Still, on principle, she held him at tine points.
When next she glanced up at his face, she found his lips turning blueish-gray. She looked down, took in his sodden breeches and ruined boots and noticed the chill in the air. He stood before her, wet, suffering and smiling cautiously, attempting perhaps to gauge her mood.
“If I weren’t a Christian, I’d skewer you as you deserve.” She lowered the fork. “Well? Don’t stand there, come in where it’s warm.” She drew him into the cottage. His arm was very solid, just as she remembered from their first meeting at The Sundew. It was, she thought, so rare to find a well-born man with such brawn. Though still furious, she had to admit things could’ve turned out far worse.
She added wood to the fire till the blaze crackled.
“You are wet through and shivering. How will I live with myself if you succumb to a lung fever?” She clucked and sat him down on a broken-backed chair next to the hearth. She offered him her shawl and he took it gratefully. “Can your boots be removed?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well?” She held out her hands and he lifted one filthy boot up reluctantly. She gripped the mud-slimed footwear by the top of the toe and back of the heel and gave it a hard yank. Her hands slipped. Mud splattered her face and dress.
They laughed together.
“Feel free to make a suggestion,” she said. “I’m no valet.”
“Clearly. Fewings would have fainted dead away or drawn a razor across his throat to escape the horror of addressing these.”
“How am I to remove them?”
“Let me try.” Clun pried at one heel with the toe of his other sodden boot. It didn’t budge. He wriggled and scraped at them. He pushed down from the cuff while the fire warmed then heated the soaked leather. The boots grew snug.
“Nothing else for it,” he said and drew a small knife from the top of his right boot. He slipped the blade carefully between leg and leather to slice through the shank.
“Take care!” She cried out. It was, she feared, such a sharp blade. One slip and he might slash his leg.
He looked up exasperated and said, “Please hold your outbursts till I am done. I wish to sacrifice a boot not a calf.”
She smiled at his pun and said, “Of course, forgive me.”
He slit the boot to the ankle and shucked it. She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up the knife to silence her before he set upon the second boot and peeled it off.
“I am sorry,” she said.
“Alas! They were good boots. Trusty boots.” Clun stood up in wet, stockinged feet and intoned mournfully, “Feet never knew better boots. I believe in my heart their soles are in heaven. Requiescat in pace.”
“Amen,” she chuckled.
He grew solemn. “Lady Elizabeth, I shouldn’t have deceived you. Or played my childish pranks. Can you forgive me?” He watched her closely and she felt color rise to her cheeks. He leaned closer to whisper, “It was wrong of me, I admit, but I enjoyed your candid opinions about Lord Clun nonetheless.”
She looked away and said, “And now it is my turn to apologize. I have insulted you without scruple and to add injury to insult you’ve ruined a fine pair of boots to treat for peace with me.”
“Wrecked Hoby’s are a small price to pay if I’ve earned your pardon.” He hovered too close for comfort, though she welcomed the discomfort he caused.
“If only I had known Lord Clun was so jokeative a gentleman, I might not have run off in the first place.”
“Jokeative is not a word, my lady,” he murmured.
“No, but it ought to be. Jokeative, as in tending to make too many jokes, just as talkative is tending to make too much conversation.”
He smiled down at her and said, “Sad that Dr. Johnson died before you could contribute that to his dictionary.”
She nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving his, and sighed, “I must agree.”
They stared silently at one another.
Finally, Clun roused himself, “One of my favorite terms of Dr. Johnson’s is obstipation.” Then he recited, “Obstipation: the stopping up of a passage, as in: A kiss causes an obstipation of both mouths involved.” Chuckling, he defined an obscure word from A Dictionary of the English Language. He stood too close and seemed on verge of illustrating the definition himself.
“Wag,” she replied in reproach, “a ludicrously mischievous person, as in: You, my lord, are a wag to threaten me with obstipation.”
“Not waggish, uxorious.”
“We are not yet married.”
“But soon we will be.”
Rather than fall completely under his spell, she huffed, “I should like to see you submissively fond of your wife. Given your professed opinions, I cannot expect much fondness from you as a husband, can I?”
“Fondness, yes. Ridiculous, romantic, calf-eyed love, no, you may not,” he confirmed. “But when I am fond, Bess, I am very fond.”
* * *
To prove his point, Clun gathered his disgruntled fiancée in his arms. And yet again, she surprised him. Although he made her damp and cold, she didn’t shrink away. She accepted his embrace without flinching.
By God, he thought with relief, his betrothed was a hardy female with a wit that delighted him. Her braided hair smelled of fresh autumn air. He enjoyed the sweet scent of her almost as much as he enjoyed the feel of her warm, soft body in his arms. Her hands slipped tentatively around his waist. He drew her tighter against him to nuzzle her long, lovely neck just below her dangling pearl earring.
She sighed in his embrace.
In seconds, despite his cold, wet clothes, the baron’s body began to hum. His nerves crackled. He wanted her. He reminded himself not to squeeze her too hard. Though she appeared sturdy, it wouldn’t do to crack her ribs inadvertently.
She’d called him a wag and, though he denied it, she was right. They were not wed yet. Much against his inclination, Lord Clun set her from him and ignored her small cry of consternation.
“For that, too, I must beg forgiveness. You are a sore temptation.”
A slow smile lit her face. He held her at arm’s length, but he could feel his good intentions going bad. So without another word, he sat abruptly, took up his ruined boots and slashed off the gaping shanks. Warmed sufficiently by her embrace and the fire he forced his feet into the shoe-like lower portions and stumbled out in sodden, crumpled stockings and hairy, bare calves.
Though she was a tall, sturdy woman, she was a virgin all the same. And Clun thought it wouldn’t be wise to hold her close, while his growing interest became outright fascination.
* * *
Mr. Tyler, or rather Lord Clun, left Elizabeth abruptly. He’d charmed her, cuddled her, teased her, aroused her and then confounded her with his precipitous escape, for surely his sudden, wild-eyed shuffle away was just that.
She was curious about the intimacy he began and wanted to indulge her curiosity. Surely, he sensed that. When he swelled against her body, she felt an answering weakness in her knees and a simmering heat low in her belly. Just as her chaperone Mrs. Abeel had said, it was a delightful sensation of closeness quite the opposite of anything genteel.
Elizabeth had clung to him shamelessly, responding to his embrace with a hunger she never felt before. Lord Clun awakened her senses and clouded them. He made her heart thump till she was light headed. She knew it couldn’t be love — she’d only just met the man, but it certainly boded well for their married life.
Until, that is, he scampered off like a shy woodland creature.
Chapter 7
In which our hero and heroine become better acquainted with their differences.
The next morning, Clun awoke, dressed and rode to the little cottage immediately after his late breakfast. Before he could rap on the cottage’s front door, Elizabeth opened it and released a fragrant cloud of warm, baked something.
“Would you care to take a stroll with me, my lady?” Clun asked with a courtly bow.
El
izabeth turned back inside to pick up her shawl, which he took from her and draped over her shoulders. They stepped out into the cool, overcast morning. She took his arm, and he led her to a path that wound through nearby meadows and skirted the forest. He allowed her to set a snail’s pace.
“When do you hope to marry, Lord Clun?” She asked without preamble.
“Immediately. Here at The Graces as quickly as I can arrange it,” he replied seriously. He looked at her to judge her response.
“So soon?”
“We’ve been betrothed more than a twelve-month, my lady.”
“Yet, we hardly know one another, my lord,” she said and pulled away.
“Your point?”
“You’ve lived this long without feeling the need to perpetuate the line. Why address your oversight in such haste now? You could’ve sold out and returned years ago if the cause were so urgent.”
“One cannot prance off during a war when one pleases. Nor can one abandon friends to their fate, go home to sip port and fill a nursery. It’s not done. It’s a matter of honor.”
“Why didn’t you marry immediately after the war?”
He glowered at her. “I as good as did. I made arrangements soon after I returned and was betrothed to you.”
“To someone you’d never met.”
“We’re getting acquainted now, aren’t we?”
“But what if you’d met the perfect woman, your true love, after our betrothal?”
“I was betrothed,” Clun said with a darkling look. “I was honor-bound to abide by it.”
“Did you meet someone and fall in love?”
“I did not. I would not,” he replied through gritted teeth.
“Even if it meant sacrificing true love for this silly arrangement? That’s heartless!”
That damned word was thrown at him again and again. He snapped, “Not heartless, Lady Elizabeth, and not silly. Sensible.” Making an effort not to lose his temper, he added, “I gave my word.”
“Even after marriage, only the rare aristocrat honors his vows.”
He glared down at her and said, “I will.”
“Shouldn’t your bride want to marry you?”
“You don’t?”
“I’m not as opposed to it as I once was, but I’ve had no time to consider it properly. Surely that’s obvious to you.”
“Under the circumstances, I would say nothing is obvious to me. Your running away. Your being here. None of it. Besides, you’ve had nearly eighteen months to object. It’s time we married.”
“I wish to know you better.”
“We have the rest of our lives to do so at our leisure. First, we must marry.”
“Why must we rush?”
“For one, you are presently unmarried, without a chaperone, living in a cottage cheek by jowl to me and other unmarried men on my land. That your reputation hasn’t been hopelessly compromised is a miracle due only to the isolation of this place. Any fool can appreciate that a timely marriage is your only option.”
“We cannot marry tomorrow, or even a week hence. Preparations take time. The banns must be read, relatives invited.”
He interrupted, “I’ve already had the banns read in London. I can have it expedited here.”
“Can’t we use this time to become better acquainted?”
He couldn’t decide if he should kiss her quiet or run far away, instead he snapped, “To what end? If I’d wanted to fritter away days and weeks doing that, I would’ve subjected myself to the full horrors of the Marriage Mart.”
“Have you any alternative, Lord Clun?” She stepped in front of him to face him with fists on hips and feet planted. “I may be poised on the verge of ruin, but unless you prefer to brave Almack’s next spring, you will allow me a little time to accustom myself to the notion of marrying you. Not that I’ve agreed to it, mind you, I have not.”
“You play at brinksmanship with me?” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have little patience for wooing you, Lady Elizabeth, and I have even less for cavorting in ballrooms or attending dreadful musicales. I have no interest in making a pointless, hopeless attempt to convince some missish young lady that I’m not an over-large, under-civilized and foul-tempered man. Is that clear?”
“I am not missish.”
“No, you weren’t missish until just now. At this moment, you’re sounding overwrought or simple-minded. Or both.”
“As I was saying, you’re a large man, Lord Clun,” she continued unfazed, “but you are not grotesque.”
He let his hand drop away from his face and regarded her. “Do stop, I blush at your blandishments,” he deadpanned.
She rolled her eyes.
“At the risk of stating the obvious, my lady, the only reason I intimidate you less than most females is that you’re much larger than most.”
“I am not large,” she said, “I’m tall though I prefer the term Junoesque. And my height is not why you don’t intimidate me.”
“No?”
She tightened the shawl around her shoulders, looked down at her feet and ground out, “You have a pleasant smile, if you must know.”
“Have I?” He gloated, suddenly pleased with this getting-to-know-one-another business.
She scowled and continued to lecture him, “In fact, you’d be much less intimidating to any young lady if you glowered less and smiled more. And cut your hair.”
“How can hair intimidate anyone? That makes no sense.”
“You dress well,” she said, looking him up and down. “And your smile is endearing, when rarely you do smile.”
“If you think so, I am glad, but I don’t care if I intimidate silly chits.”
“You should. You’d have options if we don’t suit.”
That silenced Clun momentarily. “Lady Elizabeth, let me remind you that as long as we are betrothed,” he enunciated, “I’m not obligated to spend interminable evenings grinning like a niddycock to put some other young miss at her ease. Which, I repeat, would be insufferable. In fact, I’m finding it challenge enough to win over the lunatic female to whom I’m betrothed.”
“You can be charming when you want to be. I’ve seen it.”
“Right. Say I hunt up another female and, for argument’s sake, let’s pretend my hair fails to terrify her and my elusive smile somehow charms her. What then? One day, the scales will fall from her eyes. She will realize the truth about me and make us both suffer for her disillusionment. No, my lady, I’d rather take my chances with you.”
“Even with your scowls and foul temper, you’re quite a catch, Lord Clun.”
“So says my betrothed who ran away and hid rather than meet me.”
“I must point out that I didn’t run away after I met you. So you see, it’s not that I took exception to you, per se. It’s that I didn’t want to marry a stranger.”
“Why didn’t you speak up before now?”
“I thought it obvious to my father that I wouldn’t wish to marry a man I’d never met.”
“Given his arrangements, it’s more obvious your father thought it best that you marry a man who hadn’t met you.” Clun scraped a hand down his face. “And having met you, I must agree.”
“By that, you mean I’m a termagant, a harpy, a harridan. Have I forgotten any?”
“Minx.”
“Fine, and a minx.”
“She-devil.”
“That’s quite enough, Clun,” she chuckled despite herself.
“Vixen,” he said with quite a few more to suggest. “Troublesome baggage—”
“It would serve you right if I did marry you,” she sniffed.
“Wouldn’t it just!” He said with growing exasperation. “But fortunately for me, you’ve run off and hidden God-knows-where to avoid marrying me and your poor father can’t possibly find you.” He roared so loudly a startled woodcock burst from the meadow grass ahead and pelted away. “I’ve a mind to write to the earl immediately and demand he produce my bride-to-be.”
>
“You wouldn’t.” She shoved at his chest, but he didn’t budge.
“It would serve you right if I did,” he replied, mirroring her narrowed eyes and forward thrust chin with his own.
“I forbid it,” she said.
“I would and will.” Clun spun on his heels and strode away.
“Say, don’t go off and do something you’ll regret, Lord Clun,” she called after him.
“Regret, hmphf!” He snorted at her over his shoulder and stomped off.
She gave chase. “Don’t leave in a snit.”
“A snit?” He stopped abruptly. “A snit, you say, little Miss Poaching-Termagant-Bane-of-Robbers-and-Thieves. I will leave in a snit if I wish to. A snit,” he hissed, his black eyes drilling into her. Though he snorted like an enraged bull, she didn’t step away. He admired her for this grudgingly.
“Heavens, you’re fractious. You must be hungry.”
He blinked at this unexpected salvo.
“Would you like something to eat while we argue?” Lady Elizabeth tucked her hand back into the crook of his arm. They had strolled no more than a few hundred yards.
“I am not fractious, you are infuriating,” he replied as she tugged him back toward the cottage. “Poach any more of my partridges?”
“No, and as I told you, I traded for those, Clun. Today, I baked scones, but they’re getting cold while you fly into a pucker.”
“Fly into a what did you say?” He cried. “Wait. Scones?”
“Just baked.”
“Don’t think I’m forgetting my annoyance.”
“I understand. It’s a temporary suspension of hostilities, nothing more.”
“Yes.”
“I accept your terms. Come while they’re still warm.”
With a shock, he realized Lady Elizabeth had spiked his guns with fresh-baked pastry. And she’d done it so adroitly that he wouldn’t have noticed at all had she managed to school her features.
The Baron’s Betrothal: An On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again Regency Romance (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series) Page 7