Her Mad Baron (30 page)

“Fear?” He managed convincing scornfulness. “That’s an absurd suggestion. We’re nothing alike.”

She inched closer to him and wrapped herself around his arm. “Naked terror.” She actually snickered. “With you it’s occasionally literally naked.”

He glanced down at her straw bonnet, all he could see of her head. It had to be one of the old ones that he would throw away once she was his. He’d take it off once they got to his house. Feed it to a horse. Then he’d lead her to his bedchamber and pull out her hairpins, one by one. And peel the new dress off her body. Loosen her stays. And he’d show
her
fear. Naked fear filled with that parted-lip, bright-eyed anticipation. He shifted on the bench seat as the thought made him hard.

And when he was through with her body, when
they
were through with each other, to hell with waiting for marriage, to hell with the taboo of bedding her in the middle of the day. And never mind the work waiting in the library, and forget Maller, and to hell with his family.

Never mind any of that.

He’d have her in that bed, and when they were finished, he’d hold her so close she wouldn’t look at his face. He’d hold her until she slept in his arms. She would never again accuse him of frosty behavior.

She loosened her grip on his arm. “Miss Brock is waiting for me. I do hope she can travel to the country with us.”

“We won’t need her,” he said through clenched teeth. “We’ll be married.”
You’ll be mine.

“She’s supposed to teach me the proper way to behave and—”

“No.”

“I might be a gentleman’s daughter but don’t know enough about the way to go on in polite society.”

“Ha. The paragon of the proper and polite is my mother, and we can see how happy she is.”

“Happy? Does that come into the matter?” she said.

But they were at his house now, and he handed the reins to the waiting footman before dragging her down from the carriage, catching her as she fell, laughing, and pulling her into the house so she had to trot after him.

She yanked her hand away. “I’m not firing Miss Brock.”

“All right. Good.” He grabbed her hand again.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Not the library. I’m tired of that rug.”

“Oh, my,” she said as he leaned over and scooped her off her feet. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he carried her up the stairs.

“I can walk,” she whispered in his ear. “So you could save your energy.”

“No.” He held his armful of Florrie tighter to his chest, as if someone had tried to take away his prize. “I have more than enough energy.”

Maller’s trial would be held in London, not Derbyshire.

The barrister from the public prosecutor department came to Nathaniel’s house for an interview. Plump, dressed in a subdued black frockcoat, the barrister might have been any clerk except Nathaniel had rarely seen such zealousness in a banker or merchant.

“I thought the police prosecuted criminals. You lot take on only a few important cases. I’m surprised you’d bother with a case that’s not murder or treason.”

“You are an important man, my lord.”

“And good publicity for you. The newspapers are enjoying this story.”

The barrister cleared his throat. “And that reminds me, Sir John Maule wished me to inform you we won’t reveal the existence of the letters before we go to trial.
”

“So it will be my word against Maller’s in the public press.”

The lawyer’s bushy brows furrowed, and he looked unhappy. “I expect his lawyers will spread the story that you were locked up for your own safety.”

“I’m not worried about that.” Nathaniel had already planned
his article. Lord Bessette had taught him a thing or two about manipulation of minds. No point in letting other people frame his case to the public.

After the lawyer departed, Nathaniel sat down to write his own description of his imprisonment.

He picked up the pen, uncorked the ink, and went to work. As he described the effects of the drugs, he felt the suggestion of the evil shiver through him, the phantom of those endless days and nights.

Each time those ghostly effects seemed to grow too strong, he rose from his seat and paced the room. He sweated as he worked on this final odious chore done before his life changed.

Before he was married.

Burny looked up from his work whenever Nathaniel rose from his desk, but he didn’t speak. Nathaniel must look dreadful if he could keep Burny from talking.

And after several long hours of writing punctuated by pacing, he finished the description. He felt exhausted, yet less weighed down. The end of the illness brought about by purging, he told himself, and prayed it was true.

* * * *

They wed in London but were to take the train to Derbyshire right after. No one from his family attended, but Nathaniel had several friends who made more than enough noise for a huge family. Florrie had no notion that well-bred young men could behave like such a group of rowdy workmen on holiday.

Nathaniel introduced her to his good friend Mr. Johnston, who looked her up and down. “Now I understand some of your middle of the night ravings in Derbyshire, Nate.”

Nathaniel growled something under his breath and stepped forward to greet Virginia Pikler and her fiancé.

Florrie smiled and shook hands and wondered what Mr. Johnston meant. She decided to interpret the warmth in the man’s tone and face as pleasure in his friend’s marriage and not some form of leering.

Truly, Nathaniel did inspire loyalty in his friends. She liked how they interacted, and she especially liked the way he spoke to them. No lord of the manor—unless it held a trace of self-mockery.

They went to a local pub with a private parlor, and the new couple was toasted with half pints of bitters.

“Nothing elegant, not even flowers. Your gown is pretty enough I suppose, but this is not what I had expected,” Duncan grumbled as he settled on the scarred wooden bench next to Florrie.

Florrie sipped the sour liquid and wished she’d ordered lemonade. “Nathaniel and Miss Brock wanted something elaborate, but I requested as little fuss as possible.”

“What?” He glared at her over the top of his spectacles.

She shrugged and told the truth. “I thought that if we started with no pomp and formality, we could go on like that. Seems silly, I suppose.”

“Yes, indeed.” Her brother looked ready to launch into a diatribe, but at that moment, on her other side, Nathaniel rose to his feet to thank all their friends for coming.

They were served a pub lunch, though she felt too nervous to eat. Nathaniel, sitting next to her, only had cheese and bread.

Something she’d already half noticed made her ask, “Are you a vegetarian?”

“Nearly,” he said. Something in the way his face went blank and he briskly picked up his pint made her suspect this was a subject that would turn him into a turtle and he’d withdraw into his shell. Later on she’d push until he disappeared, and then she’d pry him open again. An interesting hobby, she reflected.

They didn’t want to miss the train, so the party broke up, and Nathaniel and she rattled off in a coach, going straight to the King’s Cross where Nathaniel escorted her to a carriage on the Great Northern Railway.

Florrie had never traveled first class before and decided she could grow happily accustomed to the spacious compartment, lace curtains, and the comfortable well-padded seats with their high backs.

After they settled down next to each other, she delicately approached the question of his eating habits again. “Remember how you took that gun when we were locked up? You seemed to know what to do with it. Do you hunt?”

“Certainly, I know how. My father loved to hunt and fish.”

He picked up her hand, carefully removed her glove, and kissed her palm the way that made her shudder. He nibbled on her pinky, and she squirmed, but she persisted.

“When did you decide not to eat meat?”

He sighed and put her hand down, but at least he covered her fingers with his. “When I was fourteen, I decided not to eat meat. I was fifteen before I could follow that path. I have avoided meat, more or less, since then.”

“Why did you have to wait?”

“Lord Bessette found out.” He didn’t sound upset, but he didn’t look at her. “You’ve met him. Can you guess what he’d do in response to a young idiot taking a radical stance?”

She shook her head then said, “No,” because he stared up at the lamp in the corner and not at her.

“He forbade me any food other than meat, of course. Four days.”

She wanted to grab his hand and squeeze but knew he’d draw away. Cautiously she asked, “That’s how long he forced you to eat only meat?”

“No, that’s how long I lasted before I broke down and ate. Lamb, I think. I was given only meat for the rest of those holidays. Got dreadfully sick,” he added in a off-hand tone.

Florrie didn’t speak. She thought about her capricious brother, recalled her eccentric father with his uncertain temper, her domineering grandmother. She felt very lucky to have had them. Her teeth clenched tight, and she wished she had Lord Bessette in front of her so she could tell him exactly what she thought of him.

“I’m so sorry,” she said at last.

“It’s long ago, now,” he said dismissively. “I don’t think of it.”

She leaned on Nathaniel’s shoulder. He opened his arms, and she snuggled against him.

She must have fallen into a deep sleep, because someone was talking, and she hadn’t heard anyone else enter the compartment.

One of Nathaniel’s arms was still wrapped around her shoulders, holding her against his chest where his deep voice rumbled.

She opened her eyes and saw he held a scrap of paper in his other hand. Across from her, Burny sat looking even pastier and less healthy than usual. He appeared so miserable she wondered if he suffered from motion sickness.

She pushed away from Nathaniel’s body. “Good evening, Mr. Burnbridge, I didn’t know you were on this train.”

She stretched, trying to be discreet as she worked the kinks from her muscles. In her few hours as a baroness, she’d already gotten used to allowing other people to take care of details like luggage and train tickets. Or perhaps sheer nerves on her wedding day made her forget that anyone else existed. “Why aren’t you riding with us?”

And then she realized that, of course, he and Miss Brock would go second class.

“Newlyweds,” he muttered, and for once, his cheeks had some color in them.

“Do you mean we’ve bought all of the compartment’s tickets just so we might be alone?” she asked Nathaniel.

He wasn’t paying attention to her. The note absorbed all of his interest, and as he read, he stiffened and cursed under his breath.

She touched his arm. “What has upset you?”

“Nothing.” Nathaniel crushed the paper and shoved it into his jacket pocket. “It’s nothing.”

Burney made a clicking sound in his throat. And looked out the window. “I should be getting back. My lord, I don’t know who gave it to me, but I will reply when we reach Willsbourne and—”

“You do that. You send a reply and tell him I agree to his terms.”

Burney rubbed a hand over his mouth and looked even more ill-at-ease. “But, my lord…” He glanced at Florrie.

“I said I agree to the terms. You can take care of the matter once we’re settled.”

Burny nodded, and after one last look at Florrie, he left.

“Nathaniel, what’s wrong? What was the letter about?”

He sat thin-lipped with unreadable eyes. Straightbacked and chilled as any blade her father had forged. He glanced at her and gave her a smile that wouldn’t have fooled a child. “Nothing important.”

“Lord Felston. You are not a very good actor.”

“I assure you I’m frustrated, nothing more.”

She didn’t bother to tell him she could spot the difference between frustration and far stronger emotion. “What was in that note?”

“It is just a matter of one of the estates. A problem at Kember. Nothing significant.” He shifted in his seat irritably and crossed his arms over his chest. She leaned her head on his shoulder that had turned into a block of granite with the tension.

“I will find out eventually,” she said at last.

“I beg your pardon, but no. You will not.” He bit off each word as if he wished he could bite her instead. “This is none of your business.”

He was shutting her out, and they’d only been married a matter of hours. She considered acting on the pain he created and throwing something at him. Or shaking him. Or sliding off to a corner to nurse her dignity and ignore him.

Instead she leaned on his unforgiving shoulder and imagined what the note contained. Perhaps it had something to do with his uncle. What else could infuriate him?

A financial set-back. An old lover attempting blackmail. Someone threatening to sue his journal. Perhaps it actually was a serious problem with Kember.