Fran Baker (29 page)

“And I tell you, Colin—” Baldwin began in hot reply.

“I take leave to tell you both, gentlemen,” Rose interrupted icily, “that I am no one’s fiancée any longer! What I do now is, as it always has been, my own concern!”

With that, the ever-composed Miss Rose Lawrence shocked them all by suddenly bursting into tears and running from the room.

Chapter 20

She had stopped running and stood leaning against a tree, pressing her cheek into the roughness of the bark. Her cap rested crookedly atop her hair while brown curls spilled in enchanting disarray over her cheeks. She heard him halt behind her, breathing hard. An instant later, his hands gripped her shoulders, forcing her to face him.

“Rose—my dear—why?” Stratford asked lovingly.

Tears stained his hand as she bent her head to the side, trying to avoid his dark eyes. With fingers and thumb, he compelled her head upwards. She heard his breath stop, then start again. “Oh, my little love! That you should shed tears—a single tear!—because of aught I have done!”
“Please, Lord Stratford,” she whispered, vainly attempting to turn her head away.

“Colin,” he commanded. He bent close and tenderly traced the track of her tears with his forefinger. “From now on, my dearest, my only love, you will call me by name.”

“You cannot want me,” she protested.

“I can and I do—terribly,” he answered in a husky tone.

“When we first met, you stared right through me.”

“My God, you can’t hold that against me! I was a green youth, puffed up in my own conceit—”

“Your treatment of my sister—”

“Has been unforgivable, I know full well. And yet, Helen has forgiven me. Can you not bring yourself to do the same?”

She caught her breath on a small sob. “Oh, my lord, what
would
people say?”

The viscount very sensibly put an effective end to any further protestations by pulling her firmly into his arms and molding his mouth warmly to hers. Rose’s lips parted beneath the insistence of his and tremors raced from one to the other. They swayed together as passion spiraled. Abruptly, Colin pulled away on a low groan. His hold on her constricted, then he nuzzled the tip of her ear visible beneath the ruffle of her cap.

“My grandfather will tell you, m’dear,” he murmured unsteadily, “that a Phillips need not pay the least attention to what people may say.”

“But I am not a Phillips.”

“You soon will be. And when you are, my sweet, you will oblige me by giving over this ridiculous penchant of yours for wearing ugly mobcaps.” As he spoke, his fingers busily untied the ribbons of her cap. Soon, he removed the offensive article from her soft brown hair.

Rose decided she must raise no further objections to any of his lordship’s notions, for she had always been told one should humor the mad. Stratford was undoubtedly mad, for he seemed disposed to while away the remainder of the day kissing every feature of her bemused face, from the brow over each eye to the tip of her chin. When he had satisfied himself that no particular had been missed, he returned his lips to hers, where they seemed quite content to stay.

At length, however, Rose persuaded the viscount it was time they returned to the house. Since he was perfectly willing to do so upon the receipt of her promise to marry him as soon as might be, the pair was shortly to be seen passing through the Keep’s terrace entrance. One step into the hall, they encountered the earl who began exclaiming the instant he clapped eyes on them.

“What the devil’s come over everyone, Colin? The salon is filled with Bedlamites! There’s Miss Helen resting in Maret’s arms and that flighty young cousin of hers is dancing about insisting she’s to have Baldwin after all—”

“Oh, I do hope so!” Rose broke in.

Hallbrook’s eyes narrowed as he suddenly absorbed the ruffled appearance of the two before him. Devoid of her cap, Miss Lawrence’s pretty brown hair fell in disordered charm about her shoulders, while the state of his grandson’s cravat could only be termed disheveled.

“Oho! So ’tis to be a match with you, eh?” he asked on a gleeful chuckle.

“Yes, sir, it most definitely is,” Colin replied, smiling.

A pair of leathery lips were pressed to Rose’s cheek, her hands tightly clasped in the old lord’s. He set up a shout for Jasper and when the ancient servant appeared, bade him to unlock the best champagne to be found in the cellars. “And, Jasper, crack a bottle belowstairs, as well! This is a celebration, indeed!”

They were fairly thrust into the salon, the earl proclaiming continuously that he had hoped for just such a match and if Rose were not treated well by his scapegrace of a grandson, he, the Earl of Hallbrook, would have something to say to the subject.

The scene in the salon was much as the earl had described it, although Amy had calmed sufficiently to take a seat beside her Daniel. Upon the trio’s entrance, Baldwin glanced up to meet his cousin’s eye with a sheepish grin.

“Colin—I—I did not mean any of those things I said—”

“Good God, Daniel, do we ever mean any of the angry words we hurl at one another?” Stratford’s smile widened as he turned to Amy. “Am I to wish you happy, m’dear? Ah—but the shine in your eyes answers for you! Once we are wed, Rose and I hope that you and Daniel will often be guests of ours.”

Amid the hum of congratulations that met this statement, Helen skimmed across the room to tightly embrace her sister. “We can still have our double wedding!”

“I am not waiting two months to claim my bride,” Stratford inserted in no uncertain terms. “I’d be riding off for a special license now, in fact, if  your sister would but agree.”

“Not until Dr. Martin approves your mounting a horse, my love,” Rose said.

Her matter-of-fact tone did not diminish the effect of her endearment. Colin might have been so far moved as to have passionately embraced her on the spot had not Amy startled them all with a reverberating squeak.

“But how famous! It’s quite simply the best tale in years and years, and to think I know of it before anyone else!”

“My dear, such a want of manners,” Daniel said.

“Tell me, if you please,” Rose quickly rested, “just what made you come to your senses, Mr. Baldwin? I’ve known from the start how wickedly wrong it was in me to accept your proposal—you have loved no one but Amy and I . . .” She let her voice trail away while her eyes rested upon Stratford.

It was Maret who replied in his sleepy drawl, “I am of the opinion that Baldwin would have failed to do so, but for the fact that as he attempted to follow the viscount out after you, Miss Thacker had the great presence of mind to fling herself about his neck and beg him not to endanger himself further.”

“And when he demanded to know why I should care, I told it was because I love him!” the young lady put in happily.

“So I very naturally stayed to argue the point,” Daniel finished with an embarrassed, but pleased, smile.

The room was still ringing with laughter when the champagne arrived. The earl capered with delight behind each servant as glasses were passed to them all. Full glasses were raised.

“To the future Viscountess Stratford!” he declared.

It felt like some enraptured dream for Rose as everyone hoisted a toast to her, as Colin gazed steadily at her over the rim of his glass, his eyes glittering with love.

As the toasts were lowered, Hallbrook signaled impatiently for them to be refilled. “I should like, if you don’t mind, sir, to propose a toast,” Maret said. With his glass held high, he pledged, “To the winning of a wager!”

A series of blank faces greeted this.

“What the deuce?” Stratford wondered.

Studying the amber bubbles clinging to the side of the crystal, Maret offered a lazy explanation. “My dear Colin, had you not won our wager, or pursued Helen, neither you nor I would be celebrating our winnings now.”

“What wager?” Amy asked, but no one seemed disposed to answer.

The viscount threw back his head, his laughter unrestrained, while Daniel made a great study of his fingernails.

“Well,
I
think the money you wagered over Helen should be given back,” Rose put in dampingly.

“But what wager over Helen?” a wide-eyed Amy begged in vain.

“Impossible, my sweet! You must know that to return the money would be an insult. But,” added the viscount with a mischievous smile, “Maret may have the chance to regain his guineas with a wager on whether our first is a son or a daughter!”

“A toast to the future heir of Hallbrook!” cried the earl.

This prompted a round of toasts ranging from “To wedding bells!” to “To friends and relatives” which resulted in quite the most jovial mood witnessed in the Keep in a score of years, as Jasper informed those celebrating, as instructed, belowstairs.

A thoroughly musical, but definitely silly, giggle from Helen led Maret to suggest it was time they retired to dress for dinner. From the hugging and kissing exchanged before they did so, a stranger would have been led to believe they were parting for destinations further afield than the stately bedchambers upstairs. Eventually, however, the party filed out, Amy making one last entreaty as they did so.

“Will no one tell me about this wager?”

His lordship’s hand upon her arm detained Rose from following the rest. “One moment, love. I need a word more with you.” He guided her to the settee, where she released a happy sigh as she calmly folded her hands across her lap. Her head felt brilliantly buzzy and the tingling of her nose kept her pleasantly entertained while she awaited Stratford’s speech.

Stratford, meanwhile, had begun to stride in agitation before her. Eyeing the long, narrow hands lying peacefully together in the folds of her gown, he abruptly took his seat beside her.

“You are so restful, my love.”

“So you have often told me.”

“I am determined to have you—life without you would be intolerable,” he said harshly.

“But, Colin dearest, you are to have me,” she reminded him. “If you think I shall let you cry off from this betrothal—”

“I must warn you, Rose, that life with me will not always be . . . comfortable.”

“You cannot think I want comfort! Oh, my dear, darling Colin, with you I feel so alive! After twenty-six years of comfortable, dull, reasonable living, you are all that I could ask for!”

As if to prove her words, Rose captured his head between her hands and kissed him repeatedly, lightly at first, then with increased fervor. Colin pulled free to fold her into his arms and possess her lips with inflaming ardor. He proceeded to kiss her giddy and caress her until her body hummed with warm response.

In time, Stratford leaned back and softly grazed her cheek with his fingertip. “I’ll not make you many promises, my love,” he said intensely. “But you have my word that there will be no Thalia Lovedays in our life.”

“If you mean to speak nothing but nonsense, Colin,” she responded on a breathless whisper, “then I shall go change for dinner.”

“Into that damned blue woolen thing, I suppose. When we are married, it shall be my great delight to deck you out in proper gowns,” he murmured into the tendrils curling above her left ear. “Or perhaps,” he added huskily, “I shall not deck you in any gowns at all!”

Yes, Rose thought, the Viscount Stratford was quite utterly mad and must be humored. She promptly did so by turning her face obediently up to meet his kiss.

Copyright © 2011 by Fran Baker

Originally published by Delphi Books

Electronically published in 2011 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.