I always knew,” and decided to take the bait. “Knew? Knew what?” He once again glanced about, as if he thought someone might be playing a cruel trick on him. His fists clenched at the thought that he might have to challenge someone to a bare-knuckle fight on his first night back in England.

  Edward Harrington finally allowed a shrug. “I knew Mother held a candle for someone besides my father. She would never admit it, of course.”

  Graham stiffened, sure a trap was being set. Sure Hannah’s son intended him harm. And if not harm, then public embarrassment. Given the number of men in the club, it would be easy enough for the young heir-apparent to the Mayfield earldom to do so. “So, now you wish to pummel me to a pulp in the alley out back?” Graham asked with annoyance.

  Edward’s eyes once again rounded. “Not at all, sir,” he replied with a shake of his head. “I want my mother remarried. Preferably to you.” He paused when Graham simply stared at him. “That is... if you’re still of a mind to marry her.”

  Chapter 9

  Twin Talk of Possibilities

  Meanwhile, at the Simpson townhouse in King Street

  Henry Simpson regarded his twin sister with a smirk. “Look at you. You can’t even stay awake past midnight.”