The Pleasure of Bedding a Baroness Read online

  Milford liked dining out, but he could ill afford to pay for the privilege. And, unlike grocers’ bills, one’s account at one’s club must be kept in good order. “How do you know Purefoy ain’t dining at Sunderland House with his uncle?” he said belligerently.

  “From what I hear, his grace is on a very restricted diet,” Isabella replied. “Barley water and pudding.”

  Milford shuddered. “I’d rather be dead.”

  “The lady who marries Mr. Purefoy will not have to wait long to be a duchess, perhaps!” said Isabella. “But you may depend on it. Mr. Purefoy will be dining out. He likes his red meat and his claret. Dine with him tonight and I shall order you a lamb for tomorrow. I shall make the mint sauce myself.”

  Lord Milford went first to White’s, where he was detained for several minutes by Lord Torcaster, who had seen him at Tattersall’s with Lady Waverly and her sister. In the previous season, Torcaster had been on the verge of bankruptcy, but he had restored his family to preeminence by marrying Miss Cruikshanks, the daughter of a wealthy merchant.

  “I wonder you do not bring your American friends to dine with us at White’s,” Lord Torcaster drawled as he met Milford on the stairs.

  Milford continued on to the dining room. “You know as well as I do, my lord, that females are not allowed in White’s.”

  “I would be tempted to make an exception for two such attractive young ladies,” Torcaster leered. He belonged to the older generation, and his ivory teeth looked very yellow against his powdered skin and wig. “Heiresses, too, from what I hear, and one an hereditary baroness!”

  Milford was not deceived by his lordship’s derisive tone. Lady Torcaster was cross-eyed and dull as a cow. Torcaster, no doubt, wished that he could have held on for another year.

  “Who told you they were heiresses?” he asked. “Was it Purefoy?”

  “Purefoy? No, it was my barrister. The man has a nose for money. A million pounds between them, by God!”

  Milford frowned. “I heard it was dollars.”

  “Dollars, pounds,” snarled Torcaster. “It is more than I got for Cruikshanks’s fat daughter.”

  Milford smiled tranquilly. “How is dear Lady Torcaster? Breeding, I hope?”

  Torcaster flushed under his maquillage. “Fortunately, my last countess furnished me with both an heir and a spare. I hear Purefoy deprived you of the baroness today. It will not be long, I trow, before some handsome young buck steals the other one, too!”

  “What has Purefoy to say to anything?” Milford returned, considerably nettled. “I have already fixed my interest with Lady Waverly.”

  “I rather doubt it, my boy,” said Torcaster.

  Milford stiffened. “You doubt my word, my lord?”

  Torcaster laughed. “Perhaps it is the lady whom I doubt.”

  “I tell you, I do mean to marry her,” Milford said hotly.

  Torcaster lifted his painted brows. “Mean to, sir? I meant to read the Bible cover to cover. However, I did not. Anyone can mean to marry anyone.”

  “I shall marry her,” Milford declared.

  “Ah! Yes, of course. But will she marry you?”

  “Of course.”

  “You speak with such certainty!” Torcaster marveled. “Shall we open the betting book?”

  Milford hesitated.

  “I thought not,” Torcaster said smugly.

  By this time, the conversation had attracted some notice from the other gentlemen in the room. Milford heard derisive laughter, murmurs of ridicule.

  “I am as good as engaged to Lady Waverly,” he announced, red with anger. “I will bet you what you like, my lord! I am not afraid.”

  Torcaster snapped his fingers for the betting book. “Shall we say ten thousand pounds, my lord?”

  Milford paled, but said resolutely, “Certainly.”

  The bet was duly entered into the book. Torcaster smiled broadly. “My Lord Banville,” he called across the room to a handsome young man. Lord Banville had not been paying attention to the fracas between the Earl of Torcaster and the Earl of Milford, but he turned his beautifully barbered head at the sound of his name.

  “My lord?” he said languidly.

  “Did not Lord Waverly die owing you a little money?” Torcaster asked, trying to pull an innocent face and managing a droll one.

  The viscount shrugged. “A mere trifle. But two or three thousand. Why?”

  “You should call on the new baroness, sir. Forgive the debt, and see what happens.”

  “That would be poaching, sir!” Milford protested, outraged.

  Torcaster only laughed. “Lord Milford forgave a debt of a mere five hundred pounds, and he has been living in the lady’s pocket ever since.”

  “Let him live there, then,” Lord Banville said indifferently.

  “To fortune, my lord, I know you are perfectly indifferent,” said Torcaster. “But the lady is uncommonly beautiful, my lord, and she has a twin sister. And then, of course, there is Wildings. Twenty-six thousand acres of unspoiled wilderness. Are you a sportsman, my lord?”

  “Wildings, did you say?” Lord Banville murmured.

  “Now just a minute,” Milford protested. “I saw the lady first! Forgiving the debt was my idea!”

  Banville’s lip curled. “What would you do with twenty-six thousand acres of prime wilderness?” he said scornfully. “You must be the worst shot in the kingdom.”

  “But I am practically engaged to the lady,” Milford protested weakly.

  A smile played on the viscount’s lips. “Then what are you afraid of?”

  As Isabella had foreseen, Max did indeed dine out, though it must be said he had little appetite. He had sent a note to Freddie Broome, inviting him to dine, but his cousin had not shown up. Max could not blame him. Glancing up at the clock for the hundredth time, he saw the Earl of Milford bearing down on him.

  “Ah, Purefoy! I was hoping to dine with you. All alone?”

  “As you see,” Max said coolly.

  Milford took this for an invitation and sat down. “Isabella particularly wanted me to dine with you,” he went on, signaling to the waiter.

  “Isabella?” Max repeated blankly, as if he had never heard of the lady.

  Milford looked surprised. “My sister, you know.”

  “Oh, yes,” Max murmured. “She is in good health, I trust?”

  “Excellent health, sir. Sound as the pound. The women in our family are remarkably healthy, sir. Excellent breeders.”

  Max lifted his brows. “Your mother died in childbirth, did she not?”

  “Well, yes, but both her children were perfectly healthy,” Milford said quickly. “That is the important thing. Isabella pretends to have the headache, of course, but it is nothing serious. An excuse to stay home, nothing more. In case you should care to call on her, Purefoy.”

  “Perhaps I will call tomorrow,” said Max. “Will you ask her to stay at home?”

  “She shall stay at home,” Milford assured him. “Poor Isabella! She has been fretting for nothing. She was sure Lady Waverly had poached you!”

  A shadow fell across the table, and Max was pleased to see his cousin.

  “Sorry, Max! I did not get your note until quite late.”

  Max smiled broadly. “My dear fellow! I thought you would never speak to me again. Take my chair,” he added, hurrying to get another, beating out the efficient waiter.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said Freddie, sitting down and reaching for the claret. “Mind you, it was a mean, dirty trick, leaving me to face the bloodthirsty virago by myself!”

  “She would have ripped me limb from limb,” Max protested.

  “Coward!”

  Max sighed. “Quite so.”

  Freddie shook his head. “If you aren’t careful you will wake up one of these days married to that female. Then there will be no escaping her. I don’t suppose you will be careful, however. Shall I wish you joy now, or will it keep until I return from the frosty bosom of the Romanovs?”
r />   “You jest!” Milford accused him.

  “No, my lord,” Freddie replied. “I’m off to Russia on Tuesday.”

  “You jest about marriage, sir,” Milford said testily. “You know very well that Purefoy can be in no danger from Lady Waverly.”

  “Quite right,” said Max. “There’s not the least chance of my getting her now.”

  “No, indeed,” said Milford, “for I have just bet Lord Torcaster ten thousand pounds that I will marry her.”

  Max regarded him with his brows drawn together. “You?” he fairly snarled. “You marry that—that magnificent creature? I don’t think so!”

  Milford stared at him. “Why not, sir?”

  “Because I am going to marry her, that’s why!” Max said fiercely. “Shall we wager on it, sir? Ten thousand pounds, again? What’s more, I will give you odds of five to one.”

  “Five to one?” Milford gasped. “But that is fifty thousand pounds, sir!”

  “Only if I lose,” Max replied. “I don’t intend to.”

  Freddie chuckled. “You would do well, my lord, to get out of my cousin’s way. There is a decided scent of orange blossom about his person that does not bode well.”

  “I will take your bet, Mr. Purefoy!” Milford said, glaring at Freddie.

  It was, perhaps, not the wisest thing he had ever done, but Milford’s pride would not allow him to be mocked by the younger son of a baron. He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, but there was nothing to do but insist on having the betting book brought out.

  But, then, as he thought more about it, he began to think it would have been foolish of him to pass by the opportunity to enrich himself. If he married Lady Waverly, he stood to gain sixty thousand pounds, over and above the fortune she would bring to her husband.

  Even if he failed to marry her, he might yet win fifty thousand pounds, if he could but prevent Mr. Purefoy making her his wife. With fifty thousand pounds, he could pay off his bet with Lord Torcaster very easily.

  And, even if Purefoy did marry the baroness, all was not lost! He, Milford, could always marry Prudence.

  By the time he returned home, he firmly believed he had been clever.

  And, yet, for some reason, he said nothing about it to his sister when he saw her the next morning at breakfast. Isabella, he felt instinctively, would not understand.

  Chapter 10

  “Lord Banville!” Lady Jemima exclaimed, snatching the gentleman’s card from the silver tray. “And his mama, dear Lady Mortmaigne! Straighten your lace, Miss Prudence. One never gets a second chance to make a first impression, you know.”

  Pru glanced up from her novel, slowly twisting a lock of her hair around one finger. “Never mind my lace. He won’t be looking at my lace.”

  “The countess will be looking,” Lady Jemima retorted.

  “I suppose that is my cue to leave,” said Patience, rising from the escritoire where she had been attempting to balance her accounts. “You look very nice, Pru.”

  Pru pointedly looked away.

  Patience sighed. Pru had not said a word to her in twenty-four hours. Perhaps her visitors would put her in a better mood. She herself regarded purely social calls as tedious interruptions, but Pru always seemed eager for more.

  “My dear Lady Waverly,” Lady Jemima protested as Patience started for the door. “Lady Mortmaigne and her son represent the uppermost circle of English society! Would you skulk away without meeting them?”

  “Why? What have you got against skulking?”

  “What excuse am I to give?”

  Patience glanced down at the bill in her hand. “Tell their excellencies that I must speak to the housekeeper about green peas. I don’t remember eating any. At three shillings a pound, I think I should remember eating them.”

  “How can you talk such nonsense?” Pru said angrily, forgetting that she had decided to punish Patience with silence. “She is a countess! And her son is a viscount! One cannot talk to the nobility about green peas.”

  “Then I had better go,” said Patience, but, before she could make her escape, Briggs opened the doors, and she was obliged to stop short. An elegant middle-aged lady and a handsome young man, both with chestnut hair and blue eyes, stood looking at her.

  “How do you do?” said Patience, sticking out her hand.

  Lord Banville bowed over it, and would have kissed it, but his mama elbowed him in the ribs, and said, under her breath, “Don’t be daft, Lawrence. Shake the lady’s hand. That’s how they do it in America. Isn’t that right, Lady Waverly?”

  Patience’s eyes lit up. “You’ve been to America, ma’am?”

  “Heavens, no,” Lady Mortmaigne replied, “but I met Mr. Adams once at a reception—oh, years ago, when I was first married. And now his son is the American ambassador. My, how time does fly! I daresay, Mr. John Quincy Adams will become your president one day, too, like his father before him?”

  “That will depend on the election, ma’am,” Patience replied. “Won’t you come in? This is my sister, Miss Prudence Waverly. Perhaps you know Lady Jemima already?”

  “Everybody knows Jemmie,” Lady Mortmaigne said, sailing past Patience to greet Lady Jemima like an old friend. “Er ... will you not shake hands with me, Miss Waverly?”

  “No, ma’am,” Pru said. “I will curtsy. I have been practicing for the queen.”

  As she demonstrated the deep court curtsy, Patience quietly slipped out of the room. She was partway down the stairs when she heard a voice behind her.

  “You are not leaving, I hope, Lady Waverly?”

  Patience smiled at Lord Banville. “I beg your pardon, sir, but I really must speak to my housekeeper about this bill for green peas.”

  To her annoyance, he trotted down the stairs to her. “Would this help you at all, Lady Waverly?” he asked. Taking out his billfold, he presented her with a card.

  Patience looked at it, puzzled. “This is one of your cards, sir. I have one like it already.”

  She would have handed it back to him, but he said, “Your uncle was good enough to place his vowels on the back of it, my lady. Pray, accept it with my compliments.”

  Patience turned the card over and gasped. “Twenty-five hundred pounds! Sir, I can’t—! Sir, it will take me some time to raise such a sum.”

  “You misunderstand me, my lady,” he said quickly. “I have not come to collect. As far as I am concerned, the debt died with your uncle. Take it, please. Tear it to bits, burn it if you like, but make no attempt to pay me.”

  Patience shook her head, albeit reluctantly. “I can’t accept such generosity, sir. If you will but give me time, I shall square all my uncle’s debts.”

  “Why on earth should you be obligated to pay his gambling debts?” he said. “I shall be very much offended if you try to pay me. I won’t take a penny.” Taking her hand, he firmly closed her fingers around the card.

  Patience flushed. “If you insist, sir.”

  “I do insist.” Smiling, he offered her his arm. “Shall we return to the drawing room?”

  Patience hesitated, but felt that she could not very well refuse.

  In the drawing room, he led her over to the fire. Taking the bill from her hand, he tossed it into the flames.

  “Sir!” Patience protested.

  “What are you burning, Lawrence?” his mother demanded.

  “I believe it was a bill for green peas,” he replied. “It’s the only thing to be done with a troublesome bill.”

  “I would be happy to pay it,” Patience protested, “but I do not remember eating any green peas.”

  “Lady Jemima? Miss Waverly? Do either of you remember eating any green peas?”

  Both ladies shook their heads.

  “Obviously a mistake, then,” said his lordship. “I’m glad I burned it. Perhaps,” he went on, lowering his voice so that only Patience could hear him, “Your Ladyship would care to burn the little card I gave you?”

  “I think I shall keep it in case you change y
our mind, sir,” she answered, placing the card on the mantelpiece, next to Pru’s invitation to St. James’s Palace.

  “Lawrence! What are you whispering to Lady Waverly?” Lady Mortmaigne’s voice carried across the room to them. “Come and drink your tea.”

  “I always make the tea,” Pru was saying as her sister and the viscount joined the rest of the group. “My sister, for all her accomplishments, has not yet learned to make tea. How do you take it, my lord?”

  Lord Banville took his cup, thanked Pru briefly, but then turned to Patience. “I see you are to attend the first drawing room, my lady. You will see me there—and Mama, too.”

  “You will see my sister there,” Patience told him. “Mrs. Adams very graciously has agreed to present me to her majesty at the American reception at the end of the month.”

  “How extraordinary!” Lady Mortmaigne murmured.

  “My sister has a strange aversion to pomp and circumstance,” Pru said.

  “I’m sure Mama can wrangle us some invitations to the American reception,” Lord Banville said.

  “I shouldn’t think they’d be very hard to come by,” replied Lady Mortmaigne. “Nothing like invitations to the Duke of Sunderland’s ball! I understand it is to be held in your honor, Lady Waverly.”

  “No!” Pru said angrily, before Patience could make any reply. “It is to be held in my honor, Lady Mortmaigne! Of course, you shall be invited, both of you.”

  Patience held her tongue, but, as soon as their visitors had gone, which they did promptly after twenty minutes of tea and polite conversation, she said quietly, “Prudence, you know there isn’t to be any ball. You must not promise people invitations to an event that will never take place. I have already written a letter to the duke.”

  Pru was on her feet. “You had no right to do that!” she cried, thrusting out her jaw pugnaciously. “It’s my ball! It’s nothing to do with you.”