How to Bed a Baron
By
Christy English
Copyright January 2016 by Christy English
Cover image by Period Images
Cover design created by Romance Cover Creations
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
For
Johanna Robb-Cohen,
who helped me find the title
and
Marissa Litak,
Publicist Extraordinaire
Chapter One
Miss Serena Davenport had almost given the Frenchman the slip, but not quite.
She was traveling from London to Oxford posing as a lady of leisure. She tried to behave as one of her cousins might, as an empty-headed girl who never had a moment’s worry, and who never thought of anything beyond her next bonnet, or the next waltz. She tried very hard to compose her features into those bland, quiet lines. In spite of her dazzling red hair and well-endowed frame, she tried to comport herself like a lady.
She failed.
The Unicorn was a quiet inn, in spite of being only a short distance from the Great North Road. It did a brisk but relaxing trade in pensive ales and calming beers. It was not a place for a tall red head, or for a wild Frenchman. If her adversary were to arrive, he would definitely be seen for what he was: a blight on the landscape, on the green haven that was England.
Serena stepped into the quiet inn, and for once in her life, drew no notice. The men inside were not lusting after a red-haired Valkyrie who, despite her quiet gray gown and black cape, looked like a French opera dancer. All minded their own business, save for a man seated in the corner, as far from the noisy doorway and the sunlit windows as he could get.
Arthur, Baron Farleigh sat staring down into a small beer that he had yet to touch. Until he looked up from it, and met her eyes.
Serena knew then that she would succeed. In that one moment, with Arthur looking hard at her face, clearly trying to remember where he had seen her before, Serena knew that she would win. She would get her father’s legacy safely to Magdalen College. Sir Chester Davenport would be remembered, not as a man who had little sense and less luck, but as a man of discovery.
The Frenchman would fail.
She heard a shout from the inn yard, and the frightened bleat of a sheep who had wandered off from the commons. She knew that the Frenchman often left shouting men and frightened farm animals in his wake. She had very little time to accomplish what she must now do.
Unlike the sheep, she was no longer frightened. She tossed back the hood of her cloak and strode across the public room to the man seated in the corner.
Arthur Farleigh did not look alarmed, as he no doubt should have, but puzzled, as if he still could not place her. She did not hesitate, but leaned down and kissed him.
“Husband,” she said, loud enough for the entire inn to hear her. “I am so glad to be home.”
***
Arthur, Lord Farleigh, had been drowning his sorrows in a bit of beer. Though he had been deserted on the road to Gretna Green by his intended, he did not feel particularly sorrowful. Annoyed, perhaps, and more than a bit relieved. Of course, his problem still loomed before him, the very prickly notion of where he was going to find a wife.
In that moment, a vision from his past stepped into the inn, crossed the room, and kissed him.
“Serena?” he asked, dumbfounded.
The woman he had not seen in over a decade sat down beside him as if she had done so every day of her life. She crowded close, not like a doxy meaning to display her wares, but as a wife might, reaching for the bit of bread that he had left untouched on the table beside him. The vision before him reached for the butter, too, and slathered it on. That was when he knew that he was right.
“Serena Davenport, I thought you were in Italy.”
She laughed, the same tinkling laughter he remembered from their childhood. He did not laugh with her for two very good reasons. First, nothing about her reappearance at his side was funny. And second, it was her false laugh, one which meant she was up to no good.
As usual.
This time, she had started by calling him by the false name of husband. Though he had ignored her reference, that one word heated his blood in a way that was quite disconcerting in regard to a lady.
“You are such a card, Arthur. Why on God’s good green Earth would I be in Italy?”
Arthur blinked at her, not sure how to answer this, when she reached across him to take a sip from his untouched pint. As she did, she whispered to him, “Follow my lead. I’ll explain later.”
Arthur frowned, for her breast had pressed against his forearm, scattering his thoughts, wherever they may have been tending. Suddenly, he was a green boy of seventeen again, and she was the one woman he wanted in the world, the one woman he could not have.
In the next moment, he was catapulted even farther back in time, to his childhood, where he had always followed Serena Davenport’s lead, whether into a river, over a fence, or up a tree. He supposed he had not changed nearly as much as he had hoped, for instead of questioning her, he simply buttered a second piece of bread for her, knowing that she would soon have devoured the first.
“All right,” Arthur said.
Serena pressed close to him again, ignoring the fresh slice he had prepared for her. She seemed to shrink a little on the bench beside him as her gaze turned toward the door, and the diminutive Frenchman standing inside it.
Why she would be fleeing a Frenchman as short as Bonaparte himself, Arthur did not know. He did not take the time to question the fact, or to wonder at it. He simply acted, rising from his place beside her, so that he might put himself between her and the door.
“Arthur, for the love of heaven, sit down.”
Serena hissed at him, but for once in his life, he ignored her. He kept his eyes on the man who was even now trying to stare past him to the woman in his keeping.
Arthur had been slightly annoyed when his carriage was stopped only an hour before on the North Road. He had been a little put out to find a hulking Scot grabbing him by the throat. Now, in the midst of one of his favorite inns in the world, he found himself moved by rage, simply because the woman he loved was threatened. The onslaught sudden rage after years in which he had felt nothing stronger than slight annoyance and the occasional warm fondness, reminded him that he still loved Serena Davenport, even now.
The man in the door, two heads shorter than himself, crossed the room toward him. Or, more importantly, toward Serena who was cringing behind him.
“Miss Davenport,” the Frenchman said, trying to ignore Arthur who was standing directly in his line of sight. “You have led me a merry chase.”
“Monsieur,” Arthur said, grinding his teeth to tamp down on his temper. “I believe you have me at a disadvantage.”
“Do I?” The Gallic man sniffed, his thin shoulders rising once beneath the wool of his dusty coat. “I have a matter to discuss with the lady. Once I have done so, and once she had returned the item she has stolen from me, I will be happy to leave you to your…” the Frenchman looked down at the table with disdain. “Small beer.”
Serena sighed and made to stand, but Arthur gestured for her to stay behind him. For blessed once, she actually complied. Serena’s easy obedience made him narrow his gaze on the man before him. She was afraid of this man, when the Serena he had known was afraid of nothing. Arthur did not care who the man was, or what he wanted, but he would see the back of the Frenchman at once.
Arthur did not take his eyes off the man in front of him. “I do not know who you are. I do not know where you came from. I have no idea why you are intent on harassin
g my companion. But know this. Your harassment ends now. Leave, and I will forget that your address was less than civil to a lady.”
The Frenchman went from looking annoyed to mildly amused. “And why, if I may inquire, do you care what happens to the lady or her wares?”
Arthur drew himself up to his full height, trying his level best to remember that he was a gentleman and not to pummel the smirk from the man’s sallow face. “I care, because she is my wife.”
Chapter 2
Serena had thought for one moment that she was dreaming when she saw her old friend Arthur sitting in the middle of the Unicorn, drinking a pint. Now that she heard him declare her to be his wife, she knew that, instead, she had lost the last of her wandering wits.
She realized that she could not let this farce go any further. She had dragged Arthur deep enough into her troubles. Though his father and hers had been as close as brothers, she could not stand on an old family acquaintance and leave Arthur, a peer of the realm, telling lies for her sake.
She ignored Arthur’s silent order, and stood at last.
“Monsieur Galliard,” she said at last, hoping that diplomacy would fail where stealth and intrigue had not. “I am sure we can come to an accommodation.”
She was even in that moment calculating how much of her inheritance she might sell off in order to bribe this man to leave her in peace, when Arthur Farleigh, her childhood friend, glared at her, sending an odd, illicit shiver down her spine. She had forgotten how clear the blue of his eyes were, and had also forgotten how they snapped like cerulean flame when he was angry.
“There will be no accommodation,” Arthur said, turning back to the Frenchman, and to the matter at hand. “If you do not leave at once, I will consider that you wish to offer insult. In such a case, my second will call on you before the sun has set.”
Galliard stood and stared at Arthur, clearly trying to decide if the man was in earnest, or simply bluffing. Had anyone else been defending her, Serena would have known that he was simply being gallant, and perhaps showing off. But it was not just any man who defended her. It was Arthur Farleigh. He meant what he said.
Galliard was not a gentleman. He was not even an archeologist, as her father had been, as she still was. He was simply a middle man, intent on stealing her father’s findings in order to sell them to the highest bidder. Galliard cared nothing for art, and less for history. He cared only that he made a profit. This informed self-interest carried the day, as Serena knew it would.
“Monsieur,” Galliard said with a slight bow from the neck. “I do apologize if I have given offense. Your wife…” The Frenchman caressed the word with contempt, as he knew very well that she was as unmarried as the day she was born. “Must accept my apology as well. I will leave you to your bread and…” More contempt was heaped on the table. “Small beer.”
He tipped his hat to Serena, and she saw in the glint of his hazel eyes that he was mocking her. “Good day, Miss. Until we meet again.”
“We will not meet again,” Arthur said, stepping forward so that Serena was effectively blocked from the other man’s sight. “Good day.”
Serena felt as if her skin was flushed with heat from a close fire, as if lightning had struck too near, and she could smell the sulfur. She told herself not to be fanciful, and watched as Arthur Farleigh sat down beside her once more, as calm as a bishop, as if he ran off French n’er-do-wells every afternoon.
Well, she had not seen him in over ten years. Perhaps he did.
“I need your help, Arthur.” In her time abroad, Serena had lost all ability to dissemble or to prattle on about the weather or the state of the roads. She felt even now the treasure her father had found burning a hole in the bag that she had set at her feet. She must get the art where it belonged, and soon. She had come too far now to fail.
She had spent the last ten years in Tuscany, digging with her father, searching for shards of the past. They had found a great deal, most of which had been taken up by Napoleon’s people, and shipped back to Paris. They had found a few pieces more after the war was over, but by then the Germans had come down for their share, and had shipped the remainder of the discoveries off to Munich and Berlin.
Serena had one artifact left from her father’s findings, one beautiful grave good that would make his reputation in scholarly circles, and would establish his legacy with his old college. She had promised him that she would get it there. She was very close, but thieving Frenchmen were small obstacles compared to the dons of Oxford, who guarded the gates to their halls as Cerberus guarded the gates of hell. She would get her father’s findings to Magdalen College before the sun set. But she would need help.
It seemed help had arrived in the form of her old friend and tree climbing companion, Arthur Farleigh.
Arthur did not seem to think her rude or too abrupt. He did not call her out for her strange propensity for referring to him as husband, nor did he seem to object to her odd mannish notions of simple address, lacking in all feminine guile. Arthur stared at her for a long moment, looking into her eyes as if he might read the thoughts behind them.
Whatever he saw there did not make him falter, as nothing ever had in all his life. If she had ever met a man more steady than Arthur Farleigh, she could not now recall him.
“Of course I will help you,” he said, not asking what help she needed, assuming that whatever it was, he could handle it. Instead he seemed focused on an altogether different thought. “I must insist, before you tell me your tale of woe, that you eat.”
Serena did not even blink but stared back at him as a good English dinner of beef and barley soup was brought to her, with more good bread and sweet butter. The stew was steaming, as was the white loaf, which Arthur set himself to buttering industriously. She thought at first that facing down M. Galliard had made him hungry, but she soon realized that all that bread, as well as the contents of the soup tureen, were for her.
She felt tears come into her eyes that not only would Arthur defend her to a stranger without question, but that he would feed her into the bargain. Why simple kindness and unyielding courtesy were such shocks to her system, Serena could not say. She had been too long abroad, perhaps, fending off the advances of Frenchmen and Italians alike. Or perhaps she simply had forgotten how Arthur was.
It had been a long ten years.
“I am glad to see you well,” Arthur said, as if discussing the weather, as if they had only parted yesterday. “I had heard that you and Sir Chester were abroad throughout the duration of the war, studying antiquities. I hope to find him well, when next we meet.”
“My father died three months ago,” Serena said.
She had repeated those words, or some very like them, so often since she had lost him that they had almost become commonplace. She explained her situation to everyone she met who found it odd that a woman would be traveling alone, that a woman of her class and rank had not even a maid to look after her. She never explained to these judgmental, if well meaning, people that she had cared for her father and run his dig for almost a decade, and that she had no need of a maid, or of anyone else. Often she said nothing at all. The black armband she wore usually said enough. But it was hidden beneath her cloak. She shrugged off her black wool, so that Arthur might see it.
“I am sorry for your loss,” Arthur said.
He did not speak again, but took her hand in his. The heat of his palm and fingertips filtered through her cotton gloves, giving her a feeling of warmth, and of coming home. She looked into his eyes and wished for a moment that she might go back home once more, indeed, that she had never left. Such wishes were foolish, however. One could not step twice into the same river.
Serena took her hand back, drew off her gloves, and applied herself with vigor to her stew and bread. Arthur leaned against the wall behind him and watched her eat, meditatively munching on his own bread and butter. He finally remembered his beer, which had been refilled, and drank some of it. Serena drank a bit of her own, grateful for t
he hundredth time in two days that she was home in England, with good plain food that anyone of sense might eat.
“Do you need help in settling your father’s estate?” Arthur asked.
For all his ingrained politeness, Arthur had always come straight to the point.
“No,” she answered. “Well, yes. In a way. I need to get onto the grounds of Oxford. I need to see Professor Gillingham at Magdalen College.”
“Of course,” Arthur said. “I took a first in literature at Queens College. It would be my honor to escort you.”
Serena finished her stew, not quite able to believe that she had come so far, and was so close to her goal. She blinked away tears again, for they had begun to form like threatening rain. She chastised herself for weakness, when she felt his hand on hers. This time, the warmth of his palm was not buffered by the cotton of her glove. This time, she felt the heat of his touch all the way down to her toes, and she shivered.
She wondered, and not for the first time, what her life might have been like if she had stayed in England instead of traipsing off to parts unknown with her father. She might have four children by now. She might have married this man.
The oddness of the thought kept pace only with the oddness of the moment, for once again it seemed as if Arthur, her old friend and one time confidant could read her mind.
“I have a favor to ask of you as well,” he said.
Serena did not blink but raised one brow, waiting for his request, wondering if he wanted her to pass the salt cellar, perhaps, which was close to her elbow on the table.
When it came, his request was not for the salt. Nor was it even in the form of a question. His blue eyes did not turn from hers, which was the only way she was certain that he was not having a go at her, that indeed, Arthur, Baron Farleigh, was quite serious, as he so often was.
“I need you to marry me.”
Chapter 3
Arthur knew with absolute certainty that he had made an ass of himself. He cleared his throat, and began again.
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