One Winter With A Baron (The Heart of A Duke #12)

by Christi Caldwell

  What a bloody foolish name, one of his equally foolish ancestors had handed down to that modest estate. “I’m sure we’ll be able to discuss the sale of it in the coming days. Most purchasers are off for the Christmastide season,” he pointed out.

  “Yes,” Henry conceded, thankfully abandoning the point. He stood, hovered, and remained.

  Nolan dropped his feet to the floor and dragged his chair closer. “Yes?” he asked tiredly.

  “I do not blame you.”

  For his hopeless inability with mathematical calculations, he was clever enough to know whenever a man uttered “I-do-not-blame-you”, there was, indeed, some blame there for the taking. Another unwanted frisson of guilt riddled him silent. The small inheritance intended for Henry had been squandered away years earlier by his too-trusting self. Where would they have been had he sought his skilled brother’s help years and years earlier?

  Nolan, however, had been too proud and stubborn to reveal his weakness.

  “I’m building my own fortune,” Henry continued. Unlike Nolan, who’d squandered his, theirs, and Josephine’s. “And then I’ll marry her.”

  Her, as in Lady Alice Winterbourne. The sister of one of Nolan’s former friends, now a reformed rake. A young lady whom Henry continued to delay and delay a formal wedding with and to. An odd pressure weighted his chest. Like a boulder being heaped there. He rubbed a hand distractedly over it. A ride in the park, that is all he lacked. He’d needed his usual daily exercise. No other accounting for it.

  Through the silence, Henry continued to peer at him. Expecting something. Wanting something.

  “Perhaps you’ll thank me for not wearing shackles anytime soon,” he drawled with a wry grin.

  His brother scowled, transforming his usually placid features into a rendition of Nolan’s cynical countenance. “The lady will be my life. Our families will be united through marriage.” Oh, bloody hell. Now his younger brother was lecturing him too, no less. A sorry day, indeed, for any rake. Then, when one begged the favor of that same sibling, one paid with different coinage. “You must make nice with Montfort.”

  This again. “Bah,” he said, resisting the urge to tug at his cravat. “I’ve been chums with Montfort since Eton.” Since Nolan had fallen from his mount and suffered a head injury that had left him forever damaged. It was a detail that his brother wouldn’t know and certainly not Montfort. One only his desperately hopeful father had. He absently touched the back of his head; to the place of that long-ago lump.

  “That was before you insulted the gentleman’s wife,” Henry pointed out with a bluntness that would have earned a proper, guilty blush from another man.

  Nolan winked. “Ah, yes, but the lady wasn’t Montfort’s wife at the time.” Rather the companion to Lady Alice. “As such, he’ll understand.”

  His brother gave him a pitying look that froze the sardonic attempt at humor on Nolan’s face. “Noel,” he said solemnly and, with books in hand and not another sad glance for the brother who’d failed him, Henry started for the door.

  Nolan scrubbed a hand over his face. “Henry,” he snapped, recalling his brother’s attention. “When they return to London, I’ll pay a visit.” It was the closest to an apology he could make. He had long ago lost every shred of decency, but he’d attempt, at least for Henry’s sake, to make nice with Montfort and his wife.

  His brother smiled, dimpling his pale cheeks, giving him the appearance of a man a dozen years younger than his current age. “Thank—”

  “A visit to Forbidden Pleasures?” he countered hastily, neatly sidestepping unwanted and undeserved appreciation from his too-loyal-for-his-own-good brother.

  “No.” Of course Henry’s was a quick, resounding “no”. Nolan would wager the remaining pittance of wealth and estates belonging to their family that the young pup hadn’t visited the inside of a gaming hell or bordello in the whole of his life. When was the last time Nolan had ever been that innocent? Henry bowed his head. “Noel.”

  “I said don’t call me—” The door closed quietly behind his brother. “Noel,” he muttered into the empty wake of silence.

  Alone at last, Nolan dragged over the two ledgers Henry had left. Sipping his whiskey, he attended the dire numbers his brother had last gestured to that would necessitate the further sale of the Pratt family heirlooms and possessions.

  If he’d simply asked, as Henry had pointed out, how very different this moment would have been for the both of them. Henry would have been happily wed to his betrothed, Lady Alice. Josephine would be set for her Come Out with both respectable lords and the fortune-hunting ones clamoring for a match. And Nolan? Well, he would continue to live his same dissolute lifestyle, perhaps with a more steadfast mistress who’d not turn him over for a more plump-in-the-pockets protector.

  Nolan finished his whiskey and set it down. His distracted gaze caught on a single drop clinging to the rim of his tumbler. He stared at it absently. He could wed as his brother had realistically pointed out three months ago when he’d taken over Dolby’s assignment. And given that Nolan’s inadequacies had gotten their family to this miserable state, it was the least he could do. Certainly the very least thing being, he could consider it. But bloody hell, where most bankrupt chaps wouldn’t give a thought about leg-shackling themselves, he didn’t want to go about selling himself to some coldhearted heiress.

  If he was the optimistic lad of years past, he’d have appreciated it was Christmastide. Anything could happen at this hopeful time of year. But he was no longer optimistic, hopeful, or a silly lad. As such, it was more likely a deal with the devil and not a miraculous intervention from above that was going to save him or any of the Pratts this year.

  Cursing, he grabbed his bottle, prepared and eager to get well and truly soused.

  Chapter 3

  “Your mother is going to sack me.” That lamenting wail came only after a carriage ride to find a hackney for hire followed by the hired hackney ride to the steps of Baron Pratt’s house.

  And though Hannah was often given to histrionics, Sybil concurred that this moment was very much one of those deserved times. “Yes,” she confirmed, patting the blubbering girl’s hand. “But only if you tell her, that is.” She followed that up with her most winning smile.

  “Please, miss,” her maid entreated. “Surely you see you cannot simply pay the gentleman a visit.”

  Humph. Well, the girl usually given to histrionics raised a valid argument. Sybil was looking to experience any hidden pleasures of life, and not leave London with her reputation in tatters. Muttering under her breath, Sybil grabbed her reticule and fished around the velvet sack. Her fingers collided with several cards and she drew one out. Scrunching her mouth up, she read the name etched on the scrap.

  It wasn’t quite a calling card. Rather, a placard with the name of a medieval scholar whose lecture she’d attended but it would do. Sybil tapped the card distractedly. Now, there was the matter of her fine garments. Unfastening the clasp at her throat, Sybil turned slowly back to Hannah.

  “Please… Please…what are you doing?” Hannah pleaded as Sybil shrugged out of the green velvet cloak. She tossed the damp article over to the servant, who immediately caught it.

  Hannah eyed it as though she’d been handed the king’s head on a platter. “Miss?” she squeaked.

  “May I?” She gestured to Hannah’s drab brown, hooded garment.

  A sharp gasp echoed around the rented hack. The cloak slipped from the maid’s fingers and landed with a heavy thump on the floor. Recoiling, her maid folded her arms protectively at her chest the way she might guard her goods from a highwayman. “M-Miss?”

  “Well,” Sybil began with a calm pragmatism meant to reassure. “I need to go there.” She drew the curtain back a fraction and pointed out at the yellow stucco townhouse. “And though I do see your point in the dangers of going there.” She gestured once more. “I am determined to see this through.” She paused. “With or without your assistance. But I would greatly
prefer and appreciate it.”

  Hannah sank back against the torn squabs. “I-I cannot, miss.” Miss. She spoke as though Sybil wasn’t a woman just one year shy of her thirtieth year, without even a hint, hope, or promise of a marital prospect.

  Another lady might have been deterred. Sybil, however, had never been most ladies. Which was also, no doubt, why she’d also found herself unwed. And, of course, her spectacles and plump cheeks and her propensity to speak her mind. This moment would be no exception. “Hannah,” she said, inching closer as her maid scooted further away. “I, of course, understand your reservations.”

  “Fears, miss,” the girl stammered, sparing a nervous glance at the faint crack in the curtains. “They be right, real, and very perilous fears.”

  “Indeed,” she offered in placating tones, meant to set her loyal maid at ease. Those tones had long been perfected through the years with her stern-faced, often displeased mother.

  Hannah’s shoulders sagged in visible relief.

  Though she had served Sybil for the better part of four years, she apparently didn’t know her mistress well enough to be properly wary. Sybil pounced. “However.” A tortured groan seeped from the girl’s lips. She continued through it with logic Mrs. Wollstonecraft would have lauded her for. “I’m nine and twenty. A spinster. London is largely empty, but for my family.” And, fortunately, the Pratts. “What trouble can I get in to?”

  Still, her maid hesitated. It was a testament to the girl’s gumption. Most would have cracked under the pressuring of her mistress. However, the Viscountess Lovell inspired fear in nearly all…and certainly the servants in their employ. Sybil attempted to reason with her once more. “I cannot step outside in my cloak and risk being seen.” Hannah worried her lower lip. “I’ll be but a few moments,” Sybil pressed, lying. She knew not at all how long she’d be. It might be seconds. It might be minutes. Sybil stole another glimpse through the crack in the curtains and rubbed her gloved palm over the frosted pane. Baron Webb may not even be home. He might be off doing whatever it was rakes and rogues did in London during the Christmastide season. Of which, riding in storms did not seem to be one of them.

  “Oh, miss.” Hannah dropped her face into her palms in capitulation.

  Beaming, Sybil held her hands out and patiently waited.

  With all the eagerness of a lady being divested of her finest gems by a London pickpocket, her maid unfastened the frogs, muttering something under her breath that sounded a good deal like “I’m-going-to-be-sacked-for-sure”.

  “I’d never allow Mother to sack you,” she said, giving the girl a reassuring pat on the knee. “I would speak to Father on your behalf and, well, my parents know I cannot be deterred when I set my mind to something.”

  And she had set her mind to this nearly six months earlier. That was when the man whom her mother had hoped to see her wed had met and wooed a lovely young widow in a whirlwind courtship that had left Society abuzz with gossip and Sybil still unmarried.

  Not that she’d have married a gentleman who sought to do so as a matter of familial obligation, or any reason less than love.

  Sybil hurriedly tossed the garment around her shoulders and drew the wide hood up over her face. The coarse wool fabric scratched at her cheeks and she winced. A cloak. She made a mental note to have a cloak commissioned for the maid as a Christmastide gift. No young woman should go about in such a miserable material that scoured the skin.

  “Please, miss,” Hannah put forth one last appeal.

  Reaching down, Sybil gathered the heavy purses from inside her cloak and transferred them over to the borrowed garment. Before her maid had another moment to attempt to sway her from a course she’d no intention of bending on, she pushed the door open.

  A cold, noisy wind ripped through the carriage, filling the conveyance with snowflakes. The frigid air sucked the breath from her lungs. Clutching the wool fabric close, Sybil accepted the hand of the hackney driver and allowed him to help her down. Her boots sank into the untouched blanketing of snow. Taking care to keep the hood pulled low over her eyes, she stomped a path forward, along the pavement, up the steps, and then paused on the stoop.

  She reached for the knocker and briefly froze. A coiled serpent, with his fangs bared, stared back. She brushed the snow from one of those pointed incisors. What a dreadful way to welcome someone into one’s household. Gentlemen and their love of ominous creatures; serpents, lions, feral creatures. There was no explaining a man. Just another reason she’d never been able to snag the affections and love of a single one of them.

  Sybil knocked once. That thump thundered in a winter quiet, broken only by the howl of the wind. And it was with that single rapping that the reality of her plan sank in. Hannah’s warnings, and her own earliest reservations when she’d concocted this scheme. “Do not be a blasted coward,” she whispered under her breath and, fueled by that, she knocked again.

  The door suddenly opened and the warmth from within spilled out onto the stoop.

  To his credit, the ancient butler, whose hair stood a stark shade whiter than the snow covering the London cobbles, gave no outward shock or surprise at finding a visitor on his doorstep at this hour or during this god-awful weather. “May I help—”

  Not allowing the question to be completed, she wordlessly fished out and handed over the card in her pocket. Or rather, Hannah’s pocket.

  He collected it in his gnarled, curiously gloveless fingers. She braced for him to slam the door in her face. Instead, he stepped aside and motioned her forward.

  Surely it couldn’t be this easy? Not preferring to test the proverbial fates, Sybil hurried inside.

  The servant retained possession of her card. “If you’ll await but a moment, Mr. Thomas Thomason?” Did she imagine the smile pulling at the corners of those wizened lips? With that, he shuffled off, leaving her alone in the foyer.

  Yes, had she planned on visiting Baron Webb at his residence, she would have come more prepared. At the very least, she would have been more inventive with falsified cards. Her youngest sister, by contrast, would have attended those important details. No doubt, Aria would have even donned breeches and masqueraded as a boy in a showing right from the pages of those silly gothic novels and fairytales her sister adored.

  But had they been raised in altogether different planetary spheres, Sybil could not be more different than her wild sister.

  As such, Sybil stood here—in a gentleman’s residence—and instead of the expected thrill of elation, panic raged within. She was well educated. By her mother’s great admonishment “too-clever-to-snag-a-husband”, the viscountess hadn’t come to accept what Sybil long ago settled on as fact—there would be no husband. At best, there would be a stolen fortnight of adventure with Baron Webb. Or, that was the grand hope. She chewed at her lower lip. If the gentleman would see her, of course.

  “Mr. Thomason?” She jumped, a high-pitched shriek bursting from her lips. Sybil slammed a hand against her chest. Saints in heaven. To have but a fragment of his spryness when she reached her dotage. “His Lordship will see you. If you’ll follow me?”

  Repressing the words of thanks that would reveal her cultured and ladylike tones, Sybil nodded. She allowed him to lead her through the barren halls, concentrating on the monologue she’d prepared for Baron Webb to bring him round to her request.

  …I require your assistance… No wait. That was not it.

  …Your reputation as a rake precedes you… No. No. She wasn’t looking to either insult the gentleman or stroke his roguish ego.

  Sybil drew in a breath. Think of this as a business meeting, orchestrated by you. As such, one you are in complete command of. For, that is all it really was. A transaction. An assignment he’d take on, for a test she’d conduct.

  Now came the part of convincing the gentleman he wanted the assignment. All desperate rakes, rogues, and scoundrels could be bought. Or, she was betting on that less than savory opinion of the gentleman.

  They reached Baron
Webb’s office.

  “Mr. Thomas Thomason to see you, my lord.” The servant quickly backed out of the room, drawing the door closed behind him.

  Perhaps a more proper miss of tender years would be filled with an equally proper horror at being shut away with one of the most wicked rakes in London. Sybil was a good many birthdays past tender. As such, she was filled with more curiosity than anything else. Peeking out from under her deep hood, she inventoried his empty office. But for a desk, two aged leather chairs, and a well-stocked sideboard, Baron Webb either had minimalistic tastes or had been forced to sell off his possessions. Given the reports in the gossip columns, she’d wager her entire plan on the latter.

  “Mr. Thomason,” that sardonic drawl pulled her focus forward. To the man who, if she had her way, would assist her in research that would send the Viscountess Lovell into a legitimate case of the vapors.

  With tousled golden curls no gentleman had a right to be in possession of, Baron Webb, from his aquiline nose to rugged jawline, was chiseled masculine perfection suited to sculptures and portraits. A little fluttering unfurled low in her belly. Oh, dear. She’d caught but a handful of glimpses of him through the years at polite ton events, but this meeting, him ten paces away with no other soul present, was much different. The aura of masculine power and strength that surged in waves from his frame robbed her of words.

  He arched an elegant golden eyebrow, propelling her into movement. She stalked forward with those bold steps her mother had long lamented, pausing in the center of the room. “My lord,” she returned belatedly.

  Making no attempt to rise, the baron reclined in his seat, cradling a tumbler between long fingers. “Well,” he drawled. “As you’ve no intention of issuing anything more than that…I’ve ascertained by your cultured tones and fancy skirts, that you are no servant. As such, I do not know whether to be horrified or curious as to what brings you here, Miss?”

  Sybil promptly pushed her hood back. “Cunning,” she supplied.

  He grimaced. “Egads. Horrid name.”