The Pleasure of Bedding a Baroness (7 page)

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Authors: Tamara Lejeune

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“More tea?” she asked, still fuming.
“Yes, thank you,” he said meekly. “And ... about those gooseberry tarts ... ?”
“I’m very sorry,” she said. “I cannot offer you any gooseberry tarts today.”
“But I could smell them halfway down the street!” he protested.
“I baked those for my sewing circle, not you,” she said primly.
“Bugger your charity ladies,” he growled. “I have been yearning for your gooseberry tarts since I left London over a month ago. I have been dreaming of them every night.”
“Maximilian!” she said angrily. “Language!”
“Sorry,” he muttered. “But you must be able to spare one or two!”
“No, I can’t,” she retorted. “I only baked a dozen, and, since Lady Waverly joined our group, we are exactly twelve.”
“Lady Waverly!” he exclaimed, after a pause. “You would give
her
my gooseberry tarts?”
“She is an excellent needlewoman,” said Mrs. Drabble. “Look! She netted me this beautiful lace collar for Christmas.”
No expert on lace, Max frowned at the collar fixed to Mrs. Drabble’s dress, which was otherwise of unadorned brown bombazine. “You don’t like the clock I gave you? It’s French. How well it looks on your mantel!”
“It is a very beautiful clock, my dear,” she told him. “But, you know, there is something very special about a gift that is handmade. It comes from the heart.”
“From the hands, you mean,” he muttered. “And when I was seven I whittled you a little horse out of wood.”
“Don’t sulk. I still have it. It is one of my treasures.”
“It ought to be. I nearly cut off my finger! I notice it is not on the mantel with my clock,” he added in strong reproach.
“No, it is a private treasure. I keep it hidden safe from robbers in a box at the very back of a drawer in my bedchamber.”
Max made a face. “What? Not buried in the garden?”
She laughed. “You had better go now, Max. I expect the ladies to begin to arrive at any minute. You know what a fuss they make over you.”
Max got to his feet. “I daresay Lady Waverly is none too eager to see me again,” he said ruefully.
“No, I don’t suppose she is,” said Mrs. Drabble. “After what you did to her! I don’t think she will ever forgive you.”
“I’m sure I don’t blame her,” he said ruefully. “And now, if I promise not to pinch your bottom, will you allow me to kiss you good-bye?”
“Incorrigible rogue!” she said, offering him her cheek. “Jane will show you out. Jane!”
“No need,” he said quickly. “I daresay Jane is busy. I’ll let myself out.”
He did so, collecting his hat and gloves from the little cloakroom at the foot of the stairs. As he was leaving, Jane herself started up the stairs with a plate piled high with tarts. Deftly, Max liberated one, giving poor Jane a wink. Then he left the house, strolling back the way he had come.
As he drew near the intersection of Oxford Street and Bond, he suddenly saw Miss Prudence Waverly hurrying up the street toward him. Until that moment, he had not appreciated just how much he had been dreading seeing her again. The desire to get away undetected was very strong. Bolting down the last of his gooseberry tart, he hastily retreated to the other side of the street, shielded, he hoped, from her view by a passing carriage. To his relief, she did not seem to see him, but continued on her way with quick steps. Max did the same.
Halfway down Bond Street, he found Freddie Broome looking into a shop window. “I’m afraid you have jam on your face,” Freddie greeted him.
“Gooseberry tart,” Max corrected him. Taking out his handkerchief, he quickly removed the evidence.
“How is Mrs. Drabble?” Freddie asked cordially. “With you it is a gooseberry tart. With me it is a baked egg. There is something very comforting about a baked egg.”
“There is indeed,” Max agreed very gravely.
“I suppose there is something very comforting about a gooseberry tart, too,” Freddie said civilly. “
Chacun à son goût,
as the Frogs say.”
“Precisely,” said Max. “Now what’s all this I hear about you selling my grays?”
“I think you’ll find they are mine,” Freddie replied. “You lost the bet, remember?”
“I’ll buy ’em back!” said Max.
“And so you may,” Freddie replied, “at Tattersall’s! They’re in the Monday sale.”
“You should have offered them to me first.”
“Didn’t know you were in town,” Freddie replied, “and I’m in a hurry. I’m off to St. Petersburg on Tuesday.”
“You can go to the devil for all I care!” said Max. “Take them out of sale. They’re mine! I’ll give you five hundred guineas for them on the spot!”
“Now, you know I can’t do that,” Freddie said mildly. “I would if I could, Max. But you know I can’t. Besides, didn’t you just buy Bassington’s chestnuts?”
“Not a patch on my grays!” said Max.
Freddie suddenly gave a low whistle. “I say! That’s a damned fine-looking girl!”
Max immediately turned to catch a glimpse of the damned fine-looking girl. All the color drained out of his face. He cursed under his breath.
“Max!” she shrieked, waving exuberantly. “Oh, Max! Yoo-hoo! Over here!”
She must have seen him, after all, as he was crossing Oxford Street. She must have doubled back in pursuit of him.
“Miss W——, I presume?” Freddie drawled, raising his quizzing glass.
Max did not bother to answer. Turning quickly, he ran, leaving Freddie staring after him in astonishment. Willing in that moment, to do anything to escape Pru, Max darted into traffic, jumped onto the running board of a passing carriage. Opening the door, he flung himself inside, rolling on the floor.
One of the passengers, a severe-looking middle-aged female, instantly began beating him with an umbrella. “Forgive me!” Max pleaded, raising one arm to fend off the blows. “There’s someone after me. I’ll be gone in a moment. I mean no harm! I just had to get away!”
“I quite understand,” said the other passenger, a handsome, self-assured young woman with auburn hair and pale blue eyes. Her pale blue hooded cloak exactly matched her eyes. “When a girl is that pretty the only thing to do is run away! Porson, you may stop beating Mr. Purefoy now.”
Max looked at her gratefully. “Thank you, Miss ... er ... ?”
Her neatly plucked brows rose slightly. “Lady Isabella,” she said, with a slight emphasis on the “Lady.” “She is remarkably determined, whoever she is,” she went on quite calmly, looking out the window. “Perhaps she has a genuine claim on you, Mr. Purefoy?”
Max shuddered. “Certainly not! I throw myself on your mercy, Lady Isabella.”
She smiled. “You are quite safe now, Mr. Purefoy. The beautiful girl is gone. You may take a seat. Porson! Give Mr. Purefoy your seat.”
Lady Isabella’s maid quickly moved to join her mistress, leaving the opposite seat for Max. “Thank you,” he said. “You know my name. Have we met?”
If Lady Isabella was hurt that he did not remember her, she gave no sign. “My brother and I were fortunate enough to be invited to Breckinridge at Christmas,” she replied. “We danced together twice at the ball, Mr. Purefoy.”
Max was embarrassed. He ought to have recognized the sister of one of his oldest acquaintances. He blamed the American girl; she had wreaked havoc upon his equilibrium. Why, she must have flown from Wimpole Street to overtake him in Bond Street! And how had she known he would be in Wimpole Street? No one knew he liked to visit his old nurse.
“Are you quite all right, Mr. Purefoy?”
Isabella’s genteel voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “Forgive me!” he said. “How are you? You are coming out this year, I believe?”
“Last year,” she laughed. “Thank you for noticing.”
“Yes, of course,” he murmured.
“I was just on my way home. May I set you down somewhere? I believe the danger has passed,” she added with an arch smile. “Or has it? Indeed, your face is very red. I think perhaps I should wish you joy.”
“Good God, no!” he said violently. “A slight entanglement, nothing more. I have been foolish, but not so foolish as to offer marriage. No! I merely promised to give a ball in that young lady’s honor at Sunderland House.”
“I see. The beautiful girl is a relation, perhaps?”
“She is no relation of mine. She is, in fact, an American.”
Her eyes widened. “Not the American baroness everyone is talking of?”
Max frowned. “No. Miss Waverly is the younger sister. I won’t bore you with all the details,” he added impatiently. “Suffice it to say that her elder sister nearly drowned because of me. While her ladyship recovered, it was only natural that I call on them in Clarges Street from time to time.”
“Certainly. To inquire after Lady Waverly’s health.”
“Just so! But I could not ignore Miss Pru—Miss Waverly, I mean. Perhaps it was wrong of me to show her a little of London, but I only meant to be kind. I did not realize that she was falling in love with me until it was too late. Now she is pursuing me in Bond Street! What am I going to do?”
“It’s seems quite hopeless,” said Lady Isabella, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “You will have to marry her.”
“Don’t joke!” he pleaded.
“Poor Mr. Purefoy,” she murmured. “Shall I set you down here? If we go any further, I shall be taking you home with me. I don’t think my brother would approve.”
“May I call on you sometime?” Max asked, as he left her carriage.
“Sometime?” she said coolly.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Are you in Grosvenor Square again this year?”
“Yes,” she answered, holding out her hand to him. He kissed it, then closed the door.
“What a piece of luck!” Isabella cried, as her carriage moved swiftly on. “Fate has dealt me a very promising hand. If I play my cards right, I might be a duchess. They say the Duke of Sunderland will not last another year.”
“Yes, my lady,” said her maid.
Isabella scowled at her. “And the next time a gentleman jumps into my carriage,” she said angrily, “you must hit him harder!”
Chapter 5
 
Max strolled to his club, enjoyed an excellent late luncheon, and strolled back to Sunderland House, quite recovered from the shock he had sustained in Bond Street. Venable, the steady, dignified butler, let him in.
“Is his grace still in bed?” Max asked, handing the parlor maid his hat and gloves.
“No, sir,” Venable replied. “His grace is in the drawing room with Miss Waverly.”
Venable spoke without inflection, but his doubts were betrayed by a slight lift in the brows and a slight question in the eyes.
“What?”
Max echoed in disbelief. “She had the audacity to come here?” Without waiting for any reply, he started up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
“Max! There you are at last!” cried Pru, jumping to her feet as he burst into the room. “I have been keeping your uncle company, as you can see.”
If Venable had seemed a little doubtful, the Duke of Sunderland seemed amazed. “Miss ... er ... Waverly tells me she has been here before ... ?”
“Oh, yes,” Pru said eagerly. “Max gave me the grand tour! It makes our little house in Clarges Street look like a mean little hovel! I won’t tell you what it makes our house in Philadelphia look like.”
Max looked at her coldly, but Pru took no notice of that. “I thought I saw you in Bond Street!” she went on happily, seizing Max by the hand. “Did you not see me? Well, no matter! I knew you must come home eventually. I have been getting to know your dear, dear uncle! He kept you away from London so long that I was afraid he didn’t approve of me. You
do
like me, don’t you?”
“I like all of Max’s friends,” the duke answered, casting his nephew a look of appeal.
“Miss Prudence,” Max said coolly, “what are you doing here?”
She blinked at him. “I told you: I saw you in Bond Street. At least, I thought I did. That was my first inkling that you were back in town. Perhaps I didn’t see you at all. Perhaps it was a sign from heaven!” She giggled.
“It most definitely was not a sign from heaven,” said Max.
“No, I suppose not. I just wanted to thank you,” she went on, “for the invitation to the first drawing room. You just don’t know what it means to me! You haven’t forgotten that you promised to give a ball, too?”
“I have not forgotten,” he said coldly. “The ball will take place the night after your presentation. That is the done thing, I believe.”
“Oh, heavenly!” said Pru. “I don’t mean to remind you of your promise,” she added quickly. “Lady Jemima says I should not remind you of any of your promises to me. But I did want to make sure that you had not forgotten. I wondered why you did not arrange for me to be included in the first drawing room before the invitations were sent out. You did say you would give me every possible assistance in society.”
“It must have slipped my mind.”
“I would not have minded the fourth drawing room,” she went on. “But Patience is invited to the first drawing room, and it hardly seemed
fair
! Especially when she doesn’t even want to go.”
“Miss Prudence, my uncle is very tired. Please allow me to show you out.”
Pru smiled angelically at the duke. “Of course! I can come back tomorrow, when you are feeling better. Good-bye! Parting is such sweet sorrow, don’t you think?”
“It would be better, Miss Prudence,” said Max, “if you would allow us to call on you in Clarges Street. My uncle’s health does not always allow him to receive visitors.”
“Of course. I understand,” Pru whispered. Startling them both, she backed out of the room in a series of deep curtsys better reserved for the throne room at St. James’s Palace.
“There’s no need for all that, Miss Prudence,” Max told her curtly. “A simple curtsy would have sufficed.”
“I know, but I need the practice,” she replied. Outside, she drew his attention to the Waverly coat of arms painted on the door. “Isn’t it handsome? Patience calls it ‘the mystery of the missing lion’s paw’! She’s so impertinent. Honestly, I wish she would abdicate and let me be the baroness. I’d be so much
better
at it than she is.”
With a curt bow, Max put her in the carriage and closed the door. Then he went back to the drawing room to face his uncle.
“What a pretty girl,” the duke congratulated him. “Lively, too. She has such ebullience! Such joie de vivre! I—I quite like her. The two of you might have been made for each other!”
Max was not in the least bit deceived. “Don’t worry, Uncle. I have no intention of marrying her.”
The Duke of Sunderland heaved a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, thank heavens!” he cried weakly. “Twenty minutes in her company and I’m quite done in! I like conversation as much as the next fellow, I’m sure, but there is such a thing as overdoing it.”
“I am sorry she imposed on you.”
The duke drew his shaggy gray brows together. “I rather got the impression, from the young lady’s conversation, that
you
had been imposing on
her
! Long, romantic rides in the park. Trips to the museums, the circus, Madame Tus-sauds.”
“I didn’t see the harm,” said Max. “Not until it was too late.”
“Well, you have promised her a ball,” said the duke, “and a ball she must have. I suppose we will have Soho to make the arrangements.”
“No, no,” said Max. “You must leave everything to me. You are not to lift a finger.”
“I wouldn’t mind arranging an engagement party,” grumbled the duke. “I would not have you marry without love, dear boy—you know I would not! I quite learned my lesson with your poor father, God rest his soul! But I’m not getting any younger, you know. I would like to see you married before I go. I do not mean to pressure you in any way. Only consider! If you were a married man, this young lady would not be bothering us.”
Max’s gray eyes twinkled. “Wife as shield,” he mused. “Why did I not think of it before?”
“There must be someone you like,” the duke said, exasperated.
“Oh, dozens,” Max said lightly. “But in all seriousness, you have been very good in allowing me to choose my own wife. No, you have,” he insisted as the duke protested feebly. “I do appreciate it. And, I think, it would be churlish of me to keep you waiting much longer. Do you remember a tall, auburn-haired girl at our Christmas Ball?”
The duke’s eyes lit up. “Dear boy! It is enough for me that you remember her. Has the lady a name?”
“Isabella Norton. The Earl of Milford is her brother.”
The duke made a face. Endowed with a set of features not unlike those of a toby jug, he was quite good at making faces. “Toady Norton?” he said incredulously. “If
he
has a sister, why, she must be seventy at least!”
“You are thinking of
old
Lord Milford,” Max told him. “I was at school with young Lord Milford.”
“Indeed? My, how time flies! It seems like only yesterday I was sending you off to school. Well, well! My nephew, in love with Toady Norton’s girl! What a small world it is.”
Max shook his head, alarmed. “I did not say I was in love with her, sir! Don’t order the wedding breakfast just yet! But she may suit. She has birth, breeding, and manners. She is not a beauty, perhaps, but she is handsome enough. She
looks
like a duchess. More to the point, she
behaves
like a duchess! I make no promises, but I am engaged to call on her tomorrow.”
“An excellent beginning!” said the duke.
After Pru’s invasion of Sunderland House, Max found the quiet serenity of Lady Isabella’s drawing room enormously attractive. The lady herself was very cool and polite and, after Pru’s histrionics, Max had a new appreciation for the cool and the polite. He felt that life with Isabella could not fail to go smoothly, and he even envied her brother a little.
“How odd my behavior must have seemed to you yesterday, Lady Isabella,” he began. “I believe I owe you an apology as well as an explanation.”
“You owe me neither, sir,” she answered. “I trust my maid did not hurt you? Porson can be a little overzealous in defense of her mistress, I fear.”
Max touched his scalp briefly. Under his black, curly hair there were some sore spots, but nothing too painful. “It was no more than I deserved,” he said. “I had no right to enter your carriage, but my situation was truly desperate. If need be, I would have taken a dozen beatings from your excellent Porson.”
“A dozen beatings?” she said lightly. “The young lady frightens you that much?”
Max shuddered. “Yesterday I was only frightened,” he said. “Now I am terrified.”
Lady Isabella listened attentively as he described returning to Sunderland House, only to find his uncle in the clutches of the exuberant Miss Waverly.
“I am amazed!” said Lady Isabella, shaking her head. “Is there no one to check the young lady? Has she no guardian? No chaperone?”
“She has both,” said Max. “Lady Waverly is her guardian, and I myself engaged Jemmie Crump to act as duenna.”
“And yet Miss Waverly runs wild in the streets,” Lady Isabella said, clucking her tongue.
“Quite literally.”
“It is most improper. It is one thing for a young lady to
pursue
a gentleman,” Isabella added, with a glint of humor in her steel blue eyes. “It is quite another to chase him down Bond Street! She must have been quite out of breath!”
“And so was the gentleman,” he said, as the servant brought in the tea.
Isabella prepared his tea exactly the way he liked it: black with a little lemon. “Would you care for a gooseberry tart, Mr. Purefoy?” she asked, handing him his cup. “I believe they are still warm.”
“My favorite!” Max exclaimed, in surprise. “Ever since I was a child. How did you know?”
“But I had no idea,” Isabella exclaimed in delight. “They’re my favorite, too!”
“What a happy coincidence,” he said.
“Your poor uncle,” she murmured presently. “How shocked his grace must have been! And how incredibly callous of Miss Waverly to insist on your giving her a ball, when his grace is not in the best of health! Could you not make her some excuse?”
“I have no intention of breaking my promise,” Max said firmly. “My uncle shall not be inconvenienced. May I hope,” he went on, “that Your Ladyship will attend? I’d be most grateful.”
“Of course I shall go, if you are good enough to invite me. But I must protest! Surely, you must realize, Mr. Purefoy, that, if you give Miss Waverly a ball at Sunderland House, everyone will assume you are engaged to her!”
“Not if I am engaged to another lady,” said Max.
“Oh?” said Isabella, raising her pale blue eyes to his pale gray ones.
At precisely that moment, the doors of the drawing room opened and a short, rather heavyset gentleman with a large, handsome head, and thin, sandy hair came into the room.
“You remember my brother, of course,” said Isabella. If she was annoyed by the interruption, she gave no sign.
Max and Lord Milford had attended all the same schools, but they had always moved in different circles, Milford being four years older.
“My lord,” Max said.
“Nice to see you again, Purefoy,” Milford said, taking a cup of tea from his sister. “I have just come from the park. Not one in three of the women I passed were worth looking at! If that is any indication, it is going to be a very dull Season indeed!”
“My dear Ivor,” Isabella murmured repressively.
“You should have been in Bond Street yesterday,” said Max.
Lord Milford looked interested. “Bond Street? Why? Did you see many beauties there?”
“Only one,” Max replied. “But, then, how many do you need?”
“Only one,” said Milford. “Well? And who was this beauty? Do you mean to keep her all to yourself?”
“No, indeed,” said Max. “She is Miss Prudence Waverly, a great heiress from America.”
“You did not tell me she was an heiress!” Isabella exclaimed.
“Oh, yes,” said Max. “She and her sister have something like a hundred thousand pounds each.”
“I don’t believe it!” Isabella said incredulously. “I was sure Lord Waverly died bankrupt.”
“He did,” Max acknowledged. “The money comes from their maternal grandfather. He made his fortune in shipping, I believe.”
“Beautiful
and
rich,” Isabella said lightly. “No wonder you ran away from her, Mr. Purefoy!”
“And the sister,” Milford interjected, “this baroness everyone is talking of—rich, too? Are you quite sure about this, Purefoy? I had not heard that they were rich.”
“Quite sure,” Max assured him. “But, I think you will find that the elder sister is not as pretty as the younger, if that matters to you.”
Milford sighed. “I should like to find rank, fortune, and beauty all united in one person. Isabella tells me I must lower my standards or die a bachelor! But I will not compromise. She must be rich and beautiful and well bred, or I will have none of her!”

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