The Pleasure of Bedding a Baroness Read online

  Without realizing it, Max began to frown. “Who is that young man dancing with Lady Waverly?” he demanded of Mrs. Adams without thinking.

  Mrs. Adams fluttered her fan. “Are you acquainted with Lady Waverly, sir?”

  Glancing up, Patience saw Max coming down the stairs, and nearly tripped over her own feet. Her partner caught her with an efficiency that did not please Max at all. The young man’s hands were much too quick. Patience seemed hardly to notice as she stared at the newcomer.

  Max could easily read her lips: “Lord, what is he doing here?”

  No one else paid the slightest heed to him. He might have been invisible as he slipped through the crowd. To Max, so accustomed to being fawned over wherever he went, it was a welcome respite.

  Patience lost him for a moment in the crowd; while he stood head and shoulders above most of his own countrymen, there were a dozen or more American men in the room who matched or exceeded him in height.

  “Are you all right, Miss Patience?” her partner inquired.

  Patience felt out of breath and a little dizzy, but pleasantly so. “I think I see someone I know,” she said, raising her voice to be heard. “Would you excuse me, please?”

  Leaving her countryman, she plunged into the crowd in search of Max. Each was so determined to find the other that it was not long before they were face to face.

  “Mr. Purefoy!” she said, laughing almost in disbelief. “I thought I saw you! What on earth are you doing here?”

  He felt a foolish grin spreading across his face, but, before he could answer, she said suddenly, her eyes wide, “Is Prudence all right? Has something happened?”

  “Your sister is perfectly well,” he shouted over the din of the music and voices. “I came to see you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  She seemed a little short of breath, probably from her exuberant dancing with Mr. Quickhands, Max thought sourly. But he forced himself to smile pleasantly.

  “If the mountain won’t come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain!”

  “What?” she cried, cupping one hand over her ear.

  “I came here to dance with you!”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, no! Shouldn’t you be at your own ball, dancing with Prudence? You promised her the first two dances, I believe.”

  “I have faithfully kept my promise,” he shouted. “Dance with me! Prudence will never know.”

  He held out his hand to her.

  For a moment, Patience stared at him. Max felt, absurdly, that everything depended on her answer. Then she said simply, “I will!” and he knew it was not absurd at all. Everything was perfectly all right, and nothing could ever be wrong again.

  To his surprise, she caught hold of his wrist and began peeling off his glove. “In America, we don’t need these!” she shouted. “We dance hand in hand, not hand in glove!”

  “But this is England!” It was a protest in word only. She had already removed his gloves and tossed them aside.

  “No, sir! This is America,” she shouted back. “Like it or not, when you passed through those doors, you crossed the Atlantic Ocean. You’re in my country now!”

  For some reason, this delighted him. “I am at your disposal, Lady Waverly!”

  She clucked her tongue at him. “Patience! None of your silly titles here, sir!”

  “In that case, I am Max.”

  She laughed. “I know!”

  The Americans lined up for the reel rather like civilized human beings, with gentlemen on one side and ladies on the other. The ladies curtsyed, the gentlemen bowed.

  “A curtsy?” Max mocked his partner. “You swore you would not.”

  “Only as part of the dance,” she said quickly, a frown drawing her dark brows together. “I suppose I ought to explain about court—about the diamonds—”

  “No need!” he said, anxious to dispel her dismay. “I am well aware that Miss Prudence took your place.”

  “You are? How?”

  He smiled. “She curtsyed,” he replied. “You, of course, would never do that. Also, her hair is different. She has curls over her ears.”

  Patience felt oddly disappointed. For some reason, she had wanted to hear that he would know her anywhere, that he could pick her out amongst a thousand copies. If he had a twin, she wondered suddenly, would I know him? She smiled at him.

  “Are you ready?” she called out.

  He looked surprised. “For what?”

  The musicians struck up a lively air, and, all at once, the two sides rushed at each other, and with roars from the gentlemen and whoops from the ladies, the dancing began in earnest and soon escalated to ferocity. Late to the start, Max was hard-pressed to keep up with his partner.

  “Sir, you are too quiet,” Patience complained. “In America, we do not dance with our mouths clamped shut!”

  “Dance?” Max shouted in Patience’s ear. “I thought the war had started up again.”

  “Only a skirmish!” she responded merrily. “This is nothing like the dancing you are used to at Almack’s,” she added.

  “No, indeed!”

  “English dancing is so elegant! So precise! Just like clockwork. Tick tock. Tick tock!”

  The dance separated them, but they remained connected with their eyes until they could join hands again.

  “Who is that young man staring at you?” he asked her as they met briefly between the two lines. “He is impertinent, I think.”

  Patience followed his gaze. Roger Molyneux, leaning against a pillar, was indeed staring.

  “Oh, dear!” Patience cried. “Poor Roger! I forgot him completely.”

  “Roger!” Max exclaimed. “Is that his name?”

  “Yes. He must be furious with me.”

  “Who is he? Has he some claim on you?”

  She smiled. “He, sir, is American royalty.”

  Max frowned. “No such thing.”

  “We have an aristocracy,” she told him. “But it is an aristocracy of talent, not birth.”

  “Oh, I see,” Max said sourly. “The young man has talents! What, pray, are his talents? Besides pouting, I mean? You were dancing with him when I arrived, I believe.”

  Patience nodded. “Roger is a physician,” she said. “He has come to London to finish his training. We came over on the same ship. He tended to me when I was ill.”

  Max did not like the sound of this at all. “And a wonderful job he did of it, too,” he said. “As I recall, you arrived in the pink of health!”

  “It’s not his fault I was seasick,” she protested. “Prudence got better almost at once. There’s no predicting how it will go. Come! I’ll introduce you,” she added, tugging him by the hand.

  “We are dancing,” he said, resisting.

  “By all rights, I should be dancing with Roger,” she said. “I owe him an apology and an explanation, at the very least!”

  Max did not think so, but he allowed her to drag him to the other man’s position. At their approach, Molyneux abandoned his post and stood with his arms folded.

  “Roger, I am so sorry!” Patience began. “I saw a—a friend. Mr. Purefoy, this is Mr. Molyneux. Mr. Molyneux, this is Mr. Purefoy. I was just telling Mr. Purefoy about your studies. Roger is working very hard.”

  “Oh, I can see that,” Max said dryly. “Are you by some chance any connection to the Lancashire Molyneuxs?”

  Molyneux gave a short, derisive laugh. “Try the Jersey Molyneuxs.”

  Max frowned, puzzled.

  “He means New Jersey, Mr. Purefoy,” said Patience, laughing behind her hand. “Roger’s family is from Princeton, New Jersey. That’s only about forty miles from Philadelphia.”

  “A very easy distance,” Max said slowly.

  “Actually,” said Molyneux, “my family are settled near Pennsauken. I was schooled at Princeton.”

  “Pennsauken!” Patience exclaimed delightedly. “We’re practically neighbors!”

  “We’re just on the other side of the Delaware,” Molyneux ag
reed. “Not twenty miles from your door in Chestnut Hill, I daresay, Miss Patience.”

  “When we are home again, I hope you will visit us,” Patience said impulsively.

  “Perhaps I will set up my practice in Philadelphia,” he said.

  Max was liking this conversation less and less. “Very nice to have met you, Molyneux,” he said curtly. “But, now, I think, Lady Waverly and I must finish our dance.”

  Molyneux raised his brows. “Lady Waverly?”

  Patience was embarrassed. “It’s nothing, Roger. A meaningless honorific.”

  “It is not meaningless,” Max said coldly. “You are a Peeress of the Realm.”

  “Peeress of the Realm!” Molyneux snickered. “Patience Waverly of Twenty-six Cambridge Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania?”

  “Baroness Waverly of Wildings, Number Seventeen Clarges Street!” Max said angrily.

  “Stop it!” said Patience. “You are embarrassing me!”

  “Yes, Molyneux! You are embarrassing her ladyship! You should apologize!”

  “I mean you,” Patience said angrily.

  Max stared at her. “I? How so, ma’am? Indeed, how could anyone be embarrassed at an assembly such as this? Am I not shouting loud enough, perhaps? Am I too precise? Do I dance too mildly?”

  Patience was pale with shock. “Mr. Purefoy!” she murmured in dismay. “What is the matter with you?”

  Max looked down at her coldly. “Nothing is the matter with me,” he said sharply. “I am giving a ball tonight—in England, where gentlemen are scarce. I am sure more than one lady is in want of a partner. I must go back.”

  With a curt bow, he turned to go.

  “Come, Patience,” Molyneux said. “You don’t want to dance with that cold fish anyway.”

  Without thinking, Max spun around and drove his fist into Roger Molyneux’s face. Without a chance to defend himself, the young man went down.

  “Roger!” Patience gasped, sinking to her knees beside him. “He’s out cold!”

  “You’ll look after him, though, won’t you?” Max sneered, as a group of young men appeared to drag him away.

  Roger Molyneux sat up, shaking his head and feeling his jaw.

  “How many fingers am I holding up?” Patience asked.

  “I’m all right,” he said, dragging himself up to his feet. “He sucker-punched me, by God! So much for fair play! Where is he? Where’s the English bastard?”

  “Don’t worry about him,” said Patience. “Our friends have thrown him out.”

  “I hope they kicked him around a bit first!” Molyneux said bitterly.

  “Hush!” Taking her handkerchief from her décolleté, Patience dabbed at the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Molyneux tottered suddenly and had to sit down.

  Mrs. Adams hurried over. “Are you all right, my dear?” she asked Patience. “I should not have invited him in! But I thought he knew you. He seemed an English gentleman.”

  Suddenly, Patience was furious. “Will you look after Mr. Molyneux for me, ma’am?” she said, giving Mrs. Adams her handkerchief. “I would like to give that English gentleman a piece of my mind!”

  While by no means gentle with Max, the Americans had refrained from kicking him around. They simply dragged him past the gates and threw him down on the hard cobblestones.

  “And don’t come back, you English bastard!”

  From his new home in the gutter, Max could hear them dragging the iron gates closed.

  “Wait!” cried Patience, running out into the street.

  She almost stumbled over Max. “Oh! Did they hurt you, Mr. Purefoy?”

  “No, Patience! I like it here in the gutter,” he replied, sitting up.

  “Lady Waverly, if you please,” she said coldly. “We’re back in England now. Perhaps that will help you remember your manners.”

  “Your friends were not very polite to me,” he complained. “My stockings are quite ruined.”

  “Well, it serves you right, you brute!” Patience snapped. “You are rude and arrogant and—and just as vile as I thought you were! You could have hurt Roger!”

  Max looked up at her, scowling. “You mean I didn’t hurt Roger? That is a disappointment.”

  “You cold-cocked him when he wasn’t looking,” she accused him. “I ask you, is that cricket? And you call yourself an English gentleman!”

  “Well, I am half Italian,” he reminded her, getting up to his knees. “It comes out when I am in love. He’s lucky I left my stiletto in my other coat.”

  Patience caught her breath. “In love?” she echoed softly. “In—in love with me, sir?”

  “No! In love with Roger,” he snarled, now on his feet looking down at her.

  One of the Americans chose this moment to call to her from the embassy gates. “Best come back in, miss, so we can close the gate. Best leave that varmint where he is.”

  Max surged forward. “Varmint? Who are you calling a varmint, my good fellow? You may find me at Jackson’s boxing parlor in Bond Street any day of the week, good sir! Better yet, why don’t you come out here and fight me now, you bloody Yankee-Doodle dandy?”

  “Stop goading them,” Patience snapped, following Max into the square. “It’s not fair. You know they can’t leave their post. It would cause a diplomatic nightmare for poor Mr. Adams!” She sighed, her anger dissipating. “I realize that you were—that you were jealous of poor Roger, but that is no excuse for behaving like an oaf.”

  He scowled at her. “Jealous of that—that boy?”

  She raised her brows. “You were not jealous? I thought, perhaps, you were.”

  “No, indeed,” he sniffed. “I hit him for the sheer pleasure of it.”

  “I’m glad,” she said. “I’m glad you’re not jealous, because I mean to dance with him all night!”

  “You can go back to Pennsadelphia or whatever and marry the crown prince of New Jersey for all I care!”

  That made her laugh. “If you do not admit this instant that you are jealous that’s just what I’ll do,” she threatened.

  Max gave the matter some thought. “Perhaps I was a little jealous,” he admitted. “But the madness has passed, thankfully. I am myself again.”

  “Oh, Max, you are such an idiot,” Patience said tenderly. Taking his face between her hands, she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

  “What was that for?” he breathed.

  “You know what it’s for,” she answered, twining her arms around his neck, and brushing her lips against his neck, her eyes closed as she gave herself up to a feeling of exhilaration.

  Rather abruptly, he took her in his arms, and kissed her roughly. Patience gave him her mouth, pressing her body against him. “I think we have found something the English do with their mouths open,” she murmured, laughing.

  Lord Milford had fallen asleep with his head on the windowsill. Isabella’s howl of rage woke him. “Wh-what?” he gasped, jumping up, a red hand printed on the side of his face.

  “They are kissing,” Isabella sobbed. “In full view of the street!”

  “Who is kissing?” he asked, peering out into the square. He could see the lady’s crimson gown, but not her face. Her companion was even more obscure. “Good God! A streetwalker! A streetwalker in Grosvenor Square.”

  “She came from the American ambassador’s house! ’Tis one of the Americans! I saw her face as she ran after him!”

  “What do you care if some American is kissing a streetwalker?” he said, amazed. “I’d rather they not do it in front of my house, too, but I ain’t going to weep and wail and gnash my teeth.”

  “You fool!” she snarled. “It is Mr. Purefoy kissing one of the Americans.”

  “He did not stay long,” Milford commented. “Do you recognize the lady?”

  “It is Lady Waverly or Miss Prudence. I can’t tell them apart!”

  “It cannot be,” said her brother, pressing his nose against the window. “They are all at Sunderland House tonight. Everyone is there, except
us.”

  Isabella ignored him. “One of them must have attended the vile gathering at the American embassy,” she murmured. “Instead of the ball. That is why he came here. He must have been furious to have his generosity thrown in his face.”

  “He doesn’t look furious.”

  Isabella winced. “Is he still kissing her?” she whined.

  “Oh, yes,” he said appreciatively. “But is it Miss Prudence or Lady Waverly?”

  “What does that matter?” she snapped. “Perhaps he means to have them both.”

  “Well, he can only marry one of them,” Milford pointed out.

  “There’s no need to state the obvious,” she said coldly. “Can’t you do something?” she cried, stamping her foot. “I’d like to throw a bucket of cold water on them!”

  Milford opened the window and leaned out, crowing, “Cock-a-doodle-do!” at the top of his lungs. “That’s how we did it at university,” he explained sheepishly to his bewildered sister.

  Isabella hastily closed the window and put out the candle to preserve their anonymity, but she was glad to observe by the moonlight that her brother’s outburst had achieved the desired effect.

  “Good heavens!” Patience gasped. “What is that? A rooster?”

  “A friend,” said Max. “It means we have been seen. Run!”

  “What?” she said, laughing. “I don’t care who sees!”

  “You will care very much when your sister reads about it in the newspaper,” he said.

  Patience started guiltily. “Pru! Oh, Max! Pru will never forgive me.”

  “You leave her to me,” he said. “Hurry, my dear! Back to your embassy before the watch catches you.”

  “But, Max!” she protested. “Aren’t you jealous?”

  He grinned at her. “Should I be?”

  “No!”

  “Then go!” he commanded. “I will call on you tomorrow.”

  The following morning, Pru stumbled down to the breakfast table to find her sister scanning the columns of the newspaper. “Did you just get in?” Pru asked, bewildered. “Isn’t that the same dress you wore last night?”