The Pleasure of Bedding a Baroness (13 page)

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Authors: Tamara Lejeune

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The gentleman stared back at her incredulously.
“You!”
he spat, his gray eyes glittering with inexplicable rage and loathing. “How dare you come here? Is there no place on earth where I am safe from you? Would you hound me to my very grave? Damn you! Damn you to hell!”
Chapter 8
 
Patience stared at him in shock, for a moment quite unable to speak.
“I say, cuz!” Freddie protested. “I think you owe the lady an apology. In fact, I’m quite sure of it.”
Max Purefoy shot his cousin a look of furious contempt. “Did you bring her here, Freddie? I am obliged to you, sir.”
“This is nothing but the silliest, male prejudice,” Patience said, finding her voice. “Why should women not be allowed to look at horses? What are you afraid of? What do you think we’re going to do to you? I have as much right to be here as you, sir!”
His eyes narrowed. “Oh, I doubt that very much,” he said quietly. “I am a member of the Jockey Club.”
“And I am a guest of a member,” she told him curtly. “Who is this gentleman, Mr. Broome?” she demanded, giving the word “gentleman” a scathing emphasis.
Freddie’s brows rose. “You have met him already, surely!”
“I have never seen him before in my life,” Patience declared.
“But I thought everyone knew him,” Freddie murmured, mischief glinting in his angelic eyes. “He’s positively ubiquitous.”
“I have not been in London very long,” said Patience. “I have not had a chance to see all its fixtures. But I’m sure I would have remembered meeting such a rude, disagreeable man.”
“I’m afraid the offensive fellow is my cousin.”
“Well, your cousin is very rude, Mr. Broome!”
Freddie’s mouth quivered with unspent laughter. “He is, isn’t he? Cousin, I really must insist that you apologize to Lady Waverly. Her ladyship has done nothing to deserve such treatment.”
“Her ladyship!” Max repeated in astonishment, looking again at Patience. “No, it cannot be,” he added under his breath, even though he had already noted a few slight differences between this lady and her sister. Patience was thinner, she wore her hair differently, and her purple habit was quite plain, lacking those garish embellishments that all too often marked Prudence’s style.
“I don’t wonder at your astonishment, cuz,” Freddie chirped on. “Anyone who heard that devil, Max Purefoy, describe this delightful lady could not help but be astonished to meet her in the flesh! Why, she is nothing like the Medusa!”
“No, indeed,” Max said faintly. His embarrassment was excruciating, much to Freddie’s amusement. Abruptly, he offered Patience a bow. “I do beg your pardon, my lady, most humbly.”
Patience’s cheeks were flushed. “You do not think that women should be permitted in Tattersall’s at all, do you? Not even in the company of a member?”
He managed a weak smile. “I am happy to make an exception in your case, my lady.”
“I see. In that case, I accept your apology, Mr... ? Mr. Broome, is it? Like your cousin?”
“A fine name, is it not?” Freddie said, beaming.
“I see very little family resemblance between you,” Patience said curiously.
“How extraordinary,” Freddie remarked. “Most people see none. He’s a bit of a black sheep, I’m sorry to say.”
Max frowned at his cousin. “Freddie, if you should suddenly feel the need to be elsewhere, no one will miss you, I’m sure.”
“Lady Waverly will miss me,” Freddie protested. “I have promised to help her find a horse.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” said Max. “The last lady you mounted broke her neck.”
“That is a lie! It was only a bad sprain. Anyway, her ladyship don’t ride. She wants a pony phaeton.”
Max raised his brows. “Do you want a pony phaeton?” he asked, looking at Patience.
“I don’t know what I want,” she admitted. “I drove a gig in Philadelphia. I am from Philadelphia,” she added a little awkwardly.
“Oh, I love the mountains,” said Freddie, but the others did not seem to hear him.
“My sister likes the idea of a high-perch phaeton,” Patience went on, “but your cousin has advised me against it. Lord Milford drives a curricle.”
“If you call that driving!” Freddie snorted, and this time he was rewarded with a quick smile from the lady.
“It was his curricle I admired,” said Patience.
“Why don’t I take you for a drive in mine?” Freddie suggested. “I’m selling my team, as it happens. They’re in the Monday sale. But I can have them put in the traces in a flash. We’ll be sailing through Hyde Park before you know it.”
“I would like that,” said Patience.
“I do hate it when people take me out and try to sell me things,” Max said lightly. “He will do nothing but talk up his horses, all the while hiding their flaws. I’ll take the lady.”
“Flaws?” said Freddie. “As I recall, they had no flaws when you lost them to me.”
“Yes, but you have been driving them these three months,” Max replied. “I was going to take them out myself, anyway, to make sure you had not ruined them. Lady Waverly may as well come along.”
“Oh,” said Patience. “Are you thinking of buying your cousin’s horses?”
“He won’t pay me what I want,” said Freddie.
“What do you want for them?” Patience asked.
“Only a thousand guineas,” he answered. “But my cousin swears he will not give more than five hundred.”
“A thousand guineas!” cried Patience. “That puts me out of the running, I’m afraid.”
“Come for a drive anyway,” said Max. “I’d like a woman’s opinion on how they handle.”
He offered her his arm, and, without hesitation, she took it. Freddie trailed behind them, feeling and looking quite superfluous. Max half turned his head, saying, “Why don’t you go ahead and make the arrangements, Freddie?”
Muttering under his breath, Freddie lengthened his stride, disappearing into the crowd.
“Do you always do that?” Patience asked.
“Do what?” he said, glancing down at her.
“Your cousin,” she said. “It wasn’t very nice of you to cut him out like that. After all, he saw me first. It’s not fair play. It’s not—what is it you English say? It’s not grasshoppers?”
“Cricket,” he corrected her, chuckling. “It’s not cricket. But, you know I could not have cut him out if you hadn’t liked me better.”
Quite discomfited, Patience quickly turned her head so that when he looked at her he would see only the crown of her bonnet. Pleased with himself, Max led her swiftly through the room to the outdoors. Patience had the impression that the crowd parted around her companion, but, perhaps, that was just her imagination.
“Are those your cousin’s horses?” she asked presently, as she caught sight of Freddie ahead of them in the cobbled yard. He was talking to a groom holding a tall, splendid set of grays.
Max noted the lack of enthusiasm in her tone. “You don’t like them?” he said, surprised.
“I know it is the fashion,” she said, “but I wish they would not force their heads up like that! I’m sure it must be painful.”
“Look again, please. There’s no need to force their heads into position. They do it quite naturally. Do you see?”
Patience looked again, and as they drew nearer, she could see that the grays had been blessed with naturally high, arched necks. “Yes, I do see,” she said, feeling a little foolish.
“It is necessary only with inferior stock to ratchet up their heads,” he went on. “I don’t approve of it, but one cannot stop people from trying to achieve the look. Not everyone can afford the very best, after all.”
“Is that why your cousin wants so much money for them?” Patience said incredulously. “Because of the way they hold their heads?”
“It is certainly one of the reasons,” he replied.
“A handsome pair, are they not?” Freddie hailed them.
“They’re beautiful,” Patience told him. “I wonder you can bear to sell them.”
“My cousin has been appointed to a diplomatic post,” Max explained. “He leaves England next Tuesday for the frozen steppes of Russia.”
“For the marble steps of St. Petersburg, anyway,” Freddie said. “My mother thinks it will be good for me to learn a profession. Poor woman! But don’t worry, Lady Waverly. I have not forgotten my tenants. If you should need anything, my cousin is at your disposal.”
“There’s no need to state the obvious,” Max said, looking very warmly at Patience.
“You’re very kind,” Patience murmured.
“I am not kind at all,” Max replied.
Freddie sniffed. “I thought there was no need to state the obvious.”
Dismissing the groom with a swift, “Shan’t need you,” Max opened the door of the curricle and offered Patience his hand.
Taking his hand, she stepped up into the car and took the reins. Max climbed up the other side. The car was so narrow it was almost impossible for two people to sit in it without touching, as she knew all too well from her experience in Lord Milford’s curricle. This time, however, she felt not the slightest desire to shrink against the side of the car.
“Do you think you can handle them?” he asked her, arranging the rug over her knees.
“Why not?” she said. “If they have been well trained?”
“I trained them myself.”
“Then you should not be afraid.”
His mouth twitched. “No, indeed. If Your Ladyship will condescend to drive us
to
the park, I shall endeavor to drive us back.”
“Yes, of course,” said Patience, suddenly quite flustered.
“Is something wrong?” he inquired presently.
“I can’t seem to find the brake,” Patience confessed, pink with embarrassment. “Where is it, please?”
“It is beside my right thigh,” he answered. “It is always here beside my right thigh. I would be happy to disengage it for you. But, perhaps,” he added delicately, “it would be better if I drive, after all.”
With one hand, he seized the reins. With the other he disengaged the brake. In one graceful movement, he turned the horses, and the curricle shot off in the direction of Hyde Park so swiftly it took Patience’s breath away. She was quite sure that Lord Milford could not have managed such a tight turn. Indeed, she was not entirely sure she would have been able to manage it herself.
“You’re not going to get carriage-sick, are you?” he asked sharply, glancing at her white face.
“No, indeed,” she said, hastily knotting the ribbons of her bonnet under her chin. “It feels like we’re flying.”
“That is just how it should be,” he said, pleased. “Too fast? Too much wind?”
“Oh, no!” she said breathlessly. “I’m not afraid! You can go even faster if you wish.”
He did. The stately mansions in Park Lane passed in a blur. The curricle flew around Hyde Park Corner and sailed through the gates into the park. Avoiding the riders in fashionable Rotten Row, Max turned north onto a small lane leading toward the Serpentine, where he was obliged to slow down. The swans gliding over the water glanced at the intruders, but did not fly away. Patience looked at them with pleasure.
“Swans in January!” she exclaimed.
“Their wings are clipped,” he told her.
“Oh!” she said, dismayed. “I wish you had not told me that.”
“Are you cold?”
“Not at all,” she answered. “Compared to winter in Philadelphia, this is quite temperate. And the sun is shining.” She had lowered her veil over the brim of her bonnet as he was driving, but now she folded it back, and lifted her face to the sun.
“These horses have not had their wings clipped!” she said.
“No, indeed. Tell the truth! You’ve never driven before, have you?”
Patience flushed hotly. “I have so! I have been driving since I was fourteen, sir, and I am now twenty.”
He raised his brows. “And yet, you could not find the brake!”
“In America, sir, the brake is on the left, not the right,” she told him.
“I see!” he said, laughing.
“No, really, it is,” she insisted.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said crossly. “I am not a carriage maker. I can tell you don’t believe me, but it’s perfectly true!”
“I shall, of course, take your word for it,” he said gravely.
“You shall, or you will?” she muttered.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I mean, of course, that I
will
. I
will
take your word for it, with the greatest of pleasure. I meant no offense.”
“No offense was taken, Mr. Broome,” she said, shrugging. “I’m afraid I can’t tell a glimmer of difference between ‘shall’ and ‘will.’ In America, we’re not so fussy!”
“I don’t mean to be fussy,” he apologized. “In my youth, I had a tutor who was a bit of a stickler. ‘Shall’ may be used to indicate some sort of obligation, a lack of choice, or a fait accompli. Will is used to indicate desire. Will you marry me?”
Her head turned swiftly, and she looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”

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