Fran Baker

by Miss Roseand the Rakehell

  “Yes, well, what brings you here?” his host demanded somewhat ungraciously.

  “I come to apprise you that I have this morning inserted a notice in the Gazette announcing the termination of Stratford’s betrothal.”

  “What?”

  “The recent, er, accident brought Miss Helen and Stratford to the realization that they should not suit.” Maret studied his well-kept nails. “I thought it might interest you to learn that I also inserted the notice of my own betrothal.”

  “Oh? May I offer you my felicitations?” This was received with an inclination of Maret’s fair head. After a pause, Baldwin felt something more was needed. “May I inquire who is to be the future Mrs. Maret?”

  “I have been honored with an acceptance from Miss Helen Lawrence,” Jacques replied, amusement glinting in his lazy eyes.

  If it is possible to reel whilst sitting upright in a mahogany armchair, Baldwin did so then. His mouth worked, but he said nothing. At last he achieved, “Oh.”

  Feeling that the time was now ripe to thoroughly catch his host’s attention, Maret commented in a musing tone, “Do you know, Baldwin, that Stratford is still determined to wed as soon as possible? He insists that he owes it to the earl, particularly after this contretemps involving Loveday. I cannot say that I believe he is making the best decision, but you know what it is to try to reason with Stratford.”

  An emphatic nod assured him that Baldwin did indeed know, so with a bland smile, Jacques went on, “Yes, to Colin, one chit is as another, and this one, he insists, will do as well s Helen would have done.”

  “This one?”

  “Did I not tell you? How stupid of me! Stratford has settled upon Amelia Thacker.”

  Baldwin staggered from his chair, blanching. “Amy!” he exclaimed in a strangled voice. “But he will encourage her high spirits into every form of wildness!”

  “Oh, I quite agree. But to Stratford, you know, wildness in a woman is not altogether a fault.”

  “I must talk with her! Excuse me, Maret, but I must call in Brook Street without delay!”

  “It will do you no good, you know,” he yawned.

  “You think to stop me?” Baldwin flared.

  “My good man, I haven’t the least desire to stop you,” his guest protested truthfully. “But I think you might wish to know that Miss Thacker is from home.”

  This quiet statement had the effect of halting Baldwin at the door. “From home?” he repeated in a hollow tone.

  “Ah, yes. She is this very minute on her way to the Keep.”

  Color now rushed back in full force into Baldwin’s face. He stood, undecided, by the door, while Maret made a great show of rising from his chair. “Your own fiancée is there now, bearing Helen company. Should you care to visit Miss Lawrence, I would welcome your escort. I leave tomorrow morning.”

  “To—to see Miss Rose. Yes. I—I should do so by all means,” the unfortunate Baldwin stammered.

  “Splendid. I shall call for you early tomorrow then,” Maret said, leaving Baldwin looking very much as he had found him, only for a far different reason.

  *****

  The object of Daniel Baldwin’s concern spun from her carriage the instant it came to a standstill and danced into her cousin’s waiting arms. “Helen! You sly thing! You positively must tell me everything! Was it because of Thalia Loveday or Jacques Maret that you jilted the viscount?”

  The sound of her chatter echoed to silence when Amelia entered the Grand Salon. The sight of Miss Rose Lawrence placidly reading aloud from a chair angled to that of Viscount Stratford’s drove all words from her lips. She threw a fulminating look of accusation at Helen and pivoted sharply. A tone of lazy command halted her.

  “Miss Thacker! You arrive just in time. Come rescue me from the mad prophecies of William Blake.”

  Slowly Amy turned to see Lord Stratford stretching out a hand. His lips were spread in a smile, but the glint in his eye brooked no defiance. Amy moved reluctantly toward him, her lower lip pushing forward, but as he took her hand he flashed her a truly warm, gratified smile and the pout disappeared before it had properly developed.

  No one could withstand the viscount when he chose to be charming and for this day he was very charming indeed. Amy was soon restored to her natural good humor, even going so far as to coolly address Rose during the course of the evening. Her frank questions regarding the infamous duel caused an awkward moment over the dinner table, with Hallbrook snorting in disgust and Stratford nearly choking over his wine, but it was soon smoothed over and the meal passed in tolerable ease.

  The motivation for his lordship’s calculated display of captivating manners lay in his certain knowledge that Miss Lawrence would have removed herself from the Keep to avoid causing Amelia Thacker distress. His efforts were rewarded when, strolling onto the terrace the following morning, he came upon the two women seated on a stone bench where Amy’s bright blond head was buried into Rose’s muslin shoulder. His eyes met Rose’s over the golden curls and he knew that the foolish, loving child, incapable of hate, had finally been reconciled with her cousin.

  “Good morning, ladies,” he said as he walked forward.

  With a hiccough, Amy’s head jerked up and she appeared poised for flight. But as Stratford seemed not to notice anything out of the ordinary, her shoulders relaxed and she remained seated.

  “Since that old fool Martin does not allow me to ride,” his lordship stated with a sigh, “there is little to occupy me of a morning. I am persuaded a stroll over the grounds would suit the purpose, but—”with another sigh—“I fear walking alone would be most dreadfully dull.”

  “Oh, but I’ll walk with you!” Amy promptly declared.

  “How very kind,” he murmured smoothly. He shot a look full of meaning at Rose. “And would Miss Lawrence care to join us?”

  “I—I am sorry, my lord, but I engaged myself to—to accompany the earl on a round of morning calls.” Rose stood as she spoke. Before she could effect her retreat, however, the viscount possessed himself of her hand.

  “Present my compliments to the old bear, will you?” he drawled. With a dangerous smile, he bent his head and lightly grazed her fingers with his lips before they were snatched from his hold.

  Departing in search of Hallbrook, Rose hoped she was not blushing, for it was certain that her fingers were tingling. She found the earl in the Long Gallery with Helen, showing the young miss all the rascals and rogues that he claimed kept the name of Phillips to the forefront of every generation. Miss Lawrence supplied the information that should his lordship be making any calls this morning, she would be most happy to accompany him, a notion which pleased the old man greatly.

  Hallbrook had accepted the severing of his grandson’s betrothal with equanimity. He had believed from the first that Miss Helen was not the woman to keep his young fire-eater from continually providing the polite world with all its most scandalous gossip, and could not but be relieved that she had realized it, too. But the devil of it, mused the earl, that the one woman he was quite certain could tame that rakehell Stratford was now engaged to the stuffy, prosing son of Minnie’s!

  *****

  Minnie’s prosing son was shortly to be seen making his descent from Maret’s elegant equipage to the Keep’s courtyard. As so often happens, fortune seemed determined to back an established winner, for as they entered the Great Hall, Maret was gratified to see the viscount and Miss Thacker crossing together to the staircase.

  Gratification was not to be found among the emotions galloping through Baldwin as his horrified eyes took in the damning sight of the pair before him.

  Each bore evidence of their recent outdoor excursion. The colorful bouquet of wildflowers carried by Amy could not hide the rumpled state of her pale cambric gown, which bore condemning marks of having been in contact with the lawn. The outrage felt by Daniel at viewing the blossom perched gaily over Amy’s ear was only exceeded by that which he felt upon seeing a twin nestled into the dark locks abov
e Stratford’s.

  Daniel further found fault with his lordship’s too romantic appearance: the deep blue jacket flung round his shoulders, the open neck of his linen shirt and most of all, the cynical smile dancing over his lips. The smile, however, disappeared on the instant of espying his cousin.

  “Daniel!” Amy exclaimed, her nosegay spilling unnoticed to the floor.

  Baldwin bowed stiffly. “I have come to see Miss Lawrence.”

  “She—she is gone out,” Amy whispered dully.

  “And Miss Helen?” Maret inquired, lowering the quizzing glass through which he had been surveying them.

  “I do not know . . .” she replied in leaden tones.

  The ever-present but invisible Jasper discreetly coughed. As all eyes turned upon him, he disclosed in an expressionless voice that Miss Helen had departed with Miss Lawrence and the earl.

  “Ah, well, I would be grateful for some refreshment while I await their return, Jasper,” Maret said. “Come, Stratford, join us in the salon.”

  But Stratford remained immobile, staring at his cousin with narrowed eyes a moment more, then putting out his arm to Amy, prepared to follow his friend into the salon.

  “I would think,” Daniel said on a scathing note, “that Miss Thacker would prefer to change her gown.”

  Immediately, Amy plucked her hand from the viscount’s sleeve and fled up the stairs without a backward glance.

  “I would remind you, Baldwin, that Miss Thacker is my guest,” Stratford flared.

  “That is only too apparent!” Daniel returned through clenched teeth.

  How matters would have proceeded cannot be known, for just then Hallbrook entered the hall, regaling the Lawrence sisters with a mildly exaggerated exploit of his youth. Upon seeing Daniel, he abruptly halted and interrupted his own commentary to exclaim, “What! You here!”

  Daniel’s flushed face and Stratford’s equally pale one spoke volumes, but as the earl’s views on argumentation within the Keep were well known, the two greeted him civilly, if with restraint.

  Restraint figured largely in the atmosphere surrounding luncheon. While Maret and Hallbrook exchanged commonplaces, the earl’s grandsons exchanged a series of smoldering looks. Helen and Rose were left to entertain one another for Amy had subsided into a morose silence, occasionally reviving enough to send Mr. Baldwin what she hoped were glances of withering scorn. While mute, but meaningful, looks passed often between Helen and her new fiancé, nothing at all passed between Rose and either of the other two men present. Knowing herself a coward, she nonetheless avoided them both. It seemed an agonizing length of time before Maret expressed the desire to see Hallbrook’s newest racehorse, an Arab mare the earl was certain would rival Vandyke’s successes and the luncheon party dispersed.

  At Jacques’s gentle suggestion, Baldwin followed the other two to the stables, leaving Stratford to entertain the ladies. As he followed the women from the dining room, Helen hung back to beg a favor.

  “Do, please, show Amy how you manage the trick of snapping open a snuffbox with one hand. Amy has admired the trick forever and Jacques tells me no one can do it to match the way you can. I’m certain she would find it diverting to learn how it’s done.”

  “You think she needs diverting?” he asked in the same hard tone he had used for his sparing comments throughout lunch.

  “Of course! The sight of Mr. Baldwin with Rose has affected her most deeply, you know.”

  The viscount did know, for he himself had been profoundly affected upon seeing the two of them enter the dining room together. Thus, he was soon seated beside Amy instructing her in the art of opening a snuffbox with the flick of one thumb. She was listening attentively, her red lips pursed together, her violet eyes narrowed in concentration, when Baldwin entered the room with Maret behind him.

  Daniel checked on the threshold, a scowl marring his features s he took in the way Amy’s fair curls contrasted against the dark locks bent so near, and the way her hand curved lightly in his lordship’s as together they clasped a jeweled snuffbox.

  “This is handsome behavior toward a guest indeed,” he declared cuttingly.

  The hand cupping Amy’s tightened, defeating that lady’s efforts to extract it. With great deliberation, Stratford brought his eyes to meet Baldwin’s. It had been said of the viscount that he had a stare more sharply pointed than the finest rapier. He aimed the full thrust of that stare at Baldwin now and remarked on a dangerous drawl, “I was not aware, cousin, that my behavior was any of your concern.”

  “It is the unfortunate concern of every member of this family!” Daniel snapped, his fury fully pricked by the piercing gaze directed at him. “You can scarce let a week pass by without finding some fresh source of mud to drag our name through!”

  “Does a Baldwin dare to dictate rules of conduct to a Phillips?”

  This was asked with such savage softness that Rose felt it time she intervene. She moved quickly to stand beside her fiancé, saying as she did so, “Daniel, I’m sure you realized Lord Stratford was merely showing Amelia a trick of opening a snuffbox.”

  “Oh, I see quite well what trick he is demonstrating.”

  “And I see, cousin,” Stratford rejoined, at last releasing Amy’s hand to stand, “that you are spoiling for an altercation. As I have the greater cause, I am only too eager to oblige you.”

  “Be sensible, the pair of you!” Rose put in. “You cannot come to fisticuffs in the salon. And at any rate, the viscount’s shoulder is not yet sufficiently healed.”

  Her words went unheeded. Daniel clenched his fists and issued a mirthless bark of laughter. “You have cause? Your notions of honor are strange indeed, Stratford, but as soon as you are able, I shall be happy to instruct you in the true meaning of the word.”

  “No, no!” Amy cried, jumping up to pull on Stratford’s full shirt sleeve. “My lord, he did not mean—”

  “I damn well did!” Baldwin broke in furiously. The sight of Amy’s gesture had darkened the angry flush staining his face.

  “I am very certain, Miss Thacker, that Mr. Baldwin meant precisely what he said,” his lordship agreed. He shook free of her grasp as if shaking free of a bothersome puppy. “I shall, of course, meet you whenever and wherever you care to name, Baldwin.”

  Amy ran sobbing to Helen, who stood white with fright behind the viscount. Only the reassuring glance from Maret kept her from adding her protests to those of her trembling cousin. It was Rose who again moved to stand between the two angry young men, Rose who quietly admonished them not to be so foolish.

  “I suggest, cousin, that you learn to control your future bride’s tendencies to interfere where she has no business!” Stratford offered with an ugly curl to his lip.

  “I’ll thank you not to concern yourself in my relationship with Miss Lawrence. My fiancée’s behavior is, thankfully, not your affair, but mine!”

  “My behavior, Mr. Baldwin, is strictly my own business,” Rose contradicted in chilling accents.

  “My dear, you must allow that I know best,” he informed her just as Stratford was asking Maret if he would again second him. Overhearing this, Daniel addressed Jacques with a grim laugh. “See that he doesn’t delope this time, will you?”

  Stratford lunged forward and Baldwin stepped eagerly to meet him.

  Rose strode to the mantel and calmly plucked a Sèvres figurine from its resting place. She poised it in the palm of her hand, then deliberately threw it to the floor, where it landed with a resounding crash.

  The effect was instantaneous. Stratford and Baldwin halted in their tracks while Amy’s screeches abruptly died. Helen ran to the safety of Maret’s arms and gawked from the cushion in his shoulder at her sister.

  “Do not be thinking that I care a button what happens to either of you,” Rose said with deadly calm. “I am, in fact, extremely hopeful that you will quite put an end to one another. But I will not tolerate your doing so in front of me!”

  Admiration mixed with amusement to repl
ace anger in the viscount’s droopy eyes. “I tell you, Daniel, you’ll have to learn better how to handle this fiancée of yours.”

  “And I tell you, Colin—” Baldwin began in hot reply.

  “I take leave to tell you both, gentlemen,” Rose interrupted icily, “that I am no one’s fiancée any longer! What I do now is, as it always has been, my own concern!”

  With that, the ever-composed Miss Rose Lawrence shocked them all by suddenly bursting into tears and running from the room.

  Chapter 20

  She had stopped running and stood leaning against a tree, pressing her cheek into the roughness of the bark. Her cap rested crookedly atop her hair while brown curls spilled in enchanting disarray over her cheeks. She heard him halt behind her, breathing hard. An instant later, his hands gripped her shoulders, forcing her to face him.

  “Rose—my dear—why?” Stratford asked lovingly.

  Tears stained his hand as she bent her head to the side, trying to avoid his dark eyes. With fingers and thumb, he compelled her head upwards. She heard his breath stop, then start again. “Oh, my little love! That you should shed tears—a single tear!—because of aught I have done!”

  “Please, Lord Stratford,” she whispered, vainly attempting to turn her head away.

  “Colin,” he commanded. He bent close and tenderly traced the track of her tears with his forefinger. “From now on, my dearest, my only love, you will call me by name.”

  “You cannot want me,” she protested.

  “I can and I do—terribly,” he answered in a husky tone.

  “When we first met, you stared right through me.”

  “My God, you can’t hold that against me! I was a green youth, puffed up in my own conceit—”

  “Your treatment of my sister—”

  “Has been unforgivable, I know full well. And yet, Helen has forgiven me. Can you not bring yourself to do the same?”

  She caught her breath on a small sob. “Oh, my lord, what would people say?”