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

by Miranda Davis

  * * *

  Rather than spy on Clun embracing Miss Mangold, Elizabeth fled down the dark hall to the foyer where a footman called for the earl’s Town carriage. Mr. Wilder came up and took her aside.

  “Dear Elizabeth, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost. What’s happened?”

  She glanced around and whispered confidentially, “I must leave London but the earl’s travel carriage is still in Devonshire, and it won’t be here for two days.”

  “I am at your service,” he said tamping down his glee. “Hiring a travel carriage and four in Town tomorrow will be nigh impossible. If you’ll allow me, I can arrange a suitable vehicle for you and your maid at an inn on the toll road beyond Paddington Gate. I’ll be happy to take you there myself.” He smiled a reassurance to her and added, “Dress warmly, propriety requires an open carriage.”

  “It would be a signal service, Mr. Wilder. I will be forever in your debt.”

  “When would you like to depart?”

  Elizabeth considered the things she must do after Christmas breakfast: Boxing Day gifts for the servants and her own packing. “Will half-past-noon give us enough time?”

  “Indeed. I will come to Damogan—“

  “No. Await us in Sloane Street, if you please. At half-past-noon.”

  “Till then, my dear, I wish you a happy Christmas.”

  Chapter 32

  In which our heroine has a wary Merry Christmas.

  Christmas morning, Elizabeth stared out her bedroom window at the city fog obscuring the street lamps and blurring the bare tree branches in Damogan Square.

  Her thoughts were no clearer than the air. Clun’s mother said he could not love. He himself said he would not love and refused to marry her — even on his own terms. Yet his kisses contradicted all his protestations.

  With Washburn’s help, she dressed in her warmest undergarments and wool walking gown.

  During a subdued breakfast with her father, Elizabeth gave him a rare dictionary, The New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew, In its Several Tribes, of Gypsies, Beggars, Thieves, Cheats, &c. published in 1699, which delighted him. She knew this because he blinked rapidly though the rest of his face remained immobile. In turn, the earl gave her a breathtaking fringed shawl of lavishly embroidered Oriental silk. He said that he’d seen it in a shop window and thought she might find a use for it. Elizabeth thanked him and mentioned her plan to call on the Travistons, adding that she would also discuss with Lady Petra how best to end her betrothal.

  Before the earl retired to his library, he said, “I look forward to a quiet Christmas evening en famille.”

  “I thought to go to the country early, if you have no objection,” she replied.

  “But you’ll miss Mrs. Abeel’s Christmas plum pudding. I know you’re as partial to it as I,” he said in a coaxing tone.

  Elizabeth shook her head, but she could not speak.

  “Well, dear, do as you wish.” He turned to leave the room, stopped and turned back to smile at her. “I miss her, too, child. I will always be grateful to her for all she gave you.” Having emoted far more than customary, the earl left to recover in his bookroom.

  For the rest of the morning, Washburn and Mrs. Dawes helped Elizabeth finish packing the servants’ gift boxes for the following day. She was exceedingly generous to household staff on behalf of the earl, putting in each maid and footman’s box a gold guinea wrapped in a new, monogrammed cotton handkerchief along with small gifts and a bulging bag of sweetmeats they could share with family on their day off. For upstairs maids, she tucked two coins into a new pair of York tan gloves for Sundays. (Usually 4 shillings each at the draper’s, but by buying eight pairs at once, the salesman at Layton & Shear’s offered them to her for 3s/2d each.) Nettles, the earl’s French chef and Mrs. Dawes would each receive three guineas as well as special gifts.

  To her lady’s maid Washburn, she gave a pretty chip bonnet, matching gloves and a length of ribbon as well as a gift box with three gold crowns, all of which Washburn left in her quarters rather than take with her to Devonshire.

  Elizabeth walked to No. 10 Damogan Square to wish the Travistons a happy Christmas. She found no chance to discuss anything privately with Lady Petra. There would be time enough before Twelfth Night.

  When Elizabeth returned home, Nettles presented a folded note with an elaborate blue wax seal, saying, “For my lady, a footman hand-delivered this. No reply is requested.”

  “I don’t recognize the hand, who could it be?” She stripped off her gloves, pelisse and bonnet and walked to the morning room window. In the weak light, she cracked the seal, unfolded the note and read its few lines. Without a word, she refolded it and tucked it into a pocket in her dress.

  She patted her pocket and came to a decision. If Clun intended to have the blonde pygmy strumpet, Elizabeth would cry off. First, however, he would have to tell her so, face to face.

  Indeed, if she had to stalk the baron across England to learn the truth from his own lips, so be it. She’d already arranged for a travel carriage to Devonshire. She could bribe the coachman to take her elsewhere if the price were right. No one, not even the baron, would expect her and her lady’s maid to turn up in Shropshire, which made it the perfect plan to confront him.

  If Clun cut up ugly, Elizabeth would release him on the spot and return to Devonshire. If, however, he did not want the little blonde baggage, they could negotiate their differences once and for all. In the meantime, everyone would think she’d gone to the country as her father ordered.

  Did she dare? ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained,’ Mrs. Abeel often said.

  Elizabeth would need all of her pin money for this adventure.

  Twenty-five minutes past noon, Elizabeth snuck from the house with Washburn carrying their two small portmanteaus. Mr. Wilder awaited them in Sloane Street. He muffled them with warm lap rugs and whisked them away in his curricle. They would only be cold and cramped a short way, he explained cheerfully, because he’d hired a bang-up travel coach for their trip from London. After thanking Mr. Wilder for his assistance, Elizabeth and Washburn fell quiet.

  At a coaching inn not far beyond Paddington Gate, Mr. Wilder helped both women down from his rig and saw them into a private parlor to wait inside while he oversaw the ostler hitching the team of four to the hired carriage. He also conferred briefly with one of the inn’s grooms outside before he returned.

  “We’re ready to depart, ladies,” Mr. Wilder announced in jolly spirits.

  “We? There’s no need for your escort any farther,” Elizabeth said. She popped another piece of candied ginger into her mouth, thankful to Clun for the duchess’ advice. “We can manage on our own from here. Thank you again.”

  “We’re heading in the same direction as far as Basingstoke, my destination, I merely assumed—” Mr. Wilder also assumed a wide-eyed, innocent gaze of confusion to add impetus to his falsehood.

  “Wouldn’t be proper, Lady Elizabeth,” Washburn murmured.

  “But my curricle’s gone, the groom’s driving it back. You wouldn’t strand your faithful friend on Christmas, would you?” He tilted his head and smiled.

  “No, of course not. It’s of no consequence, Washburn,” Elizabeth said.

  Mr. Wilder bowed with a sweep of his tall beaver hat, “Thank you, my lady. If you wish, I can be your brother for the journey to avoid any whiff of impropriety.”

  Washburn had no qualms. “And lying’s not improper? Hmphf!”

  He was too pleased with the progress of his scheme to pay the snarling maid any heed. All would be well by nightfall.

  Despite Elizabeth’s taciturnity, the inauspicious circumstances and three being a crowd, Mr. Wilder began to make love to the heiress before they cleared the inn yard.

  “I cannot credit my good fortune to be the man you’ve turned to in your hour of need, my dear,” he cooed.

  Elizabeth laughed, assuming he was joking. Her maid laughed much harder, perceiving he was
not.

  Seeing they’d offended him, Elizabeth tried to smooth his ruffled feathers. “Mr. Wilder, it’s not my hour of need. Unless you refer to my need for transportation.”

  “Yet, you were frantic to run away and now you are doing so with me,” he said with less warmth.

  “I’m not running away with you. I’m not running from anything. I am running to someone,” Elizabeth explained patiently. “As I said, I appreciate your escort as far as Basingstoke, but there is the end of it.”

  Mr. Wilder was annoyed by this, not to mention put out by the anticipated costs of an expensive private coach and several changes of horses and drivers on Christmas. Only the prospect of her dowry to defray this initial outlay eased his mind. Even so, he began to calculate the ready required to feed three of them, engage a private parlor and underwrite rooms at inns along the way to Scotland.

  Unbeknownst to Elizabeth, Mr. Wilder believed that spiriting her away to Gretna Green would be as much for her benefit as for his own. He fancied himself her Lancelot. In any event, it wasn’t an abduction, not really. She’d come of her own volition, with her maid. And hadn’t Lady Clun already made clear to half the ton her betrothal was doomed? The baroness even hinted Lord Clun’s interests lay elsewhere. Lady Elizabeth faced certain humiliation if Clun contracted a new alliance before she did.

  Once in Scotland, Mr. Wilder concluded, she would appreciate his thoughtfulness. Or face certain scandal.

  A few hours into their journey, the afternoon sun beamed into the coach.

  “Let me close the shade for you, my lady,” Mr. Wilder leaned to the window, attempting gallantry.

  “Do leave it,” Elizabeth replied. “I like the light.”

  This gave her pause.

  The sun came through the half light on the left. How odd.

  She puzzled over this before she understood and rued the efficacy of candied ginger, which had eased her discomfort so well she’d nodded off.

  They traveled north not west. Had they been on the road to Basingstoke, the carriage would head toward the sun as it dropped in the sky, in which case, sunlight would not stream through either window.

  One might suppose this discovery would distress a sheltered noblewoman being conveyed north for who-knew-what purpose. Instead, Elizabeth felt calm and extremely pleased with her foresight. Then again, one was so much better prepared doing anything a second time.

  Her second flight from London was considerably more comfortable than her first in numerous ways. For instance, Elizabeth brought Washburn along for propriety. She wore her own, comfortable walking dress under her warmest, kerseymere pelisse with a sable tippet about her neck, sturdy nankeen half-boots, a sensible yet attractive velvet bonnet and one of two pairs of York tan gloves. Her reticule was brimming with chunks of candied ginger. She also brought with her a great deal of money, stowed in a fastened pocket in the lining of the oversized sable fur muff on her lap. She’d learnt her lesson about firearms, too, and had with her a handier little pistol than the bulky, long-barreled dueling pistol she’d taken in haste previously. She’d kept it close at hand, tucked in her capacious fur muff.

  “Are we traveling north, Mr. Wilder?” She asked in a blithe manner, as if merely curious.

  “Well, yes,” he answered cautiously, “I wanted to demonstrate that I am in earnest about my feelings for you, even to the point of risking my own life.”

  “Risking your life?” She wondered if he knew about her pistol.

  “Until you cry off, Clun has made perfectly clear he will shoot anyone who dares come too close to you. Defined ‘close’ in absurdly broad terms, I might add. According to him, ‘close’ encompassed most of fashionable London geographically as well as escorting you in to supper and waltzing with you at a ball. Ever. Looked deranged when he said it to me, hissing and spitting through clenched teeth like a Bedlamite. So you see, I must be dashed serious to whisk you off to Gretna Green despite his threats.”

  One might now assume her mind seized at Mr. Wilder’s shocking talk of Gretna Green and all it implied. Again, no. Elizabeth’s train of thought derailed over something else the cad said: that Clun had threatened to kill him. Over her. On absurdly slim pretexts. That was actual possessiveness, not merely the hypothetical sort.

  She smiled broadly, which Mr. Wilder mistook for encouragement.

  “You will come to love me and I you,” he said, still making his case. “Already we are fond of each other.”

  Washburn snorted and Elizabeth quelled her with a sidelong glance. “You don’t love me any more than I love you. We are friends. It will never be more, sir.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I assure you it is so, Mr. Wilder.” Rather than humor him any longer, she said, “Please tell the coachman to stop at the next inn.”

  “I will not, my lady, if you would only consider where you are, and what I offer. It’s much too late to avoid a scandal. I have not been discreet, shall we say, about our destination during the changes of teams. Besides, you enjoy my company, you’ve said so yourself. I pledge to care for you. Why, haven’t I done all of this for your sake?” He gestured around at the coach. “I can spare you the humiliation of being unmarried when Clun arranges his next match, or haven’t you heard? Clun has singled out another and awaits your refusal.”

  She shook her head, “I won’t believe it until—”

  “The Honorable Horatia Mangold. Heard so myself from an unimpeachable source.”

  “Lady Clun? Ha. I have more reliable sources, Mr. Wilder,” Elizabeth huffed. “You will stop this coach, sir.”

  “No, my dearest.”

  “No?” She asked quietly, her green eyes sparking dangerously.

  Unfortunately Mr. Wilder paid no attention. He leaned back against the squabs opposite her, smiled and said, “Much as it wounds me to refuse you, pet, I will not.”

  “And much as it would wound me to wound you,” Elizabeth said, withdrawing the dainty pistol from her muff, “I must insist.” For emphasis, she cocked it and aimed at him.

  “Is that loaded?” he cried, scrambling into the farthest corner. “Your finger’s on the bloody trigger! We might hit a bump. Are you mad? ”

  “No. I am a dead shot, ask Clun. Tell the coachman to rein in. Now!”

  Chapter 33

  In which our hero misses our heroine.

  Clun overslept on Christmas. Long after he intended, the baron set out to call on Elizabeth.

  In the wake of the Haverford near-disaster, he’d realized something, several things actually. He enumerated them so as not to forget them in his rush to lay himself bare and beg her pardon. First, he should not have spurned her proposal at Mr. Soane’s townhouse. He refused for altruistic reasons and he meant well but…Second, he was not only a lard-witted lummox but also a selfish, lard-witted lummox, who must renege on his refusal. He wanted more than anything to marry her, come what may (and he still shuddered to think what may come of it). Third, he must rush their nuptials, that is, if she didn’t want to club him over the head and leave it at that. And fourth, if she would have, he would resolve in the future to be less pessimistic if she would show him how.

  Lord Morefield’s butler Nettles bowed the anxious baron into the foyer, took his lordship’s tall beaver hat, gloves and stick and put them down carefully. Clun asked to speak with Lady Elizabeth. The butler accepted his lordship’s calling card on a sterling salver and crept at a snail’s pace down the hall, scratched at a door, waited an eternity and finally disappeared. When he crept back to the foyer, he showed Clun down the hall and into the earl’s library.

  The earl greeted him and bade him sit by the fire. No matter how impatient Clun was to speak with Elizabeth, he forced himself to engage in the earl’s jovial small talk. Nettles entered once again, crept to the earl’s side, leaned by infinitesimal degrees down to whisper in his ear, slowly righted himself, turned and left at an excruciating, glacial pace.

  “Thank you, Nettles.” The earl tapped his f
ingers on the arms of his wing chair and finally said, “Lord Clun, Elizabeth is not at home. She and her maid have gone to Devonshire. I must apologize for her absence and for her intransigence. Lady Clun has already expressed your understandable dismay. You’ve been most patient. Rest assured, my daughter will end the betrothal with no recriminations, just as you wish.”

  “As I wish?” Clun reached up to pull his hair out, but Fewings had trimmed it again for this visit. “Make no mistake, Lord Morefield, I will contest any alteration to the arrangement. It stands unless the lady herself wishes to beg off.” And with that he shot to his feet.

  The earl regarded the agitated baron carefully. “You find me at a loss.”

  “That, my lord, is a mental state to which we who love Elizabeth must become inured. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go. Happy Christmas.”

  “And you, Clun. I wish you the best.”

  On a hunch, Clun dashed from No. 1 Damogan Square and went round to the stable. There he learned from the head groom that the earl’s travel carriage wasn’t in use; in fact, it wouldn’t be in Town till the morrow.

  She was on the run.

  He threw himself on Algernon and cantered to the elegant establishment in Jermyn Street where Lord Seelye kept rooms. Seelye himself was strolling down the pavement, immaculately turned out, swinging his walking stick.

  “Hallo, Clun, I’m off to the Duke of Bath’s Christmas do for family and friends,” Seelye said and looked askance at his stern friend astride a fretful Algernon. “How can you be so bloody grim on this, the day of our savior’s birth?”

  “Stubble it, Seelye, I need your help.”

  Two days later, lounging in White’s bow window overlooking St. James Street, Seelye entertained Percy over glasses of port with a faithful narration of what transpired on Christmas.

  He and Clun rode neck or nothing from London only stopping at tolls and inns to determine Lady Elizabeth’s direction. Just before the post road splits to go west toward Banbury and north to Northampton, an innkeeper recalled a tall lady of quality with her maid and brother taking tea at his establishment. They were on their way home, so said the brother. The innkeeper’s description of her sibling matched Wilder. What’s more, the inn’s ostler recalled the so-called brother telling him with a wink they were headed for Gretna Green.