The Pleasure of Bedding a Baroness Page 34

  Max was so relieved, he almost laughed. “Of course I shall! Now kiss me good-bye; there’s a good girl.”

  With a backward glance, to be sure her uncle was still in a drugged stupor. Then, leaning out the window, she gave Max her mouth.

  “It is more than just a piece of paper, you know,” she said reproachfully. “It is a sacrament. Think of our children. What would become of them if our marriage is on shaky ground?”

  “I will make this right, Pazienza. Just have a little patience with me,” he added, with a faint smile. “And don’t listen to your bloody uncle! He thinks I’m as bad as he is.”

  “And you’re not?” she said, arching an eyebrow.

  “You know I’m not,” he said softly.

  Sitting back, she closed the window, and Max sent the driver on his way.

  Patience felt almost happy. On impulse, she decided to stop in Grosvenor Square to surprise Prudence. Lord Waverly hardly stirred as the carriage stopped outside Lord Milford’s house.

  Patience went up the steps alone, but, before she could knock, she heard an upstairs window opening. “Patience!” Prudence hissed at her.

  Looking up, she saw her sister’s head and shoulders leaning out the window.

  “Prudence!” she called happily. “I was just about to—”

  “Don’t!” It would have been an urgent scream if Prudence had not been whispering. “Don’t ring the bell! I’ll come down!”

  “Don’t be silly,” Patience began as Prudence disappeared from the window. In the next moment, Pru’s bare feet came over the window ledge, startling Patience.

  “What are you doing?” she cried, alarmed. “When you said you were coming down, I thought you were going for the stairs!”

  “I cannot stay in this house another instant!” Pru declared.

  “That much is obvious!”

  Prudence was standing on the window ledge. The fact that her sister was wearing nothing but a thin nightgown suddenly impressed itself on Patience. “Go back inside at once!” she gasped. “At least put on your dressing gown!”

  Pru ignored her. “If your coachman would move up a little, do you think I could jump onto the roof of your carriage?”

  “Certainly not!” Patience cried, alarmed.

  The coachman, however, seemed to think it was an excellent notion. Slowly, and carefully, he began backing up his team, angling the coach over the curbstone.

  By this time, they were attracting attention in the street, which, fortunately, was not very busy at this early hour of the morning. The door of Lord Milford’s house opened and a man whom Patience took for his lordship’s butler came running down the steps. He looked up at Prudence in horror, his periwig slipping over his bald head.

  “Don’t just stand there, man!” Patience snapped. “Get a ladder!”

  From inside the house, a hand reached out to grasp Prudence’s ankle. She shrieked in surprise and nearly fell. Patience could not see her sister’s would-be rescuer, but Pru did not react well. “Let go of me, you brute!” she screamed.

  “No, don’t!” Patience shouted to the unknown hero. “Don’t let go of her, I beg of you! She’ll fall! Will someone please get a ladder?”

  With her free foot, Pru stomped on the hand of her rescuer. Howling, he let her go. This time, she did fall, or rather, she jumped, to Patience’s horror. The coach was not ideally placed, however, and she did not land on the roof. Instead, she struck the side, but managed to grab hold of the brass railing of the luggage rack. From there she was able to drop into the arms of the footman who had jumped down to assist her.

  Lord Milford leaned out the window. “I—I had to grab her,” he stammered, looking down at Patience with a very red face. “She was going to fall!”

  “Thank you very much, sir!” Patience shouted. “I will take her home now, I think.”

  “No! Wait!” His lordship withdrew into the house.

  “Patience!” Pru cried. “Take me away from this place! Hurry!”

  She was already in the carriage, beckoning wildly to her sister. “Thank you,” Patience told the butler with what dignity she could muster. “I don’t think we’ll be needing the ladder after all.”

  Hastily, she got into her carriage. “What on earth—?” she began furiously, as the footman closed the door.

  The carriage lurched to one side as the wheels descended from the curb. Then it righted itself, and they were off, moving briskly toward Clarges Street.

  “Prudence, what is the meaning of this?” she began again. “I’m sure your friends must think you’re mad!”

  Pru’s teeth were chattering as she hugged herself. “They are not my friends,” she said tearfully. “I’m so c-cold!”

  Hastily, Patience wrapped her up in the carriage rug, pulling it off the inert form of their uncle. “Of course you’re cold!” she scolded her. “You’re still in your nightgown, you silly girl! What do you mean by climbing out the window? You could have broken your neck!”

  “I can think of worse things,” Pru said darkly.

  Patience sighed. “What have you done now? Did you quarrel with Isabella?”

  “I haven’t done anything,” Pru said shrilly. “You always blame me! Is it my fault that I was locked in a room for days with no clothes, no shoes, no fire, nothing to eat? I don’t even know what they did with my maid! It’s a wonder I’m alive at all!”

  Patience could hardly believe her ears. “What are you saying?”

  “Lord Milford has been holding me a prisoner in his house,” Pru told her. “He said I could not have anything to eat unless I promised to marry him.”

  “What?”

  “If it were not for Isabella, I would have starved,” Pru declared. “I suppose you got her note? She promised she would send one to you. She at least is not the monster her brother is.”

  “I received no note,” said Patience. “But we have been traveling ... I stopped here before going home on the merest whim. My God, Prudence! If you have been injured—Are you all right?”

  “No, I am not all right!” said Pru, the words half obliterated by a powerful sneeze. “I got tired of waiting for you to come and get me,” she went on crankily, when she had made use of her sister’s handkerchief. “I was so c-cold and so hungry that I—that I—Well, finally, I told him I would marry him! I had no choice!”

  Patience took Pru to her, rubbing her arms to warm her. “Darling, I’m so sorry!”

  “I thought perhaps R-Roger would see the notice in the newspaper. I thought he might come to c-congratulate me.”

  Again, she sneezed. Patience quickly opened her cloak and gathered her shivering sister into its folds.

  “He c-came so quickly to congratulate you,” Pru continued, sniffling. “I was watching from the window in case he should come. When I saw you get out of the coach—! Oh, Pay! I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life!”

  “I knew that Isabella was not to be trusted,” Patience said grimly.

  “It’s not Bella’s fault,” said Pru. “If she hadn’t smuggled food into my room, I would have starved.”

  “She should have let you out of the house!”

  “I won’t hear a word against Bella,” Pru insisted. “She did the best she could. He—he was going to come into my room and—and—Well, you know. But Bella wouldn’t let him. She said the appearance of my having been compromised would be sufficient for his purposes.”

  “We must be grateful to her for that, at least!” Patience snapped. “What on earth could his purpose be? Has he gone mad?”

  “He is not the wealthy lord we thought him,” said Pru. “He needs money desperately. And I went right to his house like a lamb to the slaughter! The instant we are married he means to start borrowing against my inheritance.”

  Patience hugged her tightly. “Never mind, dearest. You’re quite safe from him now. Oh, I should have insisted on taking you with us to Wildings! It was—it was selfish of me to leave you behind.”

  “It was,” Pru
whimpered. “It was selfish of you. I s-still can’t believe you chose him over me. He’s not even all that good looking. Quite swarthy!” she added with a shudder.

  “I didn’t choose him over you,” Patience protested. “You mustn’t think that. You will always be my sister. And now you are his sister as well. Max will be furious when I tell him. He will make Lord Milford very sorry, I can assure you!”

  Pru snorted. “Of course he will; but do you think he will ever wake up?” She jerked her chin toward the sleeping figure on the opposite seat.

  Patience laughed. “Oh, that’s not Max! That is our uncle, Lord Waverly. It turns out he isn’t dead, after all.”

  “Just sleeping, then?”

  “He’s a scoundrel, Pru! He’s been at Wildings all this time, hiding from his creditors. The sale was his idea. He was going to abscond with the money. Disappear and never come back.”

  Pru sighed. “Then we have come all this way for nothing! Do you think he will ever wake up?” she added, doubtfully eyeing Lord Waverly.

  “Poor man,” Patience murmured. “The doctor at Saint Albans gave him laudanum. He has carbuncles on his—on his behind. Don’t laugh, Pru. It’s very painful, I understand.” She sighed. “I must warn you: he’s not a very nice man. He may look like our father, but he’s nothing like him in character.”

  “Nor in carbuncles!” said Pru, making her sister laugh. “I suppose,” Pru went on after a short pause, “dear Max is at Clarges Street already?”

  “He is dear to me, Pru,” Patience said quietly. “I wish you would try to get along with him for my sake. You’re brother and sister now.”

  Pru groaned.

  “He’s not waiting for us in Clarges Street, as it happens,” Patience went on. “He is ... he is with his uncle at Sunderland House. There is ... There is some slight problem with our marriage.”

  “What do you mean?” Pru said sharply.

  “It—it may not be valid,” Patience confessed.

  “Patience!”

  “Oh, Max assures me it’s nothing to be concerned about,” Patience said quickly. “But, when he married me, he used the name Farnese.”

  “I know that already. But what is the problem?”

  “Farnese is not his name, as it turns out. His name really is Purefoy. It has never been anything but Purefoy. He was not disowned. His parents’ marriage could not be annulled. I don’t think the duke even attempted it. It was all ... a mistake.”

  “A mistake! He deceived you!”

  “No, it wasn’t like that.”

  “Well, is your marriage valid or not?”

  “I don’t know,” Patience admitted.

  “Well, if you are not married,” Pru declared, “I will get a pistol, and I will force him to marry you!”

  Patience thought of the kiss she had shared with Max that morning. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  “I’m quite serious! If he tries to weasel out of it, I’m getting a pistol! No one trifles with my sister and gets away with it!”

  “He did not trifle with me,” Patience protested. “We are married. I’m sure of it. And if we are not, Max will make it right. I have—I have faith in him. It’s only a piece of paper, after all.”

  If Briggs was at all startled by the sudden, unannounced return of his mistress and her sister, he gave no sign of it. However, it cannot be denied that as Lord Waverly was carried inside the house, the butler’s brows were slightly elevated.

  Patience tended to Prudence herself. First, Pru had a hot bath. Then she was bundled up into a flannel nightgown and put to bed, where she ate an enormous breakfast. As she was eating, a letter arrived by hand from Grosvenor Square. Patience took it from the servant who brought it up to her sister’s room. “He has a lot of nerve sending you a message!”

  “What does he have to say for himself?” Pru asked. “I’m too tired to read anything.”

  Patience broke the seal. Slowly she sank down to the bed as she read it.

  “What does it say?”

  Patience glanced up. “It is not from Lord Milford,” she said. “It’s from Isabella. She says her brother has your letters, but she knows where he keeps them. She thinks she can get them for you. If you can meet her at the bridge in Hyde Park tomorrow at dawn, she’ll return them to you. Pru, what letters?” she demanded, frowning. “What is she talking about?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” Pru said with far too much innocence to be credible.

  “Prudence! Tell me you didn’t write letters to Lord Milford! Love letters? If so, my dear, the joke was in very poor taste! Is it any wonder if he took them as a sign of encouragement?”

  Pru scowled. “I never wrote any letters to Lord Milford!”

  “Then what is the meaning of Isabella’s offer to restore them to you?”

  “If you must know, she refers to some letters that I wrote, not to Milford, but to Max!”

  “Max,” Patience repeated blankly. “What? My Max?”

  “He was mine before he was yours,” Pru said, scowling. “You cut me out.”

  “I could not have cut you out if he hadn’t liked me best,” Patience replied with some irritation. “Anyway, I believe you said you never liked him seriously.”

  “No, indeed!” said Pru. “You’re very welcome to him, I’m sure.”

  “And yet you wrote some letters?”

  “It was a long time ago,” Pru said defensively. “When he went home to his uncle for Christmas, I wrote him a—a few times. They were very silly letters, I do admit. But I didn’t mean any of it. I plagiarized most of it. I was just ... just bored, really.”

  “And how did Lord Milford get his grubby paws on some letters you wrote to Max?”

  “Well, they were there,” Pru explained, “at Breckinridge. Bella and her brother, I mean. They were invited to the Christmas Ball. I don’t know how he got my letters exactly; he must have stolen them. That’s all I can think. But we must get them back, Patience!”

  “Just how silly are these letters?” Patience asked, frowning.

  “Very. You would blush.”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t,” Patience said. “I don’t regard it in the least. You were not serious. If Milford tries to blackmail us, we’ll just laugh in his face.”

  Pru pushed her food away. “It’s all well and good for you!” she said. “I’m glad you don’t care! But if... if Roger were to see those letters, he would never forgive me!”

  “Roger?” Patience repeated blankly. “Roger Molyneux? What does he have to do with you and your letters?”

  “Nothing.”

  Patience was hardly credulous. “Prudence!”

  Pru sighed. “We were sort of secretly married, but it’s over now. I don’t even know why he suddenly popped into my head. I just thought—”

  “What?”

  “I haven’t thought of him in donkey’s years. He didn’t even care that I was engaged to another man. I’m sure he won’t care that I wrote some foolish love letters to my sister’s husband.”

  “Are you saying that you are married?” Patience broke in. “To Roger Molyneux?”

  “Not married-married,” said Pru. “It happened in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, for heaven’s sake. The captain married us; he’s not even a clergyman. I realized at once that it was a horrible mistake. Well, almost at once. Before we married, he was so gentle and kind and thoughtful. But after ...” She sighed heavily. “It was as if I didn’t matter at all!”

  Patience sat gaping at her. “Married! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I was too ashamed to tell anyone!” cried Pru. “Anyway, it was all a sham. He just wanted to get me into bed. You know what they’re like.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Patience. “Not Roger! He’s from Pennsauken! His father’s a clergyman!”

  “I might have known you’d take his side,” Pru said bitterly.

  “I’m not taking sides! Tell me what happened.”

  “We had a terrible fig
ht on our wedding night,” Pru went on. “Of course, he waited until after to show his true colors!”

  “What did he do?”

  “All I said was he’d have to quit his medical studies now that we were married. I mean, I can’t be a doctor’s wife; I’m an heiress. He said he wouldn’t disappoint his parents. He said they’d sold off the back acres just to send him to Europe, whatever that means. But I don’t want to be a doctor’s wife, I told him. Too bad, he said. I want a divorce, I said—you know, quite reasonably, not shouting—you know I never shout. And that’s when he told me we weren’t really married. Well, thank God! I said, and I meant it, too.”

  “Prudence, if the captain married you, then you are married,” Patience told her. “He has that authority when his ship is at sea. I’m sure Roger must know that.”

  “But I’m not yet twenty-one,” Pru protested. “I can’t get married without permission from my guardian.”

  Patience shook her head. “That is true in England, but you were married on an American vessel. American law applies. You only have to be sixteen to marry.”

  Pru stared at her. “You mean I’m married to that—that clodpole?” she cried.

  It took some time to convince Pru, but, finally, the awful truth took hold. “Why, that stinking liar! No wonder he didn’t come to congratulate me on my engagement!”

  Patience rose from the bed wearily. “This has been quite a morning! I’m too tired even to think. If you don’t mind, I’ll go to my room now. I want a bath and a hot breakfast, too. You should rest.”

  Pru looked at her in astonishment. “What about my letters?” she demanded. “If Roger sees them, he’ll divorce me! Will you come with me to meet Bella?”

  “No,” Patience told her. “You already have a cold. I’ll go in your place.”

  Pru sighed with relief. “Thank you, Pay.”

  Patience kissed her sister’s cheek. “Get some rest.”

  Pru was asleep before her sister was out the door.

  After she had bathed and eaten, Patience too tried to sleep, but, with one eye on the clock, she could not relax. Noon came and went. Pru slept through lunch. A tray went up to Lord Waverly’s room, and came back out picked clean. Alone in the dining room, Patience picked at her food. By two o’clock, it was plain that Pru had not emerged from Milford’s house completely unscathed; she had developed a nasty cough. Max still had not appeared.