Barbara Metzger (8 page)

“Consequence be damned. My father made sure there was no distinction in those ducal strawberry leaves. I’ve only continued the slide. I was born Sloane Jarrett Shelton Shearingham, with more titles and dignities than I can recite now. My fellow officers used to call me Sherry. I was Lieutenant Shearingham at the time, you see, so it was natural, given the reddish color of my hair and my fondness for the grape.”

She looked at the bottle. No, she would not call him Sherry. “St. Sevrin fits you better. Or Sloane.”

“Slow to pay what’s owed? Securing a loan? No, don’t answer. Call me whatever you will. After all, we should be on a more familiar footing. It’s not every day a chap has an offer of marriage. Or an offer for his home woods, since that’s what this so flattering proposition amounts to. No, no, I’m not offended,” he said when she would reply, holding up his hand with the glass. A drop or two spilled on the threadbare carpet. “I admire your honesty.”

“In that case I’d better tell you that I do have a few other conditions.”

“Ah, now, why am I not surprised?”

“But these are negotiable, of course.”

“Unlike the deed to the woods, which is to be bound in a blood oath and witnessed by an archangel.”

“The rest are nothing so terrible.” Lisanne fished in her skirt pockets, pulling out her usual hodgepodge of stuff, until she found a folded paper.

To St. Sevrin’s amusement, she shoved the rest of the junk willy-nilly back in her pockets till she looked like a tattered Elizabethan doll with panniers. This ragamuffin thought she could be a duchess? As she smoothed the page on her lap, Sloane noted, “I can see you’ve put some thought into this, at least.”

“Oh, I thought and thought. I would not have come to you if there was another way.”

“Thank you for that, my lady.”

Lisanne colored up again. “I’m sorry. I’m not in the habit of dissembling.”

“Never learn, sweetings. Go on, let me hear the rest of your terms.”

She consulted the paper, as if trying to decide which stipulation he’d find least insulting. “Firstly, I should wish part of the money to go to restore the Priory. This must have been a wondrous place. It shouldn’t be allowed to crumble into dust.”

“I am not comfortable in such conditions, you may be assured. This rubbish heap makes Portugal look like a well-run hostelry. The London house needs refurbishing, too.”

“And the farms?”

“A given. It only makes sense to invest some of the ready back into the land so it can turn a profit. What’s next?”

She had to moisten her lips with her tongue. “I would want a portion of the moneys, perhaps the income from Neville Hall, to be kept separate for my use.”

“I thought you said you didn’t need the blunt,
cherie.
Never tell me you’re going to turn into one of those fashionable belles who spend their husbands’ incomes on feathers and furbelows? Hiding your fashion sense under a bushel, are you? Or do you hanker for jewels, perhaps a diamond tiara to go with the leaves in your hair?”

Lisanne reached up to remove the offending articles, disarranging what remained of the braid. She pulled the ribbon away and shook out the rest of her long blond hair, over her shoulders and past her breasts. St. Sevrin watched her unconscious sensuality and shook his head. Zounds, the chit didn’t even know what she could do to a man. She could unman him with her words, too.

“I want a sum settled on me, perhaps the amount my dowry would have been, so that you cannot gamble it away if you manage to lose all the rest.”

At his indrawn breath, Lisanne glanced toward the window, gauging the distance if she had to escape. “You said I should be honest.”

So his little hedgehog had teeth, too. “Fencing with naked swords, are we, Baroness?”

He had reverted back to formal titles. So be it. “I wouldn’t want my children going hungry, Your Grace, or reduced to living in the gamekeeper’s cottage when you get yourself killed in some brothel brawl. My children’s future must not depend on which horse wins at Epsom.”

“Oh, so there are to be children of this union? S’truth, I thought it was to be a financial transaction, accrued interest the only outcome.”

There was no blush this time, just the matter-of-fact: “You need an heir. And yes, I would like children…someday. After we know each other better.”

And after she had a bath. “I would derive great satisfaction in eliminating my current heir, my cousin Humbert, from the succession.” St. Sevrin also thought he might find a bit of satisfaction in introducing this hurly-burly baroness to the joys of lovemaking.

“Then why haven’t you married?” she asked in that disconcertingly straightforward manner of hers.

Because he couldn’t ask a decent female to share his miserable life; because if he could have fed another mouth, he’d have bought a racehorse; because he hadn’t yet met a woman who didn’t bore him to death after twenty minutes, ten if he was in a hurry.

Until tonight. Tonight this female was full of surprises. Sloane didn’t think she could ever bore him, with her eccentric mix of worldly wisdom and naïveté. Lady Lisanne was the one who let her thoughts rule her tongue, however, not him. Sloane was used to keeping his cards close to his chest, so his answer was, “What, marry and settle on one woman?”

Lisanne nodded. “I’ve thought of that also, and I promise not to interfere with your life. I know you have other interests, and I don’t mean to hang on your sleeve, you know. I don’t care if I never go to London, and you don’t have to dance attendance on me here.”

“You have an odd notion of where the heir is coming from, then, my dear, if we live separate lives.”

Lisanne refused to be embarrassed. “I believe it’s done all the time in arranged marriages. I wouldn’t care, as long as you do not embarrass me. I realize you haven’t had reason to be discreet in the past. I understand, truly.”

“You do?” Then she understood more than Sloane could himself. He didn’t want to continue this particular line of conversation. “Is that it, then? Have you finished your shopping list? Let me reiterate, Baroness, to make sure I have it correct. You want the woods, or what’s in them.”

“Sworn and inviolate. Forever.”

“Right, forever. Marriage to me would get you Sevrin Woods and get you out from under Uncle Alfred’s thumb, with a substantial amount settled on you and your children. For a rainy day, of course.” At her nod he continued: “In return, I get my bills paid, my property restored, a fortune to fritter away, and my freedom, as long as I don’t embarrass you. I also increase my holdings with Neville Hall and your father’s investments.”

“There’s a town house in London, too. It’s part of the entail so cannot be sold, but you could lease it out.”

“Rental income,” he said, ticking another bonus off on his fingers. “And, of course, a wife and heirs, sometime in the future. I think I have covered everything.”

Sloane reached over for the bottle, about to pour a healthy amount of the brandy into his glass.

“There is one more thing.” Lisanne stared at the paper in her hand. “You must promise…never to lock me up.”

The glass’s stem snapped off in the duke’s left hand. “That bastard. Is that what he threatened you with if you went to the magistrate, that he’d send you to Bedlam? Is that how he was going to keep your fortune when you came of age? Snakes like that should be boiled in oil.”

Lisanne was rummaging in her pockets again. She found what she wanted, a clean handkerchief, and poured brandy onto the linen square. She reached for the duke’s hand.

“What? Oh.” St. Sevrin hadn’t felt the cut or seen the blood. “Hold now, that’s expensive brandy!”

“And it will do you more good outside than inside.” When Lisanne was finished cleaning the wound, making sure no glass remained, she went back to her pocket for the small book. She opened its pages and carefully removed a spiderweb.

“What the deuce…?”

“It helps stop the bleeding, Your Grace, and holds the cut edges together so they don’t need to be sewn. And the spider doesn’t need it anymore. She makes a new one each night.”

The spider doesn’t need it? Sewn? No, he would not be bored with Lady Lisanne Neville. While she was busy tying yet another handkerchief around his hand, he apologized for his clumsiness. “That was just my bad arm, weakened from a war wound that never healed right.”

“I might be able to help. I know a lot of remedies, oils, potions, that sort of thing.” She started to lift his shirt.

He clamped his good right hand over hers. “Here now, none of that until we’re wed.”

Lisanne’s whole face lit up. “Then you agree to marry me? You’ll really do it?”

St. Sevrin leaned his head back and let his eyes drift closed, but he kept his hand over hers, on his warm shoulder. “Devil a bit, poppet, I don’t know. I suppose I need time to think on it. It’s an offer that could tempt a saint, which I never pretended to be, but I still have some honor. I cannot take advantage of a tender little bud like you.”

“How could it be taking advantage when it’s what I want?”

“When you’re too young and innocent to know what’s best for you, that’s how. I’ll call on your uncle tomorrow, to sound him out on plans for your future. Perhaps he has some likely candidate for your hand waiting in the wings.”

“No, you mustn’t do that! He’ll never tell you the truth anyway. And he’ll forbid you to call.”

“My title ought to be enough to have him consider my suit, should I decide to make the offer for his ward’s hand.”

She moaned. “What’s a title for me compared to control of all my money, for him? No, he’d find a way to ruin everything. We have to present him with a fait accompli. It’s better for you to go speak to my London trustee, to make sure he’ll release the estate to you.” She took her hand back to search through the pockets again. “I wrote Mr. Mackensie a letter, telling him my wishes.”

“Sure of your charms, were you?”

“Sure of my worth, rather, and sure of your need. Your Grace, Sloane, marriages are made for much worse reasons all the time. I know I’m not any Society Toast. I’ll never make a political hostess. And I’m not a beauty, tall and willowy or all rounded like the current mode. Aunt Cherise despairs of me in a polite drawing room. But I would try my hardest to manage your household and make your children happy.”

“And me? Would you try to make me happy?”

“I…I wouldn’t know how to begin.” It had never occurred to Lisanne that he might want something from her beyond the monetary, beyond that other marital duty. “Yes, I’d try, if you wished.”

“And you? I suppose you’d be happy here, with children and a great forest to romp in. You wouldn’t even need me, would you? No, don’t answer. Leave a man some pride.” He sighed. “Very well, I promise to consider this mad bargain. If it doesn’t all turn into a whiskey dream when I wake up, I’ll travel back to London and talk to your man. He’ll likely throw me out on my ear. I would. But now it’s time for you to go. Let me get my coat and a lantern.”

“Oh, you needn’t accompany me.”

“What, you only need a husband, not an escort through haunted forests in the middle of the night?”

“The forests aren’t haunted. You know there’s nothing in them to fear.”

“Still, I cannot let you go alone.”

“But I’m not alone.” The cavernous pockets yielded a carved flute this time. Lisanne played three high lilting notes, then repeated them.

In moments a great lumbering black beast galloped out of the forest, across the field of onetime-lawn, and through the open window without breaking stride. The shaggy monster took up a stance in front of Lisanne, blocking all but her upper body, and slavering in Sloane’s direction.

“This is Becka.”

St. Sevrin knew better than to step forward or to raise his voice. “What
is
Becka? I’ve seen handsomer creatures at the bottom of a bottle of Blue Ruin.”

“Becka is beautiful! Her mother was Homer Phelps’s prize mastiff bitch.”

“What was her father, a troll from under a bridge?”

Lisanne shrugged. “Homer thought so, too. He tried to drown the puppies. Becka was the only one I could save.”

St. Sevrin could foresee a lifetime of rescued kittens and orphaned lambs. Was he to be one of her acts of charity? “You’re too soft, Lady Lisanne.”

“No, I am strong, Your Grace, like Becka. Strong enough to make Homer Phelps swim into the pond to get her out. Strong enough to be your duchess.”

“We’ll see.”

Lisanne flitted out the window before he could go to assist, the oversize dog right behind her. St. Sevrin watched the baroness scampering across the moonlit lawn toward the woods, just like some fairy sprite. Maybe it was all a dream.

Eighteen years old. Lud, St. Sevrin didn’t even remember being eighteen. He must have been so young, somewhere in the murky past. And it was true, many chits the baroness’s age were already married and breeding. Some of them were even married to men older than he was. It wasn’t as if he were losing his hair or his teeth, either, Sloane told himself, standing by the window as he watched his visitor disappear into the woods. He could still cross swords with the best of the fencers at Antoine’s, and go a few rounds with Gentleman Jackson himself despite his weak left punch. No, ten years wasn’t such a big difference, until you measured it in experience.

Every scrap of honor he had left told Sloane to stay away from Lisanne Neville. Boys don’t pull wings off butterflies; men don’t destroy innocence.

But she already knew about him: the drinking, the gaming, the whoring, things no decent female acknowledged. The baroness acknowledged, accepted, forgave, and gave him future permission to repeat his sins. She wasn’t a lovesick peagoose who’d wake up three months into the marriage to discover she was wed to a cad.

Maybe she really wouldn’t mind living alone here in seclusion when Sloane resumed his dissolute life in London as he was bound to. And maybe pigs would fly.

She had come to him. That had to count for something, such as how desperate she was. Sloane could no more make a chit like Lisanne a decent husband than he could make his horse do somersaults. But if her alternative was no husband at all, no family of her own but that maw-worm Findley, then maybe the Duke of St. Sevrin wasn’t so bad a choice. Lisanne had offered Sloane his freedom in the union, but maybe it was her own she was seeking. Money of her own, an absentee husband—a lot of chits did far worse in marriage. Lisanne Neville looked to be doing far worse now.