The Pleasure of Bedding a Baroness Page 29

  Mr. Molyneux ducked his head quickly, but could not quite hide his laughter.

  “Why, what is chlorosis?” Pru demanded, suspecting quite correctly that Max and Molyneux were sharing a private joke at her expense.

  “Dr. Wingfield has made a study of it these last twenty years,” Max said blandly. “It’s a type of anemia peculiar to young females.”

  “Patience had anemia,” Pru said. “I don’t see anything funny about that.”

  “This is a different type of anemia,” Max explained. “The symptoms of chlorosis are very distinct. Those young ladies so afflicted are invariably bad tempered, mean spirited, and thoroughly disagreeable. Their skins are tinged a greenish gray, and there is only one cure for it.”

  “Is that so?” Pru snapped, her eyes narrowed.

  Molyneux suddenly looked very grave. “I think perhaps I had better go,” he said, climbing to his feet. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs.—er—Lady Waverly.”

  “But you hardly touched your cup,” Patience protested. “Perhaps I made it wrong?”

  “It isn’t that,” he hastily assured her. “I must get back to Dr. Chandler. I’ve been away too long as it is.”

  Max rose to shake his hand. “You must come to dine with us soon, Mr. Molyneux.”

  Molyneux glanced at Pru’s angry face and said, regretfully, “Thank you, sir, but I—I keep a schedule of odd hours. I could not tell you when I might be free again.”

  Max shrugged. “You will always be welcome at my table,” he said. “We dine at eight o’clock every night. Come any night you can, and we will be pleased to see you.”

  He walked with the young man to the door, but when he returned to his chair, he found two sets of angry green eyes fixed on him. Pru’s anger was to be expected, but Patience’s puzzled him.

  “What have I done?” he asked.

  “How dare you invite someone to dinner without speaking to me first?” Patience snapped.

  “I thought you liked Molyneux,” he said, surprised.

  Her eyes snapped. “What will I tell the cook if people start showing up at dinnertime?”

  “I’m quite sure we can accommodate one guest, my dear,” he said mildly. “I will speak to Cook myself.”

  “I wonder you would want him around,” Pru said sullenly. “He so obviously has eyes for your wife. I should think you’d be jealous.”

  Patience scowled, but Max suddenly felt almost fond of Pru. Her last remark had brought him to a better understanding of his wife. Patience, too, thought he should be jealous of young Molyneux, and clearly, she was none too happy that he was not.

  “Oh, do be quiet, Pru,” Patience said with uncharacteristic violence.

  “Sounds like someone else has a touch of chlorosis,” said Pru. “Pray, what is the cure for it, Brother?”

  “You’ll find out,” Max assured her, “when you are married.”

  Silent for once, Pru stared at him, round eyed.

  “I seem to have rendered our sister incapable of speech,” Max said lightly.

  Patience glared at him. “I wish you would not make vulgar jokes!” she snapped.

  But he only smiled at her slyly.

  Chapter 20

  The three of them sat in the drawing room all afternoon, but there were no more visitors. For lack of anything better to do, Patience agreed to let Max teach her the game of chess, but she was able to concentrate less and less on the game as Pru’s agitation grew. She glanced at the clock almost as often as her sister did, and fidgeted in sympathy as Pru paced around the room, or looked out the window in the hope of seeing someone she knew on the street outside.

  The arrival of the afternoon post ought to have been a welcome diversion.

  “Nothing for me?” Pru asked as Patience went through the letters. “Nothing? Ten different gentlemen danced with me last night! I have never been used so ill.”

  “Then you are very fortunate,” Max remarked.

  She turned on him angrily. “This is all your fault!”

  “Cheer up,” he told her. “They will like you again when the marriage is annulled.”

  Patience looked up from her letters. She had not mentioned the annulment, and she did not much like him bringing it up, either, he could tell.

  “You do still want the annulment?” he asked quietly.

  “Of course,” she said immediately. “I have written already to my solicitor in America. He is the closest thing Pru and I have to a guardian. He will be able to supply everything necessary to prove my age. Then we can begin the process.”

  “That will take months!” Pru complained. “The Season will be over.”

  “These things have been known to take years,” Max told her.

  “I was supposed to go to Almack’s tonight! But, now, of course, I have no chaperone! Pay? I don’t suppose you would take me?”

  “Certainly not,” Patience said, carrying her letters over to her desk. “You don’t really want to go, do you? All the young men you danced with last night who snubbed you today will be there.”

  “They would not snub me at Almack’s,” said Pru, throwing herself down on the sofa. “I’m the most popular girl of the Season. Everyone says so. I’ve done nothing wrong! I’m not the one who married him.”

  “You had your chance,” Max taunted her.

  “Mr. Campbell writes again,” Patience said loudly, from her desk. “He says his buyer will pay a premium of one thousand pounds if I will close within thirty days.”

  Max frowned. “Who the devil is Mr. Campbell?”

  “The estate agent for Wildings,” Patience told him, delighted to divert his attention from his argument with Pru. “He has an offer for ten thousand pounds—now eleven—but only if I close directly.”

  “How many acres has Wildings?”

  “Twenty-six thousand. Do you not think it a good offer?”

  He shrugged. “Why must you close in thirty days? What’s the hurry?”

  “I think you should sell,” Pru declared.

  “I think we should at least see the place before we sell it,” said Patience. “And so I told Mr. Campbell in my last letter.”

  “Now he offers you a thousand pounds not to see the place?” said Max. “One smells a rat. Perhaps we should take a trip?” he suggested.

  “Mr. Campbell tells me the roads are still flooded.”

  Leaning back in his chair, he laced his fingers behind his head. “The rat grows fatter and smellier! We must definitely take a trip. I must meet your Mr. Campbell.”

  “I can’t stay here by myself,” Pru protested.

  “No,” he agreed.

  “And I’m not going anywhere with you!”

  “I think it would be very good for you to get out of London, Pru,” said Patience.

  “This is so unfair,” Pru whispered, shaking her head. “What have I done to deserve this?”

  Patience was losing her temper. “Shall I tell you? You slandered Max. Have you forgotten already? This should be a lesson to you not to tell lies!”

  “Nobody knows about that except us,” said Pru. “Or do they?” she added, scowling at Max. “You blabbed, didn’t you? You told everyone that I—you told them what I did!”

  “Oh, I never blab,” he answered. “Anyway, who would I tell? None of my former acquaintances are at home to me these days, thanks to you. I’ve even been thrown out of all my clubs; it seems they have no member named Farnese.”

  “Oh, Max,” Patience murmured sympathetically. “I am sorry.”

  “Oh, Max!” Pru mimicked her cruelly. “Have you forgotten that he made you the object of a disgusting bet? Have you forgotten that he tried to drown you in the ballroom? Not to mention all his trifling with me—I know that makes no difference to you!”

  “You were the one who jilted me,” Max snapped. “You liked me very well until you found out I had no money. Until you found out you would never be a duchess!”

  “You’re quite wrong,” Pru shouted back. “I never liked you! You could
have been a king and I still would never have married you. Never! For I can’t conceive of a worse fate than being your wife! I would rather die a thousand deaths than be touched by you. You nauseate me.”

  Max’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You insufferable baggage,” he said softly. “Go to your room. Go to your room, or by God, I shall drag you there myself.”

  Pru whirled to face her sister. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”

  “Go to your room, Pru,” Patience said wearily. “I—I will talk to him,” she added quickly.

  “You’d better,” said Pru. Sweeping out of the room, she banged the door closed.

  Patience turned on Max with a fury that surprised him. “I thought you were going to make an effort to get along with her! Calling her names is no way to go about making friends.”

  “I should be congratulated on my restraint,” he said indignantly. “I’ve never wanted to spank anyone so much in all my life! As for calling her names—she is an insufferable baggage. Why shouldn’t I say so? I thought you Americans believed in freedom of speech.”

  “I’m sorry your friends have abandoned you,” she said. “But, perhaps, they were not true friends.”

  “Possibly,” he said dryly.

  “I am sorry you have been thrown out of your clubs,” she went on. “But if you cannot make peace with my sister, you will have to go. I will not have discord in my house.”

  “You cannot make me go,” he pointed out.

  Her eyes flashed. “And you cannot make me stay!”

  He stared at her. “You would leave me?”

  “I cannot live like this,” she whispered. “I must have peace.”

  As the words were leaving her mouth, a loud boom was heard, reverberating through the house, rattling the crystals in the chandeliers and causing a card or two to topple from the mantelpiece.

  “What the devil is that?” Max demanded, leaping out of his chair.

  Patience laughed faintly. “It’s only the dinner gong. I find it very jarring, but Briggs insists on banging it every night.”

  “Does he indeed?” Max murmured, glancing at the clock on the mantel. Its face, fortunately, was not obscured by any of Pru’s prized invitations. “No wonder your nerves are so frayed, my dear. But it’s only six-thirty. I told Molyneux we dine at eight.”

  “Well, you should have asked me first,” she said, moving to the door. “We always dine early when Pru is going out. Though I don’t suppose she will be going out tonight,” she added.

  “Do you change your dress for dinner?” he asked, getting to his feet.

  “I never do.” She paused at the door. “There is a washroom on the landing, if you don’t mind cold water,” she said, before slipping away to her own room to wash her face and hands.

  Max was seated at the dining table when Briggs sounded the gong for the second time. Patience slipped into her chair at the other end of the table a few minutes later. “Prudence is going to have a tray in her room,” she explained. “You may bring the soup, Briggs.”

  Max shook his head at the butler, effectively stopping the soup. “Nobody eats off a tray unless he is sick,” he announced. “Miss Prudence will come down and eat with her family or she will not eat at all. Tell her if she is not at table in three minutes, we shall start without her.”

  “Very good, sir,” Briggs said smoothly.

  “Max!” Patience protested.

  Max ignored her. “And from now on there will be no more dinner gong,” he informed Briggs. “It rattles her ladyship’s nerves.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Patience tried again as Briggs faded from the room. “Don’t you think it would be best to let Prudence stay in her room?”

  He snorted. “And have your heart and mind with her while your body sits empty here with me? I don’t mind cold water, but a cold shoulder I won’t tolerate.”

  Patience sighed. “You’re just going to argue.”

  “Not I,” he assured her. “For your sake, I am determined to get along with her. We are brother and sister now, after all.”

  Taking two wads of cotton out of his pocket, he inserted them into his ears. “You will never truly have peace,” he said, very loudly because he could not hear himself, “until her mouth is fitted with a cork, but at least I shan’t be provoked.”

  Patience shook her head, but could not help laughing.

  Hunger conquered pride, and a few moments later, Pru swished sullenly into the room to take her place at the middle of the table, halfway between her sister and Max.

  Max rose from the table and bowed to her. “Good evening, Prudence,” he shouted.

  “I am not talking to you,” she informed him loftily.

  He only smiled sweetly. Resuming his seat, he shouted for the soup.

  Patience’s shoulders shook from the effort of not laughing.

  “I am not talking to you, either,” Pru told her coldly.

  Together, they shared a very peaceful meal. Afterward, Pru swept back to her room, still not speaking to anyone. Max pulled the cotton out of his ears, and Patience burst out laughing.

  “You are dreadful,” she gasped, finishing her wine.

  “It seemed the simplest way to make peace with her.”

  “She was giving us the silent treatment tonight,” said Patience. “It won’t be so easy when she starts talking again.”

  “I’ll lend you some of my cotton wool,” he promised. Pushing his chair back, he held out his hand to her. “Shall we?”

  Patience stared at him uncertainly. “Shall we what?” she asked nervously.

  “Another lesson in chess, I thought,” he said. “Or there’s backgammon, if you prefer.”

  Patience rose from the table. “I don’t think I’ll be good at these games,” she said. “I usually do my mending in the evenings. Also, I must write to Mr. Campbell to tell him that we are coming.”

  Taking her by the elbow, Max guided her from the room. He felt her body tense for a moment, then a little shudder went through her, as if her knees had buckled. “Would it not be better to surprise him?” he murmured, studying the hollow behind her left ear—as ideal a spot for a kiss as he had ever seen. “If he is up to no good, we may catch him at it.”

  In the drawing room, she immediately went to her sewing basket.

  He sat on the sofa and stretched out his long legs, regarding her intently. “Shall I thread your needle for you?” he offered.

  Patience smiled faintly. “No, thank you. You might read a book, if you are bored.”

  Max picked up a book from the table. “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” he read somewhat dubiously. “This you did not find in the house,” he guessed.

  “No, I bought it. The bookshops of London must be the envy of the world. Do you know the book? Mrs. Godwin has some interesting ideas, I think. I would be interested to know your thoughts.”

  Max set the book down carefully. “I think Vindication would be an excellent name for a horse,” he said. “Or, possibly, a yacht. No, a race horse, I think.”

  Patience pulled her needle through the hem of the petticoat she was mending. “Mrs. Godwin argues that men and women are born equal. They only seem unequal because of a gross inequality in education. What do you think of that argument?”

  “Equality would also make a good name for a horse,” said Max. “Though some might find me guilty of a pun, Equus being the generic epithet of the horse.”

  “You have no opinion?” she pressed him.

  “I do not accept the author’s premise,” he replied. “We are each of us, male and female, born unique—even you and your sister. By no stretch of the imagination was she born your equal, and no amount of education could ever make her so. You are her superior in every category.”

  Patience could hardly be displeased with such an answer, but she did try to appear unimpressed. “You did not always think so,” she reminded him. “When we first met, as I seem to recall, you mistook me for the Medusa!”


  He groaned. “Pray, do not remind me of how I behaved then! I’m ashamed of myself.”

  “Have you never had a friend who would tell you when you had gone too far?” she asked curiously. “Did your uncle never correct you?”

  “My uncle!” he exclaimed. “You may be sure I never let my poor uncle see me in such a state. As for my friends—for them, I could never go far enough!”

  “And your mistresses?” she said, looking down at her work very diligently. “Didn’t they mind your—your indiscretions? Your mermaids?”

  Max squirmed uncomfortably.

  She stole a glance at him when he did not answer, and was surprised to see that his face was red. “I’m not embarrassing you, am I?”

  “A little,” he admitted. “But, no, my mistresses never objected to anything I did. If they did, I would simply get rid of them. But I always gave them a handsome settlement.”

  “How very generous of you,” she said tartly. “Did you give Mrs. Tolliver a handsome settlement? Or is she still in your good graces?”

  “Mrs. Tolliver!” he exclaimed. “Who have you been talking to?”

  “Your uncle mentioned her name. I have not had the opportunity to see her on stage, but I understand she is very beautiful. She may object to your being here now.”

  “I doubt it,” he said dryly. “She likes her gentlemen plump in the pocket. Sadly, I no longer meet her requirements. But I hear she has landed on her feet—on her back, I should say—in a very soft bed. It’s as if she never loved me at all.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said primly.

  He laughed aloud. “You’re a terrible liar! But, then, I have always thought that an excellent quality in a wife.”

  “Oh, I’ve had just about enough of your flattery,” she began lightly, but her eyes widened as he got to his feet. “Where are you going?”

  Max stretched his arms over his head. “It’s a bit early, I know, but I think I’ll go to work now. A walk in the cool air will do me good. Dinner always makes me a bit sleepy.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked, not sure she had heard him correctly.