Beguiling the Baron

by Keysian, Elizabeth

  “Lord Ansford. Good morning, and a most pleasant one it is too. Say hello to your papa, Polly.”

  He shifted his gaze from Miss Wyndham’s face and found his daughter gazing up at him with gray eyes the match of her mother’s. The stabbing ache in his gut intensified cruelly.

  Anger was the best refuge against the pain.

  “Miss Wyndham,” he snapped, “Once again you trample on my rules and violate my privacy. You must learn—”

  “Polly, your father needs a drink of water. Pray run along to Cook and fetch some. Walk nicely as I’ve taught you and be careful not to spill it.”

  Hal glowered as his daughter hurtled off toward the house, kicking her heels up behind her. No one ever interrupted him mid-sentence. Fury warred with astonishment.

  “Miss Wyndham, I’m not in the least bit thirsty. Why—”

  “Sir, you are pale and trembling, as if you’ve seen a ghost. Indeed, you rather resemble one. Did you know you were covered in dust?”

  He started to brush at his chest but stopped himself. Why should he care what he looked like in his own home, on his own estate?

  The chit’s eyes followed the movement of his hand, before locking defiantly on his face. She tilted her chin. “I assume you are come to ring a peal over me for approaching your horrible folly tower. That’s why I sent Polly away. To be disrespectful to me in front of the child would undermine my authority.”

  It was an effort not to gape like a fish at this assertion and the temerity of its author. “Surely you are aware, Miss Wyndham,” he snarled, quaking with fury, “the folly and its environs are out of bounds to all but myself?”

  “I thought we’d managed to keep a respectful distance away. We’re sketching the tower, you see. I’m teaching Polly how to work with pencils, and the grayness of the stone made it an admirable subject. There seems to be a lot of holes between the stones, my lord. I can’t help but wonder if rain is eroding the ash away, or charcoal, or whatever the dark stuff is that’s been mixed in with the mortar.”

  “Ash? Be damned to ash! Stop trying to wriggle off the hook, Miss Wyndham—it will not do.”

  Her half-smile faltered, and he recognized only too well the expression of steely determination lurking in her velvet-brown eyes.

  “If you are so averse to the distant sound of muted voices—for we didn’t exactly shout while we were sketching—maybe you could put something in your ears, so you are not disturbed?”

  Hal stared at his opponent. And stared some more. A peculiar sensation rose from the pit of his stomach to his diaphragm.

  It was so unfamiliar, he almost forgot his vow of rigid emotional control. No—he must never laugh, particularly not in front of this defiant little minx.

  “Thank you for the suggestion,” he replied with some effort, “but it’s much easier if you simply keep away from my folly. And while we’re on the subject of your inability to do as you’re told, I’d like to know what you mean by stealing books from my library. What need have you of a book on the decoration of Grecian urns, pray? I think a nine-year-old girl too young to be examining images of naked fornication, don’t you?”

  He hid the glow of triumph that shot through him. From the color in her cheeks, he’d found a way to rattle the chit.

  “I didn’t mean to defy you, sir. I merely thought perhaps, so long as I didn’t disturb you, it would be acceptable for me to make use of so valuable a resource in our lessons.”

  Hal regarded his antagonist. It was a long time since anyone had dared to stand up to him. The last perpetrator of this heinous crime had been Mary, but she had more justification than this young stranger.

  How unlike Mary she was, not tall and elegant but of middling height, with a girlish heart-shaped face and shining brown curls to frame it. She was perhaps somewhat thinner than he would have wished, but it was not to be wondered at, considering the difficulties she and her mother had been through. He resisted the urge to tell her to eat more freely from his table and build herself up, filling out those promising curves.

  Wait—what was he thinking?

  “My lord, are you all right?”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “I’m fine, don’t fuss.”

  Immediately she seized him by the arm and made him sit down on the bottom step of the folly’s staircase.

  “You’re dizzy and hot. I’m sorry, it’s a bit dirty to make you sit here—there’s a lot of dark dust. I fear the foundations of your folly may be crumbling, sir.”

  Amen to that. He was helpless in the face of so much solicitude.

  Damn this vertigo! He was one of the most successful, the most important gentlemen in this half of the county and he didn’t need a nursemaid. Yet here he was, bemused, baited, and nearly bested by someone he’d barely met.

  To his chagrin, Polly returned, walking stiffly across the grass so as not to spill a single drop of the water she’d brought him. Wonderful. Now his daughter was going to be witness to his weakness too.

  Polly’s fingers brushed his as she handed him the glass, and he spilled some water, unused to the touch of a small, warm hand.

  Miss Wyndham crouched beside him, shading her eyes and examining him closely. “I think,” she stated, “you spend too much time in darkness and not enough in the health-giving daylight. I’ve seen the lamps lit in the folly at night when I can’t sleep and have to walk about a bit. You would benefit from proper sleep and a good tonic. I can make you a decoction of St. John’s Wort if you like. There’s plenty growing hereabouts. I’d enjoy making it up for you.”

  “Ah.” He nodded his understanding. One of the missing books had been an herbal, an ancient volume from the days of Queen Bess. “You fancy making potions and trying them out on me. You’ll not find me a good subject, and I take exception to being experimented on.”

  She’d probably poison him, despite having the best of intentions. Not that he had much reason to continue on in this mortal coil, but it would be a shame if she were punished for removing him from it.

  “You should be sure to get a proper amount of sleep. Go to bed with the nightingale and rise with the lark.”

  Clearly, she’d also taken a volume of Shakespeare’s tragedies from his shelves. “You forget, it is my daughter you are supposed to be teaching, not myself.”

  His eyes flicked to Polly. She was a good deal grown since the last time he’d appraised her properly. His gaze roved back to Miss Wyndham.

  Why was she concerned for his well-being when he’d already shown himself to have no interest in either her person or her opinions? It had been such a long time since his entrance into any meaningful discourse with an equal, he’d forgotten how to read between the lines.

  He should do what he normally did in such situations. Regard his foe with casual disdain, refuse to respond to their barbs, and wait until they gave up and went away. But he was acutely aware of Polly watching him, rendering him awkward.

  Miss Wyndham continued to regard him with a questioning gaze, but a glance past his shoulder at the folly betrayed her.

  So that was it, was it? She pretended to offer him compassion but what she really wanted was to expose his secrets.

  “You want to know what I do in there all night. Unfortunately for you, Miss Wyndham, I won’t satisfy your curiosity. You’ll never know what—if anything—I have to hide. Don’t think to question the servants. They know nothing, and even if they did, they’re all loyal to me.”

  Hal became aware of Polly staring at him. Damn. Despite himself, he was reacting to Miss Wyndham. He shouldn’t give a fig what she, or his daughter, thought about him.

  “My child,” he said, testing the words on his tongue, “run along and find your nurse. Miss Wyndham and I need to speak alone.”

  Polly obediently took his empty glass and skipped back to the house whil
e Miss Wyndham pushed herself upright. A gentleman would have assisted her, but what cared he for such niceties? He tried not to care about anything much anymore. Except making sure Polly could protect herself from the gossips.

  He, too, got to his feet and took a pace forward, allowing his height to dominate the young woman, knowing how others in the past had found his stature intimidating. To his surprise, she stood her ground, regarding him with a quizzical expression.

  “I imagine you’ve sent Polly away so you can cross swords with me again.”

  Was she actually enjoying this? He needed to put a period to this conversation.

  “That would take more effort than I can be bothered to summon,” he drawled. “No, I wanted to make sure we understood one another.”

  “My lord, I don’t presume to understand you, and I’m quite certain you don’t understand me.”

  “Merely a figure of speech, Miss Wyndham. I have a great deal to say about your attitude toward educating Polly, but to make sure you remember it, I’ll write some points down in a note.”

  He waited, but she showed no inclination to leave. “Was there something else you wished to say?” he inquired, with a sigh of resignation.

  A flush suffused her cheeks. She could be quite pretty—if she weren’t so annoying. Then he divined her thoughts, and an icy hand closed around his heart. Confound it, was she the same as the rest of them, all the tabbies and gossips, the people who thought he’d done away with Mary? Or maybe she was more charitable in her imaginings and believed he was keeping his wife locked up somewhere in punishment for some misdemeanor, or that she’d run mad and was now incarcerated in the tower.

  Disappointment mingled with anger and without thinking, he took hold of her and pulled her close until she had to bend her neck to look up at him. Her face a mask of shock, she tried to pull away, but he refused to release her. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her arms, making him aware of the delicate bones beneath. He was being a brute, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “Now listen to me, Galatea Wyndham,” he growled. “There are no skeletons in any of my closets, however hard you search. My wife is truly dead and lies in the crypt beneath Foxleaze. I’m not using the folly as a laboratory to give animation back to her corpse like Victor Frankenstein.” At her blink, he added wearily, “You look amazed. You never expected me to have any modern literature in my collection, I imagine.”

  She has no idea what kind of a man I am. None at all. He shook his head. “I don’t know what ideas your fevered imagination may have conjured up, but none of them comes near the truth.”

  Her eyes widened, and she shivered in his grasp. He released her instantly, hating himself for being the cause of her horrified expression, and wondered if there was any way of summoning up a reassuring grin.

  He tried it, and she took two steps backward.

  “Pray do not grimace at me. I promise I’m not in the least bit ungrateful for all the kindnesses you have bestowed on us, but your manners are deplorable.”

  He gasped, but she carried on regardless.

  “I know I should not say this to my benefactor—”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “Lest you take offense and turn us out. But I thought you needed to know my mama is most upset by your attitude and that you’re making an enemy of Polly with your aloofness and your rigid rules. The girl needs a father, sir, and it is your duty, your duty—but I can see in your face I’m wasting my time. You might as well be deaf and blind, for all the notice you take of anybody.”

  Having delivered that volley, she spun on her heel, hastily gathered up her sketchbooks and pencils, and headed back to the house.

  Turning away, Hal thrust his hands behind his back and stalked down the grassy slope toward the lake. A coot scudded away as he approached the bank and he gazed down at the rippled water until the surface settled. Seeing his reflection, framed by billowing white clouds and azure sky, Hal leaned down and peered more closely.

  The Wyndham chit was right to be afraid, damn her. He looked debauched, with his lank locks and shadowed eyes. No wonder people imagined terrible things about him. But maybe it was for the best, for on the whole it kept them away, and solitude was what he craved more than anything.

  He would have to find a way to assert his will over the flighty Miss Wyndham, or his life was going to become a great deal more difficult. The simplest solution would be to get rid of the women. He’d find them somewhere else to live, of course, and make sure they had whatever they needed.

  But he’d better set about it soon before they became too attached to their new home—or to Polly. He would have a word with Lynch this afternoon and see what could be done.

  Chapter 10

  Though a beautifully sunny day outside, Tia had elected to spend at least part of it within, penning a letter to her old schoolfriend Lucy. The past week had been difficult, and she was desperate to unburden herself to someone who knew about Lord Ansford. He’d been behaving most oddly, and she couldn’t tell if it was a good sign or quite the opposite.

  Much to her surprise, he’d eventually made the acquaintance of Mama but had only exchanged the briefest of greetings with her. He was occasionally to be found in one of the downstairs rooms in the middle of the house, a place once used as a drawing room, mayhap, in the days when Foxleaze Abbey had welcomed guests. The papers were brought to him there and when he’d finished with them, he would generally disappear, leaving them for the Wyndhams to peruse at their leisure.

  On a couple of occasions, Ansford had stayed late reading and had actually been quite polite when they burst in on him unawares. Tia almost imagined he might have hung back deliberately in order to see them.

  He seemed different. It took her some time to realize it was because he had donned a white shirt and cravat instead of his usual black. Was he trying to lull her into a false sense of security by making himself more presentable? Surely, she hadn’t already pierced his armor of indifference?

  Unfortunately, Polly had become sullener after the incident outside the folly. Maybe—and not without reason—the child thought her papa would take more of an interest in her, now he’d been forced to speak to her. Her disappointment was palpable, and it was as much as Tia could do to get her to work at all or indulge in conversation.

  “I don’t know what to make of the man,” she wrote to her friend. “I’m sure there is much good in him, only he casts a pall of misery about him wherever he goes. Pray, ask your husband if his old friend has always been so morose, or if his wife’s death has wrought this change in him.”

  She paused and gazed out the window. She’d done something utterly ridiculous the other day. So foolish, in fact, she had to force herself to admit it to Lucy.

  “Having a notion the baroness might still be alive and imprisoned in the forbidden folly, I went to see if I could determine whether or not her body lay in her tomb. Of course, I could never have pushed that great stone lid off, but I was just thinking about it when Lord Ansford came upon me.”

  She quivered with embarrassment at the memory. She’d told him she was merely perusing the charming Fifteenth century carvings.

  “I fear he divined my purpose. He gave me that look of his, when his blue eyes turn almost black, and his brows knit together in disapproval. He just told me to keep away and loomed there until I left. Can you imagine anything more frustrating? A man who lays down the law but gives no good reason.”

  She paused in her writing, recalling the expression on Ansford’s face. He’d nodded to himself as he dismissed her from the vault, as if he’d made his mind up about something. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it was.

  Mama bustled in. “Tia, we have some post. One is an invitation to dine with the Douglas family of Amesbury.”

  Tia put down her pen and blew on the wet ink before turning to her m
other. “An invitation? How splendid.”

  More than splendid, in truth. She could barely recall the last time she and Mama had attended any social engagement. Her father’s funeral had been the last time they’d seen all their friends and family. It hadn’t taken long for many of those people to abandon the Wyndham ladies when the extent of their debts was known. Thank goodness for Lucy and the Duke of Finchingfield.

  Thank goodness for Lord Ansford too. No matter how pathetic an excuse for a gentleman he might be, he had, nonetheless, rescued them from the worst of situations.

  “Yes,” Mama went on, “Ansford gave it to me this morning. Or should I say, sent it up with a footman.”

  “He didn’t reply himself?”

  “Oh no. He won’t be going. You know he hates society.”

  Tia’s charitable thoughts of Lord Ansford lost some of their gloss. “The Douglas family will be disappointed when they learn it’s only us.”

  “It’s a beginning, Tia. Mourning affects people differently. One day he may find confidence enough to accompany us.”

  Tia snorted. “I don’t think confidence is what he lacks, Mama. He is too bullheaded to change his mind about anything.”

  She glanced toward the window. June was now in progress, and despite recent rain, the prospect for the day was promising. Swallows swooped low above the grass while swifts screamed overhead, performing their aerial chases and dives. It was so beautiful. She mustn’t let anything spoil her enjoyment of it.

  “Mama, am I too hard on Lord Ansford? I wouldn’t want to endanger our position here.” Whatever frustrations she might have with the owner of Foxleaze, whatever grim secrets the place might harbor, she would miss it sorely if they were forced to leave.

  “I don’t think you mean to goad him,” her mother replied, giving her a level look. “Although I agree he often deserves it. You’re not quite your old self yet. The hardships you’ve been through have taken their toll, and you’ve witnessed the kind of suffering a young gentlewoman ought never to see. I think you’re smarting from your wounds and need to strike out. Ansford, although guiltless of your original pain, has become your scapegoat. I suggest you’re sensitive to his faults because you take them personally—at a time when you need a boost to your confidence, his indifferent behavior has the opposite effect.”