Beauty and the Baron

“Wise boy,” the earl commended his grandson. “It occurs to me that if I must postpone the happy occupation of planning a wedding, we might at least celebrate your betrothal properly.”

“Forgive me.” Lord Daventry lifted his glass, from which he’d scarcely taken a drink. “I thought that’s what we’re doing.”

Either the earl did not hear, or he chose to ignore his grandson’s comment.

“A ball!” he cried, then immediately toasted his idea with another drink. “I’ve become an awful old recluse these past few years, turning down invitations and never going out anywhere. It’s time I rectified that by hosting a gathering.”

A ball? For her? Under ordinary circumstances the prospect would have filled Angela with alarm. At the moment it sounded a perfectly jolly idea. She suspected that might be due to the glass of champagne she’d emptied so quickly, but she didn’t care.

A ball. The very word conjured up visions from fairy stories, for Angela had no firsthand experience to counter them.

Invitations to her cousins, Clemence and Camilla, had never included her. Aunt Hester thought the local Assembly Hall quite beneath the notice of her household, so Angela had never been allowed to go there. Uncle sometimes hosted house parties at which there might be a little dancing. But they were nothing compared to a real ball at a great house like Helmhurst.

With herself as the guest of honor.

“A ball?” Lord Daventry’s voice slashed through her soap bubble and rainbow daydreams. “Have you taken leave of your senses, Grandfather?”

That miserable man! Angela’s lower lip thrust out. He wouldn’t let her have any fun at all out of this engagement, would he?

Before the earl could reply, Angela took up her cudgels on his behalf. “Where are your manners, Lucius Daventry? That’s no way to speak to your grandfather. And what’s wrong with a ball, if I may ask? You make it sound like some sort of debauchery.”

She had just enough discretion left to keep from calling him Lord Lucifer to his face, or suggesting that a night of debauchery might accord well with his wicked reputation.

What if Tibby was right about Lord Lucifer after all? Angela wondered as she met his baleful glare. What if he did put curses on people?

Good Lord! Lucius cursed under his breath. A single glass of champagne and the silly chit was foxed.

He could barely refrain from groaning, especially when his grandfather appeared to endorse the young lady’s tipsy talk.

“Angela’s quite right, my boy.” The earl lobbed his words back at Lucius. “In the first place, I taught you better manners than that, and in the second, I believe this engagement of yours is the perfect excuse for a little festivity.”

All his old friends…and enemies strutting about his quiet sanctuary, staring at his masked face, whispering to one another about what had happened to him. Poor Daventry. Such a shame. And he used to be so handsome—the toast of the ton.

Why didn’t the old man just order one of his limbs amputated for amusement? Lucius wondered. Perhaps his helpful fiancée could wield the surgeon’s saw, damn her!

Angela rose from her chair and walked toward Lucius with a weaving gait that looked graceful but precarious.

“If a ball to celebrate our engagement will amuse your grandfather, isn’t that reason enough for us to agree?” Her large liquid eyes and lopsided smile beseeched him in a manner he found difficult to resist. “After all, wasn’t that the whole point of—?”

He had to silence the fuddled little fool before she blurted out everything. Perhaps because he’d thought more about kissing in the past several hours than he had in the previous three years, Lucius seized on the one means to quiet his fiancée that would least arouse his grandfather’s suspicions.

Catching Angela’s hand, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her as if he meant it. That would teach the little goose to mind her tongue!

He had not forgotten how to kiss a woman, Lucius was gratified to discover, as he claimed Angela’s delectable lips. What he had forgotten, or tried to forget, was how it felt to kiss a woman.

Unless this one was somehow different from all the others.

The aftertaste of champagne he imbibed from her had the most delicate bouquet, with heightened sweetness and sparkle. His head began to spin as though he’d guzzled an entire bottle. He finally parted from her as reluctantly as a drunkard from his favorite bottle.

His kiss had the effect he’d hoped in temporarily robbing Angela of speech. Lucius had not anticipated that it might have a similar effect upon him.

Meanwhile, the earl continued to sit with his back to them, sipping his champagne and turning a deaf ear to whatever minor liberties the newly betrothed couple might be taking.

“D-did it ever occur to you,” Lucius asked, when he had finally regained command of his vocal organs, “that I might prefer to keep my engagement a private matter?”

Though he addressed his grandfather, Lucius shot Angela a look that he hoped would penetrate her tipsy haze and the dumbstruck outrage of his sudden kiss.

The more public their engagement, the more difficult it would be to break when the time came. Not that Lucius cared much on his own account, but the scandal might ruin Angela’s chances of contracting a proper marriage later on.

Why did the prospect of her wedding someone else bring such a sour taste to his mouth?

“Privacy is one thing, my dear boy,” replied the earl, “but this smacks of something furtive. Surely you don’t wish to encourage any ridiculous tattle that you’re ashamed of this connection?”

“Of course not!”

Lucius stalked over to the side table where the champagne bottle rested. He needed another drink. He also needed to put some distance between himself and Angela, lest the urge to kiss her again should overpower him.

“I doubt anyone will think such a thing simply because you fail to host a ball. It’s well-known I’ve retired from society.”

The earl gazed heavenward. “That has fueled enough unsavory gossip to tarnish our family name for a generation. I, for one, am anxious to lay such malicious talk to rest. A lavish celebration of your betrothal to a sweet, beautiful young lady like Angela should go a long way to rehabilitate your reputation.”

For such a frail old stick, his grandfather had a will of iron, Lucius mused with a mixture of annoyance and admiration. The earl would not be balked. He would keep answering every objection Lucius threw up, raising the matter tomorrow and the next day and the next until he wore his grandson down.

It didn’t help that his grandfather had recruited an ally in Angela Lacewood. From halfway across the large room, her wistful, coaxing gaze found Lucius with the power and precision of a well-aimed artillery barrage.

Surely she didn’t believe he would be ashamed to wed a beauty like her?

Lucius bolted another drink of champagne. He had one last scrap of ammunition. Though it was of a powerful calibre, particularly against Angela’s soft heart, pride made him shrink from deploying it.

“Do either of you understand what you’re asking of me? To spend an evening under the glare of chandeliers?”

The looks on both their faces told him he need not mention the glare of so many curious stares.

“Apologies, my boy,” the earl murmured. “I hadn’t considered that.”

His grandfather looked so disappointed Lucius rather wished he’d held his tongue. As Angela had been about to say before he’d stopped her with his kiss, the whole point of their sham engagement was to make the earl’s last months happy. Compared with what he’d already undertaken in that cause, what was one little ball?

“I know!” cried Angela. “What if we don’t hold it indoors under all those bright lights?”

Once again she approached him with unsteady steps. Was she not afraid he might kiss her again?

“Helmhurst has some of the most charming grounds in the country. Why don’t we hold the ball outside, under the stars?” As the soft shine of starlight shimmered in her eyes, Lucius knew he was lost.

“By Jove!” The earl clapped his hands like a child delighted with a new plaything. “What a clever idea, my dear!”

“That champagne has put lots of clever ideas in my head.” Angela held Lucius in her gaze. “Could we not make this outdoor ball a masquerade, as well?”

A masquerade? What could he say to that? His appearance might not draw a single curious glance among a throng of masked guests.

“If you are both so resolved upon it—” Lucius looked from his grandfather to Angela “—I suppose I have no choice but to surrender. A ball you want, then a ball you shall have. So novel and magnificent a ball it will give the ton something pleasant to gossip about for a change.”

“Do you mean it?” Angela looked ready to throw her arms around him, but at the last moment she curbed her tipsy elation in favor of grasping his hand instead. “Thank you!”

Lucius almost succeeded in convincing himself that he approved of her tardy display of discretion.

Was it the champagne making her throw caution to the winds? Angela wondered in a curiously detached sort of way as she clung to Lucius Daventry’s hand. Or was it the unsettling effect his presence continued to work upon her?

So much about his stance and manner demanded she keep her distance. Yet, some contrary force, of which he seemed unaware, called to her. As potent as it was puzzling, that force left her with no choice but to respond.

If his lordship had intended the swift, heart-stopping kiss he’d thrust upon her to punish her for opposing him, or frighten her into being more compliant in future, he had made a grave miscalculation. From the moment he’d left her clinging to the mantelpiece to keep from melting to the floor, she’d begun to wonder how she might provoke him into another one.

When he’d executed a sudden about-face, agreeing to host a ball for her, Angela had wanted very much to kiss him.

But she couldn’t, no matter how much champagne she had in her belly. For many years she had made the mistake of trying to give affection where it was not wanted. Bitter experience had cured her of that tendency.

“I knew you’d come around, my boy.” The earl could not have sounded better pleased if his grandson had agreed to the ball straightaway.

Lord Daventry extracted his hand from Angela’s eager grip. “If there’s one lesson I learned under General Wellington, it’s to know when I’m outgunned.”

“Don’t sulk,” said the earl. “You’ll have a splendid time. We all will.”

Before Lord Daventry could phrase a pithy reply, a familiar, discreet knock sounded on the library door and the earl bid his valet to enter.

“The household wishes to thank milords for the champagne and to extend our compliments to Lord Daventry and Miss Lacewood on the happy news of their engagement.” The only sign that Carruthers had partaken of the celebratory refreshment was a rather glassy stare. “Also, milords, Cook begs to inquire whether Miss Lacewood will be staying to dinner.”

“Indeed she will.” Belatedly the earl cast a glance at Angela. “You will, won’t you, my dear? We can discuss the guest list for this ball of ours.”

A wave of dismay broke over Angela as she exchanged fond smiles with her dearest friend. Nothing would induce her to shadow his remaining time with the knowledge of how brief it would be. But the champagne had loosened her tongue and eroded her natural discretion.

She had better not stay to risk a blunder from which Lord Daventry might not be able to rescue her.

“I wish I could.” She shook her head. “But I promised Tibby I’d be home for supper. She’ll worry if I don’t get back soon.”

Seeing the earl’s disappointment, she added, “Tomorrow night, perhaps? Now that I’m to be one of the family, may I invite myself to dinner?”

“From now on, a place will be set for you every evening,” the earl assured her. “Carruthers, order the gig harnessed so Lord Daventry can drive Miss Lacewood back to Netherstowe in time for her dinner.”

“That’s not necessary.” Angela was not certain she could trust herself alone with Lucius Daventry in her present condition. “I’ve been coming and going from Helmhurst on foot for years.”

“Never this late,” the earl countered. “Besides, it looks apt to rain.”

The set of his countenance told Angela he was no more likely to be swayed over this than he had in the matter of the ball.

“Very well, then. Thank you.” She stole a quick glance at Lord Daventry.

Though he had raised no objection and his features betrayed nothing beyond polite resignation, Angela knew he could be no better pleased with the arrangements than she.

Indeed, Lord Daventry’s silence spoke eloquently for him. He uttered scarcely a word as Angela and the earl said their goodbyes and made plans for the next day. With mute courtesy he escorted her to the forecourt, where a trim two-wheeled carriage with a leather canopy awaited them.

The distance between Helmhurst and Netherstowe was much greater by road than crosscoun-try. Lord Daventry appeared ready to maintain his silence the whole way. As they drove along the deserted country road, rain kept up a gentle patter against the canopy, while the horse’s hooves beat a muted rhythm. Dark, weeping clouds dimmed the waning daylight to a level the baron seemed able to tolerate but which Angela found dismal.

Her light, bubbly humor, induced by the champagne, had since soured and gone flat. Lord Daventry’s brooding, stone-faced silence reproached Angela more harshly than words could have done. In Lord Bulwick’s household, displeasure was frequently expressed by not speaking.

Angela’s accustomed response to such wordless censure had always been to make herself as inconspicuous as possible until she was tacitly forgiven, soothing her injured feelings with sweets from Tibby’s pantry. But there was nowhere to hide in the little gig and not so much as a peppermint drop or lemon pastille to comfort her.

A tempest brewed in Angela’s breast until she could no longer contain it. “Go ahead and say what you’re thinking, Lord Daventry!”

Her sudden outburst startled the horse, who tossed its mane and whinnied.

Lucius Daventry kept looking straight ahead at the road. “I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about, Miss Lacewood.”

Angela knew she should not say anything more, but it was such a great relief to vent her feelings that she couldn’t turn back. “If you expect me to believe that, you must think me insufferably stupid, in addition to everything else.”

“Everything else?”

Though she could only see the masked half of his face in profile, Angela could picture his other brow raised.

“You know,” she insisted, “bothersome, unreliable and…about as pleasant to kiss as that horse!”

The flesh of his lean, angular cheek tensed. Could he be fighting back a smile?

Lord Daventry pulled hard on the reins. The horse and gig came to a stop on a lonely strip of road that skirted the base of a tall hill.

The baron looked more than a little menacing as he turned to face her. Suddenly Tibby’s dire warnings about Lord Lucifer did not seem quite so ridiculous.

“Very well, Miss Lacewood. Since you demand to know what I’m thinking and since you seem determined to attribute all manner of disagreeable opinions to me, I am compelled to set the record straight between us.”

Angela braced herself.

Lord Daventry looked so severe. Perhaps he thought even worse of her than she’d suspected. Bad enough imagining someone’s low opinion of her. Were there enough jam buns in the whole county to soothe her crushed feelings once she’d heard the blunt truth from his lordship’s own lips?

“I think you are every bit as meddlesome as my grandfather, in your own way,” the baron began. “And I fear the two of you will use this betrothal to reform a reputation I would prefer to keep. Not to mention turn the life with which I am perfectly content upside down and inside out.”

Compared to what Angela had been expecting, this sounded almost like praise.

She opened her mouth to reply, but Lord Daventry raised his hand. “You ordered me to tell you what I think, Miss Lacewood. Kindly have the courtesy to hear me out.”

So there was more to come. Angela pressed her lips together.

“I think you had better avoid champagne in future unless you wish to commit an indiscretion. And finally, though I have never touched lips with a horse, I believe I can say with some authority that yours are far preferable to kiss.”

As abruptly as he had stopped the gig, Lord Daventry flicked the reins again and turned his attention back to driving. Angela sat beside him, steeled for a blow that had never come.

Perhaps his gruff but temperate words emboldened her. Or perhaps the aftereffects of the champagne continued to loosen her tongue. “You’ve kissed a lot of women, haven’t you?”

“At one time,” he replied after a significant hesitation. “See here, I’m sorry I kissed you, but not because I found it unpleasant. Now, can we talk about something else?”

Did that mean he’d found it pleasant? As pleasant as she had?

They turned into the long lane that wound its way to Netherstowe. Before Angela could think of another topic of conversation, the gig had drawn to a halt before the front entrance.

Lord Daventry climbed out, then came around to Angela’s side of the carriage to help her down. In spite of the rain, they stood there for an awkward moment of parting, forgetting to release each other’s hand.

Angela stared up at the baron, pondering the mysteries guarded by his inscrutable green gaze. “If you ever need to kiss me again…I won’t mind.”

A flash of savage intensity blazed in his eyes just then, like a jagged bolt of lightning across a dark sky. “Let us hope the need will never arise.”

If he had spit in her face, Angela could not have felt more thoroughly mortified. Wrenching her fingers from his grasp, she ran into the house and slammed the door behind her for the second time that day.

Had Lord Daventry thought she was begging him for something he could not give her? Well, she hadn’t been!

Had she?

Angela wished she could be certain.

Chapter Five

“What do you want with me?” Miles Lacewood squinted into the dimly lit study his housemaster had made available to Lucius for this meeting. “And who are you?”

Was it only yesterday he had been posed those same questions by the boy’s sister at Netherstowe? His tightly guarded emotions had been pushed and pulled in so many directions since then, it seemed to Lucius that a fortnight must have passed.

“Lord Daventry of Helmhurst,” he introduced himself, “a neighbor of your uncle’s.”

The boy’s eyes widened. He was a well-made lad, tall for his age, with the same fair coloring as his sister. “What brings you to my school, sir? Nothing’s happened to Angela, has it?”

Not the kind of calamity young Mr. Lacewood anticipated, perhaps.

“Your sister is perfectly well, if that’s what you mean. But something has occurred which will be to her benefit, and to yours, I hope.” As always, Lucius chose his words with care. He did not want to speak of marriage or wedding when he intended neither. “Miss Angela and I became engaged yesterday.”

“You must be joking.” The boy had not meant to give voice to his thought, Lucius could tell, but the shock of the news had forced it out of him.

Young Lacewood had better learn to govern his tongue if he hoped to get on in the army.

“What makes you think I’m in jest?”

“I…that is…” The lad struggled to remedy his blunder. “I wasn’t aware that you and Angela knew each other…so well.”

“For some years, your sister has regularly visited my grandfather at Helmhurst.”

The boy shrugged. “She never mentioned meeting you during those visits.”

The implied misgivings about a connection between him and Angela Lacewood rubbed Lucius the wrong way. “Does your sister tell you about everyone she meets?”

The boy considered his lordship’s question for a long moment. “Evidently not.”

“Enough of this,” snapped Lucius. “I assure you, we are betrothed. You may confirm the fact with your sister whenever you wish.”

He turned his head, as though something in the housemaster’s book-cluttered study had caught his attention. In fact, Miles Lacewood’s frank stare at his mask unsettled Lucius. He sought to shield himself from it as he would have shielded his injured eye from the sun’s relentless glare.

“You are completing your final term here,” he continued. “I understand you would like to join your father’s old regiment once your schooling is finished.”

“The Twenty-Ninth Light Dragoons, sir.” In his eagerness, the boy seemed to forget both his surprise over his sister’s sudden engagement, and his wariness of Lord Daventry. “If only I could persuade Uncle Bulwick to buy me a commission. He’s set on my going into the city, though.”

Miles Lacewood wrinkled his well-shaped nose as if he could smell the drainage ditches of London’s East End.

Lucius wished the lad did not remind him so forcefully of himself in his younger years. “While you’d rather be off in India, riding, playing polo and pigsticking?”

“I know there’s a sight more to it than that, sir.” The boy’s whole face radiated enthusiasm for the soldiering life, just the same. “My father was killed at Laswaree when I was four years old. I still remember how splendid he looked in his uniform and how he used to hoist me up onto this saddle for a ride.”

Lucius envied the boy’s memories of his father. “I sympathize with your eagerness to follow in his footsteps. Growing up, I felt the same way about my father.”

Something compelled him to add, “You know, if our fathers had lived, I believe they might have encouraged us to pursue other paths in life.”

How many officers’ widows, desperate to sanctify their loss, had primed their sons to take up arms as they grew to manhood? Lucius wondered.

His own, certainly. Mrs. Lacewood, too?

“It wouldn’t matter.” The boy shook his head. “Soldiering is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

“In that case—” Lucius quenched a pang of guilt over what he was about to propose “—I am willing to purchase a commission for you, if you wish it.”

“No!”

The boy’s abrupt turnabout from his earlier show of eagerness caught Lucius by surprise. “Didn’t you just say…?”

“I said I wanted to join my father’s old regiment.” The longing for it ached in Miles Lacewood’s candid brown eyes, which reminded Lucius too much of Angela’s. “I didn’t say I would sell my sister for a commission.”

“Sell your…?” Lucius fancied he could feel the slap of leather against his cheek. “That remark shows a decided want of delicacy, young man!”

“Delicate or not, that’s why Angela agreed to marry you, isn’t it?” The boy took a step toward Lucius, obviously afraid but refusing to be intimidated. “So you would do this for me?”

Lucius swung about to meet the lad’s indignant glare. His pride smarted at the suggestion that no woman would marry him except to gain advantage of fortune, though he had insisted the same thing to himself time and again. Had it been a futile attempt to toughen himself against the day he would hear the indictment from someone else?

“You credit your sister’s concern for your welfare, my boy, but you underestimate both her good sense and her integrity.” Lucius found himself grateful to Angela for making what he was about to say true.

“Whatever her private reasons for accepting my proposal, she refused my offer to buy you a commission. I insisted. Though if you’d prefer to work as a glorified clerk in some airless little office in the city, be my guest.”

“No!” Miles Lacewood cried for the second time in a very few minutes. This time a pleading note had replaced his earlier indignation. “Perhaps I was too hasty. I did not want Angela obligated to you on my account. If you had a sister, I believe you would understand, my lord.”