Barons, Brides, and Spies: Regency Series Starter Collection Volume Two

by Mary Lancaster

  And yet she was held together by a thread so gossamer thin it could break at any moment and she’d just…unravel.

  “Sparrow,” she greeted the doorman, delivering the missive into his hands together with a couple of coins. “Could you please have one of your boys deliver this to Captain Grantham?”

  “’Course, Miss,” he said, grinning and tipping his tall hat. “It’s as good as done.”

  “Thank you, Sparrow.”

  Since storming into church in such a state was neither advisable nor terribly Christian, Gillie forced herself to breathe deeply and think calmly. By the time she entered the church, she was no less angry, but at least she had it under control. And in fact, the familiar ritual of the service helped significantly. By the time she left, she was quite capable of exchanging pleasantries with Mrs. Percy, Mrs. Hoag, and other acquaintances in town. Several people asked her about the earl’s accident, so at least she was able to dispel rumors of his untimely death.

  With the whirlpool fury inside her, Gillie almost forgot to tell Bernard and Aunt Margaret the good news that the Spanish woman calling herself Mrs. Muir appeared to have left Blackhaven.

  “Which doesn’t mean she won’t come back,” she allowed over luncheon. “But at the very least, she’s not sitting on our doorstep waiting for us to leave.”

  “She’s running for cover,” Bernard said with satisfaction. “We’ve scared her off. Or at least the solicitors did! Never thought so highly of old Worthing in my life.”

  “If you please, ma’am,” Charles the footman interrupted further speculation. “Captain Grantham is here. I put him in the parlor.”

  “Oh good,” Bernard commented. “He must be over his sulks.”

  “I asked him to call,” Gillie said, rising from the table. “I’ll just go and have a word with him. Join us when you’re ready.”

  It wasn’t quite proper, but Kit was such an old friend and so trusted that her aunt made no objection.

  Gillie found him by the parlor window, gazing down at the street below. He turned as she entered. His continued stiffness of manner was overlaid with curiosity and something very like hope.

  Guilt joined the maelstrom in Gillies’ heart.

  “Kit, I’ve done something very bad,” she said ruefully.

  The stiffness vanished into despair. “What?” he asked in a strangled voice.

  “Your mother is here.”

  He blinked, frowning. “I know. I’ve been summoned. I’m on my way to see her now. What has that to say to anything?”

  “I was summoned, too,” Gillie said with a sigh. “I called on her this morning.”

  “Oh dear,” Kit said, a quite different anxiety in his voice. “Was she awful?”

  “Unbearable,” Gillie said frankly. “And the upshot was I told her we were in love and that nothing would prevent my marrying you.”

  Kit started toward her, his face clearing. “Really?”

  “Of course not really!” Gillie exclaimed. “That is, of course we’re not truly going to be married, but I’m afraid I really told her we were.”

  Kit searched her face. “So you asked me here to warn me,” he suggested. “Or to ask me to tell her the truth?”

  Gillie twisted her hands together and sat down in the nearest chair. “Actually, I asked you here to request a favor. Would you mind very much pretending we are engaged?”

  He caught on after the briefest moment, an expression of rueful understanding in his eyes. “You wish to punish her for her unkindness.”

  “I’m afraid I do.” More than that, of course, she wanted to punish Wickenden for his. It was the best way she knew of to prove she didn’t care. And to jilt him in front of his fashionable friends after he’d pursued her so publicly to the extent that even Frances had imagined he meant to offer her marriage. She drew in her breath, forcing her thoughts away from Wickenden and back to Mrs. Derwent. “I’m sorry, since she is your mother, but she was unforgivably rude. She tried to buy me off!”

  Kit closed his eyes. “I should never have spoken of you in front of her.” His eyes opened again, direct and honest. “I was just home and catching up with letters which told me of your doings here in Blackhaven and I blurted out something about marrying you to save you from yourself. I should have known she would totally misunderstand. In my defense, I can only say I was upset and worried about you. In my mother’s defense I can only say she is upset and worried about me! Give her time to speak to other people, especially Lady Braithwaite, and I’m sure you’ll find her changed.”

  “Well it doesn’t really matter,” Gillie said hastily, “because of course we’re not really going to be married. We’ll call it off in a day or so.”

  “A day or so?” he repeated blankly, and she saw with yet more guilt that he wanted to use their false engagement to somehow create a true one. But in truth, her real reason for the pretense would be gone tomorrow.

  “Well, we’d be lying to our friends as well,” she said. “We would not be comfortable keeping up the lie for so long. We can easily find some quarrel to part us – though not one so serious that we should never speak again. I’ll think of something!”

  “Gillie—” He broke off as the door opened again. Gillie could hear her aunt’s voice and imagined she and Bernard had arrived to interrupt the tète à tète. However, it was Charles who stuck his head in the doorway first.

  “Lord Wickenden, Miss,” he said, and the wicked baron strode past him into the room.

  Panic rooted Gillie to her chair. It was too soon to face him. She wasn’t ready. She needed time to hate the handsome face which had deceived her, to turn those stupidly excited butterflies to mere contempt. But his gaze was already upon her and it was all she could do to keep her expression as blank as she could.

  He must have found something about her strange, though, for he paused, a quick frown beginning to form on his brow before Kit rushed toward the door, his hand held out in triumph.

  “Lord Wickenden! You must be the first to congratulate us. Miss Muir has agreed to be my wife.”

  Chapter Ten

  No.

  Why has she done that? She doesn’t love him…does she?

  Thank God I didn’t speak… Like he had done ten years ago just before Kate jilted him…

  That was different, Kate meant it. Gillie, is up to something.

  He gazed past Grantham to Gillie, who still sat in the arm chair, unmoving. That she was distressed, he could not doubt, but she was trying desperately hard to cover it with a brittle, meaningless smile while her fingers clasped each other tightly in her lap.

  Mechanically, briefly, he shook Grantham’s hand. “Congratulations,” he murmured, and strolled past him toward Gillie. Panic flickered in her eyes. He paused in front of her, and since she didn’t offer, he bent and picked her hand out of her lap.

  “What can I do?” he asked quietly.

  Her fingers, even her palm, felt icy cold to his touch.

  Her brow twitched, as though those weren’t the words she’d expected to hear. “You may wish me happy,” she said in a small, hard voice he’d never heard from her before.

  “Then I do.”

  She withdrew her hand just as Bernard and the aunt came into the room. Her arm jerked, a swift, involuntary movement toward Grantham, who never even noticed as he blurted out his good news to Gillie’s family. Wickenden noticed, though. It had been a pleading, hushing gesture, as though she hadn’t wanted them to know.

  And certainly, their reactions were comical enough. Bernard’s jaw dropped quite spectacularly, and the aunt frowned, pulling at her ear. “What did you say? Gillie?” Her expression betrayed more consternation than joy.

  Because he, Wickenden had raised expectations, just as Kate had said. Only it wasn’t the wicked baron who was walking away. A glimmering of understanding began to form.

  He didn’t believe this sudden engagement was about love–not on Gillie’s part anyway. It was about revenge.

  The elder Miss
Muir sat down and Bernard, recollecting himself, shook Grantham’s hand with just a little too much enthusiasm. Wickenden promptly sat down on the chair next to Gillie’s.

  “I gave Jack’s document to Colonel Fredericks,” he murmured. “He seemed surprised, though grateful. And appalled to hear of your abduction. He seems sure the villains will soon he caught.”

  “Excellent,” Gillie said. “Thank you.”

  Until she spoke to him like that, so coolly and carelessly, he hadn’t properly realized the full expressiveness of her normal voice.

  “Well,” he said, rising once more. “I won’t take up any more of your time on this happy day.”

  She made no move to detain him, merely offered him one careless hand. Clearly, she had herself under control now, had steeled herself for his touch. The thought didn’t please him.

  “I suppose you’ll be leaving for London tomorrow,” she observed.

  “I suppose I will.”

  “Then I will bid you goodbye,” she said brightly.

  “Merely adieu,” he insisted, retaining her hand when she would have withdrawn it, and deliberately kissing it. “Au revoir. Until we meet again.”

  “Give Lord Braithwaite our best regards,” the aunt requested as he bade her farewell.

  Wickenden inclined his head, a gesture that took in the two young men before he strolled out of the room. Captain Grantham was almost cheering. Poor fool. He imagined he’d won.

  *

  That thought came back to Wickenden as he walked away from the Muirs’. In fact, no one had won or could win. Kate was right. The game had gone too far. He’d already hurt Gillie enough to push her into the arms of a man she didn’t love.

  Or am I just a great coxcomb to be imagining she cares for me?

  Whatever, something had turned her quite suddenly against him. Something or someone.

  On impulse, he turned left into Blackhaven High Street and walked toward the hotel. The more he thought of it, the more certain he was that this bore all the stamps of…

  “Lillian,” he greeted her as he entered the foyer. “How fortunate.”

  Lillian Grantham – or Mrs. Derwent as she was these days – was dressed in a fine lavender walking gown and matching pelisse. Her fetching bonnet bore lavender ribbons and flowers. She halted in her tracks, her eyes widening.

  “Wickenden! How did you get here so fast?”

  “I flew.”

  Lillian had no sense of humor. “But I only sent the note five minutes ago. I asked you to come at four o’clock.”

  “Four o’clock does not suit me. Would you like me to accompany you somewhere or shall we sit in the coffee room?”

  Clearly irritated, Lilian stared at him in consternation. “I am expecting my son in half an hour.”

  “I shan’t detain you for half that time.” Determinedly, he offered her his arm and she took it with reluctance, walking back the way she’d just come and allowing herself to be ushered into the quiet coffee room.

  Impatiently, Wickenden waved away the waiter and sat down beside her. “I don’t need to ask what you’re doing here.”

  “Of course you don’t. You were quite wrong about that girl and I was right. No intention of marrying my Kit? Why, she looked me straight in the eye, as bold as brass, I assure you, and announced that nothing would prevent her from marrying him!”

  “What did you do?” Wickenden asked curiously. “Offer her money?”

  Lillian lifted her chin. “I know her type.”

  “Clearly you don’t. Before you came here, they weren’t even speaking because she’d already turned him down and he was sulking. Five minutes with you, and Kit is announcing their engagement all over town. I’ve seen mad elephants in India cause less damage than you.”

  Lillian flushed. “I don’t care for your tone, Wickenden.”

  “You’re not really meant to.” He eyed her dispassionately, wondering what the devil he’d ever seen in her. Of course, she’d been younger then, and prettier. And he’d been a lonely young subaltern getting over a broken heart, and flattered by the attentions of an attractive widow. Had she always been this stupid? “You brought my name into it, too, didn’t you?”

  “I might have mentioned you.”

  “Name dropping, to frighten her?” Wickenden guessed.

  Lillian’s lip curled. “She doesn’t frighten. She has no shame.”

  Wickenden sighed and got to his feet. “Hard as it is for you to understand, Lillian, she has nothing to be ashamed of. Good afternoon.”

  *

  Gillie hadn’t really thought out her fake engagement plan terribly well. It had been a spur of the moment decision that quickly got out of hand as not only Lord Wickenden but her less than pleased family were forced to congratulate Captain Grantham and wish her happy.

  Bernard, however, could not contain himself beyond Kit’s departure.

  “Why engage yourself to him now?” he demanded. “You could have hooked Lord Wickenden!”

  “Nonsense,” Gillie said frostily. “We merely found each other amusing during his stay here. But he leaves for London tomorrow. Nothing was ever going to come of his attentions, you know. It is just his manner.”

  Bernard, though inexperienced in affairs of the heart, knew his sister very well. “You’re miffed with him. Is that what this is about? Trying to bring him up to the mark with a spot of jealousy?”

  “Oh, Bernard, don’t be so ridiculous,” she snapped, rising to her feet and preparing to leave the room.

  “Because playing such games with someone like him is a dangerous sport,” Bernard warned, with what he obviously hoped was manly severity and worldly wisdom. “You’d be well served if he challenged poor old Kit and killed him!”

  Gillie paused with her hand on the door knob, feeling her skin whiten. “He wouldn’t do that.” Would he? Surely he’d never cared about her enough… But she was making him look foolish, a lovelorn, wealthy dandy brushed off in favor of a poor officer with no fortune. At least that was her aim, and kindness had never played any part in it. On the other hand, she certainly didn’t want blood on her hands, let alone Kit’s.

  For a moment, she actually considered calling the pretense off immediately, not just for Kit’s sake but for Wickenden’s own. He was in enough trouble over duels, and she had the uncomfortable feeling he didn’t actually admire himself for them anyhow. They were feeding some deeper discontent within him.

  I could have made him content, a wistful little voice whispered in her head. I know I could.

  Of course you couldn’t, she told herself severely. He had no interest in you at all beyond weaning you from Kit and making a fool of you into the bargain. He probably laughs about it with his friends – perhaps not Lord Braithwaite, of course, but in London, I’d be the butt of all his jokes.

  It was lowering, hurtful, infuriating, but she would not give into it. He’d started the game on behalf of Kit’s dreadful mother, but they’d both lose. She wasn’t quite sure yet how she’d make Mrs. Derwent lose, but since Wickenden was her main target, she could brush Kit’s mother aside for later. Kit himself was another matter.

  Kit wasn’t really playing her game. While happy to tell everyone about their engagement, she had the feeling he was using it to force her into an actual engagement, even to the point of marriage, either through habit or through the difficulty of actually breaking it off once the snowball of publicity was fully rolling. As it surely was.

  The matter kept her awake that night, so that she rose on Monday morning unrested and exhausted, Nevertheless, taking Mattie and Charles to help carry, she went shopping as usual, buying enough to make supper for tomorrow night’s card party.

  It was while she was buying meat from the market that she first noticed the watcher—a rough looking young man lounging by a fruit stall eating an apple. Although he was gazing in a different direction, she had the uncomfortable feeling he’d been looking at her the instant before. When she noticed him again from the cheese stall, she
began to wonder uneasily if he was one of the men who’d abducted her the night of the ball. He didn’t look familiar, but it had been dark.

  She wished she’d brought Danny instead of Charles. On the other hand, she was sure no one would hurt her in so public a place, so she took her time, forcing herself to buy everything they needed before walking home.

  Market Street, which ran between the market and the High Street, was the least salubrious neighborhood they had to pass through to go home. It housed the Black Inn, a questionable hostelry frequented, so people said, by seamen, smugglers, and thieves. Gillie had only ever seen fishermen come out of it, and a few ragged, often brightly dressed women. But all the same, she gave it a wide berth today and kept glancing back over her shoulder to see if the rough young man were following her.

  She didn’t see him, but unexpectedly, across the road beside the inn she caught sight of a familiar female figure dressed in black emerging from the inn doorway.

  Damnation to her, she’s still here, Gillie thought in frustration. Though what on earth is she doing in that place? Surely villainy of some kind…

  She passed on, but unable to risk glancing back again a moment later, she saw her supposed stepmother halted in the street, her head pressed against the inn wall, her hand across her belly. Instinctively, Gillie started across the road toward her, for she was clearly ill and alone.

  An improbably red-haired woman in a garish dress stepped out of the inn, saw what Gillie did and went to her at once.

  “Come back inside,” the woman said kindly. “Come now, I’ll send for the midwife, you can’t go out like this.”

  The Spanish woman made a weak effort to fend her off and took another stumbling step just as Gillie and Mattie arrived.

  “What is the matter, ma’am?” Gillie demanded. “Do you need the doctor?”

  “Midwife more like, miss,” said the garish young lady. “It’s her time. The baby’s coming. She shouldn’t be having it in that place, but better there than in the street.”

  Gillie glanced at her in consternation. “Is it so imminent? Does she not have time to get back to her hotel?”