The Bad Baron's Daughter

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

CANDLELIGHT ROMANCES

190 White Jasmine, Janette Radcliffe

191 Cottage on Catherina Cay, Jacquelyn Aeby

192 Quest for Alexis, Nancy Buckingham

193 Falconer’s Hall, Jacquelyn Aeby

194 Shadows of Amanda, Helen S. Nuelle

195 The Long Shadow, Jennifer Blair

196 Portrait of Errin, Betty Hale Hyatt

197 A Dream of Her Own, Mahyann Young

198 Lord Stephen’s Lady, Janette Radcliffe

199 The Storm, Jacquelyn Aeby

200 Dr. Myra Comes Home, Arlene Hale

201 Winter in a Dark Land, Miriam Lynch

202 The Sign of the Blue Dragon, Jacquelyn Aeby

203 A Happy Ending, Arlene Hale

204 The Azure Castle, Janette Radcliffe

205 Never Look Back, Jacquelyn Aeby

206 The Topaz Charm, Janette Radcliffe

207 Share Your Heart, Arlene Hale

208 The Brigand’s Bride, Betty Hale Hyatt

209 Teach Me to Love, Gail Everett

210 Villa San Gabriel, Betty Hale Hyatt

211 Love Is the Winner, Gail Everett

212 Scarlet Secrets, Janette Radcliffe

213 Revelry Manor, Elisabeth Harb

214 Pandora’s Box, Betty Hale Hyatt

215 Safe Harbor, Jennifer Blair

216 A Gift of Violets, Janette Radcliffe

217 Stranger on the Beach, Arlene Hale

218 To Last a Lifetime, Jennifer Blair

219 The Way to the Heart, Gail Everett

220 Nurse in Residence, Arlene Hale

221 The Raven Sisters, Dorothy Mack

222 When Dreams Come True, Arlene Hale

223 When Summer Ends, Gail Everett

224 Love’s Surprise, Gail Everett

225 The Substitute Bride, Dorothy Mack

226 The Hungry Heart, Arlene Hale

227 A Heart Too Proud, Laura London

228 Love Is the Answer, Louise Bergstrom

229 Love’s Untold Secret, Betty Hale Hyatt

230 Tender Longings, Barbara Lynn

231 Hold Me Forever, Melissa Blakely

232 The Captive Bride, Lucy Phillips Stewart

THE
BAD BARON’S
DAUGHTER

Laura London

A Candlelight Regency Special

With love to Elizabeth Peterson

The
Bad Baron’s
Daughter

Outside the gin shop lay one of the most wretched slums in London; it was an area of boarded windows, barefoot begging children, and the desperate hacking cough of consumptives. The dirty winding alleys teemed with pickpockets, and prostitutes with matted hair plucked slyly at the sleeves of passersby and exchanged insults with men and women sitting slumped in doorways or lounging against the rough-grained brick buildings. The stucco frame of the gin shop sat squat between two of these raw brick giants with the half-mischievous, half-bored air of a schoolboy squashed between two plump matrons on a public carriage. A rectangular wooden sign hung outside the doorway announcing
The Merry Maidenhead
in amateurish italic lettering with the line drawing of a bottle labeled “gin” below.

It was, without doubt, the last place anyone would expect to find a young lady of gentle birth, and yet there was Baron Kendrick’s daughter standing behind the French-polished mahogany bar, her head framed on either side by an assortment of bottles with such titles as “The No-Mistake,” “The Real Knock-Me-Down,” and “The Out-and-Out.”

The evening was unusually humid for May, and moisture from the still air had settled into her hair, causing springy ginger wisps to curl damply against her high forehead. There were freckles on that forehead and across the short, shapely nose and soft cheeks, too, scattered in a soft radiant dappling. Her mouth was wide and untemperamental, and her eyes, now darkened slightly with apprehension, were the soft pastel blue of a robin’s egg. She was tallish and fine-boned, so slender that the casual observer might be pardoned for thinking that he beheld a boy, particularly as the young lady was indeed dressed in men’s clothing: gray leggings, breeches of indeterminate color with one patched knee, an old-fashioned tricornered hat, an olive jacket riddled with grease spots, and a square apron tied around her waist. It was
haute couture
from Mrs. Coalbottom’s second-hand clothing cart on Monmouth Street.

The young lady, Kathleen Janette Kendricks, as she had been christened; Katie, as she was known, was engaged in a careful survey of the gin shop, or at least what she could see of it, for the sun had fled some hours past and the only light in the narrow, high-ceilinged room came from the smelly tallow candles set in brass sconces widely spaced along the smoke-discolored walls. The Maidenhead was crowded on Katie’s first night on the job; the airless tenements had disgorged their contents into the streets and gin rooms.

At the end of the room, the doors swung in soft rhythm from the steady arrivals and unsteady departures of the patrons. A group of truculent Irish laborers had staked out a territory in the far corner and were alternately boasting, toasting, and threatening to carve one another. Occasionally the group would band together and hurl loud insults at the nearby table, where some sailors on shore leave were beginning to relax, adding dribbled tobacco juice to the salt stains on their tight-fitting reefer jackets. A few scattered clusters of students were enjoying the ambiance; their blase expressions were belied by the speculative looks they directed at the table where a convivial band of gaudy prostitutes camped. As Katie watched, the oldest prostitute, gray-haired and naked to the waist like her younger sisters, collapsed face forward on the table, upsetting her flagon. She was none too gently conveyed by her friends to the pile of straw at the rear of the room to join others in her condition, where she restlessly nodded off into an alcoholic dream of what might have been and certainly never was.

If you hadn’t any dreams of your own,
The Merry Maidenhead
could supply them. For the price of one penny, you could get drunk, for two pennies dead drunk. Some called it Blue Ruin, some called it Strip-Me-Naked, but it was little more than raw alcohol flavored with juniper. Katie’s responsibilities in the scheme of things had been summed up thus: “Fill their empty flagons, collect their money ‘n mop up the floor after they casts up their accounts.” This occurred frequently, but not as often as the foul quality of the brew merited, thought Katie. She would have as soon drunk sewage.

The swinging doors opened again,, causing a wash of moist night air to freshen the atmosphere in the shop, and a group of young men entered. The impeccable cut of their clothes, the polish of their boots, the snowy whiteness of their cravats, and the self-assured arrogance with which they carried themselves marked them, even to Katie’s inexperienced eyes, as slumming aristocrats. Her attention was drawn to one man in particular. That he was a figure of some distinction was obvious. He attracted deferential attention from his companions, and was popular with the crowd, who cheered his arrival and opened ranks magically, allowing him to make his way, accompanied by his cohorts, to a corner table.

He was the most attractive man Katie had ever seen. Once, as a little girl, when Katie’s father had been teaching her how to ride, typically on far too large and temperamental a horse for her tiny size, he had sent her to jump a five-barred gate. The horse had refused, sending Katie flying to the ground with a force that drove the air from her lungs. She felt that same breathless confusion now, as the crowd parted to allow her a clear line of sight.

His face was too young to look so cynical. There was restless intelligence in the rich brown eyes, and a contemptuous tilt to the unsmiling lips. The copper candlelight wanned the crisp onyx curls that fell over one eye.

He took his place, having dislodged a sleeping old man, and crossed his long legs on the table in front of him, causing a clatter of overturned empty bottles, then rocked back on the hind legs of his chair, seemingly oblivious to the stir his entrance had created. A large plebian crowd quickly gathered to watch as a pair of dice rolled out onto the table, the tattered clothing of the spectators contrasting with the cut and color of the gentlemen’s attire. Shouts of laughter and excited comments arose from the throng as the dice began to tumble and pound notes began to flash.

Katie had been leaning her elbows on the smooth surface of the bar, her small chin cupped firmly in one palm. She was joined by a tall, twentyish youth, clad, as she was, in a bartender’s apron. His thinnish black hair hung lank to his shoulders where it curled under slightly against a gray cotton shirt with cutoff sleeves. He tugged at the dirty blue and white dotted kerchief knotted around his neck, regarding Katie with amusement in his cunning gray eyes.

“Hankering after the nation’s heartthrob, eh, Katie? You and every other female in London.”

“Was it so obvious?” asked Katie. “Who is he, Zack?”

“That’s Lesley Byrne, Lord Linden. His earldom’s English, of course, but his mother’s from the old French aristocracy—hates Bonaparte. Linden’s our latest romantic hero, back from the French wars, where he was pursuing a line of God knows what skullduggery on behalf of His Majesty. That was until he almost got himself killed about a dozen times. He’s a prime favorite with the prince, and old ‘prinny’ decided that good drinking companions were harder to find than good spies and ordered Linden home. But damned if it wasn’t a lot easier on Merry Old England when Linden was off among the Frenchies. Like caging a panther, if you ask me. The boy’s a regular hellion. Been back only two months and already he’s killed a man in a duel, seduced a string of society lovelies, and caused more riot and rumpus than Beelzebub spittin’ in holy water.” Zack rubbed a hollow cheek-bone with the back of his hand and began wiping down the bar with a bleached muslin rag.

“Zack, do you think Lord Linden is like Papa? Easily bored, I mean?” asked Katie.

“Ain’t no doubt o’ that. Rumor barely gets out that Linden’s playing with one woman, but what she’s dropped and he’s picked up someone else.” Zack collected the empty bottles from the bar and bent down to put them into a wooden crate. “Still worrying over your papa’s absence, are you? The baron’ll turn up, Katie, he always does.”

“You can call it absence, if you please to, but I call it disappearance,” said Katie unhappily. “He hasn’t sent me a letter in weeks, not a line, not a word. And if even
you
don’t know where he is… Zack, something’s happened, I know it.”

Zack straightened and gave Katie a few consoling swats on the shoulder. “Oh, aye, something’s happened, like a cock fight or a boxing match or a congenial card game. Katie, you know your old man has no more sense of time passing than the rock of Gibraltar. And if you think that because he and I crony around together he keeps me informed of his every turn and sway, then you’re dead wrong. The last I heard from him he was off pursuing some damned intrigue or other with a married woman in Dorset.”

“Zack, if only you knew her name, then we might…”

“Oh, no, we might not!” said Zack quickly. “Your father wouldn’t thank us for bustling into his affairs, and anyway, I don’t know the wench’s name. Damme, Katie, do you think I keep a list of your father’s particulars?”

Katie transferred her chin to her other palm.

“No. But Zack, perhaps if you thought very hard, you
might
remember the lady’s name? I mean, this is an emergency.”

“Oh, is it, Miss Mousemeat?” said Zack, pretending amazement. “You’ll have to explain to me why.”

“I’ve already explained so many times that I think my head will spin from my shoulders if I say it again,” said Katie with pardonable exasperation. “I’ve been evicted from our cottage in Essex for nonpayment of rent. Not only do I not have a penny to my name, I’m monstrously in debt to the tune of ten thousand pounds to that man with the gold tooth who came to the cottage and said that he would put Papa in prison if I didn’t give him the money immediately. Plus there’s the fifty pounds Papa and I owe in back rent and the fourteen shillings outstanding on the butcher’s bill.”

“Bugger the butcher’s bill!” advised Zack. “I keep telling you that you’re not the one who’s ten thousand pounds in debt, it’s your father! And if there’s some weasel trying to get that much money out of your father, then all the more reason for him to play least in sight. I can’t see what good you think it would do if your old man was to walk through the door right this minute. You’d still be evicted from that shack you call a cottage, you’d still be stone broke, and the shark with the gold tooth would still be waiting for his ten thousand pounds. Name one time that the baron’s ever gotten himself, much less anyone else, out of debt.”