The Pleasure of Bedding a Baroness Read online

  “The Medusa!” Isabella said. “But Lady Waverly and Miss Prudence are twins, you know. Identical twins.”

  “Who told you that?” he laughed.

  “I have seen them with my own eyes,” she said. “I don’t pretend that my brother is sorry that Lady Waverly is an heiress, but if money were his only consideration, you know he would have married Miss Cruikshanks last year.”

  “True,” Max admitted.

  Isabella smiled sadly. “She would have been better off, perhaps, if he had married her. Lord Torcaster mistreats her, from what I hear. It’s almost enough to make me glad I have no fortune,” she added. “When I marry, at least I shall have the happiness of knowing that I am loved for myself alone.”

  She looked at him expectantly.

  “I simply cannot believe,” Max said, “that they are twins! Lady Waverly was ill when I met her, but—Even so! Miss Prudence never said a word. She spoke only of her elder sister. Her much, much elder sister, I thought.”

  Isabella felt that the interview had gotten off track. “Ouch, monkey!” she said, to draw Max’s attention back to herself. “Let go of my earring, monkey!”

  Startled by her outburst, the monkey, which had merely been toying with her jewel, suddenly pulled harder, and would not let go.

  “Oh, Mr. Purefoy! Help me!” Isabella cried, in real distress.

  Max immediately crossed the room. Avoiding the creature’s bared teeth, he grasped it by the scruff of its neck, allowing Isabella to pry its tiny fingers from her earring.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said prettily, when she was free.

  Still holding the monkey by the scruff of its neck, Max rang the bell. A footman appeared to take the animal, but the capuchin would not go quietly. Uttering an unearthly howl, he sprayed his captor with urine. Cursing loudly, Max released the creature, which promptly escaped up the drawing room curtains. From this vantage point, it began with great enthusiasm to fling its feces at anyone who ventured near him.

  Horrified, Isabella ran from the room, and Mr. Purefoy, without once mentioning marriage, immediately left the house.

  Chapter 7

  “How do you do, Lord Milford?” Pru said politely as the earl bent over her hand and kissed it fervently. Privately, she thought him rather ridiculous, with his big head, short legs, and pompous manners. His collar points helped to conceal his weak chin. On his feet were tall, high-heeled boots trimmed with silver tassels.

  “Lady Waverly,” he murmured. “Do forgive me for calling again so soon, but I did want to thank you for the little monkey you sent me. Such an adorable, clever little creature!”

  Pru saw no reason to tell the man that her sister had gone to the bank. With a gracious gesture of her hand, she offered him a seat next to her on the sofa. He accepted, parting his coat tails to sit down. “I’m so glad you came, sir,” she said, in a soft, breathless voice. “I wasn’t sure how you’d take my little joke. Not everyone has a sense of humor.”

  “I dearly love a laugh,” he assured her. “Isabella and I laughed and laughed. What a good joke, we said. She has the headache.”

  Having seen the lady’s carte de visite, which Patience had left carelessly on her desk, Pru knew already that Isabella was his lordship’s sister. “From laughing?” she asked innocently.

  “What?” he said blankly, too slow to catch her meaning.

  “Was it the laughing that gave her the headache?”

  “Oh, no. She woke up that way.”

  Pru decided it would be a very good joke—better than the monkey, even—to persuade this thickheaded ass that Patience liked him. Lightly she touched his hand. “Would you care for some tea?” she asked. “I was just about to have some myself.”

  His lordship returned home in excellent spirits. He had sat with Lady Waverly for twenty minutes, or so he reported to his sister. The baroness had received him very warmly, and he had every reason to believe that her ladyship favored him. Better yet, he had come away with the impression that the rumors of the lady’s large fortune might very possibly be true.

  “Her ladyship seems most anxious to buy a high-perch phaeton, too,” he told Isabella, putting his feet up on the little table in his sister’s boudoir. “Frightfully expensive, I warned her. But she said, and I quote: ‘Price no object, my lord!’ The three sweetest words in the English language, even when spoken within an American twang. I’m to take her to Tattersall’s on Friday to look for something suitable. Most anxious she was to have the benefit of my taste and judgment. Really, she implored me with those great green eyes of hers. And, do you know, I believe there is not a speck of hazel in them?”

  Isabella, who had been seated at her escritoire writing in her journal when her brother had intruded upon her, said coldly, “Kindly get your Hessians off the table!”

  “Mind your tone, madam,” he warned her.

  “I think only of you, Brother,” she said, changing her tone. “I need hardly remind you that we lease this house, and you know how particular Lord Torcaster is of his furnishings.”

  Reluctantly, he moved his feet.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said, Izzy? I’m to escort her ladyship to Tattersall’s on Friday.”

  “I did not think ladies were permitted at Tattersall’s,” she said. “Hallowed ground and all that, what, what?”

  “Don’t be snide. Ladies are allowed on the premises on Fridays—properly escorted, of course. It is a new rule. They still are not permitted to attend the sale on Monday. Her ladyship has asked me to be her agent, should she see anything she likes.”

  Isabella frowned. “Why did you never take me to Tat-tersall’s?”

  He gaped at her. “My sister! Making a show of herself at Tattersall’s? Being ogled by all the men? I should think not. Who would marry you then? I’d never get rid of you.”

  “What about Lady Waverly? You’re taking her.”

  “She is a baroness,” he explained loftily. “And very rich, I do believe. Besides, she is American, and we cannot hold them to the same standards.”

  “Definitely not,” Isabella agreed.

  “For example,” her brother went on, “if an English girl had sent me that monkey, I would not have been amused in the least! Quite the reverse, I should think. But Americans are always amusing, I think.”

  “I take it you have not yet seen your drawing room,” she said dryly.

  “There was quite a flurry of activity as I was going past,” he said.

  “Weren’t you curious?”

  He shrugged. “ I daresay the servants know their business.”

  “Your amusing little monkey made a terrible mess in there,” she informed him.

  “Did he? Cheeky little monkey,” Milford said indulgently. “Never mind. The servants will clean it all up.”

  “I should not have cared in the least,” she snapped, “except that Mr. Purefoy was here! Just as he was going to propose, your monkey went berserk! He ruined the curtains.”

  Milford snorted. “Oh, yes, of course! Mr. Purefoy is forever on the verge of proposing to you! How dare you blame my monkey for your failure? Where is the dear little creature now?”

  “The dear little creature swallowed my earring,” Isabella answered sourly. “The servants are retrieving it now from the creature’s bowels.”

  “I say! Won’t that hurt?”

  “I’m sure it would,” she replied, “if the dear little creature were still alive.”

  He stared at her, his pale eyes bulging. “You killed monkey?”

  “Well, I can’t go about with only one earring! Great-aunt Hester’s amethysts, too!”

  “Bugger Great-aunt Hester! What am I supposed to tell the baroness?”

  Isabella shrugged. “Tell her it choked on a peach pit. Tell her it ran away.”

  He frowned. “She will think I was careless with her gift.”

  Isabella sighed impatiently. “Then, by all means, place an advertisement in the Times for a lost monkey! Offer a reward of a hundred pounds.”<
br />
  “A hundred pounds!”

  “Slow-coach! As no one will ever find that particular monkey, you won’t be called upon to pay.”

  “I quite realized that,” he lied angrily. “And don’t call me slow-coach!”

  And, just to show that he was not a slow-coach, when he placed his advertisement, he offered a reward of five hundred pounds. A monkey for a monkey, in other words. Lady Waverly, he was sure, would enjoy the joke.

  On Friday, he called again in Clarges Street, and this time both sisters were at home. Patience, standing in the hall when Briggs opened the door to the earl, could hardly pretend she was not at home.

  “Lord Milford,” she said civilly as he lingered over her hand, she thought, a bit too long. “I fear you have come at a bad time. I was just on my way out.” Dressed in a bright purple walking habit—one of Pru’s castoffs—as well as her bonnet and gloves, she was merely stating the obvious.

  “Dear lady! I am not late, am I? This was the appointed time, surely?”

  Patience looked at him blankly. “The appointed time?”

  “I have come to take you to Tattersall’s,” he explained. “You are still interested in a high-perch phaeton?”

  “There must be some mistake,” Patience said firmly. “My sister and I are going to Tattersall’s.”

  “I fear there is only room in my curricle for one passenger,” said his lordship.

  Pru chose that moment to make her entrance. “Hello!” she said, gliding down the stairs very slowly, giving them time to appreciate the full effect of her gentian blue walking habit trimmed with puce and pea green ribbons.

  Patience hardly noticed Pru’s latest ensemble. “What have you done to your hair?” she gasped.

  Pru shook the cropped curls bunched over her ears. “Yvette cut it for me,” she said proudly. “It’s the very latest style. Do you like it?”

  “No. You look like a cocker spaniel,” Patience said brutally. “Hurry and put on your bonnet. You have kept me waiting long enough.”

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your beau?” Pru said coyly.

  “My what? Oh, I beg your pardon, sir!” Patience said, flustered as she turned to Lord Milford. “This is my sister, Prudence.”

  “Charming!” he pronounced, bending over Pru’s hand. “If Miss Waverly would like to come with us to Tattersall’s, I shall be only too glad to dismiss my groom. You may have his seat, Miss Waverly!”

  “Thank you ever so!” said Pru. Dashing to the mirror, she arranged her bonnet over her curls very carefully, tying the silk ribbons under her chin.

  “That is very kind of you, my lord,” Patience said firmly, “but I have already sent for the carriage.”

  “But we cannot go alone, Patience,” Pru said gaily. “Tat-tersall’s is a private club. We must be escorted by a member, or they will not let us in.”

  “It would be my honor,” Lord Milford said unctuously, “to escort two such lovely ladies. Shall we?”

  “Oh, yes!” said Pru, seizing his lordship by the arm, leaving an exasperated Patience to follow them out.

  From the groom’s seat, Pru could easily hear and participate in the conversation between the driver and his passenger. “Did Your Ladyship happen to see my little advertisement in today’s paper?” Lord Milford began as his curricle started down the street at a sedate pace.

  “No, sir,” said Patience, observing with disapproval that the heads of his lordship’s horses were cinched much too high.

  Milford looked disappointed. “No? But it was worded so cleverly. ‘Reward offered. A monkey for a monkey.’ What, what?” He laughed at his own joke, accidentally jobbing the mouth of one of his horses. The beast skittered to one side. In retaliation, Lord Milford angrily yanked the reins, pulling the horse’s head back even further. “No, you don’t you, you blackguard! Not a bad joke, eh?” he asked, prompting Patience.

  “What joke?” Patience asked, her hands itching to snatch the reins from him.

  “A monkey for a monkey,” he repeated. “You know!”

  “Is there something wrong with the monkey I gave you?” Patience said, puzzled.

  “No, no!” he cried. “It’s perfectly fine! In the pink of health! It ran away, of course, but, other than that, there’s nothing wrong with it.”

  Behind them, in the groom’s seat, Pru laughed immoderately.

  “There!” said Milford. “Your sister thinks it’s funny.”

  “Prudence will laugh at anything,” Patience said, annoyed not to be in on the joke, but much too proud to ask to have it explained to her. “I wish you would not pull at their mouths so!” she added. “Their necks are almost bent in half.”

  “That is the fashion,” he informed her. “A high, arched neck has such an elegant appearance, would Your Ladyship not agree?”

  “I don’t think the horses like it,” Patience said coldly.

  “They do let their lines collapse if you give them the chance,” he admitted. “But I will teach you how to keep them under control.”

  Patience looked at him incredulously. “You? Teach me? Sir, you are very presumptuous!”

  He gaped at her. “But Your Ladyship begged me to teach you how to drive!” he protested.

  “I most certainly did not,” Patience said angrily. “I’ll have you know, sir, that I am an excellent driver! Furthermore, if I were in need of lessons, you would be the last person on earth I’d ever ask to teach me! For heaven’s sake, mind where you are going!”

  While perfectly sound, her advice, unfortunately, came too late to assist him. Whilst he was staring at her slack-jawed, Milford’s team veered to avoid a pedestrian. Before the earl could get them back under control, the side of the curricle had scraped against another curricle.

  “Mea culpa, my lord!” cried the other driver, even though the Earl of Milford was clearly at fault. “I beg your pardon! Do please send me a bill for the damage.”

  “I should think so, indeed,” said Lord Milford.

  “Nonsense!” said Patience. “Sir, it was entirely your fault!”

  The other driver turned his head, and, with a little gasp of dismay, Patience recognized him. It was Sir Charles Stanhope.

  Coldly, he touched the brim of his hat. “Lady Waverly is mistaken,” he insisted. “The accident was entirely my fault. I do apologize, my lord.”

  “Don’t let it happen again,” Milford said coolly. “I daresay a hundred pounds will do the trick. Not here, man!” he added angrily. “Send it to my house.”

  Chastened, Sir Charles hastily put away the wallet he had reached for too precipitously. “Certainly, my lord. With your lordship’s permission, I shall call tomorrow.”

  “Today would be better,” Milford replied, eager to get his hands on the money. “Go now. You will find my sister at home. Leave it with Isabella.”

  “Yes, my lord!” Sir Charles said easily. “Thank you, my lord!”

  Thoroughly disgusted by this demonstration of the inequities of the class system, Patience had little to say for the rest of the drive to Grosvenor Street.

  “You live in Grosvenor Street, my lord, do you not?” Pru asked him, imperfectly recalling the address on his lordship’s card. “Which house is yours?”

  “I live in Grosvenor Square, Miss Waverly,” he corrected her.

  “Then you must know Mr. Adams,” said Patience, breaking her silence. “He is at Number Nine.”

  “Mr. Adams?” he sniffed. “I have not had the honor. I know of no one who has.”

  “Mr. Adams is the American ambassador,” Patience said indignantly.

  “That certainly does explain it,” said his lordship.

  “Explain what?” Patience said, her eyes narrowed.

  “Why no one ever goes there, of course,” he replied.

  Patience laughed bitterly. “You English think yourselves so superior! But, don’t forget, sir, we have bested you twice in as many wars, and, if you are ever so foolish as to make war with us again, you will be bested a t
hird time.”

  He smiled tolerantly. “I fear Your Ladyship’s speech is riddled with so many errors that it would take a man with more patience than I possess to correct them all.”

  “Name one,” Patience said.

  “There is no such word as ‘bested,’” he informed her. “The correct word, if, indeed, I understood Your Ladyship’s meaning, is ‘worsted.’”

  “Is that so?” Patience said hotly.

  “Furthermore, Your Ladyship would do well to consult a dictionary on the difference between ‘will’ and ‘shall.’ I recommended it to my estate agent, and he found it most instructive. Why, he speaks almost like a gentleman now. As for England making war on her colonies, Your Ladyship is mistaken. Quite the reverse, I should say. You Americans keep making war against England. Biting the hand that feeds you, what? And, as for besting us, or, rather, worsting us, twice, nothing could be so absurd. We are better off without America. Better to cut the cancer out than allow it to spread through the body politic. In the end, we judged, quite rightly, that the colonies were not worth the trouble of keeping them.”

  Patience laughed scornfully. “Is that what you tell yourselves?”

  “In the second conflict,” he added, “America achieved nothing but a return to the status quo. That, my dear Lady Waverly, hardly can be called a worsting.”

  “As the victor of two wars, sir, I believe we Americans may assert our superiority over England in whatever terms we choose! Let us say we bested you the first time, and worsted you the second! Do you like that better?”

  “Patience!” Pru cried in horror. “You are being an ugly American. Lord Milford, I do apologize for my sister. She forgets that we are half English.”

  “No, I don’t,” Patience retorted. “Our father had the good sense to leave England.”

  Lord Milford could hardly believe that Lady Waverly was the same sweet creature who had received him with such pleasure a mere two days before! Never in his life had he been so deceived in a woman’s character. Probably she is not even rich, he decided. If, at this point, they had not been within sight of Tattersall’s in Grosvenor Street, he would have been tempted to make some excuse and take the sisters home. As it was, the street was so crowded it would have been nearly impossible for him to turn the curricle around.