The Baron’s Betrothal: An On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again Regency Romance (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series) (2 page)

“Recall, I didn’t volunteer,” he growled, “I was conscripted. And I have every right to know where we’re going next as I’m now
persona non grata
at The Sundew. I was hoping to tuck into their steak and kidney pie tonight.”
 

“Oh, I can feed you a decent venison stew,” she said and looked him over again, “though I may not have enough. Come, bring—”

“Algernon.” Clun took up the horse’s reins and followed her out of the stable. She led him along a path through a hedge into a field he recognized in the fading light. They walked single file toward his Shropshire estate’s southern border.

“Algernon. That’s an old name. Derives from Norman French,” she said, “
Aux Gernons
, I believe means ‘with mustache.’”
 

He examined her at his leisure. She wore an odd homespun shift of some sort that fit quite snugly, with sleeves well above her wrists and a hem exposing a begrimed petticoat, trim ankles and incongruously fine, silk stockings with clocks. Her imperious manner and cultivated speech trumped her jumbled costume. She was a lady, albeit a passing strange one.

“Where are we going?” He asked her back. The view of her derrière swaying with each step improved somewhat his foul mood.
 

“To a cottage on the estate just over there,” she said over her shoulder.

“Which estate?”

“Baron Clun’s estate, I live there.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I just said I did,” she replied and muttered, “Must large men be so mutton-headed?”

He let her jibe pass.
 

“You’re not one of his tenants, are you?”
 

With his luck, she’d be prancing and swaying in the neighborhood while he was obligated to wed an earl’s bracket-faced, ham hock-ankled daughter. For the first time in more than a year since his betrothal, the baron felt a twinge of regret for having arranged to marry a female he’d never laid eyes on.

“Do you work on the estate?” He assumed she was his half-brother Tyler Rodwell’s current ladylove. Women always made fools of themselves over the man’s buccaneer smile and blue eyes.

“No, I don’t work on the estate.”
 

“Why do you live there, if I may ask?”

She turned to walk backward and explained, “It’s a long story.”

He arched an eyebrow. She swept a thick lock of hair from her face and turned to give him her back.
 

“Well, in a nutshell, I’m in seclusion for a while. That’s all,” she said over her shoulder while hiking away from him.

“Why?”

“That is none of your business, sir,” she replied with regal asperity.
 

Minx
.
 

“For how long?”

“Until I reach my majority, I suppose.”

“And that will be—”

“When I’m one-and-twenty, of course!” She muttered to herself about the obtuseness of great, lumbering lummoxes, much to the baron’s amusement.

“And when will that be?”

“Not long. I’m twenty years old.”

“You’ll live here on your own for almost a twelve-month?”

* * *

The man’s smirk irked Elizabeth.
 

 
“I’ll manage. Hunt game. Barter at the market.” She was shocked how easily the lies tripped off her tongue. Still, if she did have to stay that long, she would find a way. She was nothing if not resourceful.

“You’re hiding in one of Lord Clun’s cottages and poaching his game for pin money?”

“It’s not poaching, really.”

“Oh no?”
 

“Surely, it’s not poaching if I’m betrothed to Lord Clun.”

“Betrothed to—,” he said, stumbling to a standstill as his horse bumped his back, “Clun?”

Elizabeth kept walking even though her temporary henchman no longer followed at her heels.
 

“My father, the Earl of Morefield, arranged it with him. I’ve never met the baron, mind you. The marriage settlement’s been finalized for ages. Well, since last year or so. We’d just received word Lord Clun planned to carry me off next month. Disgusting, isn’t it?”
 

She finally looked over her shoulder to find empty space where a lumbering lummox should have been. She spun to find him gaping at her, dumbfounded.
 

“It’s shocking, I agree,” she cried. “I’ve been bartered away like a prize heifer with no regard for my wishes. None. I had to run away and hide until I’m safely one-and-twenty or I’m released from this ludicrous arrangement.”
 

“And then?” the dark-eyed giant asked as he walked slowly to join her.

“I shall do as I wish. When I reach my majority, I inherit an independence from my mother. Nothing so lavish as my dowry but then my dowry would’ve never been mine, would it? The inheritance will afford me self-sufficiency.”

“And what of Clun?”

“He’ll have to find himself another prize heifer if he wants an heir and a spare. It needn’t be me.”
 

“And if he wants you?”

“How could he possibly want me in particular? We’ve never met. Never danced. Never so much as exchanged a how-do-you-do.”

“You objected to the betrothal?”

“Well, no, I didn’t, but only because it was too preposterous to take seriously. The earl told me about it, swore me to secrecy and then nothing happened. More than a year passed and we heard nothing more from the baron. So, I assumed it came to naught and my father hadn’t mentioned it, for fear I’d become emotional. As if I’d care a jot — a
spangle
 
— if I didn’t marry a man I’d never clapped eyes on.”

“No, of course not,” he said in a bland tone, “not a whit or a fig. And now?”

“To insist that I marry him after all this time would be peevish, don’t you think? We live in an enlightened age, after all. What gentleman with all his faculties would take a bride sight unseen?”
 

“Perhaps Lord Clun is old fashioned.”

“That’s not old fashioned, sir, that’s medieval. Lord Clun would have to be a hoary, desiccated old—”

“Now, now. How could you possibly know what he is or isn’t?” Said the man walking behind her.

“Well, I do know that if he weren’t completely awful, there’d be any number of young ladies eager to be his baroness,” she retorted and felt badly when she saw him flinch at her blunt assessment. Outspokenness was one of her besetting sins.
 

Perhaps he knew Lord Clun, she reproached herself. But then if he did, it was bad manners not to say so. Besides, the whole business was infamous. She refused to feel too badly for the ancient baron or his nosy acquaintance.
 

* * *

“If he weren’t completely awful,” she’d said. Unfortunately, the chit had a point. Although he towered over every female except this one, Clun knew his size was the least off-putting of his attributes. His reputation and demeanor had proved inconvenient while prowling the Marriage Mart soon after returning from the continent. Granted, Clun never made much of an effort. He’d grown disgusted quickly.
 

Was it his fault he had heavy black brows and a propensity to glower from under them? Or to issue monosyllabic responses to silly chatter? Or to dress with monochromatic austerity, as his valet reproached him? Well, yes, most of it was. But it was certainly
not
his fault that his supposed ‘ferocity’ had became firmly fixed in the minds of querulous Society debutantes.
 

Thanks to hyperbolic newspaper tales about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, men respected him, virginal women feared him and even experienced women treated him with trepidation. Put simply, he was too big, too dark and too daunting. In bed play, merry widows wanted to be teased and seduced, not overpowered, plundered and practically left for dead. Not that he would do that. He took great pains to be a generous lover. Still, only a female with considerable intestinal fortitude could overlook the former attributes to discover the latter.

In any event, another Horseman of the Apocalypse, his well-informed friend, the Hon. George Percy,
³
had suggested the Earl of Morefield might consider an arranged match for his daughter, given it was three years since her come-out and the elderly earl wanted her settled. Thus, Clun’s betrothal to Lady Elizabeth Damogan was contracted sensibly, with a minimum of fuss and bother, between two rational men of sound character and ample means.
 

After finalizing the betrothal, he heard nary a squeak of protest from that quarter. So he assumed either Lady Elizabeth accepted her father’s arrangements stoically or had no notion who he was.
 

Ah well, it could never be that simple for a de Sayre, could it?

 
“And what if the baron is a beast?” Clun asked his betrothed finally.
 

“Why must I be the virgin sacrifice?”
 

Clun burst out laughing, much to her chagrin. He threw his head back, leaned into his horse and let his deep chuckle rumble up like lava from a fault in the earth’s crust. Her disgruntled look sent him into higher-pitched howls of laughter. The baron eventually wiped his streaming eyes and calmed himself enough to say, “Perhaps Lord Clun isn’t decrepit, merely a sensitive soul who fears rejection of his suit.”

“Which would make him a spineless coward! Is he man or mush? The more we talk of him, the less I like the baron,” she concluded and marched off in the direction of an old cottage on the edge of his home wood.

“Aren’t you afraid of being recognized and handed over to the hoary, old baron?” Clun called out after her.

“Not at all. No one knows me here. I’ve only ever lived in London and Devonshire, and visited Bath a few times. I’ve never set eyes on the baron, or he me. What’s more, he isn’t expected back here for some time. He planned to collect me in London, where it so happens I am not. And this,” she said, spreading her arms wide, “is the very last place on earth my father would ever think to look for me, don’t you think?” She crossed her arms over her chest with a self-satisfied smirk that Clun wanted to kiss off her lips.

“Obviously, you’ve thought of everything,” he said. “Poor Lord Clun.”
 

Lord Clun followed his runaway fiancée through the woods that stood along his estate’s southeastern border to a small, thatched cottage near a stream that flowed through the property. Autumn wildflowers dotted the open space around the cottage. A well-worn hard-packed dirt path led to its low, arched front door.
 

“Wonderful, isn’t it? So charming.” She faced him. “I’m afraid we’ll have to eat tepid stew. I’ve run out of firewood.”

“There’s a pile there.” Clun indicated a heap of logs nearby. A large, flat stump had a weathered axe stuck in it and scars from countless axe falls. Few split pieces remained stacked nearby.

“They’re much too big.”

“Would you like me to chop you some firewood?”

“Yes, please.” She gave him a dazzling smile and disappeared inside the cottage. He let Algernon graze.
 

When she came out again, Clun removed his greatcoat and redingote and handed them to her. Before unbuttoning his waistcoat, he removed his thick, gold signet ring and tucked it into the watch pocket for safekeeping. His smallest finger felt too light, liberated from its weight.

“May I have my stew piping hot?”
 

“You may,” she said and sashayed to a crude bench to drape his coats over it and sit down. He shrugged out of his waistcoat. When he looked around, he noticed her watching him. Rapt. He liked the way she stared. He tossed the waistcoat on the pile of logs and went to work.

* * *

It was utterly improper.
 

Elizabeth knew dining with this man would give the earl and all of Society spasms if ever they heard of it. Being alone with a strange man, much less sharing a meal without benefit of chaperone, guaranteed scandal. There would be dire repercussions, if they were anywhere near the watchful eyes of the
ton
. But this wasn’t London. One needn’t put too fine a point on social niceties in a wilderness. Besides, this man rendered an invaluable service, a service moreover, which might have endangered him, so Elizabeth quickly determined that here, in the western reach of England hard by the wilds of Wales, she could safely ignore the nit-picky strictures of Polite Society.

Nit-pickiness aside, she knew full well that she ought not to watch any man undress, even if it only involved outer layers. She simply could not pass up the opportunity to see more of this particular man.
 

As he rolled up his linen shirtsleeves, she fixed on his thick, well-muscled forearms. He hefted the large axe effortlessly in big hands. He braced long, strong legs and bent down to snatch up a log. Standing it on the stump, he swung the axe in a smooth, blurred arc, splitting the wood in one stroke. His shoulders bulged and tensed with efficient movement. He split log after log. The pile of firewood grew, as did Elizabeth’s agitation.

“I don’t see why I should marry some decrepit old aristocrat,” she picked up where she’d left off. “I’d rather marry someone who can do, uh, useful things.” She couldn’t take her eyes from him, as he swung and struck the logs with a mastery that heated her fair skin from head to toe.
 

“Aristocrats can do useful things,” he argued. (Thunk!)

“Not the ones I know,” she sighed. “Except my father.”

“Why assume Lord Clun is decrepit?” (Thunk!) “For all you know, he’s a man chock full of practical skills of which you’d approve.” (Thunk!)
 

Elizabeth harrumphed. Her henchman-cum-woodsman had the cultivated speech of a gentleman, although he spoke in a deep, melodic voice sweetened with Welsh. He subtly rolled the hard r’s and caressed and tr’s of English. It was nothing like the Scottish brogue of Mr. MacAvoy, her father’s man of business, or the Irishmen she’d heard in London. Each time he purred ‘Lo
Rr
d’ Clun, she shivered.
 

She could listen to him all day, even when he glanced at her over his shoulder and rumbled, “It’s hard not to conclude that Lord Clun has the poorer part of the bargain!”