The Baron’s Betrothal: An On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again Regency Romance (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series)

by Miranda Davis

  “Oh, God,” he groaned aloud, “Ohhhh.”

  He moaned louder as he stroked himself and almost missed the sound, slight as it was, of someone approaching.

  “Lord Clun?” She cried out.

  “Ow!” He nearly yanked himself out by the roots in shock. Biting back a louder, pained scream, he froze, poised on the excruciating cusp of relief. “Not now, Lady Elizabeth,” he panted out in tight gasps, careful to keep his back to the privy door and her voice. He was hardly presentable with his hands full and his damned breeches down around his knees. He prayed she’d leave quickly.

  “But Lord Cl—”

  “Go away, blast you. Go. Away. Now!” He roared. The privy shuddered as he leaned into the far corner.

  “No need to yell,” she huffed and marched off muttering, “I heard you perfectly well the first time.”

  Fearful she might hear him ‘perfectly well’ even at a distance, he waited agonizing minutes before he finished in a frenzy. (With his luck, she’d think he was taking too long and return to check on him.) Sensitivity be damned, he stuffed himself back into his breeches hastily, tucked in his shirt and buttoned his falls before storming back to find her seated by the fire in the private parlor he’d hired.

  “What is it?” He demanded.

  “I can’t remember now.” She smiled apologetically and shrugged. “Your bellowing shocked it right out of mind.”

  “My apologies,” he said through clenched teeth. “If you’ll excuse me, Lady Elizabeth.” And he stalked from the parlor.

  * * *

  Elizabeth hadn’t known what to think. She heard Clun move quietly about his room, though it was still well before dawn. When he tiptoed past her door and stealthily descended the stairs, she panicked. Rather than spend another day with her, he thought to sneak away and let his servants see her home from Oxford. No matter how she tried to reassure herself, fear overwhelmed rational argument.

  She threw on clothes and shoes to rush after him and prevent his departure. Outside, she ran to the stable looking right and left, hoping to spy him or hear his footfalls on the cobblestones. Algernon wasn’t in the inn yard. It appeared, as she searched, that none of the grooms stirred. She still had time, which came as a relief.

  As she left the stable, she heard strangled moans of pain. It was Lord Clun. And he groaned as if he were suffering a great deal — gasping and hissing, possibly injured.

  Where was the man?

  She hurried around the corner of the stable and scanned the jumble there.

  She called his name. There was a high-pitched scream. Now, she panicked that something dire truly had befallen him.

  “Not now, Lady Elizabeth,” he finally choked out from somewhere nearby, his voice sharp with pain.

  “But Lord Cl—”

  “Go away, blast you.”

  Oh.

  She’d overlooked the ramshackle privy tucked away. Through the gaps she saw someone inside. Someone tall and broad.

  Oh dear.

  “Go away now!” He yelled at her from inside the shuddering structure.

  “No need to yell,” she replied with dignity. “I heard you perfectly well the first time.”

  There came a deep growl from the privy’s shadowy interior. She thought it wisest to hurry back to the inn.

  Oddly enough, his bellowing without hesitation was all the reassurance Elizabeth needed. If he’d meant to sneak off, he would’ve remained silent. He was using the privy rather than a chamber pot upstairs. A very thoughtful gesture, she concluded with satisfaction. Mrs. Abeel would approve.

  Soon after, Clun filled the private parlor doorway. Disheveled, black hair flying, eyes sparking, muscles tensed magnificently, he brought to mind his ancestral Norman conquerors. Elizabeth clasped her hands in her lap and pleaded forgetfulness rather than disclose her sudden, silly panic.

  After he stormed off, she contemplated the coming day. Dawn was still some time off. Only the inn’s kitchen staff stirred, with the innkeeper’s wife haranguing the cook about last night’s mutton, complaining that it couldn’t be chewed much less choked down. (She was right.)

  This was the last day of travel and Elizabeth’s last opportunity to run away. She’d been too tired and tipsy to consider escape after last night’s dinner. Still queasy from the day, she ate little and her empty stomach much magnified the ‘bracing’ effect of the ‘specially-fortified’ restorative tea Clun insisted she drink. Nor did she awake in the night as planned. If she’d wanted to, she might’ve slipped away while he was occupied in the privy, but that wouldn’t have given her a sufficient head start to elude him for long.

  The trouble was she didn’t want to run from him or end their betrothal. The more she thought about it, the more militant her thinking became. She knew only too well the gross impropriety of her actions to date, first running away, then staying at The Graces alone with Clun and finally traveling under his auspices with only a timid maid for a fig leaf. Had anyone beyond his trusted staff known about it, he’d have been obliged to marry her come what may.

  Well. That simplified the problem considerably. After years of dire lectures about ruination, Elizabeth knew how to compromise herself beyond all reclamation. And she had what she needed for the task: a private room with him in it and the loud-mouthed innkeeper’s wife as witness.

  Elizabeth hoped Clun would forgive her eventually.

  Upstairs, she crept past her own room to the far end of the narrow hall and tapped lightly on his door. She held her breath. After an eternity, she heard his footfall on the other side.

  “Yes?”

  “Lord Clun,” she whispered. “I must speak to you.”

  “Won’t it wait till breakfast?”

  “I’m afraid not, my lord.”

  There was a moment of silence and a deep sigh before the knob turned and the door swung partly open. He stood in the gap looking warily up and down the hall before settling on her. His eyes, she noted, always dark, appeared almost molten. He stirred not an inch to allow her into his room.

  “Don’t be daft, you can’t come in. Say what you will,” he growled. He scrutinized her from her uncombed hair to her worn half boots.

  “I will not discuss us in the hallway of an inn, Clun.” With her last ounce of resolve she pushed against his solid chest and forced her way inside.

  He stumbled backward when she flitted past. She waited while he leaned against the door to close it. His eyes were clenched tight. A man was supposed to enjoy having a woman throw herself at him. Then again, Clun didn’t know she intended to do so. She smoothed the hand-me-down gown and looked up at him again. He didn’t look intrigued in the least. Only pained.

  This pricked her conscience. What was she proposing to do, back him into a corner, attempt his seduction then raise the alarm? He never connived, or threatened or tried to force her to do as he wished. He was too honorable a man. And he deserved better from her.

  “Lady Elizabeth, please say what you will then I beg you leave.”

  “I thought to seduce you, Lord Clun,” she confessed with answering formality. His eyes snapped wide open. At that, she scolded, “Don’t look so horrified. I daresay you wouldn’t have hated it.” She plucked at her gown. “You needn’t worry. I’ve changed my mind. Besides, I have no practical knowledge of how to do it. I was taught to rebuff unwanted male attention. No one ever offered me any guidance on how to encourage the attention I did want,” she trailed off. “So, you’re safe from me.”

  “Not safe,” Clun said and relaxed against the door, “but I promise you, when you meet the right man, it sorts itself out naturally.”

  “Mrs. Abeel said something to that effect as well,” she trailed off then whispered, “If only—”

  “What?” He stared at her.

  “It’s of no consequence,” she said with a shrug. “I should go.”

  He moved away from the door and she let herself out.

  * * *

  Long before she’d slipped into his room, Cl
un had grown increasingly alarmed by Elizabeth’s roguery. The first day of the trip was mostly uneventful, if one discounted her offhand flirtation and the erotic dream that her coquettishness caused. They traveled more than half the distance to London, changing horses, taking tea and using inns’ conveniences several times until they reached Oxford and The Scribe and Scholar, where Clun hired two rooms upstairs and a private parlor on the ground floor. They dined, though Elizabeth ate little, and retired early when she was tipsily toasted by the hot toddies he insisted she drink.

  But here, now, this was altogether too much. She stood in his room and bewitched him with her siren’s smile. He couldn’t parse her object, but she was fast working loose his death grip on gentlemanly restraint.

  “Lady Elizabeth, please say what you will then I beg you leave.”

  “I thought to seduce you, Lord Clun,” she said.

  Her comment made certain irrepressible lower parts take note, which appalled him.

  “Don’t look so horrified,” she huffed, “I daresay you wouldn’t have hated it.”

  If only she knew how little he hated the idea, she wouldn’t discuss seduction calmly alone with him in his room.

  “But you needn’t worry, I’ve changed my mind,” she said.

  Though unschooled by her own admission, she had a natural gift for making his blood pound into places better left un-supplied. He clamped his mouth shut. What was he to do with her?

  Lust, Panic and Rage screamed in his head: Take her! Heaven forbid! God damn it all!

  At dinner the previous evening, he’d nearly jumped out of his skin at her casual touches over the course of their meal. He assumed it was the second hot toddy she drank. When Elizabeth handed him a plate of bread, she let her bare fingers brush his hand and smiled that smile. The maid pretended not to see any of it. For the rest of the meal, he ate what was on his plate and didn’t dare ask for any more.

  In Shropshire, he’d wanted her when she hadn’t flirted at all. Now he was ravenous for her after days of proximity at The Graces and nights of nettlesome dreams. Indeed, he’d just dreamt of seducing her in detail. And a trip to the privy notwithstanding, his appetite remained keen. If she kept eyeing him in that thoughtful, wanton way of hers, he would crumble. Indeed, he was only moments away from tearing his mother’s hand-me-down carriage dress off her and taking her on the lumpy bed when Panic hissed, ‘Ruin her and she’ll regret it.’

  It was just the cold splash of reality he needed to drown out the howls of Lust.

  “If only,” she sighed without voicing the rest.

  “What?” Clun choked out while Lust whispered in his muddled brain, ‘If only she wants what you do, Clun, do it, do it, do it.’

  “It’s of no consequence. I should go,” she said and slipped out the door just in time.

  ‘Nooooo!’ Lust wailed between his ears and sent him prowling into the narrow hallway after her.

  “Lady Elizabeth,” Clun whispered to her, “A man has only so much forbearance, you’d be wise to remember that.”

  “Forbearance? Why, you curd-witted clunch, I changed my mind,” she spat.

  “You were safe even if you hadn’t, my lady,” he whispered back, perjuring himself.

  “Lummox,” she ground out before disappearing into her room.

  As last man standing in the hall, Clun prevailed. Even so, he sensed it was a pyrrhic victory.

  Chapter 15

  In which a journey of a thousand leagues ends with one misstep.

  Though the last day of their journey was mild, the atmosphere in the carriage was decidedly frosty. Clun began inside but soon tapped on the trap and instructed his coachman to stop. He exited with a curt ‘by your leave’ to ride Algernon out of sight behind the carriage.

  With each mile marker they passed, Elizabeth’s heart grew heavier. The last hours they could be together, Clun preferred not. Then again, after her clumsy, botched seduction, she couldn’t blame him for staying out of confined spaces with her.

  The first hours went by at a snail’s pace. Her companion inside, the upper maid, sought refuge in sleep. Elizabeth could not. Nor could she read to distract herself. Even on the smooth, tarmacadam toll road, the swaying of the baron’s well-sprung carriage made her motion sick if she attempted to close her eyes or read a printed sentence. With absolute certainty, she would lose her mind from boredom without a distraction.

  Press close as she might to the quarter light, her vantage point did not allow a glimpse of the baron riding behind the vehicle.

  So she stared at scenery through Buckinghamshire and into Middlesex, relieved only by the stops they made to change teams and refresh themselves. Clun was uniformly taciturn at these stopovers. Countryside finally gave way to more frequent, ever more prosperous-looking hamlets and villages as they neared the outskirts of London. Elizabeth considered dropping the glass and craning her head out to find Lord Clun. She thought the better of it several times. No lady of quality would do such a thing. Besides, she was not sure the borrowed oversized poke bonnet would fit.

  After much inner struggle, she slid down the window’s glass and peeked out as best she could. No sign of the baron. The carriage jounced and the top of her bonneted head rattled painfully against the upper frame edge with a crunch.

  “Ow!”

  Irritated beyond all bearing, she shoved her head through the unforgiving aperture, bonnet and all. Ominous cracks let her know the hat’s architecture had not survived. Though the maid had assured her the baroness would never miss it, Elizabeth still felt badly for ruining it. With the brim now at odd angles, she anticipated the retraction back through the window would do even more damage than the outward projection had.

  She twisted her head and leaned as far out as she might but only glimpsed the annoying baron, astride his big, gray horse, tilting his head to look at her. He lifted his tall beaver hat with a smirk. His amusement infuriated her.

  “Lord Clun,” she called out to him, her broken bonnet brim flopping.

  With a pounding of hooves, Clun rode up beside the carriage, “Yes, my little turtle.”

  She couldn’t very well ignore the clod, having just stuck her head out of the coach window and catcalled to him, but she was sorely tempted. Turtle, indeed.

  Tamping down her pique, she asked, “Will you ride the entire way to London on horseback? Won’t that be tiresome?”

  Her bonnet brim flapped up and down over her face because the window was too small for her to prop it up with her hand. Worse, with every upward flip, she saw how much her flopping brim amused him.

  “I’ve ridden for years, Lady Elizabeth, I am content.”

  “But I’m so uncomfortable,” she admitted to him, gripping the bottom of the window. “Won’t you join us? Just for this last distance.”

  He shook his head. She scowled at him. He smiled in reply and reined in Algernon to drop back behind the carriage once again. After several awkward tries, she yanked her head and the bedraggled hat back inside the carriage. The rumble of his laughter outside made her blood boil.

  She closed the window with a hard snap, snatched at the ribbon under her chin and tore the broken bonnet from her head. Why hadn’t she removed it before poking her head out the window? Sad to say, she thought she looked dashing in it and wanted to cajole the baron while looking her best.

  Vanity, thy name is Elizabeth.

  The mangled hat on the empty seat reproached her, too.

  Hours, no, ages, no, eons later, the coach pulled into an inn yard and the carriage door swung open. Clun filled the tiny doorway and helped her and the maid step down. They would change horses and have a small repast, he informed them.

  “Bareheaded, are you?” Clun sniggered. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Poor hat.”

  She frowned, spun on her heel and stalked into the inn without him.

  Elizabeth was glad for the opportunity to stretch her long legs, use the convenience and have some tea and toast to ease her queasiness. She’d never been a good traveler
and with so many additional upsets, her stomach felt turned upside down and inside out. Making matters worse, whenever the baron smiled, something inside did a quick somersault.

  * * *

  After their mostly silent repast, Clun decided to join the women in the carriage. Elizabeth’s pallor and lack of appetite alarmed him. She’d reassured him that coach travel made her stomach uncomfortable, nothing more. Still he worried. So he professed his boredom with riding behind the carriage on a dusty toll road, even though he’d had years of dusty travel on horseback during the war.

  As tiresome as marches had been on campaign, he and his friends eased their time in the saddle with insults and dares thrown back and forth. There was much about his wartime experiences he willed from memory, but recollections of Maubrey, Seelye and Percy, the other Horsemen of the Apocalypse, were among the best in his life. Meeting his fiancée would probably prove just as memorable. Likely, it would linger for years as a regret. It didn’t bear thinking on, he concluded.

  After he helped the ladies into the carriage, he climbed in and took the backward facing seat. The petite maid tucked her legs under her seat, curled neatly into the corner and made herself inconspicuous.

  “Oh, so you would join us now, Lord Clun?” Elizabeth said, a new battle line drawn. “We’ve practically reached London. Why bother?”

  “Wouldn’t do to let you escape the carriage and run off in the city,” he quipped. He regretted saying it the moment words left his lips. Her eyes slid to the door nearest her.

  “Now, Elizabeth, do not contemplate anything so shatter-brained,” he said with a sinking feeling. “I’d never forgive myself, or you frankly, if you threw yourself from the carriage in traffic. You’ll crack your head open or get yourself trampled. Put that idiotic scheme out of mind this instant.”

  She merely arched an eyebrow.

  Clun sat opposite her, regretting his decision to keep her company. He didn’t dare nod off now and only wished there were a way to lock the coach doors. Or perhaps chain her to an interior lamp fixture.