The Babe and the Baron (26 page)

“Forty pounds a year!”

“So she's complained, has she?” the earl sneered.

“Never. She told me to prove her independence, her lack of need for charity.”

“The forty pounds is pure charity. Chamberlain was too much of a fool to ask for anything at all.”

“So am I,” Gareth informed him coolly, thinking more kindly of poor Freddie than he had in years. At least his cousin had not run off with Laura in hopes of a fortune. “Well, I have informed you of my intentions, sir. It remains only to say that I assume you will receive Lady Laura with decent complaisance when she comes to Town as the Baroness Wyckham—”

“Hah,” Medway grunted, but ungraciously conceded, “Shan't cut her, at least.”

“...If she accepts my hand.”

“If?” He guffawed. “Daresay she's learned to tell which side her bread is buttered!”

Seething, Gareth bowed and departed without another word. It was that or strangle the earl, and he could not bear the thought of touching him.

No wonder she had eloped with Freddie! For all his improvidence, his careless charm must have seemed inducement enough to flee such a family. All the same, Gareth was glad to recall that whatever her original feelings for her husband, his frequent absences had ceased to distress her long before his death.

Gareth wanted her love, but he would take her without and hope in time to earn it. The question was, should he declare his love for her, or might it make her refuse him because she could not reciprocate?

Dammit, never had a man so many considerations to bear in mind when he planned his proposal!

Next morning he left early for Llys. He had time enough to reach home by Sunday evening but, pondering how best to offer his hand and his heart to Laura, he drove into a ditch. Though he, his groom, and the horses were unhurt, a spoke of the curricle's wheel snapped. It was past noon on Monday by the time he turned up the drive to the manor.

His travelling carriage stood before the door. The baby's wheeled chair tied on behind made it all too obvious for whom it waited. Flinging the reins to the groom, Gareth dashed into the house.

“Here he is,” cried Perry—Gareth had forgotten the boys were due home Saturday for their Easter holiday. “I told you he would come when he promised.”

Perry, Lance, Cornelius, Aunt Antonia; to one side Myfanwy, cloaked for travelling, and the coachman; George and Henry, and Arabella clinging to the skirts of Laura's carriage dress; all wore long faces.

Laura turned. Beneath the midnight-blue bonnet, her cheeks were pale, her eyes red-rimmed. “I waited...” she said.

Gareth wanted to pull her into his arms and beg her to be his wife, but she was carrying Priscilla. Pris reached out to him with a crow of delight, so he took her. She gave him a damp slobber, because she had not yet quite worked out kisses. He wanted to suggest to her mother that they give a demonstration, but Aunt Antonia was there, and Cornie, and the boys and the children and the servants.

He kissed Priscilla, and holding her tight enough to make her squirm, he looked over her dark curls at Laura. “Stay,” he blurted out, diplomacy and oft-practised pretty speeches forgotten. As she started to speak, he interrupted, softly but urgently, “Marry me!”

“I cannot,” she said, agitated. “I must go. We must go if we are to make any distance today. I only waited to say good-bye and to thank you...for everything. Myfanwy!”

With a curtsy and an “If you please, my lord,” the abigail took Priscilla from him and started towards the front door.

Everyone followed. Amidst the press of last minute farewells, kisses and embraces and promises to visit, Gareth had no chance to explain himself further. Cornelius handed Laura into the carriage, Myfanwy climbed after with the child, the coachman mounted the box, and they were off.

How could he stand with the others waving good-bye to all his hopes? Alone, Gareth went into the house.

Chapter 20

With burning eyes, Laura stared blindly out of the carriage window as the carriage rolled through Llys village. On the seat beside her Priscilla slept already, exhausted after exchanging her morning nap for an endlessly protracted leave-taking. Opposite, Myfanwy sniffled.

Laura forced herself to speak. “My dear, it is not too late to change your mind.”

The little abigail shook her head. “Not me, my lady,” she said determinedly. “There's mopish I felt just for a moment to be leaving home, but 'tis over now. An adventure it is to be going so far off, look you.”

An adventure? If only Laura could so regard the journey, but she did not even feel she was going home. She had left her heart behind her at Llys Manor.

Her chagrin at Gareth's absence during her last fortnight in his house had vanished. Her anger at his all too public proposal had never been more than a flash in the pan. Somehow he had overcome his reluctance to wed. When he held Priscilla for the last time, he had suddenly realized that he could not bear to lose her.

Or perhaps his offer had simply been another instance of his generosity, stretched to the utmost, the only way he could think of to allow Laura to stay at Llys without living on charity.

Should she feel grateful, or should she feel selfish for depriving him of the child he loved? She was also depriving Priscilla of all the advantages of an upbringing at Llys, she thought with a pang. If it had been pride alone which prevented her accepting Gareth... But it was fear, too, fear that she might come to hate him for not loving her as she loved him, for not wanting her as she wanted him.

For what else could explain his victory over his fear of marriage? It must mean he did not desire her, so he would not make love to her, so she would never conceive another child, to terrify him with memories.

She could not marry him on such a basis! Not that she had the choice now, after publicly rejecting him. Never mind her pride; his would rebel against a renewal of his suit.

He would thank her in the end, Laura persuaded herself. He had proposed on an instant's impulse, without reflection. When he came to consider the consequences of marrying a widow with a scandalous past, he would realize her refusal was a lucky escape. She would not be a wife he could take to London and present with pride to the Ton. Those who had forgotten her elopement would soon remember when her parents, his Aunt Sybil, and the Chamberlains declined to receive her.

It was best for both of them that she should go back to the quiet contentment of her cottage, with the added joy of her child.

Changing horses at the Feathers in Ludlow was painful. Every turn of the street in the little market town reminded Laura of Gareth. Every glimpse of the castle recalled his explanation of his fears and the brief embrace which had shaken her world.

The change was quickly accomplished and they drove on. After that, Laura and Myfanwy were kept too busy entertaining Priscilla for regrets. The miles and the days passed, until at last they reached Cambridge, where they spent the last night on the road.

“I do not want to arrive at the cottage in the evening,” she told Myfanwy. “It has stood uninhabited for ten months so I daresay it will take a day or two to set all to rights. At the very least the sheets will need airing.”

The first sight of the cottage was dispiriting. The beech hedge was so overgrown, the gate was barely passable. In the tiny front garden, violets, primroses, crocuses, and daffodils struggled through a mat of last year's dead weeds and this year's already thriving dandelions and goosegrass. The latch on the front door was so rusty with disuse it took the coachman's strength to budge it.

Inside was worse. The dust Laura had expected—the money she left for Sally had run out long since, and she could not expect the girl to go on cleaning for no wages, especially with no notion when Laura might return. The dank chill and the cobwebs were unpleasant but inevitable. But upon opening the parlour door, she found the floor and furniture nearest the fireplace covered with soot.

“A bird in the chimbley that'll be,” said Myfanwy, peeping around her, “or a squirrel, mayhap.”

“Let us hope whatever it was is not stuck in the chimney,” Laura exclaimed. “The rug and the chairs will never be the same again.”

Whatever it was in the chimney, the cause of the chaos in the kitchen was plain. A very dead squirrel lay under the stone sink. The smell was indescribable. Pots and pans and broken china littered the floor, the flowered chintz curtains were shredded, and gnaw-marks on the window frame showed where the poor creature had tried to escape. How it had entered was a mystery.

No mystery about how the rain had entered the back bedroom, producing a flourishing crop of mildew: a falling branch had broken a windowpane. It had then fallen on the woodshed and crashed through the roof. Practically all the firewood was damp.

Laura and Myfanwy looked at each other and laughed, because the only alternative was to cry. “At the very least,” Laura ironically repeated her own words, “the sheets will need airing.”

“A day or two to set all to rights,” the maid quoted. “Well, my lady, longer'n that it'll take us, seemingly, but the sooner 'tis begun, the sooner 'tis done.”

* * * *

During Gareth's absence, a stack of letters had accumulated on his desk in the library. They promised distraction from his misery, so he resolutely ploughed through them.

All but one were easily dealt with, or set aside to be answered later. The one he took to Aunt Antonia's sitting room.

He found the old lady seated at her bureau. Writing paper, blotting paper, inkstand, quills, sealing wafers lay before her, but the writing paper was blank, the pen in her hand undipped.

She set down the pen as he entered, and passed a hand across her eyes. The gesture wiped out the melancholy expression on her face, but not before Gareth had seen it. Her smile was an obvious effort.

“What can I do for you, Gareth?”

“I've a letter from Maria. She is engaged to be married—and I am not.” The last four words were reft from him against his will.

His aunt's face crumpled. “I miss her already.” She was not talking of Maria.

Gareth slumped into the nearest chair. “I've lost her. I did everything wrong. You heard me ask her to marry me?”

“No, but I guessed. No doubt it was unwise to toss so momentous a question at her so abruptly, and so publicly.”

“I ought to have demanded a word with her in private, but I lost my head when I saw she waited only upon my arrival to depart. Why was she in such a hurry to go? After all these months, did I not deserve a proper leave-taking?”

“I believe she was hurt that you absented yourself when she had so little time remaining at Llys. I could not take it upon myself to tell her you had gone to Town to speak to her father. With what success?”

“What does it matter since she won't have me?” he mourned, burying his face in his hands.

“My dear Gareth,” Aunt Antonia said in a caustic tone she had rarely used towards him since boyhood, “surely you do not mean to give up so easily? I had thought better of you. A momentary despair is excusable. Indeed, I shared it myself. But—”

“Where's young what's'ername?” Uncle Julius invaded the sitting room with his usual lack of ceremony. “You know the one I mean, the pretty chit with the baby. Can't put my finger on her name. Hazel? Heather? Ivy? Lilian?”

“Laura,” Gareth and his aunt said as one.

“That's the one. I knew it had something to do with plants. I've finished the baby-pen. Where is she?”

“Laura has gone back to Cambridgeshire, Julius.”

The inventor gaped at her in consternation. “Gone? And taken the baby?”

“Yes, Uncle.” Gareth jumped up, shaken by a sudden hope. “But never fear, I shall take the baby-pen to her. Don't you see, Aunt, it will give me an excuse to follow her, so she doesn't feel persecuted. I shall let a few days lapse, to give her time to settle into her cottage. And when I get there, I shall tell her about Maria, and explain that I should have better grounds for keeping George and Henry and Arabella if I were married—”

“No! Do not, for heaven's sake, Gareth, confuse the issue any further. Tell her you love her!”

Gareth grinned. “Yes, ma'am. Aunt Antonia always knows best.”

* * * *

“Priscilla, no!” Laura caught the baby's hand just as the celandine was about to disappear into her mouth.

Pris screeched in annoyance as her hand was pried open. Just a moment ago she had been lying quietly on the rug on the lawn, playing happily with her own feet. Laura had turned from wrestling with a particularly stubborn dandelion to find her daughter ten feet from where she had been laid. Oh, for Uncle Rupert's baby-pen!

The mild March day slipped towards evening. The air was growing chilly. Pris in her arms, Laura turned back to gaze at the patch of vegetable bed she had cleared of weeds. The expected sense of accomplishment was missing. She did not seem to be able to feel anything these days other than the hollow ache in her heart.

“Time to go in, lovie. Myfanwy will be back from the farm soon with a nice fresh egg for your supper.”

“Ma-ma-ma-ga-ga,” said Priscilla.

Was she saying Mama on purpose? Surely she was too young to be trying to say Gareth. She missed him, and all her friends at Llys, Laura was certain, though Myfanwy ascribed her increased fussiness to teething.

They went into the cottage, clean again and neat as a new pin except for the parlour fireside chairs, for which new covers would have to be made. The sweep had come that morning and swept a rook's nest out of the chimney. In the kitchen, wood was stacked by the fireplace to dry out. Laura noticed the fire was low. She might as well mend it before she cleaned off the garden dirt.

Pris started her wet-napkin whimper just as Laura heard the front door open and close. Myfanwy came into the kitchen and set down a can of milk and a basket of eggs, butter, and cheese on the table.

“Take her upstairs and change her please,” said Laura. “Just her napkin, not her clothes, which will be all over food in no time. I must wash my hands.”

“There's your face could do with a scrub, too, my lady,” Myfanwy said with a smile. “Pushed your hair out of your eyes with a muddy hand you did, I 'spect. Come on then, Miss Pris.”