The Bad Baron's Daughter

by Laura London

“Antoinette gave me a pillowcase to embroider, but I can’t sew without pricking my finger, so I’m afraid it got sadly bloodstained. Antoinette said only a vampire would be willing to sleep on it.”

  “A disgusting anecdote!” said Laurel, eyeing Katie with disfavor. “And here’s Lesley gone about his merry way, leaving me to find some way to entertain you. I suppose we shall have to think of something, or it’s bird lime to biscuits you’ll fall into some mischief. Is there anything that you like to do that wouldn’t be any trouble to me?”

  Katie gazed at the ceiling and answered shyly. “Well… I had been thinking that if you had any horses, perhaps I could help exercise them? I’d like to do something active…”

  “I don’t have any horses,” said Laurel irascibly. “I detest the creatures—nasty, sweaty brutes. I rent my coach from a livery. Could you not have picked something… Oh… wait a minute.” Her face brightened. “We shall ask Linden to take you riding. Why not? ‘Tis a neat way of reminding him of his responsibility for you without nagging him, eh? Oh, but it might not serve after all. Linden’s horses are quite as ill-natured as he. He might not have a mount suitable for you.”

  “I could ride them,” said Katie eagerly. “Papa’s horses were all of them only half broken. But do you think he’ll take me?”

  “We shall see. What’s the harm? If you could go early enough in the morning, you need not even worry about creating tittle-tattle for the gossip mills.”

  Laurel sat down at a desk ornamented with pharaoh’s heads and composed a tactful note to Linden. She sent it to his rooms by footman and received a reply within the hour.

  Laurel,

  Of course the chit has ennui. Your best entertainments come with your mouth shut and your clothes off. Have her dressed to ride at six a.m. tomorrow. I won’t wait for her if she’s late.

  Yours, etc. L.

  “Linden, you’re a horrid distempered creature!” Laurel crumpled the note and thrust it aside.

  “He said no, then,” said Katie, disappointed.

  “He said yes,” said Laurel.

  The next morning Katie was ready fifteen minutes before Linden arrived. She had been watching for him from an upstairs window and was halfway down the stairs before the butler had admitted him into the foyer.

  “Lord Linden! How happy I am to see you! How fine you look!” cried Katie, who had few artifices at her command. Indeed, she needed none. The baron’s daughter was the picture of glowing beauty. Laurel had regretfully allowed Katie to wear her new riding habit of royal blue velvet, which winked and gleamed with every movement. A matching, modesty-crowned hat was arranged becomingly over her rich, dancing curls and tied with a soft pink silk scarf that complimented Katie’s camellia complexion. Linden resisted an unsettling impulse to catch her in his arms. Instead he raised her gloved hand quickly to his lips and said coolly, “I’m pleased to see you, brat, but I won’t have my nags stand for anyone, so come along if you wish to sit a horse today.”

  Lord Linden’s nags were among the finest blood stock in London and as renowned for their free action and proud carriage as their nasty tempers. It was a standing joke in the mews that the surest path to suicide would be to try to steal one of Linden’s horses. Linden was riding his half-Arabian bay stallion, Ciaffa, who had been less affectionately but more appropriately nicknamed Death Merchant by his attendant stableboy. For Katie, Linden brought a light gray gelding with a bright, floating trot and an alarming tendency to deliver painful bites to anyone foolish enough to venture near his head. Linden tossed Katie into the saddle and warned her sternly that the gelding was fresh yet and she’d better pay attention if she didn’t want to adorn the pavement. As they rode through the awakening streets to Hyde Park, Linden saw that his advice was quite unnecessary. Katie rode as though the horse were part of her.

  They passed through the stone posts at the park’s entrance and turned down a well-packed bridle path passing beneath the timbered intimacy of a row of hybrid limes. Looking across the park’s rolling hills and spouting fountains, one could see that there were few souls who enjoyed the park at this unfashionable hour: one stout nanny with rambunctious boys in tow, a pair of sleek red squirrels bounding through the lawn’s clipped grasses and, as Katie and Lord Linden passed the sunken rose garden, an elderly gardener looked up from his pruning to raise his hand in comradely salute.

  Katie’s lips parted in a happy smile. “I swear, my lord, ‘tis a gem of a day, isn’t it? Laurel should, after all, have gotten up this morning even though she doesn’t like to arise betimes.”

  “Lord, child, never say you tried to get Laurel out of bed this morning?” asked Linden, amused.

  “Well, I did, but she threw a pillow at me so I knew it was no use.”

  “How, er, acute of you. Does she still pinch?”

  “No. But then, I haven’t seen her very much—” Katie stopped and squinted across the green into the pale morning sunlight. “Look, Lord Linden. That rider coming toward us. I think that I’ve… oh, he’s the young man I saw at your grandmother’s house, the one you said was your brother. But… is he coming to talk with us? What do you think he wants?”

  “I’d tell you,” said Linden grimly, “ ‘Taut, God, would you blush.”

  As Linden’s brother rode closer, Katie could see the resemblance to Linden that she had been too distracted to notice in the few minutes she had been in Lady Brixton’s parlor. The boy’s brown eyes were lighter than Linden’s, though, and his hair blond.

  “I don’t remember inviting you. What’d you do, bribe Roger?” asked Linden when his brother was close enough to hear.

  “Not him,” answered the boy. “One of your stableboys. I wanted to meet the girl who leveled Grandmother at her own soiree. You’ve been smart to avoid Brixton House, Lesley. Introduce me.”

  “No,” said Linden. “Get lost.”

  His brother embraced Katie in a warm, enchanting smile. “You want to meet me, don’t you, sweetheart? God, what a love you are. Where did Lesley find you?”

  “In a gin shop,” said Katie.

  “Did he? What a funny place to find an angel. I’m Andrew, and don’t believe anything Lesley says about me, I’m a benign soul.” He extended his hand to Katie and she responded shyly, but instead of shaking her hand, he peeled back her glove and kissed her wrist lightly.

  “All this lechery,” said Linden drily, “and he hasn’t even breakfasted yet. Drew, watch out before Katie’s gelding takes a chunk out of your animal’s flank.”

  “Katie?” asked Andrew, backing his mount several paces. “Is that your name? I’m glad to know. In my mind I’ve been calling you ‘the girl with the red hair.’”

  Linden sighed. “Since you’re so damned persistent, Drew, I suppose I’ll have to let you ride along. But, for God’s sake, cool your oven or I’ll dump you into the next fountain.”

  Andrew raised his eyebrows. “Oh, morality and the virtues above all things! But tell me, Lesley, when did you take your vows?”

  “Four—no, three days ago,” said Linden, drawing his horse alongside Andrew, “and if you want to befriend Katie, then you’ll have to take them, too.”

  “What!” said Andrew, turning quickly to Katie. “Are you virtuous, then? How disappointing. I’ll try to keep my hands off you though, if that’s what you’d like. But why are you fraternizing with Lesley, sweetheart? That’s playing with fire with a vengeance.”

  Katie looked at him doubtfully. “It’s a long story. I don’t think you’d like…”

  “I like long stories, Peaches,” he said, gazing at Katie’s lips. “Tell me about the gin shop.”

  Katie hesitated, looking at Lord Linden.

  “Go ahead, child,” said Linden. “Never pass up a sympathetic audience. Tell Andrew about your wicked friend Zack.”

  Since Andrew was indeed a sympathetic, not to say doting, audience, Katie soon found herself detailing far more of her life’s story than she ordinarily would have. Within three-quarters of an hour,
the two had become fast friends. Katie decided that Drew was a delightful companion when one grew used to the friendly familiarity of his manners and his rather disconcerting tendency to let his gaze drop from her face to wander over her graceful curves.

  At length, Drew straightened in his saddle and repositioned his hat thoughtfully. “Lord, you have had the adventures, haven’t you? I swear, it beats anything—I’ve seen in the theater. And you beat anything I’ve seen in the theater, too. No need to be cast into the blush, Peaches,” he grinned. “That was a compliment. Girls are supposed to like them, you know. How does it suit you, living with the toast of the male half of the monde?”

  “Very comfortable,” returned Katie, “but I wish there was more to occupy myself with. Laurel says I mustn’t read any of her books. And I have no accomplishments like playing the piano or sewing, so—sometimes I play cards with Antoinette, she’s Laurel’s lady’s maid, and sometimes I help her take care of Laurel’s bedroom. Laurel won’t let the housemaids clean in there because she says they’re forever breaking her perfume bottles and the smell lingers in the carpeting for weeks.” Katie turned to Linden, who had been a silent but appreciative audience to Katie’s discourse with Andrew. “Do you know what Laurel has hanging over her bed?” she asked innocently.

  Linden’s face was carefully expressionless. “The mirror? I might have known you’d notice that.”

  “One can’t help noticing it,” said Katie. They were pacing beneath a spreading oak and Katie reached up one graceful hand to catch the low-hanging leaves. “Antoinette says that Laurel had it put there so she could apply her rice powder without getting up from the bed in the mornings but it is such an awkward angle for that and she could better use a hand mirror, couldn’t she? I think it’s a very odd location for a mirror.”

  “I daresay you do, child,” said Linden, with a composed countenance, “but I’d advise you to put the whole question out of your mind. Laurel’s always had more hair than wit. God knows there’s no more bizarre collection of junk than she’s got stuffed into her house.”

  Katie was aghast at this criticism. “Oh, no, my lord. Surely not! Antoinette says that Laurel’s boudoir is filled with the finer things in life.”

  “Don’t, for God’s sake, believe everything Antoinette tells you. The only finer things in life in that boudoir,” retorted Linden acidly, “are provided by Laurel. Between that gaudy tent bed and those damned gilt sphinx settees, the place looks like a low life kip house.”

  Katie’s brow puckered. “Well, but don’t you think that picture on her bedroom wall of that plump lady and the swan is very clever? Antoinette says that it’s a Greek god named Zeus and the plump lady is called Leda. Zeus,” continued Katie knowledgeably, “became a swan so that he could sneak in to make love to Leda, which seems very odd because I didn’t know that swans could, with people. And, it seems to me to be a shabby way for a god to conduct himself. You know, I am fast coming to think the ancient Greeks were a very strange sort of people.”

  Linden met Katie’s unwavering gaze. “Katie, have a care. If Drew becomes any more titillated, he’ll probably fall from his saddle. And swans don’t, with people. It’s only an allegory.”

  “What’s that?” asked Katie.

  Linden regarded her with amused exasperation. “A symbolic representation. Lord, sweetheart, don’t you know anything?”

  “Not very much,” she admitted. “Oh, I do know the text of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. Winnie, Zack’s lady-friend, taught it to me when they came to stay with me in Essex one summer while Papa was off at the races. I said it for Papa once and he cried all the way through and vowed he’d go to America one day. Of course, he was in his cups at the time. Would you like me to recite it for you?”

  “No, thank you,” said Linden hastily. “It seems that everything your family and their associates ever taught you was either treasonous or immoral. Except your seat on a horse. You ride like Diana, little one.” Katie looked puzzled, so he added, “Diana was a goddess who rode very well.”

  Katie went pink from pleasure at his compliment and smiled at Linden as though he had handed her the Holy Grail. “Thank you so much, my lord! No one has ever compared me to a goddess before. How generous you are!” The blue eyes shone adoringly into Linden’s. Poor infant, Linden thought, touched in spite of himself. Someone wants to kill you and no one gives a damn. Except perhaps Andrew, who is only a boy, and myself, who is within an inch of debauching you. It seemed incredible that such a lovable vital jewel as Katie could be so fatally unprotected. It was as though a serious oversight had been made in heaven on the eve they were assigning guardian angels. Linden’s horse was beside Katie’s and without really being aware of what he was doing, Linden reached to cradle Katie’s fragile cheek in his palm.

  “You burden me, child, with your trust,” he said lazily. “You are far, far too lovely to be left so unshielded.”

  “Lovely?” whispered Katie, in a trance. “Antoinette says all the virgin’s milk in the world won’t get rid of my freckles. And they’re all over me!” I’d like to kiss every one of them, thought Linden. “She says my nose is too little, too,” continued Katie, determined to confess her weak points.

  “Your nose is adorable, darling,” said Linden. He dropped his hand and turned to his younger brother. “My dear Drew, there’s really no need to gaze at me with that irritating expression of vacuous bewilderment.” Linden touched Ciaffa’s flank lightly with his heel. “Well, children, this stretch is deserted so I think it would be suitable for us to canter. Would you like that?”

  Chapter Nine

  Katie returned to Laurel’s with her cheeks flushed from the exercise and attention. It was the last of both she would receive for several days. Linden did not come again, and Laurel was mostly out. As before, Katie had nowhere to direct her thoughts other than toward her own problems, which seemed curiously unsolvable. A worrisome idea occurred to Katie: that her father might contact Zack and Zack might fail to relay the message to her. After all, Zack didn’t know where she was now and it was hardly likely that he would send her word through Lord Linden, considering the deception he’d practiced on him. This idea took hold of Katie’s mind and she began to brood on all kinds of fanciful contingencies. She imagined that her father had given Zack a ticket for her to travel to meet him in America; or perhaps a message that he had fled to the Continent and she was to come to him at a certain fashionable address in Paris. She became so agitated by these thoughts that she was moved to interrupt Laurel during her preparations for a ball to ask her if she would invite Linden to come so Katie could discuss these fears with him.

  “Is this some kind of a jest?” demanded la Steele, leaning into the mirror to spread the rouge artistically over her wide cheekbones. “If you have forgotten the perverse reply I received the last time I sent Linden a message on your behalf, I have not! And if you think I’ll do it again,” she snapped, “you’re out of your mind. Linden will come in his own good time.”

  Katie’s strategy in life had heretofore been defensive; her rearing had taught her to float astride the wave of events rather than shape them herself, but she was beginning to realize the pitfalls of allowing her life to drift, rudderless. She was imposing on Laurel, who owed her nothing, and on Linden, to whom she herself owed much. She would never be able to repay either of them now or in any foreseeable future, and this thought gnawed uneasily at the corners of her consciousness. If only she could find her father.

  It was on the fourth morning after the day she had ridden with Linden and met Andrew that Katie resolved to visit Zack at The Merry Maidenhead. Even if Zack was ignorant of her father’s whereabouts, she could inform him of her new domicile, so he could contact her if the need arose. Any bitterness she felt toward Zack for his infamous plans for her was overshadowed, though not erased, by her need to locate her father. Katie had no confidence that the Bow Street Runners would find him. Zack was right; if her father was so much
in debt, it was unlikely that he would let himself be found.

  Katie donned a willow green walking dress, a dashing chip straw bonnet and a pair of kid boots, and left a note saying that no one was to worry, but she was off to The Merry Maidenhead to talk to Zack. Laurel was still abed and the servants were occupied with their morning tasks, so there was no one to see her as she slipped out the fan-lit doorway into the street. She could have taken a hack, as she had the fifty pounds that Zack had given her on the night he had taken her to Linden’s, but she had a strong repugnance toward the idea of spending it, as she had a very firm suspicion as to its source. She had never quite nerved herself enough to ask Linden if he had indeed paid Zack fifty pounds for her, though she decided ruefully that it was only too likely.

  A tight, puffy fog groped through the streets, disguising the thoroughfares and lanes that were not very familiar to her in clear weather, so Katie was forced to stop often to squint at street signs and strain to make out landmarks that rose hollow and featureless from the fog. It was far to the Maidenhead, but not outrageously so to someone who was used to tramping mile after mile through the country—the gray billows kept Katie feeling hidden and protected until at last she arrived, damp but exhilarated, at The Merry Maidenhead,

  The door to the Maidenhead was closed. Katie looked through the window, past the film of greasy dust and the streaking water droplets, to see Zack sitting inside, his elbows leaning on a rickety oak table. He was engaged in a lethargic conversation with Winnie and a husky young man with untidy, shortish hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Katie pushed open the door and went in.

  Zack’s chair gave a sharp, rending squeak as it was pushed back hurriedly and then he was standing before Katie, taking her tiny chin into his hands and studying her face intently. “Katie?” he asked, his voice quiet.

  Katie took a quick back step and pushed his hands away. “Yes, it’s me, you arch-traitor! I may as well tell you that I’ve come on a matter that’s strictly business and from now on you can call me Miss Kendricks and desist from any kind of touching.”