Her Mad Baron (29 page)

She sounded almost normal now, except the usual acid was missing from her voice. “Felston. I know you are still angry at how you were never pampered or spoiled as a child.”

Nathaniel opened his eyes and was startled to see her eyes fixed on him. He shrugged. After his father’s death, his world had turned dark. But that was ancient history. The future held more.

Florrie. His heart lifted as he thought of her. She would never allow anyone to treat a child badly. There would be joy. He felt it already, echoes of future laughter as tangible as the other excitement she induced in him. The implications of this sensation... Uneasiness clutched him, and he searched for a distraction.

His mother was still talking.

He returned his attention to her almost coaxing voice. “I wanted to make you strong. The Spartans raised real men with well-built limbs and a trained body. You were hard, nothing like the usual overindulged aristocrat, and you still are. You would be able to shrug off temptation...and... ” Her voice faltered, perhaps thinking back to the scene in the sitting-room.

She’d never sounded so conciliatory, but he’d heard versions of the mollycoddled youth lecture before and didn’t want to hear it again. “You did what you t
hought best, ma’am.” He managed to make his voice gentle. “I am long past resentment.” And at that moment, it was true. He smiled at her. Naturally, she didn’t smile back. Yet as he handed her out of the carriage, she put her gloved hand on his, and for a brief second, she squeezed his fingers.

As he bid her goodbye, he suspected they would never address the incident again.

He went to the boarding house to find Florrie. Duncan must have seen his approach for he greeted him at the door. He smiled and bowed, and it took a few minutes for the man to mention that his sister had just gone out. Nathaniel frowned at Duncan, who falteringly added that no, he didn’t know where or with whom.

Nathaniel paid a passing urchin Duncan recognized to stay with the horses and strode off in the direction Duncan thought they might be walking.

The thought of her absence created a trace of the familiar twisting, choking sensation. She held too much power, and once again, Nathaniel longed for something less complicated. Simple and easy.

He stopped short on the pavement as he understood. Jesus, simple meant Mrs. MacDonald.

If he hadn’t found Florrie, he would have fallen into some arrangement with a woman like that. Life would be easy, but perhaps he’d have lost what little soul he possessed.

Nathaniel found his betrothed only a street away from her boarding house. She walked arm and arm with a tall female close to her age.

Florrie wore a dark red velvet gown that was demure with a high neck, but the way it clung to her would make any man take note.

He wanted to get her alone so he could stroke the curve of her breast to see if the cloth felt as soft as her skin.

He forced his attention north of her breasts and realized Florrie was startled to see him. She stammered a little as she introduced her friend Miss Pikler.

The girl giggled and blushed like a shop girl. Nathaniel’d thought of Florrie as a unique species, unlike anyone he’d ever met. To see her with this friendly, common girl made him realize, if he’d first encountered her in her native habitat, walking with this Miss Pikler, he’d never have given her more than a cursory glance and an aloof nod. Just as he’d probably have never noticed the bravery of Mr. Wentworth.

Florrie herself wouldn’t point out these details. Her very existence expanded his view of the world, and he understood things from an entirely different angle. Odd that no amount of thinking over the matter could have brought him to this gut-deep understanding. Apparently empathy required more than cognition.

The three of them turned to walk back to the boarding house where Florrie lived.

“Have you asked Miss Pikler if she wishes to join us in two days?” Nathaniel asked.

Florrie looked startled. “I thought perhaps… I wasn’t certain, had we organized something? A time?”

“Yes,” he said, firmly.

“Something in two days?” the girl said, and, of course, giggled.

“A wedding,” Nathaniel said firmly. “I’m sure Miss Cadero has informed you that she is to be my bride.”

“You?
You
? Your bride? Married?” The girl gasped as if he’d said something outrageous. “No! I mean to say…” She stopped in her tracks, grabbed Florrie’s arm, and shook it. “A lord? Lord Felston? You, Florrie? You mentioned his name, but I thought… Florrie! Good gracious!” She shrieked even louder, causing some passersby to stop and watch.

Florrie laughed at her friend and let her dance around her as if she was some sort of maypole.

Nathaniel stepped away from the two bouncing females and watched with uneasy amusement. Were girls so easily enraptured? Not the ones he’d met in his mother’s drawing room or occasionally at scholarly events he’d attended. This behavior was more like children in a park than adults. He folded his arms and waited.

Florrie met his gaze and raised her expressive eyebrows. She came close to him and muttered. “No need to look so arrogant.”

Arrogant?

He drew himself up to reply to her nonsense when he met Miss Pikler’s eyes.

“Oh, I beg your pardon.” She covered her mouth with her gloved hands. “I am behaving like a mad person.”

“Not at all,” Nathaniel assured her. He had to pass some test for Florrie by putting the now obviously embarrassed female at ease, and he tried. “You show your real affection for Miss Cadero. I only hope I live up to such exuberance.”

She broke into a wide grin and so did Florrie. He couldn’t help smiling back.

They set off again. He trailed behind the girls as they talked. Florrie occasionally glanced back at him.

He’d have her.

And now three people from her world knew, Duncan, Mr. Wentworth and this Pikler female, and they would keep her from changing her mind.

The almost familiar ache of desire came to him as he watched them walk, and he was startled when someone said his name. A man wearing the livery of his mother’s servants stood near the boarding house.

The footman coughed apologetically. “Forgive the intrusion, my lord, Mr. Thompson told me where I might find you. Lady Margaret desires you to call up on her at your earliest convenience, my lord.”

Miss Pikler’s eyes were round with interest. “Ooo. You must go with him.” She leaned close to Florrie and spoke in a carrying whisper. “Lady Margaret who’s his mother! Fancy you, Lady Margaret’s daughter-in-law.” She gave a muffled version of her squeal. “You!” and she choked back giggles.

“Do you mind if I go with you?” Florrie asked him, ignoring her friend’s chortles. “May I accompany you?”

No, he didn’t want her to accompany him. He wanted to make sure she was well and truly tied to him before he presented his mother. Tied. The corners of his mouth twitched. Florrie tied and naked and that’s all he really wanted.

If he said “no, stay here,” she’d think he was ashamed of
her
. That much he understood now.

“Of course,” he said. “I’d best answer immediately.”

He bowed to Miss Pikler, who rocked onto her heels with suppressed shrieks. Strange response to what seemed to him to be common courtesy. What was ailing the woman? It was a topic to bring up with Florrie in the carriage rather than answer her unspoken questions about his mother.

He dismissed his mother’s servant then handed Florrie up onto his open, high-seated gig and took his seat next to her. From the corner of his eye, he saw she twisted her fingers together and watched him.

“Out with it,” he said after a few minutes of driving. 

“I thought you already visited Lady Margaret,” she began. “Didn’t she receive you?”

He nodded and remembering that visit... Something in his chest seemed to expand, take up too much room. He realized it was laughter, as silly and inappropriate as Miss Pikler’s. He gulped. “She…my mother insisted we call upon Lord Bessette.”

Florrie’s brows crinkled in the characteristic tiny frown. “Oh?”

The memory of his uncle sprawled on the floor. Mrs. MacDonald watching from the couch. It could only sound like very bad farce.

His mouth twitched. Poor Lady Margaret. Her anguish was real. And very loud. Yes, that put the crowning touch on the scene. Why hadn’t the absurdity been clear before?

“Nathaniel? I’m sorry.” She put her hand on his arm. “I was so wrong to persuade you to go. You look as if you’re about to weep.”

He shook his head. “Not crying. The opposite,” he managed to wheeze out. Too much. He clutched the reins and began to laugh.

“Nathaniel, what is wrong?”

He felt as histrionic as Miss Pikler, and he had to pay attention to his driving. But the gales of laughter racked him.

“What happened with Lady Margaret?”

“I told you. She wanted to see her brother. Oh she did, indeed.”

He drew his sleeve over his face, the wool scratching his skin enough to distract him. Good. He tried again. “M-my uncle. We caught him in a compromising act.”

“No! Lord Bessette? I can’t imagine.”

He could and did. His shoulders shook as he remembered the old bounder grabbing his clothes and fleeing the scene.

Florrie clutched his arm. “Do be careful, you almost ran over that dog.”

That sobered him slightly, but the lighter than air laughter still filled him.

“Let’s just run away,” he said suddenly. “You and I will go...somewhere. I have four properties. Pick one.”

“Foolish Nathaniel.”

“We will be married in three days, and we will go wherever you wish.”

She bit her lip and looked at him sideways. “All right. But only because you are wonderful when you laugh like that.”

When they drew up to the household, he swung her down, and standing in the middle of the street, he planted a kiss on her mouth. It was only a brush of his lips, but the way he held her hips and deliberately put his mouth on hers was just as vulgar as his mother’s hysterics.

She drew back in surprise and eyed him. “What is going on with you?”

He didn’t know so he only smiled at her and led her up the stairs to his mother’s large mansion—a mausoleum that had been her family’s home and actually belonged to Lord Bessette.

Trunks and hatboxes lay in the front hall, and his mother’s household was swarming with activity. It was the controlled mayhem of a large household packing up. He knew the signs. Twice a year this was the routine. It always amazed him that one small woman could require so much activity and such a huge pile of possessions just to remove her to the country.

“It’s the height of the season. Why is Lady Margaret packing?” he asked his mother’s butler, who mumbled something about grateful for his visit and led them into the drawing room where his mother waited alone. Not even Miss Weatherby sat in her usual corner.

“Mother, this is Felicity Cadero.”

“Charmed.” His mother even managed to force her mouth into a smile. She allowed herself a small examination before continuing. “I am leaving to visit an old friend in the country and wanted to say goodbye.”

Fleeing with her tail between her legs, he thought.

She looked down her nose at him. “You must not allow what happened today to become public. You shall not prosecute Mr. Maller if it exposes your-your uncle.”

Nathaniel hadn’t thought he could lose his temper about this subject, but really, enough was enough. “I don’t give a damn about that old bas—” Nathaniel began, but Florrie stepped forward and lightly touched Lady Margaret’s sleeve.

“A crime cannot be hidden away, Lady Margaret, and what happened to your son was a crime.” Florrie sounded gentle, almost apologetic.

Lady Margaret gave her the longest coldest stare possible, but Florrie only smiled back. “I’m sorry about the circumstances of our meeting, yet I’m very pleased to meet you, my lady,” she said, and turned to Nathaniel. “I think we are in the way, my lord. Perhaps you’d best take me home.”

Lady Margaret stood and watched them go without another word.

“You were almost kind to Lady Margaret,” he said as the carriage pulled from the curb.

“The poor thing was so terribly upset.”

Not many people would have realized his mother was anything other than calm and filled with her usual haughtiness. Florrie knew how to read people, he thought.

“I couldn’t very well be rude to her when she’s your mother. And anyway, I didn’t want to because she reminded me of you.”

“I have heard there is some resemblance.” Actually people usually mentioned how much he looked like his uncle, Lord Bessette, that tall, hatchet-faced iceberg.

“I meant her behavior, not her cheekbones.”

“I beg your pardon.” He squeezed the reins tight in his gloved hands. “I'm afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.” So much for the notion that she could read people.

“You know perfectly well I’m talking about how you turn granite-faced Lord of the Manor, Nathaniel, especially after...after intimacy. You’re never impolite, and I could see she was dying to give me a set down. But I saw that same horrible fear in her face.”