The Bargain of a Baroness

by Sande, Linda Rae

  “I believe I have been seated too long,” Hannah said as she stood up. “Will you be at the Weatherstone ball this evening?” she asked of her parents.

  Sophia and James exchanged glances. Although Hannah was sure they would answer the same way they did every year—“We always say we will, but then we do not,”—James replied, “This year, we will.”

  From behind the canvas, Laura allowed a brilliant smile, sure Henry must have said something to his father about his intentions for this night. When she glanced around the edge of the canvas, she nearly laughed when she caught sight of Hannah’s expression of shock.

  “Then I shall see you there,” Hannah said when she had recovered, before kissing their cheeks and taking her leave of the parlor.

  A few minutes later, Laura would have discovered she was alone in the parlor, except she was far too engrossed in her painting to have noticed when the older Simpsons took their leave.

  Chapter 35

  Finally Reunited

  Nine o’clock in the morning, 300 Oxford Street

  “I am at a loss,” Graham said when Tom Grandby invited him into his office and waved him to a chair.

  Graham had walked the half-mile from his parents’ townhouse in King Street to his cousin’s office, deciding he needed the exercise and a means to clear his head. “Is she deliberately avoiding me?”

  Tom shook his head. “She is not. In fact, I was under the impression she wasn’t even aware you were in London until Victoria mentioned you were unable to join us last night.”

  Graham jerked in the chair. “What was her response?”

  His cousin shrugged as he considered how to respond. “I think her initial word was a ladylike curse followed by a sort of moaning—or it could have been a groaning. With my aunt, you really cannot tell. And then she looked as if she might cry and a moment later it was all ‘chin up’ and queries about how married life was treating us,” he explained.

  Although the night before hadn’t happened exactly as he explained it, it had felt like he described it.

  A comedy of errors worthy of a play.

  “So... she was sorry to have missed me?”

  Tom nodded. “I think she is rather cowed, actually. I don’t think she knows what to think about your return to London.” At Graham’s look of confusion, he added, “On the one hand, I think she’s been waiting for your return her entire life, and on the other, she would just as soon wait the rest of it without ever seeing you again.”

  Graham rolled his eyes. “She is not frightened of me, I hope.”

  “I’m quite sure she wasn’t until I described how large you are.”

  “Large?”

  “Well, when you left London, you were all tall and gangly, and now you’re taller and you have arms that look as if you could compete in a bare-knuckle match.”

  Snorting, Graham stared at his cousin. “I probably could,” he hedged, knowing his years spent moving crates in the Boston warehouse had helped develop the muscled physique he now possessed.

  “Was it awkward last night? At Harrington House?” Tom asked, curious as to why Graham hadn’t spoken of his dinner with the Earl and Countess of Mayfield and their grandson, Edward.

  Graham shook his head. “Surprisingly not. I’m quite sure Edward didn’t explain to anyone why it was he invited me, and yet Mayfield didn’t ask, and Temperance seemed happy to see me. Shocked poor Edward when she hugged me—he didn’t know we are related, you see,” he said with a grin.

  “Temperance?” Tom repeated in surprise. “You call the countess by her given name?”

  “She’s always been Aunt Tempy to me, although she’s really a cousin, I think,” Graham replied. “Cousin to my mother’s father, in fact,” he added as he raised a finger to emphasize his point.

  Tom grinned. “She’s a good one to have on your side,” he murmured. “And not only because she edits that damned gossip rag of hers.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Graham agreed, remembering the evening before with mixed feelings.

  His night had been entirely too restless. Memories of his dinner at Harrington House had both delighted and haunted him. Who knew the Countess of Mayfield could entertain so easily with her stories? But then her avocation as the editor of The Tattler explained how it was she knew so much gossip about the ton. So many great tales. So much on-dit.

  It was her job to know.

  The private meeting with her in the salon had been almost too enlightening. From Temperance’s words, he knew Hannah had remained tight-lipped about her relationship with him. She had probably been for her entire marriage, given anything she said could be considered fodder for The Tattler.

  “Again, I am so sorry about what happened last night,” Tom said on a sigh. “I sent a footman to Woodscastle—”

  “I had already departed, I suppose.”

  “And then we sent another to Harrington House while they were apparently sending one to us,” Tom went on.

  “The footman gave the butler at Harrington House the invitation, but Aunt Tempy forbid me from leaving,” Graham murmured.

  Tom furrowed his brows, but when Graham didn’t offer an explanation, he decided to withhold what Hannah had said. How she seemed determined for Graham to come to her rather than the other way around.

  “I am thinking I may try again later today,” Graham said as he straightened in his chair. “At some point, I will find her. Probably run into her on the street.”

  “Or she’ll find you,” Tom suggested. “She’s not hiding from you, if that’s what you were thinking.”

  Graham nodded, his mood finally lifting a little. Given the number of times he had missed Hannah, he was beginning to think she didn’t want to see him again. “I appreciate what you were trying to do. You couldn’t have known her son had arranged other plans for me given my missive was delivered so late.”

  My son, he almost said, for he was quite sure Hannah’s apparent reluctance to see him had nothing to do with her full schedule and everything to do with Edward.

  When he finally had her where he wanted her—alone, and preferably beneath him on a comfortable bed—he would demand an explanation for why she hadn’t told him about the boy.

  “Will you go to Harrington House and wait for her there?” Tom asked.

  Graham winced. Although dinner with the earl and his wife had been a far more pleasant experience than he had expected, he thought awaiting Hannah at that particular location wouldn’t be a good idea. “I’d prefer we have it out in a neutral location,” he replied, realizing his tone of voice must have made him sound almost sinister. “That is to say, in a park or a folly. Someplace where we might speak without servants eavesdropping on our every word.”

  Away from prying eyes and the chance of gossip that might hurt Hannah, he thought but didn’t say out loud. At least the countess had control over what gossip was included in The Tattler, but that wasn’t the only newsheet that featured the on-dit of the day.

  “If I can help at all,” Tom started to say.

  “I will take you up on that offer should it come to requiring a third party,” Graham promised. He sighed. “I think I shall take a walk back to my parents’ townhouse,” he murmured, thinking he might even head down to Wellingham Imports and start his new position there.

  Tom arched an eyebrow. “That’s not a long walk from here.”

  “No, it’s not. Which means I’m not likely to get into any trouble,” Graham said as he stood and held out his right hand.

  Tom shook it and warned, “You do realize you’ve just jinxed it.”

  Graham chuckled as he took his leave of Grandby and Son and headed up Oxford Street towards the short connector to King Street. He hadn’t even reached Swallow Lane when his gaze fell on a coach that was stopped for a pedestrian.

  A glossy black Tilbury coach bearing the Mayfield crest in bright gold paint.

  He recognized the driver—the man had been driving the coach in which he and Edward had ridden the night befor
e.

  Perhaps even this very equipage.

  “Collins!” he called out as he moved to the edge of the curb.

  The driver acknowledged him with a wave, and when he was forced to wait for a dray cart to cross from Swallow, Graham ran up to the coach. “Are you driving Lady Harrington?”

  “Indeed, sir.”

  Graham considered what to do. He had half a mind to simply open the door and climb in, but sanity prevailed. He didn’t want to start an argument in such a confined space if Hannah was trying to avoid him.

  “I’ll give you a five pound note to pull over on King Street,” Graham offered as he held out the blunt.

  His attention on the note and then on the surrounding traffic, Collins finally said, “I just came from King Street, sir. Just fetched her ladyship from an early morning appointment there.”

  Graham remembered that Laura Overby was painting the Simpsons’ portrait. Hannah had no doubt been posing for the past hour. “Trust me when I say she won’t mind returning,” he claimed.

  “I cannot afford to lose my position, sir,” the driver argued.

  “You won’t. The countess is a relation of mine.”

  Satisfied with the response, Collins set the coach in motion and turned south onto King Street.

  Hurrying across the rest of Oxford Street and very nearly crushed by a steam bus, Graham finally made it to the other side relatively unscathed. His boots would require a cleaning, but at the moment, he couldn’t be bothered with such mundane thoughts.

  He was finally going to have it out with Hannah. Scold her for not telling him about Edward. Admonish her for having avoided him these past few days. Punish her with kisses, because he wasn’t of a mind to do anything else with her in a cramped carriage.

  The Mayfield town coach came to a stuttering halt as Graham ran up to meet it. He stepped up and opened the door, ready to begin a less than gentle greeting.

  He couldn’t speak, though. Not when Hannah faced him, her eyes wide. “Graham,” she breathed.

  She launched herself into his arms, her own lifting to wrap around his shoulders as she hugged him close. Her hat, a stylish velvet and silk flower confection, was crushed into the small of his shoulder.

  Graham was forced to take a step back as she collided with him, his own arms wrapping around her waist and bottom lest she bowl him over onto the pavement. “Hannah,” he whispered.

  The scents of sweet lemon and honeysuckle assaulted his nostrils as he held her close, his rehearsed words of rebuke flying from his brain. When he leaned back in an effort to make eye contact, he sighed when he saw there were tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oh, Hannah. There’s no need to cry,” he whispered.

  “When you didn’t come to Fairmont Park last night, I thought you were angry with me,” she replied, her head once again disappearing into his chest.

  “I thought the same of you,” he said on a sigh. “Especially when you didn’t return to Harrington House by midnight.”

  Hannah inhaled sharply. “I spent the night in my old room at my parents’ house,” she murmured. “We’re having our portrait painted, you see, but I think you already know that.”

  Graham dared a glance at Collins, who was watching from his box with an expression of shock. “Take us to Number Three,” he called out as he lifted Hannah into his arms and climbed into the coach.

  “Right away, sir.”

  Graham settled onto one of the benches, relieved the velvet squabs were large enough for his tall frame. With Hannah firmly settled onto his lap, her head still resting on one of his shoulders, he sighed again when he felt her body shake with a sob. “It’s all right, my sweeting,” he murmured as he removed her hat and tossed it onto the other bench.

  “I was a fool,” Hannah whispered.

  “I believe I had that honor,” Graham argued. “I should have stayed in England. I should have claimed you, and courted you, and married you before your come-out.”

  Her lower lip protruded before she said, “True.”

  “You should have told me about Edward.”

  Hannah jerked in his arms, about to put voice to a denial, but she gazed into his eyes and knew he had discovered the truth. “Perhaps,” she hedged. “He does look an awful lot like you. Is that... is that how you guessed?”

  Graham shook his head. “Aunt Tempy knows.”

  Hannah’s eyes widened with fright. “No. She can’t.”

  “She thanked me.”

  Blinking, Hannah gave her head a quick shake. “I never told her, and she has said nothing to me on the matter,” she whispered.

  “Apparently she is as good about keeping secrets as she is about sharing gossip,” Graham murmured. “But I do wish you would have told me.”

  Hannah swallowed as she regarded him with a combination of sorrow and relief. “What would you have done?” she asked in a whisper. “If I had written that the heir to the Mayfield earldom was really your son?”

  Graham furrowed a brow. “Is he? Truly?”

  Nodding, Hannah sounded a long sigh. “Charlie didn’t know, though. I made sure he believed Edward was his. He had no reason not to.”

  “Does Edward know?” Graham asked, wondering if the young man had known all along.

  Hannah shook her head. “I’m not sure what he believes. He’s too damned clever for his own good, though,” she complained. She repeated her query. “If you had known, what would you have done?”

  What, indeed?

  It wasn’t as if Graham could have returned to England and claimed the boy as his own. “I would have thanked you,” he murmured. “Congratulated you. Reminded you of our bargain and waited as I have done these past eighteen years to make you mine,” he replied.

  Hannah buried her face in his chest, her soft sobs causing her body to tremble in his hold. “And now?” she murmured, her words nearly lost in the wool fabric of his coat.

  Tightening his hold on her, Graham said, “Well, I am reminding you of our bargain, because I still intend to make you mine.”

  The sense of relief he felt at saying the words out loud and then hearing her half-sob, half-chuckle in response had him grinning.

  She sniffled and pulled her face away as the coach came to a slow stop. The slight jerk of the carriage meant Collins had stepped down from the box and was making his way to the door. “Right now?”

  Graham managed to move her from his lap onto the seat next to him. “Well, in a moment or so,” he replied.

  The door opened, and Collins leaned in slowly, as if he feared what might be occurring inside. “We’re at Number Three, my lady, sir,” he said.

  Graham leaned forward. “Very good, Collins. If you’d like a respite, pull into the mews—”

  “Behind Number Five,” Hannah interrupted. “Or...” She gazed up at Graham. “You can simply return to Harrington House.”

  Frowning, the coachman said, “Are you quite sure, my lady?” He noted the way his mistress stared at the large man who sat entirely too close to her and decided she must be familiar with him.

  “I am,” Hannah replied, never taking her eyes from Graham’s.

  “Very good, my lady.”

  He waited patiently until the two finally stood and made their way out of the coach and to the red door. When Graham opened it and the two disappeared inside, he climbed back up onto the box and drove the coach back to Harrington House.

  Chapter 36

  Revelations

  3 King Street, London

  The excitement Hannah felt might have been due to a combination of anticipation and anxiousness, trepidation and arousal. Whatever the cause, her heart hammered in her chest as Graham led her into the Wellingham townhouse.

  “Would you like tea?” he asked as he helped her with her redingote in the small vestibule.

  “Tea?” she repeated in disbelief. From his words in the coach, she was expecting him to ravish her.

  “Well, if you were thinking I was going to... strip you bare and have my way with you, I
am not a barbarian,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “Oh,” she sighed, sounding disappointed. “And if that’s what I was thinking? But without the part about you being a barbarian?”

  Graham arched a brow, unsure of how to respond. “I thought you might wish to become reacquainted before I ravish you.”

  She huffed out an impatient sigh. “I’m not getting any younger, Graham. But then if you do strip me bare in the light of day, you’re going to see parts of me that do not look like they did when you last saw them,” she argued, her expression fierce. “And they’re becoming worse by the day.”

  A slow grin spread over Graham’s face, forcing a dimple to appear at the base of one cheek. “You’ve no idea what I’ve been imagining every night for the past eighteen years,” he murmured as he took her hand and kissed the back of it.

  “I suppose it cannot be any worse than what I’ve been imagining,” she whispered, her lips finally curling into a grin at the thought of him old and gray, stooped and frail. “Oh, Graham.”

  “No regrets, please, Hannah,” he said as he led her to the kitchens. “You bore a son for whom we can both be proud.”

  “So... you have met him?”

  Graham nodded as he pulled cups from a cupboard. “Had drinks with him at Brooks’s Friday evening and then dinner at Harrington House last night. He’s...” He sighed, not sure how to describe the young man who behaved more like a man of Graham’s age.

  “He’s rather an old soul, don’t you think?” she asked as she opened a canister and spooned some tea into a pot.

  Lifting the hot kettle from the stove, Graham poured water into the pot as Hannah watched. “He’s definitely older than his age would suggest,” he agreed. “Very clever. So much so, Mayfield is insisting he remain in London to take over running the earldom.”

  Hannah paused in adding sugar to the cups. “He discussed that during dinner?” she asked in surprise.

  “Oh, that and much more,” Graham replied as he searched for milk.