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

by Miranda Davis

  She sat at her escritoire, dashed off her note to Constance, sealed it and sent for a footman to walk it over.

  As far as Elizabeth was concerned, the only good to come of her return to London was having her best friend’s company and support in Society. Unless, that is, the earl confined her to the house in perpetuity after last night’s harum-scarum horrification.

  Constance’s reply confirmed tea together. Depend on Con to postpone plans to find out about her mysterious adventure.

  Elizabeth prayed her friend would have advice on brokering peace with intractable barons.

  Chapter 18

  In which the mysteries of Man are elucidated.

  Elizabeth had known Constance Traviston since they were very young. And in ways most important to genuine friendship, they were much alike. Both were spirited, well-read young ladies who valued intelligence, resourcefulness and good-humor. Both were born into mind-boggling riches but paid it no mind. In fact, they preferred to use their ample pin money to support Lady Jane Babcock’s pet causes or to pay subscription fees at circulating libraries such as Hookham’s and Miss Flinder’s shop by Walpole rather than waste it on frivolous furbelows.

  They were literally close, too. The Damogans resided at the head of the eponymous square; the Travistons lived at its foot in an equally imposing mansion at No. 10.

  When the girls were little, they played together in the gated park at the center of square under the watchful eyes of their nannies. While growing up, they spent time together at one house or the other and frequently shared a footman to shop in the Strand, or in New Bond Street. They listened, rapt, to Mrs. Abeel’s seafaring adventures and learned the intricacies of court etiquette from Lady Petra. They enjoyed the closeness of being sisters without the strife of sibling rivalry.

  Mrs. Abeel had been too elderly to undertake the full rigors of Elizabeth’s first Season in 1813. So without fuss, Lady Petra organized Elizabeth and Constance’s come out as if they were in fact sisters. Thanks to Lady Petra, Elizabeth did reasonably well, despite abbreviated men and their blatant bosom-ogling and despite having a countenance that revealed rather too much of her opinion of both.

  Elizabeth’s first season ended without a proposal, which suited her perfectly. Constance had offers, which she declined graciously. They both awaited men who caused a quickening of their pulses and exhibited Mrs. Abeel’s sure signs of affection.

  The year 1814 did not bear reviewing. Mrs. Abeel passed away suddenly in late January. Elizabeth missed the Season, not that she cared. In 1815, at the end of her belated second Season, she still had no acceptable offers. So when Lord Clun discreetly approached the earl, her father accepted him without so much as a ‘by your leave.’ Her subsequent, rash actions were motivated by her outrage over the earl’s disregard for her opinion.

  That she ultimately agreed with her father was nothing but dumb luck. Still, it did complicate matters.

  Good as her word, Constance Traviston arrived at No. 1 Damogan Square at the appointed hour. Nettles ushered her into the morning room without formal announcement. She was, after all, an intimate family friend. Shortly after tea arrived, the two settled in for a private chat. They stripped off their gloves to tuck into teacakes and sip cups of Traviston’s Select Darjeeling.

  “Tell me everything, Lizzy. First, where on earth have you been? You forbade me to ask after you here so I’ve been agog to know everything. I began to wonder if the baron had come early and whisked you off to Shropshire with nothing more than a wedding by special license.”

  “You would not credit it if I told you,” Elizabeth replied, unsure how to raise the subject she needed with her friend.

  “Did you go to Devonshire?”

  “Not precisely.”

  “Did you visit Jane in Bath?”

  Elizabeth shook her head slowly.

  “Where precisely were you then?”

  “Promise you won’t scold, Con.”

  Constance frowned. “Oh, Lizzy, what have you done?”

  “Nothing ruinous, I assure you.”

  “Small comfort, but I give you my word. Not a peep of reproach, unless I can’t help gasping in horror,” Constance said, clearly anticipating the worst.

  Elizabeth considered her friend, their history and what Constance already knew about her, and decided her pledge was the best she could expect. In short order, Constance knew of Elizabeth’s recent misadventures in Shropshire with her betrothed. She gasped several times, but she said nothing reproachful.

  “So you’ll have him after all?” Constance said and smiled her reassurance.

  “I would, if I hadn’t bungled it.”

  “Surely not.”

  Elizabeth gave her a look.

  “Oh, Lizzy, what happened?”

  “I told him I’d only marry for love and he wouldn’t have me.”

  “The beast!”

  “From the start, he was frank about wanting an unemotional marriage,” Elizabeth said. “Con, he insists romantic feelings lead to resentment and worse. In fact, he’s adamantly opposed to love, on principal.”

  “What a cod’s head.”

  “So we quarreled. I won’t compromise because I am right. And he won’t compromise because he is wrong and refuses to admit it.”

  “Perhaps,” Constance hesitated, “Lord Clun is right from his perspective. Some men seek marriages of convenience. It was a rather cold-blooded arrangement, don’t you think?”

  “But he pledges to honor his vows and I believe him. He won’t stray.”

  “Perhaps he’s cold hearted.”

  “He wasn’t always cold toward me. In fact, he was warm when first we met and rather affectionate thereafter,” she mumbled, recollecting the bearskin rug. “He grew chilly suddenly. I’m not certain why.” Elizabeth looked at her friend. “What am I to do?”

  “One cannot force a man to feel something, Lizzy.”

  “But he’s shown several unmistakable signs of affection. He’s been protective and thoughtful with hints of possessiveness, also chivalry. And I believe there is a physical affinity. At least, I feel it.”

  “Mother says that to understand a man, one must first comprehend immutable male behavior,” Constance began.

  Elizabeth beamed at her friend. Lady Petra was an unimpeachable source of useful information.

  Constance whispered, “If one sets one’s cap at a man, he is certain to withdraw. If he’s a gentleman, he withdraws for your sake. If he’s not interested, he also does so, for his own sake.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “There’s no discerning his motive if the outcomes are the same.”

  Constance raised a finger and continued, “If, on the other hand, one withdraws from him, a man with a tendre will pursue. He cannot help himself. A disinterested man will let you go. And the easiest way to withdraw, Lizzy, is to resume your life.”

  “Resume my life?”

  “In full. Pursue your interests. We’ll go to libraries, the opera, let’s support Jane’s efforts against animal cruelty and prepare for Christmas. Advent will bring heaps of invitations. You mustn’t ruminate about him. It serves no purpose.”

  “Right, I can do that. I feel better already, Con.”

  “Second,” Constance continued, “Mother says men deny emotions because feelings are unpredictable and worse, uncontrollable. Yet, men act on the feelings they deny because they cannot help themselves. Therefore, a man’s actions reveal all.”

  “I must live my life and judge his actions not his frequent, dyspeptic pronouncements on love,” Elizabeth summarized then added, “Clun is often gruff with me, Con. He’s gruff in general, but he’s behaved thoughtfully at times.”

  “Good,” Constance said and patted Elizabeth’s hand. “But you must keep contact with him to a minimum. Ideally, one set at a ball or assembly, no more.”

  “One? To what end?”

  “To see if he wants another, silly.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “Give him time. A
fter a number of parties, you’ll have an answer,” Constance told her firmly. “If he passes that test, there’s another. You must be very careful with this.”

  “Of course, I always am,” she lied, thinking again of lounging on the man whilst he sprawled in dishabille atop his bearskin rug. “Tell me, Con.”

  “I probably shouldn’t. You can be awfully heedless,” Constance shook her head. “With emphasis on ‘awful.’ Shropshire, Lizzy, what a notion!”

  “Never mind about Shropshire. I’ll be circumspect, I promise,” Elizabeth cried.

  Constance narrowed her eyes and repeated: “Shropshire.”

  “I had no choice.” Elizabeth wrung her friend’s hands to beseech her. “I was running away. Now I’m not.”

  Constance relented. “Promise me you’ll be careful, Lizzy. If you’re not, you’ll end up married to a very unhappy man.”

  “I promise, Con.”

  “Find an opportunity to be private with him at some to-do, say, on a terrace in a shadow.” Here, Constance shook her head. “It’s a shame no one knows you’re betrothed, it wouldn’t be so improper to seek some privacy in that case. Ah well, do what you can with propriety. Then when you’re alone, speak in a whisper so he must lean close to hear you.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “And when he’s close?”

  “Wait and see.”

  Elizabeth eyed her. “I don’t see how doing nothing will encourage a disclosure.”

  “It’s not what he might say,” Constance reminded her, “but what he might do.”

  “Oh.” Elizabeth smiled. “Yes, I see.”

  Chapter 19

  In which universal truths of Society become self-evident.

  Town tabbies delighted in handicapping each year’s debutantes in their race to the nuptial finish. They weighed comparative rank, prestige and qualities of countenance, bearing, manners and dress, in much the same way gentlemen of leisure judged contending thoroughbreds in a cross-country event. These worthies opined endlessly about who had the bloodlines, who the stamina and who the je ne sais quoi to make the Season’s most brilliant matches. Of all assets, however, there was no greater advantage than money.

  An ample dowry usually offset any number of disadvantages in whatever unfortunate combination they might occur. A pudgy, whey-faced asthmatic with a markedly low center of gravity, for example, still had charm when considered properly from the perspective of her £20,000 dowry. Whereas, all despaired of a pretty enough miss with a paltry £1000.

  As a result, they were fascinated by the social singularity of Lady Elizabeth Damogan’s unmarried state three years after her come-out.

  If her betrothal to Lord Clun had been public knowledge, it would have silenced the snide witticisms about over-tall Lady Elizabeth’s shortfalls, such was the prestige of Lord Clun’s lineage.18 Instead, these harpies entertained themselves by dissecting Lady Elizabeth’s and Miss Constance Traviston’s divergent experiences in the Marriage Mart.

  Everyone agreed the two ‘gels’ were fabulously dowered, lovely in face, lissome in figure and well spoken. Both dressed with quiet elegance, each to suit her own looks. It was their differences, declared the tabbies, that brought a charming viscount up to scratch for the Traviston chit and left Lady Elizabeth as yet unclaimed. They held forth on the causes of this discrepancy, offering a thorough exegesis of each contributing factor behind their fans.

  First, catty matrons pointed out, the two were physical opposites with wildly dissimilar abilities. Constance was a petite blonde who excelled at all feminine accomplishments; Elizabeth was a brown haired Long Meg who couldn’t sing or play the pianoforte or the harp. (Here, the eye rolling began.) There were even rumors that Lady Elizabeth’s ‘instrument’ was a sailor’s hornpipe, for heaven’s sake. Furthermore, she gladly joined other instrumentalists at informal dances. To this, a matron might add with a smirk that ‘by happy chance, the hornpipe fits in a reticule so she might exhibit at every opportunity.’

  Second, Constance was demure; Elizabeth was rather too straightforward and outspoken. What’s more, her independence savored of bluestocking tendencies. Constance was ethereal; Elizabeth her earthy opposite. Constance attracted men; Elizabeth challenged them. And few men, these ladies agreed, ever enjoyed being proved wrong or looked down upon. Though (titter, titter) she could hardly help looking down on most men, could she?

  Third, Constance had a mother who was alive, mindful of the proprieties and very good ton; while the late Countess of Morefield, though very good ton, was all but forgotten twenty years after her passing. Furthermore, the earl’s eccentric cousin Mrs. Abeel, a widow with marked bluestocking proclivities, had raised Elizabeth and influenced her unduly.

  Fourth, Elizabeth might have formal precedence over Constance as the Earl of Morefield’s daughter, but the origins of both families were essentially commercial. The ennoblement of one and not the other was the merest happenstance. Besides, the difference wouldn’t matter much longer. The title would be vacant upon the earl’s death, amounting to little more than a line in Debrett’s Peerage & Baronetage.

  The earldom in its third creation began with Lady Elizabeth’s grandfather. When George III needed to finance a war against the rebellious American colonies, Mr. Damogan’s low-interest loans bought muskets and hired Hessians aplenty. The king elevated him to an earldom in gratitude. It was well known that George III would’ve also ennobled Constance’s grandfather, Robert Traviston, if only the king hadn’t gone off barking mad in the meantime.19

  Lady Elizabeth’s father, the second Earl of Morefield, was in order of preference a scholar, a nabob and a peer of the realm. He took little pleasure in the ton, these women observed. He was not antisocial so much as he was distractedly asocial. When he wasn’t accumulating more parcels of real estate, he was collecting English words of Anglo-Saxon origin into a dictionary for the three or four other people in the kingdom similarly enthralled. To that end, he happily holed up in his library with antique reference books for hours on end, which did Lady Elizabeth no earthly good.

  True, he lavished on his daughter a dowry that would boggle the most avaricious mind , yet she was still unmarried. If such a dowry couldn’t help her, they pointed out, the earl would be of little practical assistance until he left her an obscenely rich orphan. The entailed estate in Devonshire would revert to the crown, of course. The bulk of Damogan property was his to bequeath to his only child, which made Elizabeth an heiress with few peers. Yet, she proved an impossible young woman to woo if a gentleman was of average height and normal libido20.

  All material considerations being comparable, these matrons concluded, responsibility for Elizabeth’s difficulties must be laid at the late Mrs. Abeel’s feet. She had overindulged — if not actively encouraged — the girl’s headstrong nature.

  As a result, no one was surprised Constance Traviston and Viscount Speare became, according to the Observer, “twin stars in the social firmament.” Their love developed with charmed inevitability and to universal approbation. Meanwhile, Lady Elizabeth glared down at men and was dismissed by all but craven fortune hunters as freakishly tall and dashed difficult to please.

  Though society matrons might label her upbringing her life’s greatest misfortune, Elizabeth felt blessed to have known Mrs. Abeel, who ‘had no toleration for polite stupidities that kept an intelligent, enterprising young girl from living her dreams and seeking adventure.’ Mrs. Abeel proved that, despite the constraints of privilege, a genteel woman could have the time of her life whilst married to her beloved.

  Most important, Mrs. Abeel loved and respected Elizabeth and taught her to love and respect herself.

  If Society considered self-respect an unfortunate character trait, Elizabeth decided, that was just too bad.

  Chapter 20

  In which a minx lets the cat out of the bag.

  Days passed. Clun waited for word that, with sincere regret on the Earl of Morefield’s part, Lady Elizabeth wished to end their betrothal. None came. Pa
rt of him wanted the pain over quickly, especially when gripped by irrational impulses whilst watching her dance with every benighted bachelor on this side of the English Channel. Another part of him, equally irrationally, hoped she would change her mind, hold her nose and marry him.

  At one such social torment, the Berkeley fête, fellow Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Mr. Percy, Lord Seelye and the Duke of Ainsworth, with his new duchess, found Clun muttering to himself.

  “Surrounds herself with fops, peacocks and dandiprats,” the baron growled to no one in particular.

  “Stop grumbling and offer Percy your congratulations,” Seelye instructed Clun as his friends gathered around him.

  “Whatever for?”

  “After all of his mysterious doings on the continent, Percy shall achieve nobility of the sword. He’ll be elevated to a viscountcy in his own right,” Seelye explained with an exaggerated bow to Percy.

  “Only if the Prince Regent doesn’t think the better of it in the meantime,” Percy said with characteristic self-deprecation.

  “Property?” Clun asked.

  “Small estate and a London townhouse, nothing lavish, but it’s more than I deserve.”

  “I detest false modesty, Percy,” Clun snapped. “About time Prinny acknowledged your post-war efforts, whatever they were.”

  “You’re always so deuced vague about it. What have you been up to, Percy?” Seelye asked.

  “This and that, nothing much of note,” he replied smoothly.

  “And you were doing those where exactly?” Seelye pursued, trying to discomfort the unflappable Mr. Percy by probing his mysteries.

  “Here and there,” he replied with a shrug. “I must say, Ainsworth, your duchess looks remarkably well.”

  Seelye threw up his hands. “The man’s an enigma.”

  The baron helped divert attention from Percy by asking, “Any other glad tidings of which I should be aware?” He looked directly at Prudence, Duchess of Ainsworth, who blushed and instinctively brought a hand to her belly. “Good God, Ainsworth, already?” Clun reproached the grinning duke then turned back to his duchess of a few months to warn, “Early success will only encourage him, Your Grace.”