“I suppose,” murmured Livvy into his shoulder, “that it would be a terrible thing.” She fought a last battle with her conscience. “Perhaps it will not matter to you when people say you have contracted a shocking mésalliance; or that I am a heartless fortune hunter who has caught you in her toils; or recall that I drove my last husband to take his own life and predict a similar fate for you.”
“Not a bit,” the Earl retorted cheerfully. His warm breath touched her curls. “They’ve said far worse.” He held her away from him. “More important, will it matter to you? I would not have you hurt, sweet Livvy, but there is no question that marriage to me would make you a rare tidbit for the scandalmongers’ feast.”
“I never regarded it for myself, only for you.” Livvy felt as though she could fight dragons or, at least, walk on air. “But, Dickon, I haven’t the faintest notion, of what being a countess involves!” Lord Dorset’s prompt reaction clearly demonstrated to both parties that any gaps in Livvy’s education would be speedily filled.
“Papa! Uncle Bat’s come home!” “ Austin bounded into the room, nearly colliding with Casanova, and Bluebeard squawked. “Why are you cuddling Livvy? Is she going to marry you?” He watched their disentanglement with an interest worthy of Hubert. “Dulcie said she would.”
“You see,” murmured Dickon as they followed a scampering Austin outside, “my son’s priorities. We rate second, I fear, to my fascinating relative.”
Earlier that year, the British army had advanced onto French soil from Spain, and the armies of Russia, Prussia and Austria had marched on Paris. All those splendid, gallant troops combined commanded not half the attention rewarded, justly, to Maximilian Bonaventure Bligh. Turkish Pashas had bowed to him; the Sultan had called him friend; and the Prince Regent now took one look at the swashbuckling fifth Baron and felt like a grubby-faced schoolboy again.
A tall and slender man, the Baron moved through the crowd with the lithe and regal grace of the born athlete, acknowledging greetings with a bored indifference that put to shame the most haughty of aristocrats. He wore a Barbary outfit of purple and gold, and thrown across his shoulders was a magnificent brocaded Turkish cloak. Gray streaked his dark hair and beard. He was a figure of incredible magnetism, a disdainful marauder, a splendid barbarian who inspired more than one prim and proper lady with fantasies of burning desert sands, wicked sheiks, and ravishment. Maximilian had experienced what others dared not dream about, and the knowledge was written on his arrogant, weathered features, gleamed from those heavy-lidded and seductive eyes. Livvy looked at him and gasped.
Her reaction did not surprise Dickon, who had many times observed the Baron’s effect. “You behold my legendary Uncle Max.” Austin darted heedless through the crush, tipping more than one guest momentarily off balance, and tugged at the Baron’s sleeve. He was swung, shrieking with laughter, high into the air. “Max is highly intelligent, witty, cultivated, exceedingly rich,” Dickon went on, as Livvy continued to stare stunned. “He also possesses the devil’s temperament and a tongue as feared as the sword. Only Dulcie dares engage him in a verbal duel.”
“How did Dulcie meet him?” The crowd parted before the Baron as once had the Red Sea for another man.
The Earl smiled, stopping Livvy’s heart and bringing her full attention back to him. “Max was pheasant-hunting, and Dulcie was breaking in a horse. He emerged from the woods and saw her, praised his good fortune and vowed that she must be a divinity. What happened next I cannot say, but Dulcie claims she was lost from that moment on. I do not mean to distract you, sweet Livvy, from bestowing upon Max the admiration that is his due, but the matter of our future has not yet been resolved.”
The haughty features that Livvy had come to love so well were humble and anxious. Her scruples went down to a resounding defeat. “I will be pleased,” she said breathlessly, “to become your wife.” It was a mark of the Baron’s hypnotic presence that not one of the other guests, even those strictest sticklers to propriety, noticed that the Earl of Dorset was so lost to sanity that he engaged his fiancée in a most passionate public embrace.
No less than the ton, the various Bligh retainers suffered conflicting emotions at the Baron’s return. Countless servants scurried to and fro, laden with boxes and parcels of great variety and intriguing dimensions, Culpepper, holding an excited Austin firmly by his jacket collar, oversaw these complicated activities. Gibbon, while content that Bligh House would no longer suffer from an absence of the masculine element, quailed to think of the Baron’s reaction were his butler’s recent lapses into petty thievery to become known; and Mary, on her mettle, experimentally wished her hips. Even in the nether regions of Bligh House the event was felt, as Pudding delved frantically into her cookbooks in search of delicacies to tempt the Baron’s finicky appetite.
Sir John watched Maximilian’s leisurely approach. The eccentric Baron had a profound disregard for the polite world that so fawned on him. Of too restless a disposition to pass more than brief moments in one place, Bat was renowned for his habit of suddenly appearing in a roomful of guests, where he would make a few genial remarks, reveal considerable erudition, and as abruptly go away. With regard to polite society, at least, the Chief Magistrate and the Baron felt the same.
Gibbon, white hair wildly disheveled with the force of his emotions, bobbed along in his master’s wake. Silently, Sir John held out his hand. Equally wordless, Gibbon dropped the pocket watch onto that extended palm.
Gibbon need not have feared; the Baron’s attention was all for his wife, who had assumed an attitude of charming helplessness that contrasted beautifully with her scandalous gown. The Baron broke off in the middle of the song he had been humming beneath his breath, a delightful Romany air concerning the poisoning, and subsequent devouring, of a fat and juicy pig. Sir John slipped away quietly, preferring not to witness the outcome of this particular meeting.
Maximilian bowed with an expertise envied by all who saw. Lady Bligh inclined her head and regarded her husband soulfully, as if she beheld in him the personification of countless crumbled dreams. “I have missed you damnably, my dear,” said he. The Baron’s deep, rich voice had sent delicious shivers along many a maiden’s spine.
“If only I could believe that!” The Baroness raised a languid hand to her brow. Her copper curls, loosened from their pins, tumbled down her back. “But no! You are an utter beast, my husband, and have broken my heart so many times that it must resemble an old, discarded piece of crockery.”
There was a diabolic twinkle in Maximilian’s perceptive eye. “I am excellent at mending old pots,” he remarked and without further ado swept his wife up into his arms.
“An old pot!” Lady Bligh abruptly abandoned her fragile air and buried her fingers in his thick hair. “You truly are the prince of rogues!”
“I am.” The Baron strode unconcerned through the fascinated throng.
The Baroness wound her arms more securely around his neck and nibbled experimentally on a well-shaped ear. “Which recalls to mind the fact that I am not speaking to you.”
He bent his handsome gray-streaked head until his lips brushed hers. “For what I have in mind at this particular moment, dulcinea, you needn’t say one word.” Dulcie’s delighted laughter, drifting back to her spellbound guests, was the tinkling of a hundred silvery bells.
Copyright © 1978 by Gail Clark
Originally published by Pocket (0671822519)
Electronically published in 2007 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any
person living or dead is coincidental.
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