He might have known.
He’d told her no and she wasn’t having it. Being the strong-willed female she was, Elizabeth wouldn’t let any man naysay her. Not even him. Clun chuckled again at her would-be abductor left in a bruised heap by the road. She was more than a match for any man.
Then it struck him. His stupidity, that is.
Why in God’s name had he worried about making her miserable, or making her anything else she didn’t want to be? She’d never stand for it. He had ample proof she could take care of herself. She could certainly sort out a bad-tempered lummox when sorting was called for. And chuck him from a coach, if need be. Unlike his mother, Elizabeth hadn’t the temperament to play martyr-to-love. If he disappointed her, she’d stand up to him, arms akimbo, and face him down.
He laughed because he knew it was true. A weight lifted from his heart.
Granted, he fell short of her romantic ideal, still he would do his best. Perhaps that would be enough — his heart, such as it was, and an honest effort. He spurred Algernon on, impatient to find her and ask.
Outside Ludlow, he rode by the most direct route cross-country to The Graces with the sky full of snow. When at last he reached his country house, his broad-brimmed hat and caped greatcoat were heaped with it.
Clun rode directly to the stable and dismounted. Ted appeared out of nowhere.
“Happy Christmas!” Ted dropped his currycomb and raced up to the tall man covered in wet snow. “Come see Tacitus, will you?”
Clun let himself be led by the hand to a stall where Tacitus, Ted’s new pony, snuffled at his hay. “What a handsome fellow, Ted. And big.”
“He’s thirteen hands at the withers and I exercise him and feed him and curry him every day,” the boy chanted.
“I fear, you’ll make Algernon jealous.”
“Never say!” Ted exclaimed with pride.
“How’s your new tutor, lad? Learning your Latin?”
“I hate Latin.”
“Take it like a man, Ted, your father and I did.” Clun laughed at the boy’s familiar scowl. “Fetch a groom to see to Algernon, will you?”
Before Ted did as he was told, he turned back to the baron to say, “I’m glad you’ve come, we’re bound to have a jolly New Year with you and your lady here.”
Clun’s heart pounded as he walked to the kitchen vestibule door and let himself in.
Looking through the inner door, he saw the lady’s maid from Soane’s place at the stove taking up a kettle. At the big table, his fiancée played a merry tune on a hornpipe while Roddy swung Cook around. A few other servants clapped time or danced with each other. Watching them dance and Elizabeth try to play while laughing, he hesitated. The party would stop when he walked in.
Once he opened the inner door, he would know if she was glad to see him or not. Reason argued she had come for happy purpose; Pessimism whispered like Othello’s Iago, that there were always unhappy possibilities to consider. One look from her could fill his heart or break it. He considered a quiet retreat into the dark night to postpone the inevitable.
Just then, Cook spied Clun hovering half in, half out of the vestibule, and called out, “Good evening, your lordship. You look half frozen. Let Miss Washburn pour you a cup of tea.”
Roddy and the servants fell silent. Elizabeth watched him come in without a blink or a smile.
Something broke and crumbled inside him. Through the breach, doubts flooded his heart like a storm tide. He felt his eyes burn. He’d be damned if he stood around gawking at her because he didn’t know what to say or where to begin. He wouldn’t spoil their festivities. He was wet through and cold. And exhausted. That was more than enough to cope with after his long, hard ride.
“Good evening,” Clun said formally to the room in general, “Pray, don’t let me interrupt. Carry on, everyone.”
He touched the brim of his snowy hat to Elizabeth and strode past the table to exit down the passage to the servant’s stairs. Upstairs, he marched down the dark, echoing hall, throwing his wet greatcoat over the staircase newel post, tossing his sodden hat and gloves on a chair. He reached his bookroom and flung the door open but rather than give vent to his frustration and slam it shut, he let it click quietly.
With numb hands, Clun fumbled in the tinderbox for flint and steel and tried to light kindling in the fireplace. He swore and struck again and again till finally a spark caught. He threw in coal chunks and watched the licking flames mellow into a silent red glow. The modest warmth was welcome relief. He stripped off his redingote and tossed it aside. His eyes watered with the pain of thawing. Or so he told himself.
Sometime later, a quiet knock at the door echoed in the emptiness.
“Come join us, Will,” Roddy said on the other side of the closed door.
“I prefer a light tea here. I’ll speak to you in the morning, Roddy. Thank you.”
There was a long silence.
“As you wish.” Footsteps faded as his half-brother walked away.
The baron watched the coals glow in the grate.
Funny how fate designs one’s lessons. When one finally understands, it’s too late.
He sprawled on a settee, unbuttoned his dank wool waistcoat, loosened his limp cravat and fell asleep, worn out by days of pointless pursuit.
* * *
Elizabeth tried the knob of the library door. He hadn’t locked it. She quietly pushed it open, picked up the tea tray she volunteered to bring him and went in. She set it down on the table before the sofa quietly. He lay asleep facing a glowing hearth in shadowy solitude. It wasn’t right that he sequestered himself in a cool, dark room to avoid her while the people he loved politely kept her company in the warm, bright kitchen downstairs.
Having seen his forbidding expression when first he saw her, she knew she and Washburn must leave in the morning. With Roddy’s help and a few borrowed guineas, they could go to the village and await a stagecoach to Devonshire. Despite what the Christmas morning note revealed, Elizabeth misjudged the situation. Nevertheless, she would speak to him.
He stirred. “Bess.”
His pet name for her. He looked every bit as formidable as he had in the kitchen, still she took heart. She stood up straight and clasped her hands before her.
“Here is your tea, Clun. Cook added some cold chicken, cheese and bread, a glass of ale and some sweetmeats.” Cook wedged even more onto the tray, but Elizabeth couldn’t name everything, lest her voice crack.
“You needn’t stay, I’ll serve myself. No one can dance without your hornpipe.”
“They’ll manage, I daresay.” She ignored his dismissal and, with heart rapping against her stays, she sat in a chair opposite him to pour tea as if he’d invited her. “I laughed into it more than played it. I am far more proficient than you heard.” His expression looked slightly less grim when she peeked at him. Perhaps he would let her linger.
“No cream,” he said.
Though she held the teapot in her hand, she looked at him, confused at his non sequitur. Finally, she recollected. “Oh, of course,” she said and sloshed him a cup of tea.
Biting her lip, she set the teapot down, lifted the dripping cup from its saucer, poured the tea from the saucer into the cup and replaced the cup, something no lady should ever do.
“Forgive me.”
He rumbled.
She quelled him with a tart “It slipped.”
He snorted.
Next, she picked up a tiny pair of sterling tongs, willing her fingers to stay steady. “Sugar?”
“A small lump, please.”
She plucked a piece of cut sugar from the bowl with the tongs.
“Speaking of lumps,” he said, “I bumped into your Mr. Wilder on Christmas.”
“Oh?” She twitched the tongs and, with a mortifying tic-tic-tictictictic, the piece of sugar skittered across the hardwood floor somewhere.
She ignored his sniggering, pinched another lump and plopped it into his cup. She avoided his gaze when she handed it
to him and said, “Did you?”
“I just said I did, my lady. Poor Wilder had quite a mishap.” He sipped his tea and watched her over the cup’s rim. “With two black eyes to show for it.”
“Two? I only hit him—” Clun lowered his cup and waited. “Once,” she finished, feeling her cheeks heat.
“Mmm. Had I known you were so handy with your fives, I’d have thought twice about marrying you.”
His teasing emboldened her.
“That man badly needed some of the home brewed, Clun,” she stated calmly. “He provoked me.”
“I don’t doubt he did. I’m only thankful you haven’t uncorked my claret. I can be quite provoking, too.”
“Yes, but I like you.”
“Only like me?” He no longer teased.
Since he asked in earnest, she decided to answer in kind. “According to Her Grace, the Duchess of Ainsworth, I must do something about you, Clun.” She removed the folded note from the pocket where she kept it, “She writes, ‘Merry Christmas Elizabeth, I have saved Clun from the clutches of a clingy, blonde baggage and he is safe for now. You must do something about him immediately.’ Her Grace underscored ‘do something’ several times, I should add. She closes her note, ‘A happy New Year to you both, Prudence, etc.’” Elizabeth refolded the note and tucked it away.
“What do you propose to do about me?”
“I don’t know, Clun. I cannot help how I feel. I have attempted the alternative, but I can only love you as I do, with all my heart.” She said. His watchful expression revealed nothing. “I understand and accept the usefulness of loving less, or not at all as you intend. I cannot manage it, I’m sorry.”
She stood up.
“No, please, don’t go.” He reached out to her and drew her around the table to sit beside him. “You were right, you and your accursed oracle Mrs. Abeel may she rest in peace and leave me be.”
Elizabeth stared at their interlaced fingers.
“I love you,” he said. “I never intended to, and did my best not to, but there you have it. There’s nothing sensible or even rational about it. I love you much more than is wise. In fact, I’ve been,” here he groaned like a condemned man, “besotted from the outset.”
“Besotted? Why didn’t you say?”
“I’d hoped to recover from it,” he grumbled. “Apparently, it’s chronic.”
“But when we met I was a fright. And a poacher.”
* * *
Why in God’s name must a woman fasten onto one bit at the beginning of a man’s sentimental declaration and leave him wondering if any of the rest penetrated her awareness? Clun turned to scowl at her and found her shy smile.
Ah, success!
He stood and brought her to her feet.
“Not a fright, Bess, an Amazon. A beautiful Valkyrie. And strictly speaking, it wasn’t poaching because we were betrothed.”
She frowned at having her own sauciness quoted back. “Aren’t you amusing.”
He laughed and held her close. “Aren’t I just!”
“So you do love me,” she returned his embrace.
“I do, though you’ll probably come to regret it.”
Before he bent to kiss her, she stood on tiptoe to press her lips to his first. Her kiss landed slightly off center. With minor adjustments, she found his mouth and began a thorough ravishing. All he could do was stand there and try to keep his legs under him while she pressed her soft, warm self against him and made his heart bounce in his rib cage.
When she allowed him to catch his breath, he asked, “Well?”
“Well what, my lord?” She whispered up at him.
“Are you going to propose again? Or would you rather I feel cheap and ill-used for letting you maul me this way?”
“Must I?”
“I could make an ugly fuss if you try to cry off, I suppose.”
“So you leave me no choice.”
“None whatsoever.”
“Very well.” She composed herself, looked him in the eye and said, “Will you marry me?”
He blinked at her. And frowned. “That is your best effort?” He let his hands drop from her waist and huffed, “I’ve heard Cook ask the butcher for a beef roast with more fervor. I’ve a mind to thank you for the honor you do me and turn you down flat.”
“Clun, I restrained myself out of consideration for your sensibilities,” she replied reasonably.
“Oh, no no no!” He crossed his big arms and said, “Don’t hold back on my account. By all means, leave me weak-kneed and breathless.”
She considered him before saying, “I am equal to the challenge, although it’s better to show than tell, or so I’ve heard.”
“Mrs. Abeel?”
She smiled broadly.
“Right. Show me,” he said, his mind racing with myriad possibilities. Yet he knew she would somehow surprise him in any case.
“First, a bed, my lord.” She worked loose his crossed arms and led him by the hand out of the library, “Or perhaps a bearskin rug will do.”
“Little savage, how am I to manage you?”
She turned and exclaimed, “Wasn’t that my worry from the beginning? That poor old Lord Clun might not be equal to the task of taking me in hand?”
“I most certainly am.” And with that, he caught her around the waist and tossed her over his shoulder. He steadied her on her perch with a hand on her bottom. “A bed, you say?”
“Clun, put me down,” she squeezed out as he climbed the stairs to the second floor.
“Shhh, Bess, you’re squawking.”
“I can’t breathe this way, sir.” She struggled ineffectually.
“No kicking or poor, decrepit Lord Clun is liable to drop you. What with his chilblains and all.”
She hung limp for only a moment then swatted his rump. Hard.
“That’s only exciting me,” he sang.
She squawked some more, but he was laughing too hard to hear what she squawked.
Outside his bedchamber, he let her down gently and opened the door. She got no farther because he swept her up again. This time, he cradled her in his arms and bore her over the threshold. A crackling fire burned in the hearth and warmed the room.
“Oh, Clun, you do have potential.”
“I’m relieved to hear it,” he said gruffly.
She flung her arms about his neck and kissed him. Mid-kiss, she opened her eyes to peek at him. He’d closed his just in time. She landed soft pecks on his eyelids and longer, deeper kisses on his smiling mouth. Then she kissed him as he had kissed her at the opera. Thoroughly. She teased open his lips with her tongue. He sucked on its tip and let her explore. She slid from his arms and he undid her buttons, hooks, laces and ties so deftly she was divested of her garments in one, long, warm, intimate kiss.
In turn, she pushed off his waistcoat, unwound his stock, and started on the shirt buttons at his throat. His breath caught as she tugged the shirttail from his breeches.
He caught up her hands and pressed them against his arousal. “This is your doing, Bess. I can barely contain myself.”
“So I noticed. Frequently.”
“I am shocked and scandalized,” he quipped. Rather, he was thrilled, and relieved, and eager for her. He shucked off the rest of his clothes with all speed. At long last, they were naked, and he wasn’t dreaming.
Clun purred.
* * *
No classical statuary, friezes or kraters compared to her Hercules in the flesh. But Clun gave her no time to study him as she would have liked. He flung back the counterpane, laid her on the bed and eased himself beside her.
She looked into his fathomless eyes and asked, “May I watch this time, Clun?”
“By all means. I intend to,” he said with a throaty laugh. His hand, so big and warm, stroked languidly over her body in long, leisurely sweeps that left tiny hairs tingling from her shoulders to her thighs. He kissed her neck and slowly kissed his way to her breasts. And stopped.
“By God, Bess, what
is this?”
“What?” She asked, aroused and impatient.
He tugged on her necklace until the ring swung into view.
“Washburn noticed it and I had long enough arms. It was meant to be found.”
“Just as you predicted.”
“I am optimistic.”
“And I’m most fortunate you are.”
He untangled the necklace from her hair, lifted it over her head and set it all on the bedside cabinet.
“I wonder what else I might find if I look hard enough,” he murmured. She giggled as he explored the crease beneath her breast, licking up to its tender peak and teasing it mercilessly before sucking it between his lips. The sensation rippled through her as if there were a strand of nerves connecting her nipple to her sex. His teasing above created an answering, aching pulse between her legs. When he kissed his way lower still, the ache grew. His fingers caressed and explored her. And with a happy sigh, he followed his hands between her legs and pressed his mouth there, intent on tasting her. She writhed and cried out with the pleasure he gave her. He settled in and held her open to his hungry tongue, lapping at her, till she dissolved into the sensation of it.
His eyes never left her and he seemed intent on pleasuring her all night to drive her mad with desire.
“I want you, Clun, I want you,” she gasped, “I need you.”
Only then did he relent. He lifted himself to settle hard and heavy between her legs. He pressed himself against her till she moaned and begged.
“Clun!” She cried in consternation and ecstasy.
“I’m here, love.”
“Please,” she exclaimed and clawed at his back to underscore her point. “Now.”
There was a pinch of pain when he entered her. She was too swept up in the onrush of sensations to notice.
“Oh, Bess,” he sighed, “Bess.”
She gasped, too, as he bore down, deeper and deeper, till his pelvis ground against her. Once inside her, he stilled. She felt him throb as if his heart now beat within her. He took her in a rhythm that accelerated something carnal and voluptuous in her. In response, she lifted her hips to meet his thrusts. Still, it was not close enough. She wrapped her long legs around him and held on for dear life and for the sheer, inexpressible ecstasy of their joining. He kissed her neck and throat as he thrust slow and deep. She gripped his buttocks and he growled as she urged him deeper, faster still.
The Baron’s Betrothal: An On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again Regency Romance (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series) Page 29